Get Used to It: Ep. 146, "Election 2008"

(upbeat music) - Hi, welcome to "Get Used To It". I'm Sheila Kuehl, and as usual I'll be helping you sort your way through the show. This one's a little more difficult than usual because we're gonna try in one hour to sum up how we feel about the elections specifically in California, but not only. And I have three of the best minds in our community here. I'm really happy to have them. And I love joining them. Let me introduce them to you. First, Michael Kearns, who says that he's a writer, an activist, a dad, a performer, but really what he is a social critic, I think. And Michael, we're very, very happy to have you here. - Thank you. - Phil Wilson, who's the CEO of the Black AIDS Institute, longtime activist in the community, internationally known these days I think. Phil, welcome. - Good to be. - And Torie Osborn, who sort of keeps changing her wonderful work and identity, a full-time volunteer for Barack over the last month and a half before the election. And is a senior advisor to the mayor of Los Angeles, also executive director of everything you've ever heard of just about one time or another in her life. And also a very, very long time activist in the community. Torie, welcome. - Glad to be here. It's really good to have you here. Well, let's talk about Barack first. Let's get to the joy part. I think we're unabashedly joyful in this group and probably most of the people watching us anyway. Phil, start with you. What's your experience about this win? - Well, I'm still pinching myself. I wake up every morning I turn on CNN thinking that they're gonna come on and say, "Just kidding." (Michael laughs) But it's been amazing. I spent election night on 125th in Harlem and it was absolutely amazing. Torie and I were in Nevada for the five days prior to election. And I got up on Tuesday morning 'cause I wanted to be in Harlem at 125th and Frederick Douglass when the returns came in and it was an amazing experience. I mean people talk about people dancing in the streets and I've spent a considerable amount of time in other countries where people literally do dance in the streets. And when they declared that Barack Obama was going to be the next president of the United States, people literally were dancing in the streets and my soul has been dancing ever since. This is one of those moments where a number of us have had them a number of times in our life where there's the before and there's an after and in some ways it's kind of like when it goes from black and white to color all of a sudden it's color, however you want to use the word color by the way. - [Torie] Yeah, really. - But it has been a remarkable experience. - Well, talk about hope. I mean, it's amazing how it manifests itself. So not just physically and emotionally, but just so deeply in people. It's kind of like now I can exhale because he is going to be sworn in as president. Torie, what was your experience? - Oh man. I felt called by the campaign. So I dropped my life, my consulting and my writing life and joined the Barack campaign full time for the last seven weeks or something like that. I was the deputy battleground state coordinator. Each of the blue states adopted a red state in the best organized campaign I've ever seen. I haven't been as close inside a presidential campaign, I just did GTV for Kerry and knocked on doors for McCarthy a long time ago. So I don't have a lot of experience, but from what I gather, it was the best organized, most vibrant, most extraordinary campaign, both disciplined, focused kind of top down. But then there was this social movement. I mean, really it was a political campaign, but it was also a social movement. And I as a long time kind of social movement, observer and participant felt... I mean, I was a worker bee, I was not a leader. And my job was to help get Californians to battleground states, some to Colorado, New Mexico, but primarily to Nevada. And we did it, man. I mean, we turned Nevada way blue. The silver state won it by 12 points. And it was really, I mean, I was part of it. And I think the thing that I would say is... And I had never seen Barack speak and I was a Hillary supporter, took a good strong look at John Edwards became... First I was a Hillary supporter became bi-candidate or as I called myself. One day Barack one day Hillary could have taken either one of them. And then, so I was a Johnny come lately to the Barack movement if you will. But when I dived in by then it was mature and it was completely fascinating what I would say. I mean, I could talk much longer about it than we have, but what I could say is that it felt very different from any other social movement that I was involved that I have ever been involved in. I had a feel of the 60s a little bit, where you have a deep bond to anybody who's involved in it, just by virtue that they're there no matter who they are, but it felt very different in that it was very non ideological. It was kind of post identity politics. I mean, it was completely diverse. And 75% of the people had never been involved before. Some of them were formally kind of burned out former 60s people whose hope had been killed with Martin and Bobby's deaths who had just come alive from several communities. I mean, not just the African American community, but a strong backbone from the 60s former people, and then a whole lot of young people and new people and of every color and age and stripe, it wasn't just young people. But my point is that it felt like a social movement. It felt like a sense of purpose, not just about the election, but about taking our country back. I mean, people were fierce about taking our country back. And so that was what I felt as if I was part of something that does not end with the election of Barack Obama. And in fact, that's the murky, that's the question is, how does that- - Right, and that's why we're still- - [Torie] That's what we gotta do. - Absolutely. - I need to say something out loud and I wanna thank you, Torie. I mean, Torie gave me and a whole bunch of us as it turns out a remarkable gift. Torie organized Team Torie and it speaks to the power of your leadership over time that she sent out this email to a bunch of folks who sent it out to