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We 55 respectfully disagree
In an “open letter” to The Advocate and to LGBT people everywhere, more than four dozen prominent activists of color take issue with Jasmyne Cannick’s commentary calling for LGBT equality to take priority over rights for illegal immigrants. Quoting Audre Lorde, they remind us, “There is no hierarchy of oppression.”
An Advocate.com exclusive posted April 11, 2006
We 55 respectfully disagree

An Open Letter to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community:

We are a group of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people of color who work in the LGBT movement. We are writing to you in response to Jasmyne Cannick’s article “Gays First, Then Illegals,” in which she, a black lesbian, argues that she cannot support the current battle for immigrant rights because LGBT people have not yet won the right to marry. We are writing to express our profound disagreement with her and to offer alternative LGBT perspectives to the current immigration battles happening across the country.

To begin with, Cannick fails to realize an obvious fact that the LGBT community and the immigrant community are not mutually exclusive. There are thousands of LGBT immigrants in this country. There are thousands of black immigrants. And there are thousands of black LGBT immigrants. To put forward an argument that says “we should get ours first” makes us question who exactly is the “we” in that analysis. In addition, we recognize the historically interconnected nature of the immigrant and LGBT struggles--such as the ban on “homosexual immigrants” that extended into the 1990s and the present HIV ban, which disproportionately impacts LGBT people--and we believe that only by understanding these connections and building coalitions can we ensure real social change for all.

And we ask those who share the destructive views of this article to remember the immortal words of Audre Lorde when she said that “there is no hierarchy of oppression.” We reject any attempts to pit the struggle of multiple communities against each other and firmly believe that rights are not in limited supply. We condemn the “scarcity of rights” perspective espoused by Cannick and other members of the LGBT movement and are surprised to see members of our community trafficking in such ugliness. But then one reason why it has always been so hard to shift power in this country is because the ruling class has successfully made us believe that there are only a few deserving groups to whom rights can be given. This strategy has always been used to divide oppressed groups from coming together to work in coalition.

We are painfully aware that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities still lack many basic protections under the law in this country, including the right to care for and support all of our families in the various ways in which we construct family and kinship. Nevertheless, supporting immigrant rights, while we continue to work for LGBT liberation, does nothing to hurt our cause. In fact, we believe the opposite to be true and want to work towards building powerful coalitions between immigrant and LGBT movements to work together for social justice.

We are also aware that many immigrant rights advocates have (intentionally or not) used antiblack rhetoric to move their agenda forward. Arguments such as “Don’t treat us like criminal” or “We are doing work that other Americans won’t do” have the effect of positioning immigrant narratives as subtly juxtaposed with American stereotypes of nonimmigrant black communities. They leave native-born black Americans as among the only people who do not have access to the immigrant narrative and so are in a permanent position of subordination, as the state consistently negotiates and redefines citizenship and “American-ness” for almost everyone but blacks.

Nevertheless, the solution to this problem is not to abandon support for the struggle of immigrant communities. Rather, we call on immigrant movements and (nonimmigrant) black organizations to work together for real racial and economic justice in this country. Together these movements can work to end the exploitation and targeting of both communities and to ensure that black folks and immigrants do not end up having to choose between competing for low-paying jobs, or being targeted for detainment or imprisonment.

As lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people of color, we support the current immigrant rights marches and rallies happening across the country this month, and we march too.

We march because immigrants are among the most politically vulnerable, underpaid, and exploited communities in the country and are asking for basic human rights, including the right to live free from torture and exploitation, and the right to work.

We march because we recognize the connections between the state attacks on immigrant and LGBT communities, and that LGBT immigrants in particular are disproportionately affected by much anti-immigrant legislation.

We march because we oppose the heightened policing and criminalization of immigrant communities, including the increased militarization of the border, as mandated by HR 4437 and Senate bills.

We march because we oppose indefinite and mandatory detention of noncitizens--as well as the mass incarceration of people-of-color communities in the U.S. more broadly--and envision a society that ensures the safety and self-determination of all people, regardless of national origin, race, class, gender, or sexuality.

We march because we oppose the guest worker proposals, which would continue the exploitation of many low-wage workers. We march because we demand the repeal of the HIV ban.

We march because our sexualities have been historically criminalized by this country, and we understand that law and justice are not the same thing.

It is our understanding that Jasmyne Cannick was writing as an individual and not as a representative of either the National Black Justice Coalition (on whose board of directors she serves) or the Stonewall Democrats (for whose Black Caucus she serves as cochair). As LGBT people of color, we call upon both of those organizations to publicly clarify their own positions in this ongoing civil rights discussion.

