odger
Streitmatter, Ph.D. is Professor of Journalism at American
University. His latest book, Voices of Revolution: The Dissident
Press in America is being released by Columbia University Press
this month. It tells the stories of dissident publications and press
movements of the last two centuries and of the colorful individuals
behind them.
From publications that fought for the disenfranchised to those that
promoted social reform, Voices of Revolution examines the
abolitionist and labor press, black power publications of the 1960s, the
crusade against the barbarism of lynching, the counterculture uprising
of the 1960s, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian revolution and
the anti-Vietnam war protests.
Dr. Streitmatter's previous works include: Raising Her Voice:
African American Women Journalists Who Changed History;
Unspeakable: The Rise of the Gay and Lesbian Press in America
and Mightier Than the Sword: How the News Media Have Shaped
American History.
________________________
Jack Nichols: You've made a clear distinction between what we
generally call the alternative press and what you are now calling the
dissident press. Would you explain this distinction?
Rodger Streitmatter: Many American cities now have weekly
tabloids that offer sort of a more "hip" view of the world. The
Village Voice in New York and the City Paper here
in Washington, D.C., come to mind. They look at the world from a
different view than, say, the New York Times or
Washington Post, but they don't fit my definition of being
dissident because they aren’t really trying to change society in any
fundamental way. For a publication to merit the mantle of "dissident,"
at least in my book, it not only had to offer a differing view of
society but also had to seek to change the world -- to champion a
particular cause.
Jack Nichols: Your Voices of Revolution is
revolutionary, among other reasons, for being the first textbook
covering America's dissident press that treats the gay and lesbian press
as worthy contributors. Is that right?
Rodger Streitmatter: Yes, that's right. Most journalism scholars
used to immediately dismiss the gay press -- if they thought of it at
all -- as a bunch of bar rags filled with nothing but personal ads and
photos of naked bodies.
Then I came along and wrote my 400-page history of the gay and lesbian
press a few years ago, partly to show my fellow media scholars, as well as
other people, that there has been, for many years, a very vital and
substantive journalistic genre aimed at gay people. Now, when writing Voices of Revolution, one of my goals was to make it easy for
media historians to incorporate the gay press into their classes.
My hope is that professors will use this book in the classroom and
thereby introduce their students to the gay press because there's a
chapter on it. The professors won't have to do their own research, which
many of them would be very uncomfortable doing. It's all right here in
front of them to read, right along with their students.
Jack Nichols: Although you ably covered the history of The
Advocate in your book Unspeakable, you've made no
mention of that newsmagazine in Voices of Revolution. Why?
Does it have something to do with its editorial slant?
Rodger Streitmatter:The Advocate has gone through
numerous phases since it was founded in 1967. During many of those stages,
it has served a valuable purpose. But during the years immediately after
Stonewall, which is the period I focus on in the chapter on the gay press
in Voices of Revolution, The Advocate was
awfully tepid, both editorially and in its appearance and general tone,
compared to some of the other wonderfully vibrant and colorful papers --
like GAY, Killer Dyke, and Come Out!
In my opinion, those "wild and wooly" papers captured the essence of the
era much better than The Advocate did.
Jack Nichols: Why did America's first gay weekly, GAY,
appeal to you as a dissident publication? Its early gay Marxist critics
were, as I recall, appalled by its combining of features, news and nudity.
Rodger Streitmatter:GAY fits perfectly with my
concept of a paper that was trying to change society -- as well as change
journalism. Most of the gay papers before it had been staid publications
that looked and read like academic journals, filled with lengthy treatises
set in endless rivers of type. GAY rejected that model.
Instead, it offered readers provocative essays on topics such as
promiscuity and gay relationships and whether drag queens should be
embraced or shunned -- topics that gay people were really talking about.
And mixed in with the essays were more light-hearted features and essays,
plus lots and lots of genitalia. That was really a revolutionary change.
Here was a paper that had the nerve to actually reflect and celebrate
the values of the subculture it was serving, not to limit itself to the
dictates of the larger culture. So, in its own way, GAY was
saying what other activists would be saying twenty years later: "We're
here, we're queer, get used to it!"
