By Michael J. Harrington
On our blogs we read a great deal about renters, homeowners, Section 8 vouchers, condos, and landlords. We complain about drunks, gooning, gangs and drug dealers, and the frequent shootings and candlelight vigils. We debate developers and politicians. On rare occasion, someone actually talks rationally about race relations instead of throwing out incendiary pot shots. Rogers Park is comprised of roughly equal numbers Black, Latino, and White residents, a small number are of Asian/Pacific Islander heritage. I’m eager to find out how the stats have changed since the 2000 U.S. Census.
Discussion is in relation to the quality of life in our community. We debate political decisionmaking or lack thereof, who is or is not making the decisions, and our role as residents is in that process. Unfortunately, just a few dozen blog readers participate regularly in these dialogues, though hundreds monitor them every day.
Here’s a concern: the missing voice of Black and Latino residents on these blogs and the stark reality of our lack of leadership and participation elsewhere in Rogers Park affairs. Take CAPS for instance. With a 1/3 Black and 1/3 Latino population in Rogers Park, what is evident is that People of Color are conspicuous by our near absence at the monthly meetings in beats where we live. There is a regular Spanish-speaking CAPS beat meeting, but the 200-300 residents who regularly participate in the other eight local beat meetings know what I’m talking about.
Beyond the Black community, the level of civic participation is pretty low – especially our voter registration and voter turnout rates (bottom third citywide). Why is that? Neighbors of all backgrounds feel the impact of the crisis in affordable housing, crime, TIFs and taxes, the cost of living, and problems with our schools, parks, and commercial districts. Yet, we surrender the dialogue and decisionmaking to just a few.
One community – a constituency, a market share, a customer base, a demographic – is rarely discussed on the blogs or in Rogers Park community planning and issue discussions. There is an acquaintance of mine who has brought it up. He’s a stickler about his particular perspective on things and often wonders what impact any issue-of-the-moment has on people like us. He asks pointedly, “What about the gays in Rogers Park?” Are we involved? Do we matter? Usually it is a yes and no answer.
Well, this week a big “gay issue” in Rogers Park arrived with my morning coffee when a friend called to alert me about an alarming Chicago Tribune headline. It’s a new local controversy: “Lesbian alleges shelter left her out in the cold - Pastor denies any discrimination.” My friend asked, “Is there homophobia in the North of Howard neighborhood? What are we going to do about it?”
Homophobia is real. Yes, it exists North of Howard. Heck, there are people on every street and likely in every institution of our community who, just like everywhere else in the nation and world, don’t think highly of us. It’s like other issues. More than a few residents also have a problem with people of a different race, economic class, native language, religion, and nationality/citizenship. Some even make assumptions and scorn others based on their political identity!
The answer to my friend that asked what we’re going to do about homophobia or the lesbian/shelter/discrimination issue is a complicated.
What Is Our Place Here?
Whenever we discuss diversity issues, on the blogs or in person, we do so with difficulty. Some move quickly to anger, become dismissive, or make wacky accusations, which prompt a new roller coaster of emotions and invectives. Diversity represents a problem for some. Even talking about it is hard. What or whose definition of diversity are we talking about.
What values do we share?
Opinions range from those who are worried about preserving diversity to those who want it to go away. Therefore, rather than deal with the conflict that can arise, some shrug and say, “It is what it is” and move on.
I believe most of us enjoy the wonderful mix of people and cultures here. However, some celebrate our diversity so much that they believe our community is unique. It’s a drumbeat loud enough to make some think that, in all the world, we are special. Hey, aren’t we all getting along just fine? Yeah, right.
It is a dream, even a community booster’s marketing tool, but it is not reality. Believe it too much and you will eventually get an unwelcome surprise. Aside from our heavenly geography (location, location, location!) on a lake with a string of great beaches, the truth is that Rogers Park is not unique. Nor do we exist in a pristine bubble, immune to the prejudices that vex other people across the globe.
While things aren’t exactly perfect in Rogers Park, one tiny part of the dream is true. It’s why my partner Jack and I made this our home and are raising our kids here. We’ve found in Rogers Park - more often and in more places than you’d imagine - not just politically-correct tolerance, but real, everyday examples of acceptance and respect for people like us - members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community. Along Rogers Park’s streets and 200+ city blocks, there are countless LGBT residents – singles and couples, renters and homeowners – who are accepted, welcomed, and respected by their neighbors. I’m happy about the abundance of residents who are “Straight, but not narrow,” as the saying goes. With them, many strong friendships have been born.
LGBT residents are like most neighbors, striving to survive and going about their daily routine. Our community institutions are thankful for LGBT volunteers and they honor us when we emerge as leaders in community affairs. Like everyone else, LGBTs work on the front lines on community service and sit on church and community group boards here. We are among the many residents who teach and tutor in local schools, help organize block clubs and benefits, create art, manage good businesses, plan festivals, and plant gardens. We also pick up litter, work for improved city services, and dial 911 when necessary!