a bunch of folks who sent it out to a bunch of folks. And I don't know between 30 and 50 or 60 of us, many of us didn't know each other, many of us didn't know Torie, and we went to Nevada together as a part of team Torie. - I saw the sign in Henderson, we heart Team Torie. - [Torie] We took down that dusty little weird town of Henderson. Turned to blue. - Really was one of the most important experiences of my life. And being a part of this campaign with you I'm so grateful. - Blocking precincts with you was fabulous. - And I think that it is an aspect of this in terms of people feeling it was a gift to do the work because of the love, as Torie said, between the people who were connected and also just being part of something so amazingly not only historic, but right. Getting us on the right track. Michael, let me ask you, what was your experience? - Well, in the five or six days proceeding, actually a couple of weeks I started doing phone things and I wanted to show my 14 year old black daughter politics up close. And so that's when kind of precluded a trip, although I had in my mind. So I thought, you know what? I'm gonna be on this computer making calls as many as I can during these five days. And whether she's acting like she's listening to me or not, she's listening to me. (Sheila laughs) And occasionally she would say, "Why are you being so nice to those McCain people?" (Sheila laughs) And I'd say that's part of it, Tia. But those lessons were huge. And I couldn't spend enough time is Nevada, Ohio. And eventually the last day it was Missouri, which was my hometown. And I was telling people polling places. And I knew those places. I knew those locations. And I was just in a furthered state like I never have been about any presidential election. And I think it has to do with a lot of things, but it has a lot to do with my child. So then the night of the election, we went to the this one place in Echo Park, all really neighborhoody and sort of hippieish and Bohemian and streety and grassrootsy. And we went to this place in Echo Park and it was wild and all kinds of people. But then at a certain point, she couldn't stay because she's 14 years old and they were gonna start serving alcohol and stuff. So she went home, but then I deliberately stayed in my hood and I went to act bar and I was in a bar, which is gay, mixed it's predominantly gay bar in the heart of Silver Lake. I mean, not unlike the heart that Phil speaks of in Harlem. This was in another heart of America where there were all these 80% gay boys and their friends, and they were playing this incredible music and they were waiting for Barack's speech and they were playing "Oh, Happy Day." I mean, it was unbelievable. And these gay men were crying and holding each other and then they'd play the speech. And then they played, "Young, Gifted and Black" Aretha, and people are screaming and holding each other and you see tears and tears. And then this just went on, they'd break in. They were very clever, of course they're gay boys. They're very clever about what choices in the music they'd make at the moment when Michelle came out. So it was all sort of, but it was very improvised, but it was quite something for me, just quite something. - Well, we've heard so much on the air from everybody talking about how they felt and people being interviewed in the street. And I think around the world, I felt like when we had the turn of the century and they showed us every city celebrating, I thought they could have done the same thing for Barack 'cause everybody was celebrating all around the world. - And in particularized ways, like, I mean in Harlem and in Timberlake and in Ohio and in- - [Phil] In Chapala. - It was such an American experience. And I felt even though I knew there were people who'd voted for McCain, you could see the numbers, you should feel good millions of people believed in him, his giving up speech was so gracious. - [Phil] Oh yes, absolutely. Well, Michael, are you talking about these tears rolling down everybody's faces, let me ask you then about the next morning. We wake up in California as they did in Florida and Arizona and other states in other areas. And we see that the proposition to barn gay marriage and put it in our constitution passed, talk about that. - Well, the phone rings and the emails start pouring in and I don't think this is a comparison. I mean, I feel the same outrage that I did around HIV and AIDS and I sense that that's what's going on and that's what's going on with my students, Many of whom are in their 20s and 30s who are calling me and in tears, and I'm gonna protest and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that and I'm kind of listening. I didn't go the first night and I felt bad about not going out into the streets. Again, I wanna be out there in the streets and I want to feel what's going on and get to know it all over again and sort of replenish my activist self. And God knows this was an opportunity. And I went to the Mormon Church and I was there for about three and a half hours. And I just can't describe the energy and it might have been wild and unfocused and unruly and a lot of things, but the heart and soul of those protests is undeniable and the youth and their friends, their straight friends, their trany friends, their this friends, their family friends, it's much more multicolored and variegated than HIV/AIDS marches and protests were initially. That felt good and just the degree of passion. Did it come late? I guess maybe it did, but I just wanna focus on that right now 'cause it makes me like, here we are again and I miss people all over again that were dead and I kept looking for them in the crowd thinking where are they? And so it just was like a flashback in some way. But in a good way too, in that I'm alive. I have this kid and I have this energy to spend three and a half hours out on the street. - Well, I'm glad you did, Michael. - I told you I'd probably cry. - Well, I've been weeping for three days. - Me too. - I mean, my friends can't even believe it. I've never been married. I don't have a partner I would've married. (Sheila laughs) It's kinda looking at me like, "Why are you weeping?" And it's really about our community, again, sort