Jack Nichols: Last week I wrote a GayToday Viewpoint
feature titled "The Big Republican Lie about a Liberal Media". In it I
complained that the mainstream media seems hamstrung by the influence of
major corporate powers. Am I right to worry about the possibility of
corporate censorship because of such matters?
Rodger Streitmatter: It's a serious concern. I worked as a
mainstream newspaper reporter and editor for a number of years back in the
late '70s, before I started teaching. Back then, reporters could write
about almost any topic we wanted to; we knew our publisher didn't like us
to say anything bad about Presbyterians, but other that that, most
anything was fair game.
That has changed. With Disney owning ABC, for example,
the corporate office now has a huge say in what ends up on the air. The
news media that used to be a "watchdog" over the government and corporate
America is now much more of a docile little "puppy dog."
Jack Nichols: Among the things I like best about Voices of
Revolution are the colorful, even passionate portraits you've
drawn of dissident journalists who've promoted social and political
changes. I'd suspect that these portraits will encourage students of
journalism to aspire to dissidence instead of blindly following the
mainstream herd. Is my suspicion warranted?
Rodger Streitmatter: I think so. I've already had several classes read
the manuscript in draft form -- it's great to get student feedback -- and
dozens of students have told me they found many of the people in the book
to be quite inspirational. And several of those students have said they
now intend to work for dissident publications.
The conventional wisdom is that today's students are apathetic or total
slackers, but I don't agree. Most of them are eager to commit their energy
and their creative talents to worthy causes -- but they have to find
something they care about.
Jack Nichols: I notice that you've asked for understanding and
appreciation of badly misunderstood causes such as anarchism and
socialism. What are some of the reasons you feel this way?
Rodger Streitmatter: I remember a couple summers ago when I was
working on the chapter on the socialist press and my sister and her
husband from Illinois came to visit me in my home in Washington, D.C. When
I told my brother-in-law what I was writing about, he scowled and asked
why I would waste my time writing about some terrible thing like socialism
-- barely able to say the word.
Gene is a former Marine who moves mobile homes for a living. He's a
nice guy and I like him, but he's typical of many people in Middle America
who feel a chill run up their spine when they hear words like "socialism"
and "anarchism" -- without really understanding what those concepts mean.
A socialist believes that the government should intervene on behalf of
the working class and that laborers who produce goods should benefit from
their efforts. Is that such a radical notion?
And an anarchist, as I see it, believes in the supremacy of individual
liberty, which is exactly what the men who founded this nation
believed in, and also is concerned that capitalism has become the defining
force in this country. Again, those ideas don't sound so radical to me. So
part of my agenda in writing about some of these dissident presses was to
help students get a better understanding of some of these concepts that so
many people don't really know much about.
Jack Nichols: Your treatment of the African-American community
publications that
got their starts in the early years of the Republic reveals how America's
dissident anti-racist press evolved. What have been principal issues that
have slowly but surely emerged in that press?
Rodger Streitmatter: Three of the book's fourteen chapters look at
the African American press during three different eras -- the
anti-lynching press in the late 19th century, a Chicago newspaper's
campaign to persuade blacks to abandon the South and move to the North
during the early 20th century, and the Black Panther newspaper's fight
against racial oppression in the late 20th century.
In all three instances, one of the major themes that emerged was the
importance of economic factors. In other words, for more than a century,
the African American press in its various iterations has argued that if we
hope to level the playing field in this country, we have to reduce the
economic disparity between whites and blacks.
Jack Nichols: What have been some of the principal gay and lesbian
issues?
Rodger Streitmatter: My chapter on the gay press looked
specifically at 1969 to 1972, the period immediately after the Stonewall
Rebellion. Some of the issues that the papers debated were resolved during
those three years.
For example, it became clear, because of both the editorial and the
graphic content of the papers, that gays would not try to emulate the
sexual mores of straight America but would develop their own set of values
in this regard. But, curiously, several other issues that were hot topics
then are still being debated thirty years later.
One example is whether drag queens and dykes on bikes should be
celebrated as a colorful part of our community or be nudged to the
margins; I still hear people arguing that point today.
