{"id":1436,"date":"2004-06-08T15:32:48","date_gmt":"2004-06-08T19:32:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2004\/06\/08\/all-reagan-all-the-time\/"},"modified":"2004-06-08T15:32:48","modified_gmt":"2004-06-08T19:32:48","slug":"all-reagan-all-the-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2004\/06\/08\/all-reagan-all-the-time\/","title":{"rendered":"All Reagan all the time"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Various pieces about Reagan have come across my inbox in the last
\ncouple of days.  Many of them are angry, such as this one from
\nactivist and academic Eric Rofes:<\/p>\n


\nWhat Do We Do with the Rage and the Fury This Time?<\/span>
\n
By Eric Rofes<\/p>\n

It
\nis easy for some to see the few sensible voices refusing to jump on the
\nbandwagon that is dramatically rewriting the Reagan years as
\ncantankerous malcontents raining on our nation’s patriotic parade
\nhonoring this “national hero,” “great leader” and “greatest president.”<\/p>\n

Call it a grudge steadfastly maintained by old timers who
\nnever learned know how to forgive and forget.   Criticize it as a
\nlack of respect for the dead. Condemn it as simply more Reagan-bashing
\nfrom the Left. <\/p>\n

Or identify it for what it really is:  bold truth-telling amidst a nation
\n wrapping itself in the worst kind of denial masquerading as ultra-patriotic zeal. <\/p>\n

Finger it as an attempt to puncture the Bush administration opportunistic
\n
efforts to utilize Reagan’s death to revive a failing campaign for re-election.<\/p>\n

For
\nthe surviving victims of the conservative social and economic policies
\nof the Reagan-Bush era, the past few days of all-Reagan-all-the-time
\ntelevision coverage by Stepford journalists have seemed oddly and
\nhorribly familiar.  They remind us of the stark cultural divide
\nthat emerged ever more powerfully during the Reagan years between the
\nprivileged classes holding power and those who were marginalized,
\noppressed, and silenced. <\/p>\n

For queers, they hearken back to the first seven years
\nof the Reagan administration, when the tidal waves of AIDS began
\nwashing over the shores of the U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
\ntransgender communities.   Those of us who were out and involved
\nin queer community life during the 1980s, watched as our friends and
\nlovers dropped dead around us while America looked the other way.
\n  <\/p>\n

Reagan’s disgraceful and willful failure to speak out on AIDS and take action for
\n those seven years mirrored much of the nation’s failure to acknowledge the terror visited on our communities. <\/p>\n

Like
\nmany gay men during these years, I felt a profound disconnect between
\nthe world I inhabited and mainstream America. I was working as director
\nof the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Community Center during these
\nyears as terrified gay men poured into our clinics, support groups, and
\ncounseling center.   As our small and under-resourced communities
\nstruggled to educate the public, initiate the first prevention
\ncampaigns, care for our friends, and bury our dead, Reagan said nothing
\nand did nothing.   His medical and health leaders did nothing. His
\nbudget directors, attorney generals, and legal experts did nothing.
\nWhile gay men wiped drool and shit off our lovers, read mounting
\nobituaries in gay papers, and funneled into the ranks of volunteer
\ncaregiver organizations, mainstream America marched forward to the
\nReagan priorities of making money, protecting privilege, and creating a
\nculture of greed.   <\/p>\n

Am
\nI the only one who is experiencing the current media love-fest of
\nReagan as a revisiting of the trauma of those early AIDS years?  
\nAm I the only one raging at the television screen, ripping the
\nnewspaper to shreds, cursing at my car radio?   Am I the only one
\nhungering for community leaders to create activism and rituals to
\ndisrupt and puncture this outrageous and insulting cultural amnesia? <\/p>\n