of getting gut checked I guess in a way by we don't know who. I mean, there's such mythology kind of about why this happened. Phil, you're sitting next to him on the couch, so you're gonna be next. Let's talk as much as we can about this stuff. - I think there are a number of things. And actually, I'm gonna go back to the joy because we have a president that understands, we have a president that at the first occasion to talk to American people he said that this election is not the change that we want. It's the chance to make the change. And I think that encompasses what happened in Proposition 8 in California as well. We're not where we need to be. We are further along than we were, but we're definitely not where we need to be. We have an opportunity now to make the change, but it's gonna take work. And the truth of the matter is that I fundamentally believe that the passage of Proposition 8 is not what we think it is. I don't believe that the passage of Proposition 8 really is a commentary that the vast majority of Californians, or even the majority of Californians for that matter, believe that it's right for us to deny a certain segment of our population equal protection of the law. I do believe that there's lots of work that needs to be done. There's lots of education that needs to be done. I am worried now that there's a lot of blaming going on. I'm concerned that particularly there's lots of comments that are talking about blaming the black community for this loss. I'm shocked that we've forgotten that it was the gay community that was blamed for Carrie's loss four years ago. And how do we feel about that and how angry that made us feel. I don't know what we get out of kind of exacerbating this kind of blaming and particularly splitting of communities. I think that quite frankly, it's an opportunity for us to go back to politics one on one that if you wanna win these issues, how do you go about doing it? And I think that we got caught up in the real emotions of what Proposition 8 was about for us and we forgot to do the work. - Well, I think there's two things too. One is this mythology that CNN put out from their exit poll that 70% of African Americans voted for Prop 8, which is incorrect. - [Phil] And it's numerically impossible. - Look it up, okay. - [Phil] It's numerically impossible. - It's incorrect. Now, did African Americans in the primarily African American districts in LA vote more than half for it? Yes. Did white people in the areas around LA county vote more than half for it in many of those districts where their absolute majority? Yes. And even worse, they were 60% for it, the African American community, 56 or 57%, not a great number for us, but I mean, that part has got to go away. - And in Alameda county which is predominantly African American Proposition 8 lost. And so I think that as a community, we need to ask ourselves what work needs to be done to bring along now enough Californians so that they understand what this is about. I was on the radio this morning, Black Radio in Chicago, I did not get a single call about the essence of what Proposition 8 was about. I got lots of calls about churches losing their 501(c)(3). I got lots of calls about whether or not homosexuality was morally right or wrong. I got lots of calls about is it wrong to teach kids in elementary school about homosexuality. So what does that tell me? That tells me that the yes on 8 people did their work, they delivered their message and we were not successful at delivering our message. And I think that, for example, I can speak for black America that the notion that it's right to codify discrimination, I don't believe that my community believes that. Now are there issues about the separation of church and state and understanding that might there be concerns about discomfort around the whole issue, around homosexuality, are we queasy across America to talk about sex period? Anything that's gonna force us to talk about sex period? Are we queasy about? Absolutely. But this is not about that. And we were not successful in communicating that. And I think that we have an opportunity to do that work. - I agree. Well, Torie, you were talking... I don't know if you wanna start with this, but you were talking about the Asian Pacific, Pacific Islander community and work that's been done there. - Well, I think it is appropriate that we have a community organizer as a president who has actually community organized America and has lifted up the idea of organizing, community organizing because that's what we haven't done in many communities. The faith-based community, I mean, you can slice it demographically. You can slice it in terms of sectors. And I think that there are lots of reasons for that. Some of them are legitimate reasons. There's an enormous loss of institutional memory across the generations because of AIDS. When I think about the people who I know would have been doing right now during the protests civil disobedience training, would have been insisting on certain strategies and tactics that did not happen, many of them are gone. I think we're gonna have to be kind to ourselves. Right now at the moment that this show is airing there's a lot of finger pointing and infighting, and we're kind of devolving. And I think we're gonna need to pick ourselves up and find the strategies, the analysis, the allies, and the action that carry us forward. And we have a really fine example of excellent community organizing in our community, the Asian Pacific Islander community, which voted no on 8 as a community. And I don't know the breakdowns among the various sectors of the API community, but I do know that a year and a half ago, some organizers and some LGBT organizers started API equality, started the work with allies that are community based organizations with a lot of trust and respect embedded in those various communities. Did multilingual work, went to the churches, confronted the homophobes within their community, did the footwork and had a strategy and rolled it out. And similar work was not done in the Latino and African American community. And I think there are some barriers to that work that have to do with cultural differences but the point is to recognize that