Another unresolved issue that has been around since the late '60s is
which of the many reform efforts should be fought first -- whether it's
more important, for example, to put our efforts into electing gay and
lesbian candidates to office or to fight for legal rights such as same-sex
marriage.
Jack Nichols: How has your voluminous research into America's
dissident press affected your own journalistic outlook?
Rodger Streitmatter: As I argue in the final chapter of
Voices of Revolution, there's a lot that today's mainstream press
could learn from the dissident press. First and foremost, newspapers could
learn that the number-one goal should not be selling more papers and TV
news could learn that there are some considerations that are more
important than getting high ratings. The dissident press, in its many
different forms, has been driven by passion, by conviction, and by
commitment to a cause -- elements that sometimes seem to be in short
supply in today's mainstream media.
Jack Nichols: Your chapter about the counterculture uprising of the
late 1960s is followed by a chapter on the black struggle and then by the
gay and lesbian press. Do you sense that the influences of the late 1960s
counterculture movement and the black civil rights movement-and,
certainly, feminism, proved somehow influential in gay and lesbian
liberation circles?
Rodger Streitmatter: There's no question that the Counterculture
Movement helped lay the groundwork for gay people to demand equal rights.
Race, gender, class, personal freedom, self-expression, the nature of
consciousness -- they were all on the table in the late 1960s when this
huge bulge of young adults, a lot of us born right after World War II,
began questioning conventional thinking in so many areas.
Of course the most significant step came when young people started
moving toward more liberated attitudes toward sex and gender roles. After
that, it was really only a small step to celebrating male-male and
female-female sexual activity. Then again, as a historian looking back on
that period, I can claim 20/20 vision. In fact, it wasn't really a "small"
step at all -- it was an enormous step, as well as a courageous one,
considering the cultural restrictions at the time.
Jack Nichols: What perspectives from the Free Love movement of the
19th century might be applied, possibly, to gay and lesbian lovers today?
Rodger Streitmatter: The central concern of the 19th century free
lovers was that too many people were trapped, by the conventions of
society, in marriages that were definitely loveless, and often abusive.
What these rebels wanted was for women and men to be free to divorce,
according to the ebb and flow of their love for each other.
This concept of re-examining conventional marriage certainly has
relevance to lesbians and gay men today. Civil unions and gay marriages
come immediately to mind, of course. But I think we also all know of gay
people who have created their own successful relationships that are
outside the parameters of the man/woman/death-do-us-part conventional
marriage -- couples who love each other but choose not to live together,
groups of three or more people who are much more committed to each other's
well-being than many husbands and wives are.
Jack Nichols: Rush Limbaugh and his GOP cronies have been
attempting to denigrate the principle of the equality of the sexes for
over a decade. Do you think that the propaganda spewed by these
conservative zealots has been particularly successful at stirring up
public antagonism to equal rights for women?
Rodger Streitmatter: I'm amazed at the number of people I
encounter, many of them female students, who like to make it very clear
that they are not feminists. I find it appalling. All that being a
feminist means, as I see it, is believing that women should have the right
to pursue any vocation or activity that men can pursue -- and that they
should be compensated equally for any success they have in that pursuit.
Frankly, I can't understand how anyone could possibly NOT believe that.
Personally, I think Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing conservatives --
not all conservatives but the ones on the far right-have had a lot to do
with "feminist" becoming a poisonous word.
Limbaugh coined the word "femi-Nazi," and then somehow managed to
convince a
lot of people that women have gone too far. The average American woman is
making only 72 cents for every dollar that the average man makes, so I
hardly think they've gone too far.
Jack Nichols: Two crusading women you've written about in
Voices of Revolution have both been long-time heroines for me.
Could you say a few words about the contributions of Margaret Sanger and
Emma Goldman?
Rodger Streitmatter: The thing I love about Margaret Sanger is that
she was an upper-middle-class woman who was married to an architect and
living in a fashionable New York suburb with her three children -- sort of
an early 20th century "soccer mom." But then she decided that poor
immigrant women had a right to have access to information about birth
control, something that was completely denied them at the time. So Sanger
dedicated the rest of her life to changing society by seeing to it that
birth control material was widely available. And she succeeded. What a
legacy that is!
