I experienced a live camera interview for the first time. WOOD TV sent a reporter to Holland on Saturday to cover our city’s first outdoor LGBT PRIDE event. He interviewed me for about ten minutes in my role as the Treasurer of Holland Is Ready, asking a range of questions about the organization, the historic nature of the PRIDE event, and the Holland area’s acceptance of LGBT people. Perhaps one minute of our total conversation made it onto the air (which people tell me is a huge amount of time, so I guess that I’m lucky?). I learned a few things from the experience. One, I was nervous as hell and it manifest in my facial expressions and voice. I need to develop a “media presence." Two, I meant what I said about LGBT people being a present and tangible part of our city. Three, that my comment describing Holland as diverse, tolerant, and vibrant expressed a partial truth. That incompleteness has bothered me for days and I want to share my thoughts with you all. I feel uncomfortable with that comment because it manages to simultaneously give too much credit and give too little credit to the complexity of life in Holland today. It gives too much credit in that it glossed over the pernicious barriers to success that Holland’s Black, Hispanic, LGBT and lower-income communities face, such as economic marginalisation, stereotyping, and violence. It gives too little credit for missing an opportunity to celebrate the victories that those same communities achieve, both publicly and privately, in overcoming those barriers. The end effect, it seemed to me, undercut the message the groups like Holland Is Ready, the Alliance for Cultural and Ethnic Harmony, the Boys and Girls Club, the City’s Human Relations Commission, the Lakeshore Ethnic Diversity Alliance, Lakeshore PFLAG, Latin Americans United for Progress, Michigan United, Westcore, and more, work so hard to spread: that while injustice exists in our community, our community possesses the necessary tools to eradicate that injustice. Perhaps the excitement of PRIDE or the anxiety of a live interview carried me away, but I intended my comment as an act of credit to the important justice work done every day throughout Holland. What I did not, and do not, mean, is that our city has reached the lofty goal of inclusive utopia; that we can all put down our tools and celebrate. I made the mistake of speaking for an entire city instead of speaking for an entire city instead of modestly and specifically about the LGBT community. I have a lot to learn. This mistake is one that I will work very hard never to repeat. I hope that all of you that work towards the success of every community, and every person, in Holland, will hold me to that promise. woodtv/dpp/news/local/ottawa_county/holland-area-pride-festival
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 02:41:36 +0000
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