Date: Sun, 11 Sep 1994 22:39:08 -0500 (CDT) From: Kevyn D Jacobs Letter from Christopher Renner on EKS disbanding Greetings Kathy, Kevyn, Doug and all the other Equality Kansas people I haven't had the honor of meeting. I Was in Wichita on Sunday visiting with Bruce and Rob about various and assorted things, when Bruce give me this print-out about =KS disbanding. I'm a little surprised since I just discovered that there are active queers in Kansas, its a shame that you already think the party's over. GOAL, COMPLETED OR NOT! Do not be so foolish as to think that the Radical Right in Kansas is finished with trying to burn us alive. I think there needs to be some brainstorming about the goals of =KS. Maybe they need to be rewritten in more general terms or use inclusive language about fighting any and all attempts to legislate morality. The other reality is that Amnesty International Members for Lesbian and Gay Concerns has targeted Kansas for the repeal of the sodomy laws. This could be a different type of rallying point and engage =KS with the broader community of civil rights activists. It could also be a great way to educate the general public about what Jesus says about homosexuals and expose the Radical Right for the fascist machine it is. What is probably completed is the leadership's mandate. I have a thing about people staying for too long in one place and giving too much as it can give way to pessimism. On the other hand, the wealth of experience the leaders gained in fighting Cornfield cannot be lost either. Being an educator, one of my long standing disagreements with our community is our vanity and our pre-occupation with being la prima donna. What this results in is that we have a poor sense of history and terrible hindsight. Hey folks, I've been organizing political activism since I was 16 and organized the Kansas Youth Pro-Life Coalition (yes, horror of horrors, I got my start on the Right!). What I have learned is that if one person, or a select group, is doing all or most of the work, after a year or two, people get burned (not necessarily burned out) by other people and a whole bunch of negativism starts. I'd suggest the leaders wanting to -- quoting Lavender Lydia here -- hibernate do so, but before you fall into your justly-deserved restful sleep, take some time to SHARE WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED with some other folks. Write up a report, or record a cassette tape, detailing the experience you went through: What you think you did well, things you didn't forsee, things you would do different, things which were a mistake, suggest ways of approaching elected officials, if you made allies - who these people are, etc. By doing this you empower people to follow after you with a collected wisdom, and it speeds up comebacks from hibernation. It also makes taking on responsibility less scary for someone new. WHERE DOES THE MONEY GO This topic will probably cause more ill feelings than anything else. Money costs more than its worth and can cause sane people to act rather insane. I second Lavender Lydia's proposal about putting the money in CD's -- Lydia: you coming forward to take responsibility? At the same time, lets face facts - the future is fiber optics and computers. If Kevyn is going to cyberspace us, then Kevyn needs a new computer. I have a [Mac] Classic I would give him but it is 220 volts and I don't think you can adapt it to run on 110 volts. I suggest that we write up a grant proposal for matching funds and send it to Apple Computers Inc., they are "friendly" toward gay/lesbian/minority/women causes - for 5 or 6 computers with modems to be places in Wichita, Manhattan, Lawrence, Topeka, KCK and maybe Hays. Check out any possible government agencies which might be updating their hardware, I know friends who picked up some good deals in California that way. These would: *Be open to members of =KS and affiliate groups to do just what has been going on with this topic of =KS's future: hold open discussions and be a means of rapid communication, information sharing and community growth; *Enable people to become empowered and take responsibility. E-Mail contact chains can be organized to get word out more rapidly. Power can be redistributed from a few people doing the majority of the work to local facilitators who would work with local groups in planning, organizing and delivering any future actions =KS might need to take; *Be able to facilitate state-wide conference meetings without requiring people to come to one place; people could gather at the terminal centers thus enabling five or six meetings involving more people to be held at the same time [we do this in TESOL and the International Peace Research Association and it is most effective]; *Enable =KS members and supporters to have access into the Capitol when we need to flood offices with lobbying efforts. Even if the matching funds grant doesn't come through, you have a goal for raising funds and involving bar owners in giving you a cut of their take [by the way, what is the bar