We also call upon our community to imagine how much more progress we could make if we all stopped thinking of social justice as a zero-sum game.

Sincerely,
[signed as individuals; titles and affiliations provided for identification purposes only]

Katherine Acey
Executive Director, Astraea Lesbian Action Fund

Faisal Alam
Founder & Former Director, Al-Fatiha Foundation for LGBTIQ Muslims

Samiya Bashir
Board member, National Black Justice Coalition
Communications Director, Freedom to Marry
Board member, Fire & Ink

Noemi Calonje
Immigration Project Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR)

Noran J. Camp
Office Administrator, Freedom to Marry

Chris Chen
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, immigrant from Taiwan in 1997

Cristy Chung and Lancy Woo
Lead plaintiffs in the Woo v. Lockyer marriage rights case

Alain Dang
Policy Analyst, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Debanuj Dasgupta
Board of Directors, Queer Immigrant Rights Project

Carlos Ulises Decena, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

Joseph N. DeFilippis
Executive Director, Queers for Economic Justice

Marta Donayre
Cofounder, Love Sees No Borders

Andres Duque
Coordinator, Mano A Mano

Monroe France
Educational Training Manager, Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice

Glen Francis
Associate Executive Director, GRIOT Circle

Eddie Gutierrez
Representative for Christine Chavez, granddaughter of labor and civil rights leader Cesar Chavez

Priscilla A. Hale, LMSW
Executive Director, ALLGO

Teresa Haynes
Creating Change Associate, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano
Director of Arts and Community Building, ALLGO

Kemi Ilesanmi

Joo-Hyun Kang
Director of Programs, Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice
Former Executive Director, Audre Lorde Project

Surina Khan
Interim Vice President of Programs, The Women’s Foundation of California
Former Executive Director, International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission

Jane Kim
President, San Francisco People’s Organization

ManChui Leung
HIV Program Director, Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum

Lee Che Leong
Director of Teen Health Initiative, New York Civil Liberties Union

Yoseñio Vicente Lewis
Board member, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Latino and transgender social justice activist, first-generation U.S. Citizen

Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins
Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice

Glenn Magpantay
Steering committee member, Gay Asian & Pacific Islander Men of New York

Rickke Mananzala
Campaign Coordinator, FIERCE!

Andy Marra
President of the Board, National Center for Transgender Equality

Gloria Nieto
National Latino Justice Coalition

Doyin Ola
Welfare Organizer, Queers for Economic Justice

Jesús Ortega-Weffe
Director of Community Organizing, ALLGO

Emiko Otsubo
Former board member, Queers for Economic Justice

Clarence Patton
Executive Director, NYC Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project

Donna Payne
Senior Diversity Organizer, Human Rights Campaign

Earl L. Plante
Development Director, National Minority AIDS Council
President-Elect, Board of Directors, National Black Justice Coalition

Achebe Powell
Betty Powell Associates

Lorraine Ramirez
Public Policy Committee, Queers for Economic Justice

Lisbeth Meléndez Rivera
Convener, the National Latino Coalition for Justice

Ignacio Gilberto Rivera
Founder, Poly Patao Productions
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice

Elias Rojas
e-Philanthropy and Community Campaigns Manager, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Russell D. Roybal
Director of Movement Building, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Rebecca Sawyer
Chair for Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer & Questioning Issues, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, DC-Chapter

Shay Sellars
Major Gifts and Events Administrator, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Pedro Julio Serrano
Communications Associate, Freedom to Marry
President, Puerto Rico Para Tod@s

Regina Shavers
Executive Director, GRIOT Circle

Nicholas Shigeru Sakurai
Program Coordinator, GLBTA Resource Center at American University

Sarah Sohn
New Voices Legal Fellow, Immigration Equality
Board of Directors, Queers for Economic Justice

Mónica Taher 
Directora de Medios de Comunicación, Alianza Gay y Lésbica Contra la Difamación (GLAAD)

Lisa Thomas-Adeyemo
Cocoordinator, National People of Color Organizing Institute, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Director of Counseling, San Francisco Women Against Rape

Carmen Vazquez
Deputy Executive Director, Empire State Pride Agenda

Robert Vazquez-Pacheco
Former Program Manager, Funders for Gay and Lesbian Issues

Lisa Weiner-Mahfuz
Capacity Building Project Director, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force

Andy Shie Kee Wong
Coalition Manager, Asian Equality

Miriam Yeung
Director of Public Policy and Government Relations, the LGBT Community Center

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