As for Emma Goldman, what really stands out about her, in my mind, is
how she believed so strongly in certain ideas that she wouldn't back down
-- not a single inch. Even after the government put her in jail for a
year, while she was still a young woman, and then later declared her "the
most dangerous woman in America" and later still deported her, she held
true to her beliefs throughout her entire life. Emma Goldman failed to
change society, as most people still opposed anarchy, but, nevertheless,
she remained true to her beliefs. So, on a personal level, she did
succeed. Again, what an inspiration!
Jack Nichols: Which other crusading journalists have been among
your favorite historic characters and why?
Rodger Streitmatter: I'd have to add Ida B. Wells to the list. She
founded the anti-lynching press in the late 19th century. So here we have
this African-American woman who was born into slavery in Mississippi
during the Civil War. And then in the early 1890s, when she was still in
her twenties, she has the audacity not just to enter the field of
journalism, a bastion of white men, but to use the press to expose the
fact -- for the first time-that this whole idea of black men being lynched
because they were raping white women was a total and complete fabrication.
White southerners forced her into exile in the North and swore that if
she dared to come back to the South she'd be hanged. So she continued her
crusade in New York, carrying a loaded pistol in her purse all the while.
Wells virtually single-handedly told the whole country, as well as
England, about the brutal realities of lynching, something that people in
the North had no idea was happening. That she succeeded, with the
impediments she faced, is absolutely
extraordinary.
Jack Nichols: You told me earlier that you feel much satisfied
after having written Voices of Revolution. You've already
written three previous books on the media. Tell us what, in particular,
has made you feel this way about Voices of Revolution?
Rodger Streitmatter: My son, Matt, is 26 years old. He's a great
kid, very kind and very generous, but he always had a hard time with
school. Several years ago, he was taking a community college course in
American history and was having a really tough time, so I was working with
him. And I still remember this one time when he read a chapter from his
textbook and then I asked him what was the most important point of the
chapter, and he just sort of sat there and looked at me.
I knew he'd read every single word in that chapter, but those twenty or
thirty pages were so dry and boring, filled with so many names and dates
-- it was deadly. What I am so proud of regarding Voices of
Revolution is that it is readable. In fact, it's not just readable
-- it's compelling. The remarkable men and women in this book and the
social movements they led are so powerful and so engaging that they show
young readers what a joy learning history can be.
Jack Nichols: Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Rodger. You've
not only written the definitive history of the gay and lesbian press, Unspeakable, but now -- in your Voices of Revolution ---you've managed to incorporate our press into the story of America's
journalistic development. That's no small accomplishment and it makes you,
I say, as much a contributing activist as any of the women and men you've
honored so beautifully in your writings.
Read Jack Nichols',
THE
GAY AGENDA, and see why it was named 1997 Outstanding Book by
Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America.
Tell them that Sister Taffy sent you.
Jack Nichols is the author of The Gay Agenda: Talking
Back to the Fundamentalists (Prometheus Books, 1996) Of Men’s
Liberation: A New Definition of Masculinity (Penguin Books, 1975) and
of Welcome to Fire Island: Visions of Cherry Grove andThe Pines
(St. Martin’s Press, 1976)
Scared Straight: Why It’s So
Hard to Accept Gay People
and Why It’s So Hard to be Human, Story
Do Jerry Falwell
& Pat Robertson
Speak for God? Story
Rodger
Streitmatter, Ph.D. is Professor of Journalism at American University. Story
The Big Republican Lie about a Liberal Media Story
Analyzing last
week’s interview with celebrity culture critic, Camille Paglia, opens cans
of peculiar worms Story
Interview:
Camille Paglia: Building
Her Wall Between Art & Life Story
Speech on Men’s
Liberation delivered to Sociologists for Women in Society at the Annual
Meeting of the American Sociological Association—New York Hilton, August
30, 1976. Story
How
a prominent Republican congressman compromised the United States military
by conducting a wrongful effort to increase the number of Republican votes
in Florida Story
odger
Streitmatter, Ph.D. is Professor of Journalism at American