Just as our queer community was abandoned and left on
\nour own to create the early responses to AIDS, I encourage us to
\nimmediately initiate community-based opportunities to express our
\noutrage at the dishonest reinvention of the Reagan legacy and to link
\nup with all the other communities that are experiencing similar fury.
\n  In particular I suggest we: <\/p>\n

o  Urge our community centers to immediately organize speak-out and teach-in
\n sessions that will take place on the same days as Reagan lies in state in
\n Washington, D.C. or very soon after.  These community forums can serve as a place
\n to vent our rage, expose the truth about Reagan, educate younger activists,
\n and commemorate those who died due to Reagan’s failure of leadership.<\/p>\n

o  Create public “shrines” in queer neighborhoods that colorfully
\nand creatively expose what Reagan and his conservative movement did to
\npeople with AIDS, queers, people of color, women, poor people, and
\nchildren.   If we use campy neighborhood shrines to honor queer
\nicons and community leaders, let’s also use them to vilify our greatest
\nenemies, especially when the rest of the nation is honoring them as
\nheroes.     <\/p>\n

o  Yank our Silence = Death tee-shirts out of
\nstorage, put them on, and explain what the slogan owes to Ronald
\nReagan…or be sure to wear colorful bright and gay clothing on the
\nnational days of morning for Reagan.   We should all interrupt and
\nspeak out when friends, work associates, and family members mimic the
\nmedia’s mindless commemoration of the Reagan years.   <\/p>\n

Reagan
\ncould only bring his lips to form the word “AIDS” when hundreds of
\nqueer community leaders converged on Washington D.C. on June 1st, 1987,
\nsat in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, and got arrested and taken
\noff to jail.   I remember that day well.   We organized this
\nnational direct action event at the moment our terror and exhaustion
\nmorphed into outrage and fury. <\/p>\n

Today, after just a few days of hearing
\nrepeated voices in the media discuss Reagan as “the best president we
\never had,” “a man who loved all Americans,” and “the man who brought
\nthe nation together and restored unity and pride,” my outrage and fury
\nare back.   I’m ready to take action.   \n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hugo speaks rather eloquently about at least one thing that Reagan did for gays<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Rauch<\/a>, a well-known advocate for gay marriage, writes<\/a> that Mr. Reagan single-handedly turned the tide against the measure<\/em>.
\nReagan gave political cover to those in the “silent majority” who might
\nhave been uncomfortable with homosexuality, but who were even more
\nuncomfortable with outright bigotry. Three weeks after the defeat of
\nthe Briggs Initiative, Harvey Milk was assassinated in San Francisco’s
\nCity Hall. Thus in the same month, November 1978, the GLBT movement in
\nAmerica won its first great victory at the ballot box, and gained its
\nfirst martyr. In the first of these, there is no denying that Ronald
\nReagan played a crucial part. In this, he was on the right side of
\njustice and history.
\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It probably wasn’t enough.  Rumor also had it that he did such things to protect family and friends who were gay.<\/p>\n

My friend Billy writes, “What use is it to get
\ninto pissing matches over which of his policies were good and which were
\nevil.  What is done is done.  So as his remains are put into the ground I
\ninvite you to join me in clearing any of those poisonous memories from the
\ndusty shelves of your mind and spiritually throw them into the grave with
\nhim–buried forever.   Louise Hay once said that forgiving is a gift I give
\nmyself, I use it to free myself from the past and live in the present.”\n<\/p>\n

James Alison has noted, in another context, that forgiveness is not
\nan action, it’s a process, of which the ability to say that we have
\nforgiven a person is only the final outcome in a transformation of
\none’s whole life.\n<\/p>\n

My response has been to hear an echoing of part of the gospels:<\/p>\n

\n“Another disciple said to him, ‘Lord, let me go and bury my father
\nfirst.’  But Jesus told him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury
\ntheir own dead.'”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whatever you thought of Reagan, creating the world of justice, peace, and mercy will not be found at his funeral.<\/p>\n


\n <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Various pieces about Reagan have come across my inbox in the last couple of days.  Many of them are angry, such as this one from activist and academic Eric Rofes: What Do We Do with the Rage and the Fury This Time? By Eric Rofes It is easy for some to see the few sensible […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-na","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}