A Pledge of support

How can this be? In the only state in the
country that recognizes our relationships
with a civil union, how can it be that we
cannot suppon a published voice for our
GLB community? We were stunned to see
the plea from the editor, Euan Bear,
revealing that the paper cannot pay its
way and will soon be gone or greatly
reduced.

This is not a question ofjust
supporting the local paper. This is a criti-
cal time. We could lose our voicejust
when so many would love to see us stum-
ble and fall, be less visible, less organ-
ized. less vocal. We do not have a strong
presence in the mainstream press. OITM
is a place where we can and must exercise
our freedom of speech. It is a powerful
tool. If Out In The Mountains closes up,
our community will be weaker andjust a
little closer to silence.

And so, we will do our part.
For one year. we will donate $50 each
month (about the cost of one night out for
us) to help get through this difficult time.
If 30 individuals or couples would match
this, or if I00 would pledge $15 monthly,
we could pull this paper out ofthe red.
No, this is not the answer. It is only a life-
line while we figure out the answer. What
will you do?_

During this time, we also
pledge to encourage local businesses to
advertise in OITM and we will more
vocally support those that do. What will
you do? Are you a small business? Then
advertise! You can advertise for $15 per
month!!! (We would also encourage
0/ TM to raise their advertising rates.) As
consumers, make it a point to do business

with the advertisers you see in OITM, and
thank them for advertising. These are not
difficult things to do but we will surely
regret it if we do not act now.

Our voices can be silenced so
quickly, and in this case by our own fail-
ure to act. What are you willing to do
before it is too late? What are you going
to do when the silence falls?

Susan McMillan
Becky Roberts
Charlotte, Vermont

Oh Happy Day for Canadians
Oh Happy Day, thatl should.live to see a
male couple and a female couple legally
married. Too bad that was in Canada and
not the United States. Unless we assume
that Canada has all the geniuses in this
hemisphere and the United States has all
the idiots, if they can make it happen, we
can too.

The gay people of Vermont
(and more than a few straight people, too)
worked yourselves into the ground to get
the Civil Union law passed in your state.
You made the voters of Vermont under-
stand that you were NOT trying to change
Vermont’s culture; Vermont’s culture has
always been “You mind your business and
l’ll mind mine.” You DID have to change
the culture of the state legislature, and you
accomplished that. I applaud all of you.

But I have lived with the same
man for 32 years, and I want to get MAR-
RIED! I want to pay more incometax
because our incomes are combined. I am
willing to write letters, contribute money,
testify before Congress, and pitch a fit on
the White House lawn — not that Dubya

has a clue about the significance of inter-
national treaties and Supreme Court deci-
sions. The institution of marriage needs
no defense from me; I just want to join
that institution! -

Larry Jones
Lawton, OK

A Word from the Author

I am writing in response to some specific
problems I have with Paij Wadley-
Bailey’s review of my novel, Your Loving
Arms. The publisher of the novel is
Haworth Press, not Hawthorn Press as
listed in the review. The lesbian imprint of
Haworth Press is Alice Street Editions.

When the reviewer says that
“the author has no clues that she is appro-
priating,” it suggests to me that she has
not read the Preface, in which I present
my rationale for writing as I did: “When
Herman Melville wrote about whiteness,
he created a monstrous white whale as
metaphor. This novel, too, seeks to por-
tray Whiteness, in the light of Blackness.
For this reason, this book turned out very
differently than most novels by white les-
bians.”

In other words, the author
decided to write what needed to be writ-
ten, despite all the arguments that she
knew regarding appropriation. (Each time
this argument is pitched to me, it’s pitched
as though I never heard it before, never
considered its tenets, when the opposite is
the case.)

At the end of the review, ,
Wadley-Bailey grudgingly applauds the
book for “sparking discussion,” and states
that more books like this should be writ-

ten. She thus articulates a rationale for the
publication of Your Loving Arms that
matches identically with the reason for its
publication — and the reasons it was writ-
ten.

Early in the review, Wadley-
Bailey compares the novel to Al Jolson;
yet buried further in the back of the book,
claims that Tammy, the Black narrators‘,
“descriptions of racist incidents are pow-
erful.” The Al Jolson metaphor, therefore,
seems confused, confusing, or mis-
inspired: I would be hard-pressed to think
of Al Jolson doing minstrel songs with
lyrics that include “powerful descriptions
of racial incidents.”

[When] Wadley-Bailey asks
the rhetorical question, “Should the book
have been co-authored? I believe so,” she
is assuming that a novel (this novel) is a
singular act of artistic isolation.
Admittedly, novel-writing is a lonely
activity; yet, in retrospect, I realize that I
was never working alone — I always had
early readers who were African-American.
Many of them were also writers. As such,
I saw them as critical readers or editors,
but never as co-authors — because they all
had their own writing to do. I did, howev-

er, demand that my publishers hire, as edi- I

tor, a Black woman from the South (Lisa
Moore); and a Black woman (Yvonne
Littleton) to do the cover.

At some places in the review,
Wadley-Bailey confuses the names and
biographies of my characters. So that the
paragraph that begins “Tammy has led a

' life that does — and should — garner sym-
pathy,” she has confused the Black char-
acter with the white one. In the same
paragraph, Wadley-Bailey adds that “soci-

ety rarely hears about a woman of
European descent with a history of alco-
ho|ism,’vio|ence, dysfunctional family,
poverty, prison time. In this novel it is the
African-American lesbian who has love
from family, financial stability, race
pride." That’s all well and good and true,
but these words read as though they are
Wadley-Bailey’s, when in actuality they
are derived. almost word for word in
places, from one of the cover blurbs. They
are not set off in quotes, and the reviewer
gives no indication of where those words,
those ideas, came from. As such, they are
taken out of context — and context,
Wadley-Bradley would probably agree, is
everything.

I agree with Wadley—Bailey
that it is important for more people to
come to the table “with the courage to
speak honestly on the issue" of crossing
the color line. It is why I wrote the book.
Your Loving Anns has sparked exciting
discussions for the author. In Atlanta, a
reading from the book has resulted in an
inter-racial lesbian discussion group.

Gwendolyn Bikis
Oakland, CA

corrections

Oops, Pippin was not repeating himselfin
his Spiritual Essence column. That was
our production error that merged the first
paragraph of the May column with the
June file. Sorry, Pippin. Likewise. we also
apologize for accidentally omitting Stuart
Granoff’s name from last month’s contrib-
utors list.

  

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