LGBT history making in DC: Inspirational, evocational, provocational

Sunday’s march for LGBT equality in Washington DC was a non-stop fest of speech making. From the fantabulous youth to the glorious head of the NAACP to ‘Let the sunshine in’ (and virtually all stops in-between). It was a Call To Action and then some. It made me teary, it would make anyone who believes in civil rights, human rights, teary.

Here are my tweets (back to front):

• pauloCanning #NEM ‘Let the sunshine in’ frm Hair perfect finish
• pauloCanning: RT @ChefMark ‘A free and Equal people do not tolerate prioritization of their rights. They do not accept compromises’ Cleve Jones #NEM
• pauloCanning: #nem Cleve Jones IS the mountaintop!
• pauloCanning: RT @MEGAFamily Urvashi Vaid: ‘Battle for the direction of this country’ #NEM < she’s talkin revolution baby!
• pauloCanning: RT @jdillman http://twitpic.com/l5wjw – @jdillman, @jtrybus #”Homomentum!” #NEM < :}}}
• pauloCanning: #NEM very moved by Julian Bond citing LG he worked alongside in 60s as reason for his solidairty now 

• pauloCanning: @SunnyStokes I’m right with you! #NEM She was inspirational
• pauloCanning: Who is Staceyann Chin? #NEM Jamaican superstar http://bit.ly/4xatwu (expand) It takes a poet
• pauloCanning: Michelle Clunie quoting Coretta Scott King #NEM If she were alive she would be there but NAACP head still to come
• pauloCanning: RT @teebalicious I’m old enough to remember the Silence = Death days + I am in love with this beautiful sea of #LGBT people #NEM < say it!
• pauloCanning: #NEM severe drought of older white men on this platform. This is why it’s making such an impact 
• pauloCanning @Becky_R My pleasure! I’m from UK like Billie Myers, watching on C-Span and so moved by #NEM 
• pauloCanning: @Frannyo nope! http://bit.ly/PqY7X (expand) #NEM 
• pauloCanning: Katharine Lee Bates, the lesbian who wrote America The Beautiful http://bit.ly/1fzxOs (expand) #NEM 
• pauloCanning: RT @AngryQueer America the Beautiful was written by a lesbian – #nem 
• pauloCanning: Hah! Billie Myers just said ficking on C-Span! #NEM 
• pauloCanning: Lady GaGa ‘Obama: ARE YOU LISTENING!!!!’ #NEM 
• pauloCanning: As LadyGaGa takes stage remember was 11 years ago today, Judy Shepard was watching as Matthew lay in a coma in Fort Collins, Colo. #nem 
• pauloCanning: #NEM the announcer reminds me of a character from Best in Show 
• pauloCanning: RT @unitethefight Kim Coco Iwamoto, ‘Our children are learning to discriminate. Our children are learning how to hate themselves’ #NEM 
• pauloCanning: @toastedgrrl #NEM I related when he spoke about AIDS and what it was like – many there would be remembering (and honouring) 
• pauloCanning BBC reporting already on #NEM http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8301791.stm 
• pauloCanning RT @malik_photog dan choi is a powerful speaker. and WORK for quoting kahlil gibran! #NEM 
• pauloCanning: #NEM Dan Choi just read a poem in Arabic. Incredible  
• pauloCanning: #NEM loudest cheer yet for Judy Sheppard. She is a f*cking saint. ‘Evrybody smile. You should be so proud of yrself”
• pauloCanning: Go Cynthia Nixon! #nem
• pauloCanning: RT @unitethefight: More pics of hundreds of thousands on Washington Mall! http://bit.ly/Zlb40 (expand) #NEM < + Lt. Dan Choi
• pauloCanning: #NEM Sam Sussman young straight #equality champion speaking is making me tear up! Wow! ‘In our America we will not tolerate prejudice’
• pauloCanning: RT @hardcorps80204 “How many more tears must be shed” David Mixner #NEM
• pauloCanning: @toastedgrrl David Mixner now speaking #nem about the reality of AIDS in the 90s. Incredibly moving
• pauloCanning: RT @rodmccullom #NEM #Latino #gay youth activist Richard Aviles http://twitpic.com/l5bpx //very inspirational < totally!
• pauloCanning: #socitm09 @liz_azyan sorry Liz no follow :’ #NEM LGBT Washington march is history, wonderful, amazing speakers
• pauloCanning: #NEM C-span not showing speakers names, find them here > http://bit.ly/49sMT5 (expand) #NEMrally
• pauloCanning: RT @LauraAndRudy WOW, Aiyi’nah Ford (co-host ListenUp internet radio program) is giving one HELL of a speech at #NEM right now!! < she’s FAB
• pauloCanning RT @Ameriqueer Just took a pic w/ Cynthia Nixon! http://twitpic.com/l4i4h #NEM #NEMrally 
• pauloCanning: RT @jacobbrwr Either the gays are in control of Twitter or the #NEM is actually a big deal. Either way, it’s an exciting day < both :]
•  pauloCanning: RT @ahideg RT @dcconcierge Now I’m marching at #NEM with Lady GaGa (and her bodyguards)!!! http://twitpic.com/l4yl3
• pauloCanning: So many young people on stage @ #NEM This is wonderful
• pauloCanning: RT @elideep ‘I say to Barney Frank, you are out of touch from the seat of power you hold.Does this march matter?’ >earth-shaking cheers #NEM
• pauloCanning: RT @just_someguy RT @toastedgrrl: They just called out Barney Frank. #nem – YES THEY SURE AS HELL DID! < Good!
• pauloCanning: #nem #NATIONAL #EQUALITY #DC live now on C-Span http://c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN_wm.aspx
• pauloCanning: RT @bethannon RT @LAmaleCA: Fox News just estimated the #NEM crowd at 2.5 million people. Congrats, guys! / SRSLY? FOX??
• pauloCanning: RT @veganindigo beautiful RT @dsrbroadway http://twitpic.com/l4oad – There is an actual rainbow above us @broadwayimpact AMAZING!!! #NEM
• pauloCanning: RT @LAmaleCA http://twitpic.com/l55c1 – in my lifetime our marriage was illegal too. #nem #NATIONAL #EQUALITY 