we actually have a success and I think we can build on it. We have an example within our community, and I think there's lessons and mentoring and organizing training that needs to go on. I felt angry that I was robbed of my joy as I was driving across the desert back from Nevada from an extraordinary experience. It was actually my straight friends that started to call me to say, I'm so sorry about Prop 8 and it kind of like snapped me out of the denial that I had been in and the joy. But I really think that this is about a moment of learning as these things always are. When I think about what the riots, the civil unrest did in 92 and what has come out of that, the beautiful multiethnic racial injustice and economic justice organizing in Los Angeles that has come out of humbly confronting the mistakes that we, meaning progressive community, made and said we're gonna do it differently. In that case, it was building coalitions instead of long term institution building within communities. So that was the lesson of '92 that's been made up for what are the lessons? We are in a time now where we need to say, what are the lessons, we need to be brutally honest about what worked and what didn't work in the campaign. And we need to forge... In my view, I mean, across generation conversation, one are the most exciting things about looking at the protest and talking to the people who I've been talking to is how many young new activists they are. And some of them have been working on the broad campaign and been kind of splitting their time between Barack. We had several with our Team Torie in Nevada, young folks who haven't fought these initiatives before or worked on a presidential campaign. So there's a new generation of LGBT activists that doesn't have experience, that we're not in the '91 protest against Pete Wilson when AB101 was, or in the streets with ACT UP and Queer Nation. And didn't have those experiences and are now activated and angry and looking for leadership and self-empowered, so I think it's an opportunity. I don't wanna take anybody's feelings away from them, but I do think we have to step up- - You can. I mean there are probably people watching this and yelling at us. Going, "Who are you making excuses for all of them." And all the things that they wish we were saying. And let me just tell you, we would probably say to them too. We're just trying to find our way to kind of rational and emotional kind of thing, but let's keep going. - Well, one of the things that I guess I learned in fighting AIDS is that there are moments for grieving and anger and rage, but they have to be much, much smaller in the amount of energy to the amount of energy we devote to winning. And I think that this is one of those examples that we have to get in touch with how we're feeling, absolutely the sadness and the rage. And then we have to figure out how to win. - [Torie] Don't mourn, organize. - That's right. That's right. We have to figure out how to win. - I agree with everything that's been said, and I think we're sort of looking pre results and post results seem to be two different areas where we can learn from and how we need to maybe remedy some things or rethink some things. A lot of this is identity politics. I can't tell you how many of the young people that I saw and spoke to in those protests said that the reason they were in the streets was not because of Prop 8, but because of Barack. The reason they hit the streets, that was their primary motivation. And their impetus was to hit those streets because on the one hand there was this beautiful equality happening in America and on the other, they felt short changed. Let's also realize that we're of a certain age, these kids do not have our maturity. They have not lived through HIV/AIDS. Some of these kids wrote me. I could read them to you. The things that said when they heard, I got two emails from two different kids, one black, one white, one in his 20s, one in his 30s, both virtually saying the same thing, "When I heard this morning, that Prop 8 passed I was once again, a sissy being yelled at on the playground." That's where they go. They're not gonna go into a planning meeting with that energy. They're gonna hit the darn streets. - [Sheila] Don't fine our- (Michael laughs) - Oh, my God, I get in trouble with the FCC before this won't be the first time. I'm sorry, FCC. I love you. They're gonna hit the streets, pounding, raging, screaming, yelling, crying, and behaving badly. And God loved them. - I was very happy to see the demonstrations. I was very happy to see the marches. I don't know that anybody knows where they go, but I frankly, unless it's a march on Washington, which is very organized with speakers, I don't know that we ever knew where we were going when we went in the streets. We've had some- - We need to find out. I agree with that. We need to harness all that anger and energy and self-righteousness and whatever all those emotions are. We need to harness those young activists as Torie says that have been birthed from the Obama victory and the Prop 8. - I think that is good that we are passionate. I think that in many ways the LGBT community had gotten to the point where we believed that we were further ahead than we were. I have to say that it's interesting because my experience of the ACT UP experience compared to what happened in black communities around HIV and AIDS, that the act of experience quite frankly grew out of a sense of entitlement. People are angry and outraged because how dare them not care about us? And I think there's some of this in this rage as well. But I think that while it's important for people to have this passion, I think it's also important to do the work so that they're not the sissy being beat up in the schoolyard again. - [Michael] Absolutely. And we don't repeat the same. - And that we don't repeat that. And part of the way you don't repeat that is by saying, "Okay, what structural changes have to be made so that there's not yet another generation that ends up being the sissy being beat up." And so that's why at some point we have to figure out a way to say, what went wrong? What haven't we done? How do we do the work? I fundamentally believe that people cannot love us if they don't know us. And that you can only kind of do these things to folks when you don't know them. And so there's clearly are folks in the state of California who don't know us. And some of that is through racial lines, and some of that is around the racial divisions and challenges that we have inside our community. And some of the racial challenges that we have from our community and other communities. But we have to at some point get back together and say, okay, how are we going to win? What are the fundamental steps in which you do the work? 