Dear Democracy Now!
I am returning your fund-raising appeal and this is why.
To be clear, I am a long-time loyal fan. The only monthly donation that I have ever committed to is to Democracy Now! You are number one on my list. I watch Amy on my local town TV community channel every morning at 8:00am.
I’m a 69-year-old life-long activist and writer. I was involved in the civil rights movement from my early teens, and was on the ground floor of both the women’s liberation and of the lesbian liberation movement in Boston. I am committed to justice in the Middle East and am now an activist around the special circumstances of LGBTQ elders, focusing my latest novel on the love affair between an 84-year-old woman who comes out when she falls for a 79-year-old lesbian in senior housing.
What I am NOT is a “family.” So why did you address your fund-raising letter to “The Katz Family”?
I am so friggin’ sick of the Democratic Party (“middle-class families”), of the labor unions (“working families”), and now of you, of all people, using the term “family” when you mean people. My bio family was marked by homophobia and I have almost no contact with them. I have no children. I am not married. I am not a family.
This is an excessively conservative, hetero-normative way to address your fund-raising letter to me. In addition, it is inaccurate.
I will never forget the acting Governor of Massachusetts, an hour after the attack on 9/11, saying on TV that she would protect “Massachusetts families.” It was like a slap in the face to the many, many people who are not part of a family.
And please spare me the “chosen family” option. That’s not what she meant and that’s not what you meant. I have been donating monthly. Not my non-existent family. Your assumption is rude and full of 1950s sentiment. Here, have your appeal back. It was clearly not meant for me.
Yours,
Sue Katz
Oh Katz,
Why don't you tell them how you really feel?!
Posted by: Gema | 05 June 2017 at 16:43
thanks, my dear Katz!
Posted by: Nancy Myron | 05 June 2017 at 17:33
Amen. When you mean people say people. Not "hard working families" as our current clutch of politicians is fond of saying. Just hard working people. Not The Disabled, but disabled people, not The Elderly, but elderly people.
Posted by: Mike Evans | 05 June 2017 at 17:47
I don't like the "hard working" anything. The hard work ethic is not, IMO, one to be idealized. Yes, in crap economy many work hard. Those w/o jobs work hard. But why treat that like an ideal? With current technology people could work less, spend time in the ways they want, and unemployment could go down or cease. Even have time to read, think, create.
Posted by: Rita Connolly | 05 June 2017 at 18:16
I think our experiences make us who we are and some of us have been transformed by those experiences. Though i had a dysfunctional family, I have always tried to find common ground (as a survival tactic, probably). In my opinion it takes a village to make a family so, in a sense, we are all family. And Katz, you are my union sister.
Posted by: Dan McCrory | 05 June 2017 at 18:43
Yes, yes, yes! I am SO sick of being discounted, ignored, and rendered invisible by this usage.
Posted by: Marj | 05 June 2017 at 21:15
agree so much with all the commentary, especially the hardworking and family comments. working is working, hardworking is a subjective distinction that separates people as does 'family'
thanks katzelah for your letter. I wonder if you will get a response. keep me posted.
Posted by: eleanor roffman | 06 June 2017 at 10:44