This is a beginning of a series for the PQ monthly (Portland Queer Monthly). It will appear in the pride Issue.
May 25, 2016
In 2007 when I was on the PABA board we received a piece of information that changed the way we looked at business. The information came from the national GLBTQ Business Association. GLBTQ professionals and business people (around 40%) were in the top 30% of the country’s earning power. This tidbit of information is one of the reasons our community, across the country, has been able to change laws and benefit from greater equality.
Money talks. Even today stores such as Target, Walmart, as well as Banks, and large manufacturers know that a substantial amount of their business comes from our community. Our community, includes our friends and allies in general who help push the tides. As a community we are a force to be reckoned with. In many ways we are like a tsunami best to get out of our way because the waves are changing the very face of our land.
This is all good news, and it means we as a national community can do something else. We can change the inequality in pay and opportunity. Not just for our community but for all of those outside of the community. It does us little good to stay insular and separated as a group. It is the integration into the general population that is the real test of our Equal Rights. It is only when we are allowed full use of all facilities that we are living Martin Luther Kings dream for all people. No more separate bathrooms, no more ghettos, homeless youth and health insurance that does not cover Transgender needs.
We have the power to reset the economic growth of this country. A grass roots evolution/revolution whereby we use the power we have to become fully integrated into the well being of our nation and hopefully the global world.
The science of quantum physics tells us that we are all connected. Our actions as individuals have an effect on those around us and those we may never know. The true lesson of the 21st century is that what is done to one is done to us all. None of us are free, healthy, and loved until we all are. Yeah, yeah I know sounds a little to altruistic, but then there has never been a revolution whose ideals didn’t seemed out of the reach of us common folks.
Truth is we are responsible for each other. We are responsible for the environment the lack of equal pay and opportunity. Until each of us dares to accept the responsibility none of us can move forward where our children, our friends’ children, the world’s children are truly free to live a life where they are free of hunger and want, where they have an opportunity to learn and create. A society who doesn’t look to the future, include everyone in its opportunity is psychotic in its actions.
We must dare to change the consciousness of our world. To become mindful of all peoples, need to have food, clean water, and clean air. These very basic needs in all humanity are neglected by all of us who have them. Abraham Maslow’s idea of hierarchy of humanity is that without the basics needs of survival we can’t be without violence, nor reach for social equality, intellectual curiosity, and self-integration through self knowledge. Our world is at a place of watershed in history. We are the tsunami that is building and ready to break through. If you can look at the Truth and dare to look at yourself and our community you have taken the first step.
This is a series. Look for more specifics on what can be done next month.