'Cause this isn't over. And so the next time it comes up that we will have done the work to have won. And we have that experience. None of our victories have happened without that kind of work. Every victory we have have happened because we've sat down and we've done the homework to bring about the change. - Well, one of the things that we used as a very strong tool because we knew that people didn't know us in any communities was coming out. And two people, may their souls rest in peace who have passed on along with the rest we're talking about. Rob Bergen, Jean O Larry working on National Coming Out Day which was a brilliant concept because all it was was we're not gonna tell you, you don't have to report back to us, kinda like Barack campaign where take 10 names and call them and that's fine. It just said, come out wherever you are, come out wherever you are, just like the kids game. And I think Torie said a very, if I may, very smart thing to me the other day which was whenever people in the black or brown community say, it's not as easy for us to come out. In the white community we always say, "Oh, there, there, dear we understand. That's just fine." Maybe we ought to find a way to be more supportive. We can't tell people to come out anymore than we could in any community. It's dangerous. But we all lost our families or half of us did from coming out. Maybe we need to create a notion of a safer, that's just one thing, a better campaign we'll talk about that, but maybe a safer way so that people know us, I'm not mistaking what you said to me to, Torie. - No, I think that coming out is still the visibility is still the fundamental precondition for our freedom. I have so many thoughts. One of my friends... I have two things that I wanna emphasize, the allies. This is totally different than it's ever been before. And this is a huge advancement for our community. The number of straight people who have called or emailed, my Barack friends, the people who I met, I guess some of them are gay. We didn't really ever talk about it, but the number of phone calls and emails that I've gotten when I went to the Barack party on Thursday night driving for two hours because of the traffic the Mormon Church from the west side to Silver Lake and every single one of my Barack buddies who were working on primarily what we were doing as a team was doing Latino and African American outreach to Nevada. And the team was black and brown and Asian and me and one other white chick, and every single one of them and the minute they saw me said first, "I'm so sorry about Prop 8." And my experience has been complete solidarity from every straight person without my saying anything. In fact, I was trying to pass as joyful that night. And I think that we have not leveraged our allies sufficiently when a friend does a house party and 55 people are there and they're straight people and 46 of 55 people including myself. So 46 of 54 people sign up for volunteer phone banking, they'd never been asked before. And I feel as if the lesson is where... There are many, many lessons, but there is a readiness to leverage. And I'll tell you something else, aside from those... Mostly women, not exclusively people of color, who all made a point to express solidarity with me on that 8 at the peak of Obama joy. The other thing that happened was I walked into a circle of women, happened to be women of color who were saying one after another that the Barack's victory was the first time that they felt part of America. And I was honored to be part of the friendship circle and so I could witness a conversation that normally I might not witness. And it was kind of shadows of what Michelle Obama had said. It was interesting. And I believe that when you feel a part of something for the first time it will create a generosity and a willingness to go the next step. I believe that Barack's victory opens up the political space, the moral space and the emotional space for us to move further faster finally on this issue. We have gone... I'm gonna get killed by my gay activist friends on this, but we have moved very, very quickly on our rights and our issues, very quickly. In its wake it has created some resentment among communities that have watched themselves lose everything. Been far more impacted by the economic divide, by the rise of poverty, far more impacted than the majority of the kind of middle class white gay majority. I wanna tell you when that right wing person said in the LA Times this morning, well, it was a really white campaign, right wing they were right. - [Phil] Absolutely. - And how many times have we self critiqued ourself on this issue over 30 years and we're still doing it. When do we learn the lesson? So I believe we have a different world with Barack president and the legions of people who feel empowered and able to feel a part of it and less resentful because of it in a way that will create a positive backlash, a positive wake, not a backlash. - I understand. You mean result. - A positive result. And I don't know what it looks like 'cause I don't know exactly what the strategy is, but we are in a different world because of Barack's victory. And it is a world into which a new kind of multiracial coalition can come forward with straight people as well as gay people of all colors saying enough is enough. This is not fair. - I believe that now we win this win because we're able to communicate to our straight allies or straight folks in general that Proposition 8 hurt them as much as it hurt us. And I fundamentally believe that. I mean that whenever our society moves to codify discrimination and bigotry and bias everybody is harmed. Whenever we create structures