FREE ESSAY ON LABOR DAY

LABOR DAY

Labor Day Charade 
Peter Noel plays fast and loose with the facts to attack me [At Each Other's Throats,
October 6]. I did not march behind a racist float in a Labor Day Parade in Broad Channel,
Queens, as he wrote, which he knows since he told one of my staff members that he has my
statements strongly and publicly condemning that grossly racist float. 
In fact, I was at the front of the parade campaigning among the people who were watching,
and left when it started raining. The float was at the very end of the parade. Had I seen
it, I would have loudly protested before leaving. 
Noel tries to cover his falsehood by seeming to give my side, writing that Hevesi later
denied he was aware that the float was part of the parade. That makes me sound like a
weasel. As if I marched behind this float, but now I'm trying to claim that I didn't know
it was part of the parade. 
That is not what happened, and it is not what I said. 
I have fought against bigots of every type and every color. I denounced Joseph Kovner,
the Jewish council member from Deer Park, New York, when he called State Comptroller Carl
McCall a Harlem nigger, and demanded Kovner's resignation. I condemned the bigotry of
Queens council member Julia Harrison when she attacked Asians, and I supported her Asian
opponent in the last election. I have gone to Queens to confront school board member
Frank Borzellieri and his campaign of hate against racial minorities and gay men and
lesbians. And I attacked Khallid Muhammad as the leading anti-Semite, anti-Catholic and
anti-gay bigot in America. 
Disagree with my positions all you want, but do not use falsehood and distortion to try
to paint me as a racist. 
Alan G. Hevesi
Comptroller
City of New York
Peter Noel replies: It doesn't matter if Alan Hevesi was at the back or the front of the
parade. The truth is that he was at a racist parade, and was exposed. It strains
credulity that he was not aware of the float carrying white men in blackface parodying
the murder of a black man in Jasper. This was not the mammoth West Indian Parade or the
St. Patrick's Day Parade. This was a tiny parade in a predominantly white, backwater
enclave in Queens. Is this the same Alan Hevesi who could not separate Khallid Abdul
Muhammad, the messenger, from the message of the Million Youth March? Hevesi's dilemma is
that he doesn't know how to undo the political harm he has done to the African American
community. 
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Ahoy Vey 
What the hell is Karla Jay talking about? [Queers Ahoy: The High Price of Gay and Lesbian
Travel, September 29] Maybe the ignorant, racist/colonialist/imperialist tourist who
wants to travel, but not see? Such tourism--gay or straight--should be examined. These
cruises and packages often have exclusive beachfront properties in places like Jamaica,
leaving locals with less and less seafront access. Why not stay home? Go to Florida. Why
the Nile, or the Bahamas, or Thailand? Clearly, not for the history, culture, or the
people. 
In Jay's discussion of sex, she blatantly disregards the populations of several travel
destinations. Was it that she was writing about gay clients of the sex trade--not
straight businessmen with poor Thai women--that allowed the Voice to print this article
that disregards the lack of economic and social mobility that exists for young Thai men?

In the piece, a travel agent is quoted as stating of Thailand that the sex is very
readily available and elderly gentlemen are the delight of young Thais. Really? 
Finally, Queers Ahoy and queer package trips themselves assume terrible things: that
straight and gay people cannot be social partners (one man in the article laments the
possibility of having dinner with straight people); that gay people have not carved out
niches wherever they live in the world; that as a traveler you have no interest in
meeting locals and finding out how they live; that you can act any way you like wherever
you go in the world. 
Queer, or loving the same sex, means different things all over the world. Find out
instead of pissing on their beach. 
Vinita Srivastava
Brooklyn
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Tailgunner Bill 
It really is amusing to watch Richard Goldstein give himself a hernia from worrying about
Sexual McCarthyism aimed at Bill Clinton [September 29]. 
Isn't Clinton a McCarthyite? 
Isn't it his attorney general who went into court to defend his don't ask, don't tell
witch-hunt against gays? Isn't it international sexual McCarthyism for Clinton to station
5000 troops in Saudi Arabia in order to defend an absolute monarchy that, among other
things, prohibits women from driving cars? 
Why should gays in the military, who have lost nine lawsuits challenging Clinton's
policy, rally to his side now? For that matter, why should anyone else give a damn about
this opponent of sexual equality? 
Liberals supported this nonstop, double-reverse, triple-whammy perjurer as their lesser
evil. We don't know if he'll get what he deserves, but they are forever exposed as the
crackpot realists that they truly are. Listen to them again, and you will hunt rabbits in
the sea. 
Lenni Brenner
Manhattan
Richard Goldstein replies: Brenner's adventurism overwhelms any productive analysis of
the current situation. It isn't Clinton, stupid; it's the precedent this wholesale
violation of privacy sets--one that could rebound against even righteous Clinton haters
who happen to harbor a dirty secret. 
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Cold, Cold Heart 
Re Sarah Vowell's review of the Hank Williams box set [Ain't No Light, September 29]: Did
I get her meaning? Does she call into question Hank's sincerity because, in her
estimation, he acts incongruously with his songs? She cited too-chipper-for-her-taste
repartee between Hank and Minnie Pearl in which Hank says, For two cents I'd just haul
off and kiss ya, to which Pearl replies, Anybody got change for a nickel? Apparently,
Vowell would've preferred something like, That sure is a goddamn ugly hat yuh got there,
Minnie. Yuh know, I've lost my will to live. This next song... 
Then there was the odd implication that Hank had somehow duped all the folks in crummy
little backwater churches who sang his song, I Saw the Light (cuz Hank was too much of a
drunk to see the light). You're right, Sarah. Hank sucks. He ain't keepin' it real. And
this whole time I thought the music was the thing. Thanks for setting me straight. Can I
borrow your Hanson records? They seem like happy people, just like their songs. 
Clay Sparks
Manhattan
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Engendering Oppression 
Amy Taubin's review of The Brandon Teena Story [Splitting Image, September 29] was
interesting and informative, giving a clear picture of Teena's situation and its
cinematic representation. 
I was surprised, however, that Taubin used the feminine pronoun her to refer to Teena,
who was born with a female body but identified as a man. Taubin says, They raped her
because they were enraged and threatened by her sexuality ('Brandon's gender was a real
problem,' one of them opines) and they murdered her to keep her from fingering them as
rapists. While Teena's gender-queerness certainly worked against him, he was raped and
killed because he was transgendered--because his outward gender expression did not match
his genitals. To represent the situation as misogyny and homophobia is to ignore the
reality of trans-oppression and to perpetuate it again. 
Jessica Stein
Brooklyn


  
    
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My Father
My father is exceptional in his ability to live spontaneously. "Life is too short, there
are so many things to do, places to go, people to talk to," he'd say to my siblings and
me as we grew up. I remember several occasions when my dad would come home from work on
Friday nights and say "Kids, get your stuff together, we're leaving early in the
morning." My dad would pack up our motor home and take my brother and sister and I on
different adventures. One time my Dad took me on a trip to Sedona to go camping. We had
planned to stay there for two nights and then drive back home. Instead, my dad decided
impromptu that we'd drive up to Flagstaff and go skiing. Another instance that proved my
dad unpredictable was the day he brought home a huge sailboat and decided to take us to
Rocky point, Mexico to go sailing for the weekend. Thanks to my father's unconstrained
way of living I have in me a very adventurous spirit.