What’s invigorating is that many of us who create, support, and enrich civic life here are quite open about our sexual orientation. We are “out of the closet” with nothing to hide. Our sexual orientation is neither an issue nor a roadblock. Is anyone surprised? One estimate reports that the LGBT slice of the Rogers Park diversity pie is anywhere from 15-25% of residents, based on the census and other data.
The Lesbian and the Rogers Park Homeless Shelter
Given how we feel about our community, it comes as a shock when we hear that a Rogers Park institution has been charged with homophobia. How can this be? We’ve been here like forever! So many of us are involved in so much! Homophobia in Rogers Park? What’s that about?
Yesterday, I went to see Bud Ogle. He’s president of Good News Partners. I had a sheet full of questions about the ACLU’s filing of city and state charges against his New Life Interim Housing homeless shelter at Howard and Paulina. I wanted to get to the whole story.
As my neighbor always says, “What about the gays in Rogers Park?”
Part 2 tomorrow
19 comments:
Thanks for looking into this issue Michael and for your thoughtful post.
Being the daughter of a gay man, issues for the gay community hit me close to home also.
I agree we do have not a utopia here in RP, but then again on some days in some moments we seem to.
Glad you are my neighbor.
Michael, I don't despise you because you're gay. I despise you because your writing has the word volume of the New Yorker, but the unfortunate quality of the Red Eye.
Style criticism from George W. Bush? That's amusing. Maybe it was reading so many words in one sitting that made your head hurt...
It's summer again. Why don't you try reading "The Plague" this time?
joey at one of his interesting quotes-!
Little joey says "Daley was acting to "reward a former loyal staff person, to try to give her a prize that she can take back to her new employer."
This coming from a guy who turns his head, bends the rules for his campaign contributors!!
Joey you are a real piece of work!! Joey & his little sidekick kevin "get your shine box" o'neal makeing RP a better place to live opps a better place for their "friends" to do business!
« Rookie hazing | Main
Originally posted: May 23, 2007
City Hall food fight
Posted by Dan Mihalopoulos at 11:23 a.m.
Dozens of animal-rights activists blasted Mayor Richard Daley's push to repeal Chicago's year-old foie gras ban at a rally at City Hall before this morning's City Council meeting.
Ald. Richard Mell (33rd), a Daley ally, said he expected a measure to rescind the ordinance against serving the goose-liver dish would be introduced at the council today.
The ban's sponsor, Ald. Joe Moore (49th), told activists at the rally that Daley is engaging in cronyism, noting that former mayoral chief of staff Sheila O'Grady is the new head of the Illinois Restaurant Association, which sued to overturn the restriction.
Moore said Daley was acting to "reward a former loyal staff person, to try to give her a prize that she can take back to her new employer."
After the activists displayed poster-sized photos of force-fed fowl and enlarged goose livers for TV cameras, French restaurant owner Didier Durand stood in the 2nd floor lobby in a tall chef's hat to tell reporters that foie gras is magnifique.
Chef Didier is magnifique.
Don't mean to push this string off topic but wouldn't it be far more enlightened for Moore to support sustainable, humane and fair best practices for all farm animal products rather than place a government ban on one meat product based on a moral argument alone? The strategy of advocacy organizations is clear: score your victories where ever you can. But I've never heard a constructive peep out of Moore on any animal welfare issue before or since, even when a neighbor brought up the issue of dogfighting in the 49th while Moore was sitting in my own living room. What's up with that?
Given that Moore has gone on record as being a meat eater etc., and has never, to general knowledge, worked on any sustainable food issue that concerns the 49th ward or Chicago his personal commitment to the larger issue is ambiguous at best. Foie gras farming is worse (by any standard) than industrial cattle, chicken or pork farming? I'd like to hear Moore make that argument in his own words.
I was at a brunch to honor the founder of the international Slow Food movement, Carlo Petrini, the other day. I sat next to a board member of Slow Food Chicago who was visibly horrified when informed that Joe Moore was my alderman. Evidently this ban hasn't made much of an impression on some people around here who have spent a great deal of time and energy studying and practicing sustainable, good, clean and fair agriculture.
Given his general ignorance of these issues and lack of personal committment to them, it seems like a simple quid pro quo for Moore. Nothing good, clean or fair about it.