where they're real Americans and not real Americans, our society is harmed and there was a rejection of that in the presidential election. - [Sheila] Finally. - Finally. Exactly. And I think that there's a mood in the country and now we have a chance to kind of give an example of how that works and that becomes our challenge. - But you know this moving fast piece is a very, very right and true piece. On the other hand, I think that sometimes people have said you've got everything but marriage, what are you complaining about? - [Michael] Absolutely. - So I have a story. I was very fortunate to have been honored by a lot of different groups as I exit office. And I was at a gathering in my honor over the weekend and one of my long standing environmental activist friends came up to me with tears in her eyes and said, "You know me as a protector of the coast, you know me as an environmentalist, that's what I am and what I do but I want you to understand, I am so deeply affected by Prop 8." Well, she's married to an Asian man and in 1962 when they wanted to marry, they couldn't marry in those states. As a matter of fact, they had to plan their drive west to avoid states where they would've been arrested for riding in the car together. And so to them, they understand that, oh, it's just marriage. That it was an extremely important thing 40 years ago and it's the same for a very prominent assembly member, Phil Eisenberg, who was there when I was elected, who married an Asian woman and wasn't allowed to marry her until we had a Supreme Court case in California. So there is an understanding that that is a basic part of our humanity. And it's an important thing to struggle for. Doesn't take anything away from the fact that we haven't built the case for it really for our equality. - We haven't done the community organizing now it's time. - I was just gonna say we build our cases in small ways. Sometimes the situation for Tia at her school, my 14 year old, I think sometimes it has been tense because she's the minority within a sea of a lot of white people. There are black kids at her school, but not as many. And then she has this gay, single vocal dad who's on television saying the F word. So what are you gonna do with that as a kid? But suddenly the tides turned because suddenly their parents are making Tia aware of the fact that they have their no on 8 sign in their car. And I'm thinking to myself, oh my God, I never would've predicted this. And I honestly think over the years some of them have changed just by observing Tia and our relationship and that we're a family and we have the same peanut butter and we go to the same picnics and sleepovers. And suddenly though they realize, well this is my issue too, because I love that kid and whatever. So I was so taken by that. And it's what Phil and Torie both said too is that we do need to honor these people who are honoring us in a big way and find our differences, find our similarities, not our differences. Refresh, replenish our degree of empathy with the other, since that's where a lot of our anger comes from the sissy and all those things. And I also agree with Phil, we've gotta change that paradigm. We don't want any kid to ever be called a sissy in school. - Well, and I think also the notion of generosity when you are no longer as oppressed. - [Michael] Exactly. - When you are no longer feeling so self protective, because frankly they don't understand. And we haven't in the gay community. It's impossible to really understand racism. If you haven't experienced racism, you can see it just like our straight friends are saying to us, I'm so sorry about this, they know it must feel like such a rejection, but it's about as far as you can get except to be an ally. And we became allies in the white community on the civil rights movement early on little foot soldiers and tried to understand I was in Birmingham in '63 totally by accident. And it changed my life because it was like, oh my God, look, what's going on in the world. I was 22 and it was- - [Michael] Look at the lesbian and gay male community became more ally. - Talk to each other. - Well, that's true though. I mean, even within communities there's been acrimony and now some of that's in the process of healing. - But I think that one of the things that has happened over the last decade is that we have not been as good neighbors, progressive neighbors as we have been in the past. I think that we were better allies to other communities when, for example, AIDS was front and center. And now that we're not going to die like we thought we were, I don't think that we've been as strong allies to other issues. I think that there are communities who feel like we are demanding dessert when they can't even get in the restaurant. And we need to be careful about that. - We need to even be careful about the fact that the current wave of protesting is targeting churches. And that in and of itself is creating a backlash. And we just need to be aware. - [Phil] Absolutely. - As long as you're aware of it and that you can accept responsibility for your actions. I don't think that everybody in the LGBT community is aware of how precious religious institutions are in some minority communities. And I think as long as they're aware that when you go to the Catholic church or you even the Mormon church, the African American minister who I spoke to yesterday to seek some counsel on this said to me, even with its history of racism, the Mormon church, that many African American ministers are gonna feel solidarity with the Mormon church over solidarity on civil rights issues with the white gay community. - What we're doing is quite frankly, when we're going to those churches, we're actually actualizing their commercials. Part of their message was that if you allow gay marriage to stand your churches are going to be attacked because gay people are radical, anti-church and you're gonna lose your 501(c)(3) and you're not gonna be able to practice your religion. And so what are we doing? We're in essence creating the next set of commercials. So we do have to be careful. - [Michael] They stand up there on the hill with their video cameras. - Well, but I also think that people have to be responsible, excuse