Quote:
Queers should be as safe as anyone else or any other individual.
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I agree. The problem is that we know the record of silence. It's terrible. As a New Yorker, i'm sure you're familiar with the events of Stonewall. Until that night, police in NYC had every expectation that it was their right and duty to apply violence to queer communities unless (and even if) they paid cops off. You may see my actions as being in people's faces, but there's a reason i'm doing this. it's because i know the terrible price of remaining silent.
I think you misread King greatly. He had every expecation that the opposition would change. Read Letters from the Birmingham Jail, or any of his other works. He studied the ways of Ghandi, who's Soulforce practices were intended to create dramatic disruption of the discourse of oppressive power. It was intended to force the opposition to recognize them as humans, and to change not just policy, but thought as well. Ghandi's famous quote "We want the British to leave India. And we want them to leave as friends" I think says it all. He had to change the entire policy of a imperial power in the middle of WWII and the aftermath, and did so with the goal of building a new relationship of equals. King's protests weren't just about marching until policies changed...they were about creating empathy among apatheic bystanders and even among staunch opponents. That's the same philosophy of non-violent confrontation that i'm trying to work with in my advocacy.
But i'll leave things at that...