Like most good white liberals in America (and David Brooks), I've been reading Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me. For white gay men, I think the book provides an alternative interpretation to the recent ruling on marriage equality that we are deeply afraid to discuss. The recent whitewashing of the Stonewall Riots makes it all the more important to question the predominance of whites within the current LGBT movement.
A cynical reading of Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage throughout the United States, is that the majority opinion is simply an extension of whiteness. Edie Windsor, of prior Supreme Court fame, was a rich old white lady who was told it wasn't enough to be rich and white; she also needed to be straight. James Obergefell, similarly, is a perfectly presentable (i.e. well-off) white plantiff. There's nothing at all outside of the "mainstream" about either of these two individuals except for the unfortunate fact that though they were born white in America, they were also born gay. This accident of birth meant that privileges and rights were denied to them that other whites received.
So we must ask ourselves a difficult question. Are we as a country advancing rights for all minorities equally, or are we just reshaping whiteness?