You can watch the whole thing here and I will add video highlights as I find them.

UPDATE

Video from the day. added here.

Obama derangement syndrome

As always, perfect sense from Rachel Maddow on Obama’s Nobel – it echoes my feelings about the shock announcement.

Obama derangement syndrome

Michael Moore has more to say on exactly why Obama desrves the Nobel.

“Don’t tell me to wait for my freedom”

During the campaign for the Democratic nomination Obama gave one interview to an LGBT publication in which he said the following:

Anybody who’s been at an LGBT event with me can testify that my message is very explicit — I don’t think that the gay and lesbian community, the LGBT community, should take its cues from me or some political leader in terms of what they think is right for them. It’s not my place to tell the LGBT community, “Wait your turn.” I’m very mindful of Dr. King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” where he says to the white clergy, “Don’t tell me to wait for my freedom.”

He repeated this point, as President, in his speech tonight to the Human Rights Campaign.

Here’s my tweets as I listened to his speech.

pauloCanning: #hrc dinner “I love you Barack” “I love you back”
pauloCanning:#hrc dinner Obama: “It is a privilege to be here tonight to open for Lady GaGa”
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner He’s referencing Stonewall as ‘inspiring’
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner simple message “here with you in that fight”
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner ‘it’s not for me to tell you to be patient’ – as with civil rights – now I’m teary
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner ‘you know – and I know – we don’t want to be defined by one part of us that makes us whole’
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner ‘Do not doubt the direction we’re heading +the destination we will reach’
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner ‘we will put a stop to discrimination against gays and lesbians’
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner ‘we’re pushing for a employee non-discrimination bill. we’re ging to put a stop to it.’
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner ‘we are rescinding the ban on entering US based on HIV status’
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner ‘I will end DADT, that’s my commitment to you’
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner ‘I’ve called on Congress to repeal DOMA’
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner ‘It’s about our common humanity, our ability to walk in someone else’s shoes’
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner now he’s talking about PFLAG ‘that’s the story of America’
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner ‘tonight somewhere in America a young person … ‘ THAT’S leadership
pauloCanning: #hrc dinner brilliant rhetoric, worried by the look on his face

The speech was amazing. Historic.

Like the audience, who spent most of their time on their feet, I was really moved to hear a US President say what he said. His last flourish, which stuck progress of LGBT equality firmly into the mainstream of the ‘American dream’, I couldn’t capture quickly enough. It was his classic rhetorical end flourish and he stuck it firmly onto the LGBT cause.

But, but … perhaps that’s why I noticed the look. He wasn’t smiling. He knew that outside the cheering crowd he faced weren’t just pissed LGBT at the lack of actual progress on issue after issue but a mountain of opposition to everything he’d pledged.

Remember, this was the day on which he’d been awarded the Nobel. On what he represents he’d got that acknowledgment and that’s a f*cking heavy burden.

I wish I’d captured that exact look as he walked off the stage because it seemed to me one of a man who believed what he’d said, every word, but understood fully what ‘change’ actually means.

A bitter, bitter fight lies behind “don’t tell me to wait for my freedom”. As always, it’s accompanied by the background/backroom faint (to some) buzz accompanying it in the LGBT movement between those who would be inside and those who’d be outside, demanding.

Tomorrow’s LGBT march on the Capitol is for the demanders and something tells me Obama is with them.