me, for what they've done. That is to say it doesn't help us to attack the Mormon church. On the other hand, it also is important to remember that this is a church that took a political stand and raised a lot of money on an issue against us. It doesn't help us to hate them, but I love a little movement over on the side about tax deductions and all that kind of stuff, because it's not about gay people and tax deductions when they're telling people who to vote for for president and not just the Mormons other churches, not the black churches necessarily didn't have to tell anybody who to vote for for presidents in LA, but still I think there are ways to do it. You know how they say, don't get mad get even. - Also let's keep in mind that the mass, whatever night that was on Sunday morning, the gay and lesbian largely community and their allies went with duct tape across their mouths and flowers. So there was growth between Thursday and Sunday. There was an acknowledgement of- - Tell us more about that. I don't know about that. - That's what happened on Sunday morning, there was another protest. It wasn't as large, but there was another organized protest. - Went to where? - To the back, to the lone church returned. - [Sheila] With duct taped and flowers. - It was a silent protest. Well, it's not as glam. It's not as sexy. - [Sheila] Right , right. It's not a war. - It's not a war. With duct tape on their mouths and sprinkled flowers. So there was this one thing on Thursday and this other thing on Sunday. So there was growth between Thursday and Sunday and some acknowledgement of, we were naughty. And people said to me, what are the flowers for? I said, well, you don't normally give flowers to somebody you hate. You give flowers as a peace offering or as a love offering or as a (indistinct). So something happened between. - And this Saturday they're going to City Hall. So it's changing. - We're evolving. - And then I will say the thing that's really positive to me and I even see a generational evolution here is that the young people who are the backbone of a lot of these protests are reaching out, are calling myself, others, and looking for some guidance, some leadership, some training, some mentoring, and really saying, we don't know what we're doing. We've never done this before. What would you do? And I'm not so sure that when we were first doing it, we were doing that. I do remember that at the founding meeting of ACT UP that Larry Kramer brought a veteran of the civil rights movement to train ACT UP from the get go imprinted in the DNA in nonviolent civil disobedience techniques. And I think we need to do something like that for every generation after this. - [Michael] A soon as possible. - I don't wanna use the F word on television either, but it would describe how I felt ever since the election. I've been totally screwed up. I'm up high one minute, down crying another minute. I'm really angry at somebody one minute and then I feel guilty about being angry at them 'cause it wasn't really their fault. I'll be angry at this. I feel like a pinball kind of that's been let loose in a machine and I've heard this from other people too. I don't think we have the structures yet or have them anymore in the community to do the kinds of things we've been talking about. - One of the things that I think is true, remember we were talking about the Barack campaign as a social movement. If in fact that's true, it's gonna be a huge release of energy. These four million volunteers, these three million donors, there is a newly awakened giant of civic activism. And I think what we have the opportunity to do in the LGBT community is to take the piece of that wave that comes our way and we're seeing it already in these protests and make something of it. And it's going to blow up existing structures. Existing institutions and organizations are gonna have to retool or open up or somehow let in the new ideas of the new people and the new, fresh energy. Nothing is gonna be the same in five years. And I think there'll be a kind of a shakeout, leaders will change, new leaders will come in. Some organizations will survive because they'll be flexible enough. We saw this, we've seen this periodically. And I think it's a good thing. I think it's refreshing the kind of existing infrastructure will change and expand and we don't know what shape it will will take. And I think our responsibility in the LGBT community is to listen really well, to welcome the new leadership, to create the spaces. One of the critiques of the campaign that I actually 'cause believe me when Nevada had 12 points, I thought, well, gosh, Nevada, if we're gonna win Nevada by 12 points maybe I should have spent more time on no on 8. I had my own self searching because I threw it all in with Barack. I wasn't doing anything on no on 8. I was writing big checks but I wasn't doing any activism. But I'll tell you, I experienced what I think other people experienced a little bit, which is that the campaign felt hard to get in. Somebody said that to me, they said, you know I tried but I couldn't get in. And the Barack campaign welcomed everybody, you could do it at home. You could do it in a 1,000 meetups. You could do it. And that energy that invites you wherever you are, that's the community organizer, right? You meet people where they are. You do not tell them who they are or what they should be or what they should think you say, "Oh, is that where you are? Well, here's a place to have a conversation." And that's the lesson I think for the existing institutions of the LGBT community that perhaps the conversation needs to expand and the energy, they need to move over a little bit. And I mean, I think it's gonna happen. And I think we need to welcome it, listen well, and see how we can channel it in a positive direction. The issue's not going away, we're not going away. - Is there an LGBT movement? I mean, I don't mean to sound naive, but it feels very fragmented to me. - It's always been fragmented. I think that there's definitely still an LGBT movement. I don't think that it has the kind of energy that it once had, but no movement has the energy that it has when there's nothing left to lose. - [Torie] Right. - In many