Powell: The Wrong Speaker at the Wrong Time

I believe that I can speak for most gay and lesbian people at Harvard when I say that I am disappointed and disheartened by the choice of General Colin Powell as the primary speaker at this year's commencement ceremonies. I do not believe that commencement speakers should be uncontroversial, provocative, or free of unpopular opinions. I do believe that this is not the time for Colin Powell to come to speak here at Harvard.

There is a University committee now working hard to understand the complex relationship between Harvard and the military, including Harvard's arrangements with ROTC. The gay and lesbian community at Harvard has been asked to be patient and await for this committee's conclusions and recommendations. This we have done for the entire academic year. When we feel that our concerns have been put on hold for this long, it is exceedingly difficult to understand the decision to honor General Powell, one of the most persistent and loudest voices defending the current military ban.

I cannot in this brief letter go over all the arguments and rationales for my position on this issue. However, I will offer several thoughts to your readers. First, everyone needs to understand that every day lesbian and gay people in the armed services are being discharged, often while being forced to endure humiliation, cruel treatment, and harassment. Women constitute the larger number of these cases, especially women who are moving up in the ranks and threatening the career aspirations of their straight male counterparts. These Americans face ruined careers, shattered lives, and terrible blows to elf-esteem. Can we sit idly by and have polite academic discussions and ignore these irrefutable facts? Can we sit by and see this systematic injustice characterized as just another case of whining minorities appealing to political correctness, usually by straight white men who have never come close to experiencing oppression in their lives? Can we talk about "social experiments" when real people are suffering every minute of the day?

Second, gay and lesbian people are accustomed to living lives filled with irony; it is, perhaps, the defining characteristic of many of our lives. Our humor, which is often the key to our survival, depends upon it. Never has this irony been more evident than by the choice of an African-American general with a spectacular military career who has become one of the primary speakers against social progress. I am sure that General Powell means well, most people do. But can he fail to see that he would not be in a position to be invited to speak at Harvard were it not for those who fought to change the racist policies of the military in the 1940s? Can he fail to see that intolerance and resistance to social change causes real and constant pain in the lives of fellow human beings?

Third, I would like to appeal to the many good people in this community who have been supportive of gays and lesbians here at Harvard. We need your support now. We need you to speak out against intolerance and homophobia. We need you to join us in protest. We need you to open your minds and hearts to the real needs of people whose suffering is often invisible, but whose oppression is very real indeed. I began working for civil rights in the fifties and sixties in Louisiana, a struggle that made a real difference in the lives of all people in the South. I was involved in the peace movement in the sixties in San Francisco and Berkeley, a movement that made Americans think again about the meaning of war and peace. Now I find myself faced with a struggle more personal and more frustratingly difficult than any before. I do not intend to minimize the struggle or pain of other groups, rather I ask all people of good will to join us in his endeavor to enlighten the Harvard community about the meaning of tolerance, diversity, and equal opportunity. It is difficult for lesbian and gay people these days to avoid the feeling that we are the last group in the country that it is acceptable to hate openly.

Shame on General Powell for his anti-humanist rhetoric. Shame on Harvard for giving him a unique world-wide platform on which to spread his message of exclusion. Thurston Smith, Director   Harvard University Network for Gay, Lesbian   and Bisexual Issues