October 1st, 1997 to October 7th, 1997

100 gather to discuss, confront racism in lesbigay community

by Robert Schultz

A diverse group of more than 100 individuals from the lesbigay/trans community participated in the forum "The Color Triangle: A Different Look at Racism in our Community" which was held this past Saturday at the Harold Washington Library.

The forum, part of a month-long series of events held throughout Chicago during September's "Unity Month," was the lesbigaytrans community's chance to dialogue about racism. Co-sponsored by the City of Chicago Commission on Human Relations, the Advisory Council on Gay and Lesbian Issues, Lesbigay Radio and Lambda Publications in conjunction with Amigas Latinas, Chicago Black Lesbians and Gays, Clubhouse Productions, Khuli Zaban, Sidetrack, and Womyn of All Colors/Cultures Together, the afternoon was structured to provide well-considered discussion. The Color Triangle organizers stated that this forum would be the first of a series that would be held to continue the dialogue.

Setting the tone for the afternoon was a performance piece written by Outlines columnist Kathleen Rose Winter and performed by A Real Read and other actors. The piece was structured as a series of soliloquies about race.

The opening scene, set in a police station, had a young biracial Black gay man being released into his white mother's custody after an arrest over an incident regarding a club's carding policy. As the piece progressed each of the characters, a Hispanic woman of African and indigenousness American heritage, an Asian woman, a Black woman, the white bouncer of the nightclub who later revealed herself to be Jewish and who had requested the multiple ID's, the man and his mother all shared their perspective of the difficulties of coping with racism. Each character shared the insight which grew from a motif into the overriding message of the piece that in individuals of all races they saw "some part of myself, some part of my people." The audience responded with a sustained applause when the piece was finished.

The crowd was then divided into eight small groups of just more than a dozen people each. Participants were instructed to find a group that was composed of people they didn't know and the facilitators sought to achieve diverse racial mixture in each small group. Each group launched into a discussion around the same list of questions to explore the issue of racism in the lesbigay community. At the end of the forum each group had a representative report to all in attendance the summary of their small group discussions.

Each reporter from the small groups had provocative and thoughtful recommendations ranging from the personal, such as holding people accountable for their racists acts, to specific proposals for enhancing the diversity of Chicago's lesbigaytrans institutions and organizations. One group reported that its participants were unable to name a gay public space where a diverse group of lesbigaytrans people could be found on a regular basis. As people left the event, one overheard informal conversations reflecting the collective determination to not let the dialogue that began that afternoon die.

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