Sound and Sage Advice

Writers for the Dallas Voice's Blog, Instant Tea, have caught a lot of crap regarding a couple recent postings and rightfully so.  In John Wright's Nov 27 posting he continues his efforts to squelch independent direct action activism.  Dallas hasn't seen this type of activism since the late 80s and early 90s and it appears as though Wright would like to keep it that way.  

People left comments reminding Mr Wright that if it wasn't for this style of activism in the height of the AIDS outbreak "half of us wouldn't be here today".  Another comment reminds us that it was activism in the streets which brought grand-bigot Anita Bryant's hate train express to a grinding halt.  To put things into context others suggested that if Californian voters had brought back Jim Crow laws there would be riots in the streets.  Why then do a group of activists who want to have a peaceful demonstration to draw attention to an organization who was responsible for their rights being taken away receive such crummy treatment by its own local queer rag?  The posturing by some in regards to our demonstration in front of a Mormon bookstore reminds me of that limbo bar they used to bring out at the Whiterock skating rink when I was a kid, how low can you go.  

All I can say regarding the press release is that my out box shows it was sent to the editor of the Dallas Voice on Monday, November 24 at 3:58 PM.  In fact I called the Dallas Voice prior to sending them the press release to verify that I had the correct e-mail address.  After my only post saying that I had sent the release I got an e-mail from Tammye telling me that they never received the release.  She said that it might have gone into the junk mail folder as e-mails do from time to time but that they sometimes check that as well.  In her e-mail she gave me two other e-mail addresses that I can use in addition to the editor's email address to send future press releases, but no "sorry for the oversight".  Did the Dallas Voice intentionally ignore us?  Read the blog and comments and be your own judge.  

Often times great progress in terms of civil rights is made when the "sound and sage" advice of one's betters is rejected and replaced by something new and more effective.  We are at point in our civil rights movement where the recent outpouring of action into the streets could be channeled into something more productive in the face of our betters sound and sage advice.