So, I Hear You’re a Lesbian

One of the most important aspects of the dialogue for justice is the conversation between generations. Movements have a history of building on each other — consciously or unconsciously, and not always in a straight line. Below is a dialogue between two of the South’s leading organizers and activists, and friends of Southern Exposure. John O’Neal-known in the pages of SE as “Junebug,” the story-teller — is a veteran of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the Free Southern Theater, and other efforts to link artistic expression with social change from his base in New Orleans. Wendi O’Neal, John’s daughter, has a long activist history in her own right. She was co-founder of AFREKETE at Spellman College, and is now based at the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee. SE guest editor Kim Diehl talked with the O’Neals about identities, movements, and their connections between the generations.

 

Wendi: When I realized I was a lesbian, I came out totally by accident. I was speaking at an Audre Lorde panel discussion and I found myself saying I was a lesbian. So things snowballed from there. I thought, “Well, maybe I’m a bisexual-identified lesbian.” You know, I really didn’t know.

My dad was the last person I came out to, although that’s kind of awkward because he actually sat me down and said, “So, I hear you’re a lesbian.” I still don’t really know what all that’s about. I think of you, Daddy, as quite the teacher and I felt like I didn’t quite know how you were going to respond to that. I had a lot of fear around the idea that I could be rejected.

John: You really had fear around that?

Wendi: Yeah, I did.

John: At the time, Wendi’s circle in Atlanta, where she was in school, coincided with much of my circle in Atlanta. And Wendi was very publicly out and people who know us both, knew she and I have a very intimate relationship — one that is a special friendship and a similar mind. Wendi thinks in the same structure and process that I do, only she tends to do it with more efficiency and more directness. We’ve always been able, since she was a baby, to get along real well. I might add that I had the perception she was gay from the time she was about ten or twelve years old. In fact, her mother and I talked about it.

Wendi: You know, Mommy said the same thing. I really didn’t know.

John: It’s a hard road to travel, in our society. I wish it were not so, but I have a lot of friends and associates who are gay and who are involved politically in various ways. They counseled on the subject with me, so I just thought all this was going to work out in time. I would not try to push Wendi along. All through high school she never really dated. She had good friends and was never bothered by the fact that she didn’t date, as far as I could tell.

Wendi: I just thought I was a late bloomer.

John: Wendi had a friend who was gay and going through some difficult stuff trying to deal with his family. Wendi and I talked about it, and I was trying to give Wendi an opportunity [to come out.] Even some of my very out gay friends would go up to Wendi and say, “Anything you want to talk about?” So finally the experience that keyed it was one night Wendi’s step-mother and I were at a Sweet Honey [in the Rock] concert . . .

Wendi: Oh, that was so ridiculous!

John: She had been in the gay newspaper the week before. Given the openness of our relationship, all of our friends just assumed it was right on with me. So someone came up and just hugged Wendi and kissed her and started talking about the newspaper article. Wendi said, “Hmmm . . .”

Wendi: I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

John: That’s the only — I wouldn’t say lie — misdirection I think I’ve ever suffered from Wendi. She always tells the truth, even when it hurts. I didn’t know why you thought I wouldn’t ever find out.

Wendi: I didn’t think you weren’t gonna find out. I just didn’t want to deal with it. I still haven’t really unpacked all of that. But I think it had a lot to do with how I perceive your politics.

I think of you, Dad, as a patriarch, and I think of you as having a relatively narrow view of what oppression looks like. Whenever we have conversations around oppression I really hear you using language like racism is central to an analysis. But what I hear you mean is racism is oppression. And sexism, therefore homophobia, and class — not even so much class, I really feel like you legitimize class as economic oppression — but in terms of sexism, I feel like you really talk about it as “that’s just about white women complaining” instead of linking behavior, power, and domination.

John: We might add that Wendi and her mother and most of her friends frequently team up on me with these arguments . . .

Wendi: (Laughter) You see how he talks about this!?

John: . . . and have been responsible to a large extent for my heightened sensitivity about gender issues.

