While I appreciate the It Gets Better campaign, I cannot respect Dan Savage.
Even his campaign is problematic if you ask me. I’m more fond of the “MAKE it better” campaign created in response to it…
I’m really out of the loop here. What has he done to earn disrespect, and what is the problem with the campaign? I’ve only seen a couple of videos, but I thought they were quite moving, and with a positive message.
I dislike him largely because of his unrepentant racism, transphobia, misogyny, and white, male, gym-body privilege — qualities that are hardly redeemed by this campaign. While there are people out there who find the videos inspiring, the ones I most appreciate are coming from those who recognize that “it” DOESN’T get better — especially not for those who lack the white, male, middle-class, gym-body privilege that “good gays” like Dan Savage have. The fact that he’s preaching to us that “it gets better,” all the while remaining defensive of his biases and oblivious to his own privilege demonstrates exactly what’s wrong with this campaign and gay rights causes in general: same-sex marriage and the repeal of DADT doesn’t mean that it’s getting better — all this means is that our community is hindered by the same problems evident in social movements throughout history: black people were left out of the women’s suffrage movement and gays were left out of the Civil Rights Movement in the same way that people of color, trans people, working class people, and others are left out of the LGBTQ movement.
In my opinion, it doesn’t just get better. Through the tools of social action, political organizing, and community building, we have the power to make our society better, and in the process, we get better. But as long as there is racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of prejudice in the world, no member of our community is free, and “it” hasn’t gotten better. Queer liberation will not happen until we see human liberation — until we stop meeting homophobia with racism and classism, until women are no loger blamed for being sexually assaulted, until our country stops fighting these endless wars, until Palestinians have stood at their very last checkpoint, until trans people are no longer cheated by organizations HRC, until intersex infants are no longer mutilated, until queer youth stop turning up dead… this campaign doesn’t address any of that. It simply suggests that somehow, magically, it gets better all on its own, despite the fact that we continue to live in an unequal society.
Here’s one of my favorite “it gets better” videos — from a woman of color who points out that the campaign videos are well-intentioned, but problematic:
(Source: bi-in-alberta)