situation in Kansas? Locally owned and operated or is organized crime behind them?] Organization problems to face and overcome: The terminals would have to be placed where people could have access to them. Train people is using the system. People acting responsible with hardware and respecting time limits. Upkeep and paper. Organizational advantages: These computers would be the property of =KS. Less need for one or two individuals to do all the work. WHAT'S YOUR FOCUS? Pat O'Brien is correct when stating that "a proactive agenda for the next legislative session" needs to be developed. I believe this agenda can be written with consultation from other civil rights/justice and peace groups, thus inviting them into a coalition. Call on African American & Hispanic leaders and find out what their priorities are. Can you share common ground? Doug asked me in a recent phone call what =KS should "do" next. I went through my soap-box speech about building coalitions, hitting the press, etc. He said that you've done all that before. Do it again, and again, and again. Creating positive social change is not an easy 1-2-3 step formula. In the 22 years I have been working in the causes of justice and peace the only real achievement I can say I "finished" was when Italy voted to close its three nuclear reactors and not to use nuclear energy any longer. That was an accomplishment. It took four years of educating people, writing letters, articles, and organizing coalitions to achieve that goal -- four years of my time, and probably ten to fifteen years of effort by others before i ever arrived on the scene. We still have France to deal with and I am living with Chernobyl, but at least the nukes are out of Italy. Other than that, the US budget for military expenditures is till sinfully high, human rights violations are still too numerous to count, the draft is still present, women in Sub-Sahara Africa are still mutilated by hideous circumcision, the northern countries still consume 80% of the world's resources, indigenous tribes are slaughtered everyday and the list goes on and on. I came out to Senators Dole and Kassebaum in 1983 when I first started writing them about funding for AIDS. I don't know if I have accomplished anything with them or their offices, but at least the people know who I am when I call. I would hope that my years of writing Senator Kassebaum on the problems of young people, the violence in the media, and the need for creating alternative environments for young people to turn to instead of drugs and violence had some effect on her and her vote for the Crime Bill. I do not know, if I did or not. You should have seen the faces of the workers in the Attorney General's Office in 1987 when I walked in demanding to know why the sodomy laws were still on the books. Then, we have the people in Representative Roberts' office in DC. The first time I had a meeting with them, they shook and perspired as if they were talking with a deadly killer. It was probably the first time in their lives someone had walked in and told them: "Hey, I'm gay and I don't like what you are doing!" At least today they are not shaking when I speak to them. There is another accomplishment, but I have had very little to do with it: In Kansas a gay/lesbian/bisexual community is present and maturing. I never dreamed such a thing would, could happen. The point I am trying to make is that in this business of changing peoples attitudes, the job is never finished. The fighting is only beginning for some when for others of us we think that it has been going on for far too long. The sorry state of affairs is those of us who belong to a minority in this country are always going to have to fight to keep ourselves from being dictated to by some other minority -- which white fanatical religious bigots are. CLOSING THOUGHTS: Watch out for "killer phrases" -- "It can't be done," "It was tried before," "It doesn't work." These mental blocks will cost you more than just effort. Time and conditions change, if something didn't work before doesn't mean it might not work some other time under different conditions. TRAIN, EMPOWER and LIBERATE people to follow in the footsteps of others. If little kingdoms start appearing we are no better than the worst bigot. Delegate responsibility, share feelings, praise people who do a good job. Use criticism constructively, not destructively. Avoid name calling and if you got a problem with someone resolve it with non-violent conflict resolution means before it becomes a cancer and eats you alive and damages the organization. Brainstorm with people about solutions, plans of action, and directions to head. Get as much feedback as possible from local groups. On an individual level, learn to say no. Set limits and achievable goals. YES! YES! YES! Do NGLTF's Fight the Right training and invite people from the Justice and Peace Coalitions to come along. Get the word out ad keep costs down so that as many people as possible can attend. Change is possible. Live long and prosper. Christopher E. Renner