The foie gras ban wasn't something dreamed up by Joe. It's the issue singled out by an International movement. The European Union new York california and other places have or are considering similar bans. More important than the question of whether it is any more cruel than other methods of factory farming, is that it is a small isolated example that can be applied to larger examples down the road. In places where the ban was placed, farmers have figured out cruelty free methods of producing the livers. The ban is not asserting that its not magnifique or that people don't have the right to eat it, it's asserting that animal cruelty is an issue to be prevented by law. Really there are already laws against animal cruelty, we already have them against dog fighting, what else do you want Joe to do?
Going after cruelty in factory farming as far as I can tell is making its way as well and this foie gras ban will yield clues on how to shift larger more crucial industries. You can't just pass a law against the meat indusry, it has to shift gradually.
I'm a member of PETA. People Eating Tasty Animals.
(o)(-)
What happened here on this blog thread is exactly what Joe Moore wants.
Here is a discussion about a sensitive issue like homophobia that may have occurred in a Rogers Park social service agency - and the conversation gets derailed to the Foie Gras issue.
So, if that's the way you guys want it, Hey Joe, you coward, wanna talk torture, let's talk about Jon Burge.
Rebecca, your post is on target.
You may remember I said exactly the same thing last year when we were discussing the fois gras issue, which is the need for a comprehensive approach to reforming the brutal meat farming industry.
Good laws are based on principal, and do not discriminate against one producer or one industry niche, while giving everyone else in the industry a pass on the most brutal practices.
So, North Coast, you'd rather not ban foie gras at all? I don't understand the complaint. There's a precedent for that particular ban, It's a process, a shift in the larger industry needs a precedent. You can pull cruelty off the shelf with foie gras and nobody will notice, you can't pull beef chicken eggs milk off the shelf. You can target practices in those industries, but you can't end factory farming in one clean sweep. I don't understand what you'd rather see. I'd ask why animal cruelty laws don't apply to livestock and bitch about that, but its a practical matter. I'm curious to hear better ideas, but how can you criticize the foie gras ban if you are concerned with animal cruelty, its not enough. I'm telling you its a process.
Craig, you can't control every conversation. I thought abot the homophobia, Michaels post is saying gays are here, let's accept them and what role do gays have. They used to have a role of solidarity with other disenfranchised groups, but that is fading away as they are finding themselves to be individuals, I wasn't provoked to anything by Michael's post, good he's gay, whooped de do. Let him find the meaning for a gay man, yeah, homophobia sucks.
That was a solid effort, Craig. Completely ineffective, but a good try nevertheless.
It's funny that Gordon's supporters are on here keeping the foie gras issue alive, especially with this gay rights drama developing here North of Howard, where Joe Moore's support has been shifting over the years. This could be huge. But yeah, the commenters are stuck on foie gras. Fools!
Paradise - A ban, by definition, asserts that people no longer have the right to do something.
You can pull cruelty off the shelf with foie gras and nobody will notice, you can't pull beef chicken eggs milk off the shelf. Thank you for encapsulating my objections to Moore's whole adventure here so nicely.
Again, sorry for going off topic Craig. Foie gras is a diversion on Moore's part, of course. That's the problem with him keeping this issue alive.
Toto,
Thanks, I needed that.
LOL
The original post was great. I'm actually (pleasantly) surprised that there are so many gays in RP. Make your presence known, folks!!! We want you here!
I've long thought that RP would greatly improve if more "bohemians" -- people in certain demographic categories (such as gays, artists, musicians, graduate students, etc.) -- would move in. As outlined in Richard Florida's "The Creative Class," such people invigorate an area's social, cultural, and economic scene, making it a more desirable place to live.
While I resist the stereotyping that his analysis tends to rely upon, I agree that diversity which brings positive creativity is essential to this area.
There is what seems a small, but growing LGBT community in Rogers Park, and it's been here for awhile. I remember members of my very conservative church commenting about the population several years ago. As you can imagine, there was great concern about the LGBT influence. I remember during the campaign that Gordon did make an effort to reach out to the LGBT community, but I don't remember Moore doing any such thing.
Thet aren't different than any other people. Some gays have complained about being singled out and treated as such. If I was going to look for anything special about gays, I'd hope for more sensitivity and identifying with the disenfranchised, but gays for Gordon, what is that? An empty front, there's plenty of gays who were for Moore based on issues, like an appreciation of Labor and animal rights issues. Just because a person is gay and some gays say let's vote for Gordon because he says gays are an important part of the community seems like nonsense. Exactly what gay issues are we arguing about here? A religious organizations's alleged homophobia? They are claiming a clerical error. Either it's true or not. Should Joe introduce a ban on homophobia in the city council or should he throw the baby out with the bathwater and try to close the shelter down? I'm sure that would appeal to Gordonites who don't want any homeless here in Roger's park in the first place. You know, they aren't civilised and pretty. Whatever that is. Come to think of it, we need a big gay florist here, these little Asian operated flower shops we have just don't appeal to the yuppies.
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