The shock by some of my fellow white gay men (yes over 40) at Crash getting the top prize over Brokeback demonstrates the competition some folks feel over issues of oppression. All sorts of people are oppressed. Yes, white gay men experience a mesaure of oppression, no doubt. But rarely are we asked to consider the power and skin privilege we experience as white men in America.

I hear far too many white gay men talk negatively about the black church referring to black homophobia being worse than white homophobia because members of black churches know what oppression feels like. “Surely they should be on board in regards to a civil rights issue like same-sex marraige.”

Before I start poking around in another’s eye, I need to sort out my own stuff, my own issues of privilege and not be afraid to admit that I have been tainted by a society that is racist and sexist as well as homophobic.

Sadly I hear little from the Brokeback crowd in regards to the tragedy that Felicity Huffman did not get best attress and that Transamerica did not get more recognition. I mean I love me some Reese Witherspoon, but a woman from TN playing a woman from TN does not compare to the incredible performance by Huffman.

Within white gay male circles, we need to look at our own issues around gender, racism, transphobia and of course privilege.

Also, it’s essential to breaking down racism that we are allowed to analyze the ways in which white privilege might affect people’s actions. It’s all too easy to see such analysis and condemn it as perpetuating stereotypes, generalizations, or god forbid, “reverse racism.” But that’s not what it is. Occasionally people, especially those dealing with oppression, might generalize an entire group of people with privilege, such as saying that ALL straight people respond to brokeback the same way. That might be a bit problematic, but it’s not a big problem, and very frequently people try to focus on small things like that to draw attention away from the homophobia that exists on an institutional level.

Anyway, I really appreciate this post. Crash did some amazing things for advancing the consciousness of race politics in the mainstream. Though it can be very annoying to see people play “oppression olympics,” and with two films representing different minority communities up for the same award that’s bound to happen.

That being said, we still need to critique both films and press for more. It’s still really hard for any film to incorporate more than one minority issue at a time. The perfect example in this case is that crash didn’t have any LGBTQ folks despite being in LA and brokeback, I’m assuming (I actually haven’t seen it yet. I will, I will. I just haven’t had time yet) probably didn’t have many people of color despite the fact that historically there were A LOT of black cowboys.