Wendi: Did you hear him say, “sensitivity?”

John: I’m gonna tell you what I think, now. So I give you credit for a large part of my thinking on this stuff. . . . I would say, philosophically, that I am an “unaffiliated Marxist.” I think the fundamental motor to our social development is our class interest in all societies as long as class exists. . . . People move based on what they need to do in order to get food, clothes, and shelter. I think race is a secondary phenomena that has primary impact in a racially-polarized world. But class is the dominating factor in human relations. The gender and other issues are contradictions within the various societies and, in my view, don’t have the same overarching strategic significance that race has right now.

Wendi: I don’t disagree with the basic premise you laid out, that we’re in an economic structure and our identities are exploited to maintain the structure of power and domination. Where I differ is I don’t have such precise language. I feel in my body the intersections between race, class, gender and sexuality in ways that you don’t experience. And in ways that keep you blind to the particulars that are important in terms of how this stuff plays out, not just the idea but how we can challenge it. For me you represent “Race Men” . . .

John: I am a race man.

Wendi: Yes! You — or Marxists—have a great talk . . .

John: Although I think of myself as a race man, I’m more flattered by the identification as a Marxist . . .

Wendi: But then there’s all this history of race men not being able to treat women in their lives with respect and dignity. And the history of struggle in the recent civil rights movement, black power movement and black nationalist movement, where people have not really internalized these tenants of justice. I agree that the way the economy is structured defines people’s relationships. But what I’m trying to point out is there’s also something about the way you line up this analysis that asks people to leave parts of themselves at the door.

John: That’s not my intention.

Wendi: I know that’s not your intention, but that’s what winds up happening. So that when people bring themselves together to analyze what the problems are and try and figure out how to develop strategies to address the problem, people don’t bring their full selves to the discussion. So the solidarity winds up being flimsy because we don’t work through those tensions.

John: I agree we have to confront the points of tension that are specific to the people in the dialogue, otherwise they end up lying to each other and giving the lie to the whole dialogue. In my opinion [the depth of solidarity one can achieve is] less a function of the analysis one brings to that discussion than it is the attitude and values one brings. But whatever your value core is, [not bringing our full selves to the table] debilitates the discussion by imposing limits to what can be talked about. Then the discussion is going to suffer.

Wendi: And the strategy is going to suffer. As I’ve experienced black people in political organizations and trying to shift political circumstances through organizing and direct action, we automatically try to jump over these conversations about where we differ.

John: And the result down the line is everybody ends up dissatisfied with the end result.

Wendi: Exactly! So in the mean time, we end up focusing on the common enemy but we haven’t had any discussion about what it is we want to be building — the culture that we want to create. So I feel like I can’t just do challenging homophobia work with other queer people of color, more specifically, queer black people.

I am wanting to figure out ways to try to build stronger solidarity with people I look to as allies, and not just skip over these difficult discussions. I’m excited to work with you, Daddy, in the 21st Century to address some of these conflict points around sexuality. For me it’s a good starting off point for having broad discussions.

John: I’m interested in such a dialogue for three reasons. Number one, I think we are compelled by the social and historical circumstances to come to grips with the fact that we do exist as a global economy and a global culture is evolving. If we don’t do it consciously with all the people in the world and all the cultures of the world as the point of reference, we’re gonna end up doing tremendous injustice. Not only do I not want to be a victim of such injustice, I don’t want to be the perpetrator of such injustice on others.

The second thing, I’m particularly concerned with sexuality because of the role of eros in our lives — of erotic energy — which has been distorted by puritanism and the narrow sense of what is appropriate, what is good, and what is bad. Erotic energy is the center of our creative impulse and the center of the process of creativity itself. And if we don’t evolve a more sophisticated and integral way of dealing with and relating to our erotic core, then our society will turn into a dry, careless thing with nothing anyone will care about it. Eros and beauty are two sides to one coin in my view.

Finally, erotically alive people and homosexual people have been forced by this puritanism into the status of outlaws. So that the result is we eliminate their strongest contributions to the public dialogue.