It has been quite a year as I brought about 2-dozen interviews (mostly exclusives) to the Seattle Gay News. What tied many of these interviews together - from Oscar winners to reality stars to music legends - were my questions related to the current political climate - from Activism to the Muslim Travel Ban to Healthcare to Sexual Harassment (ironically, all related to President Trump) - and those questions got each interview subject talking with such passion. Here are highlights from 14 of my exclusive interviews based on subject.
ACTIVISM
Dustin Lance Black: Well, so all - I, I think we have been - I think that we're doing it in the right way, right now. And that is, that the - what I was so afraid of four years ago - even as we were making great progress, is that we've become incredibly self-centered, myopic, really focused just on our own issues. And we had absolutely lost sight of our connection to other social justice movements. We were not working locked arm in arm. And as a student of Harvey Milk, who built the coalition of yesses, in order to start winning freedom and winning political power, that coalition of yesses wasn't just LGBT people. It was seniors, it was racial minorities, it was union workers. That's what built - well, I couldn't see it. You'd hear at the marches 'Gay, straight, black, white, same struggle, same fight,' but it was mostly Gay people with a few straight people, or mostly African American people with a couple white people. And I kept asking myself, why aren't we showing up for other people's rallies? And, you know, just ask Nero - divide and conquer - and we've become - not out of animus, but out of self-interest - we've become divided. And that was dangerous. And now we're seeing that indeed we've lost ground because we were divided. And what I'm seeing now, when I've gone to these marches, when I've been to some of these rallies, is that it is now truly Gay and straight and black and white, same struggle, same fight - and that's critical. So was it just a Gay rally? No. Should it be? No. We should be showing up for our brothers and sisters in other social justice movements as we wanted them to show up for ours when our rights come under attack. (2/24/17)