ways our community is suffering from the successes that we've had, and we've rested on our laurels and we're not as hungry as we once were. And I think that now we have an opportunity to have that passion, but also to find solidarity with a whole bunch of other folks. - I think that we haven't even gotten into this issue and this is another show, but the face of the gay lesbian community is so drastically changing and one thing is children. I mean, now you see so many people on these marches were with their children. I can't tell you how many. And so I sense that there's some renewed something in that LGBT community. There's some renewal, there's some refocus. And I agree, we need to work hard, listen, be very present, self analytical, all those things. But I wanna ride the wave of joy, anger, hope, frustration, sadness, grief, ecstasy, all of it. I saw it all on those streets. - Well, I think we also fell back by default in this campaign to a few organizations that came and sort of filled the void and made the decisions. It wasn't inclusive but we didn't actually also insist in a way. I'll just speak personally, I didn't insist that it be inclusive. I didn't even think about it. It was like, okay, these couple of people are gonna run it and that's gonna be how it goes. And a lot of people are Monday morning quarterbacks and then say, well, here's what they all did wrong and they didn't let me in and I called and they didn't call me back. All of which I think was true, but in a way we were very passive. We were very passive. And also we were very happy about Barack. I mean, it was not just his election, but working to see that he gets elected and it took a lot of energy. And frankly, in the whole world, it's more important that he got elected. - [Phil] Absolutely. - I am really devastated about Prop 8, but it's more important to the world that Barack is the president period. Okay. And if that was the constant, we didn't do enough energy here and we we're working for Barack instead. I'm sorry. That is more important for the world. Now, what do we do? Now we need more coalition work. We need more structure to build into. And we need to, like when you went to camp Barack and you talked about how welcoming and the whole campaign was so welcoming- - [Torie] Respect, empower, include. that was the Barack Obama mantra. - That's not a new thought with the Barack campaign. I mean, that's the old organizing tool from all the way back to farm workers and before. And I think that that is part of the work that we do. So I guess what I would ask in specific, if you can, what would we do? What would you have us do? What would we all do say for the next year? I'm not talking about this week, but for the next year from your perspective, I didn't get any wrap up sign or anything. There's plenty of time. So I want to hear, whoops, there it is. But we still got four or five minutes. - I think what Torie said, I think there's just a very practical thing is that... I was terrified watching some of those kids and I thought somebody's gonna get hurt here. And of course somebody did. And I mean, I think that that's a mandate we need to get right in this place. In west Hollywood, at least and in other cities, we need to teach civil disobedience. This is a science. We can learn. We can learn the details about it. I would put that high on the agenda so that we can do more marches and do more rabble rousing without getting hurt. The police by the way, let me just say this were extraordinary in this town. They were unbelievable. They were unprovokable and very gentle. - [Torie] There was a mayor watching really closely. - I know. I could sense his phone calls. - Believe me. - It was incredible. - The mayor made really, really sure he had staff out there, LGBT staff out there monitoring. He wanted regular updates. - It was unbelievable. It was quite a choreographed affair. And I could sense the- - Yeah, he cares a lot. - Let's not lose the thread. Where will we go? Where will you wanna go? 'Cause we'll get to the end and you go, "Wait, I had three more things to say." - I think we need to make sure that as a community, we are part of a larger community. And we need to put ourselves in that context, both in relative to the work that we need to do and our connections to all of these other communities. And if we do that and we do the work and we place ourselves center stage in our own way in all those communities, we make progress. Now, whenever we isolate, whenever we pull back, whenever we think in fact that sometimes I think we do that, we are separate and apart we feed into what our enemies want others to think about us. - Totally. - I think we need to do some good debriefing, some honest debriefing, what worked, what didn't work. I think we need to create the space for that. I expect there'll be town hall meetings and little gatherings and big gatherings. And I hope to be part of some of them. I think there needs to be some of us who weren't involved, but who represent a generation of skilled activism and organizing need to come back in a little bit and be available if people want to have some input and insights from us. And I think that we need to very strategically leverage those relationships just as Mike Feuer and Karen Bass all called you and said, "We wanna not just do an Amicus brief, but we're gonna do a press conference." Our straight allies in government are also matched by our straight allies in many of the nonprofit organizations and in politics. And really, I can't tell you how many phone calls I got from people with different platforms and of different colors calling me and expressing solidarity not knowing what to do either. And I think if we just humbly embrace the challenge and leverage our relationships and don't be afraid to ask for whatever it is because we don't yet know what the legal challenge is gonna be, whether it's in the legal and we need to do community organizing. - I'm gonna stop on that note because that is the real note. And that's what Barack would tell us too. I thank the three of you very much. I thank you for being with us. And remember, you've gotta feel the feelings, whatever they are, but then you gotta move with it. Get used to it. (upbeat music)