The question of identity is complex, to be certain. Philosophical thinkers have been wrestling with the question for centuries. Such intellectual exercises have frequently been rooted in the idea that no matter the individual differences between us, we are the “same” because each of us is, at base, a human being. Using this as the basis for understanding our individual identities within the context of a civilized, democratic society, we should be able to co-exist harmoniously in a country founded on the following familiar words from the United States Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The reality of the situation, however, is arguably that white culture has interpreted these words to mean that anyone who identifies themselves as not white, either by some physical trait, or a set of ideologies that do not mirror the protestant values on which this country was founded, is essentially and innately substandard. As a result, they are marginalized and assigned a sub-par position within society. Certain groups are notable for the social and political resistance they begin to demonstrate against the white establishment. Two notable groups which have shown (and continue to show) such resistance are African-Americans and the LGBT community, significantly notable because both groups, while varying dramatically in some elements of their struggles, also dramatically parallel one another by virtue of the fact that both aim to have their human identity acknowledged and affirmed. This paper will discuss the significance of resistance as it applies to the acknowledgement and affirmation of a shared and immutable human identity.
In All Bright Court, Connie Porter gives us a snapshot of the experiences felt by, among others, Samuel, Mary Kate and their son Mikey. Mikey struggles throughout the novel with his identity as it relates to him being a black person within his own immediate environment and being someone who realized that in order to pursue his dreams, whether he liked it or not, he had to move toward whiteness, to escape the “cage,” as he put it. Porter writes:
He (Mikey) hated the blackness that covered his father’s hands…Mikey didn’t want hands like his father’s. His father’s hands were those of an ignorant man, those of a man who helped fuel the coke ovens at Capital…I’m never going to have ugly hands like Daddy. (Porter, pgs. 146, 147)
Mikey sensed, even at his young age, that somehow his “blackness” limited his potential in white society. Rather than feeling a strong sense of personal identity as a black person, and feeling proud of and secure in that identity, he felt shame and embarrassment in who he was and where he came from. Mikey was, by virtue of his skin color, recalling the historical position of his enslaved ancestors. While not technically a slave in the pre-Emancipation Proclamation sense, Mikey’s sense of identity was so strongly tied to the ramifications of slavery, that he wanted to wash the very blackness off of himself to be as unlike his father as possible.
By the time we reach the end of Porter’s novel, Mikey has, specifically through his educational reformation, come to embody “whiteness” so much that when his father reaches down to help him when lost in a snow storm, he is no longer able to understand what his father is saying to him because he no longer identifies with him or the culture he comes from. Porter writes, “He was saying something to Mikey, but Mikey could not hear a word. The wind was reaching into his father’s mouth snatching his words away, sending them flying into oblivion.” (Porter, Pg. 224).
Mikey was lucky to receive the educational opportunity at Essex. But, Mikey was the exception to the rule. By and large, black people have struggled to maintain a strong sense of cultural identity in a white-dominated society. Mikey somehow innately understood that he deserved all the same rights to do and be better as anyone other person. This belief, within the context of the black community writ large, is precisely what undergirded the Black Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. For every Mikey in the black community, there are as many like him in the LGBT community. Gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender individuals believe that they are forced to accept an identity that is thrust upon them by an intolerant and close-minded society in which they live. And much like black people and their supporters did in the 1960’s, the LGBT community is also raising their collective voice to have their humanity acknowledged and affirmed.
For purposes of this paper, the writer admits that some individuals take offense to the comparison made between the black civil rights movement and the movement taking shape now in the LGBT community, arguing that the former endured far more than the latter could ever claim to. In his article, Why LGBT Equality Is Not a “White” Issue, Rev. Dr. Dennis W. Wiley notes the following sentiment, “there are some, however, including the Rev. Keith Ratliff Sr., an NAACP national board member, who see no parallel between gay rights and civil rights. Expressing this conviction at a rally last May, he demanded that the gay community ‘stop hijacking the civil rights movement.’” (Wiley, 8/11)
Rather than taking Ratliff’s view, this writer argues that there are enough parallels between the two movements to make a strong and compelling comparison. LGBT oppression has as much to do with the question of civil rights as with any other disfranchised group. Although the African American society has gained political freedom and equality de facto, the LGBT community still faces both the discrimination de jure and de facto. This is not to suggest that the plight of African Americans is by any means devoid of continued struggles or even overt racism, rather to point out that there are now laws which protect African American civil rights in ways that do not protect or affirm the civil rights of members of the LGBT community. Coretta Scott King herself has said, “"Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood. (“A Collection of Coretta Scott King Quotes”).
To what extent these two movements can actually be compared is not really even the question we should be asking ourselves. An LGBT person could make as many compelling arguments as a black person could with respect to the way they individually perceive their own oppression. The simple reality is that in practice in this country, the words of the Declaration of Independence ring hollow. Given the disparity in rights afforded to some and not to others, it would seem that rights are not so inalienable, and that the opportunities to pursue life, liberty and happiness are often only bestowed begrudgingly after a community has resisted their predicament together and with a voice united for unqualified affirmation of their human identity.
Carla Kaplan makes the astute observation that, “identity is neither something we possess nor something that defines us, but it is an unending linguistic process of becoming.” (Kaplan, “Identity” Key Words) Implicit in this statement seems to be the idea that we can only arrive at a collective and equality-based sense of human identity if we make the effort to focus on similarity rather than difference. A constant striving to imagine what the other feels and perceives so that we may recognize how identical we really are at the human level.