Welcome to the nonprofits. In our second segment this week, we continue our examination of the US government's cancelation of grants already earmarked to support projects of inclusion. Jonathan Raudebush these stories are becoming too common, but is it? But it is still very important that we break out the magnifying glass and examine them. So what are the details here?
Well, Dodgy Dodge strikes again in the new administration in their efforts to erase anything not white or heteronormative in government, with the excuse of creating a meritocracy where only your personal accomplishment matters. Any minority is not allowed to be shown as meriting anything. Is the result, so and primarily racist, transphobic, and homophobic, denying minority and divergent people the credit and
for the accomplishments they deserve. So as a result, it is an attempt to make an all non privileged citizens invisible to the white, heteronormative Christian minority. So they canceled in Ohio grant to place historical markers. And these these historical markers include famous LGBTQ sites. So this is a little personal for me, but this is part of the
cancelation of twenty five million dollars in grants. The Ohio History Connection received two hundred and forty nine and ten federal Of the federal grants in twenty twenty two, one marker for where Ohio's first and longest running lesbian bar once stood it's since been demolished, was not paid from this grant the historic There was a historic group that paid for that, And this is another shameful attempt to erase our history and our lives. They will ultimately fail.
We're still here and we're still alive, and we know what we had as history. But until then, who knows story is? Is from Central Ohio News by David Reese, published April eighth, twenty twenty five.
All right, thanks Jonathan. Yeah, so these cuts were made in the name of, quote government efficiency. As a member of the LGBTQ community yourself, as you mentioned earlier, I imagine you take that quite personally, that you know, having part of your history removed as government efficiency. So how do you feel about having those contributions of this community just being cast aside? What are your thoughts on that.
I think that that's something we've been suffering from since I was since I was a child, and long before that, society has never accepted LGBTQ plus people as people, as human beings. They've always tried to demonize, tell us that we're things that were not define us for ourselves. All the nasty, ugly things you do to people when you just want to make them go away, you think they're icky or something like that, and your culture is what
does that? And when the culture started changing to accept us, there is a large part of that culture who is trying to say no, no, no, you can't do that. You know, this is how my identity, you know, this is me, you know, and we're saying, yeah, but we're here too, We're a me too, you know. So you get your act together, get over it, and move on with your life, you know. So we're moving on with ours regardless of what you do or say. You know, you stay in my way, I'll walk over you.
You know.
We're not going away. We're not going back in the closet. So there, you know. So there that's my opinion anyway.
Okay, all right, yeah, yeah, thanks for sharing that. Eli. I want to ask you specific about the article. It mentions that of the over eighteen hundred historical markers in Ohio. Only three of them lawed contributions of the LGBT community, three out of eighteen hundred. I think we all know the answer to this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Is this really a matter of government deficiency? Quote unquote?
I mean, they're saying it's about budget consciousness, but I think there's a good reason to believe that that's not the case. I think it's cultural warfare, just you know, for all of the reasons that you know Jonathan described, and it's people. You always hear people say like one of the most I don't know if it's most common, but there's always this idea of like, I'm fine with whatever people want to be as long as they don't
shove it down my throat. And then when you ask for an example of like, okay, well what do you mean when you say shoving it down your throat? It's something like this. It's like, well, why do there have to be monuments for gay and trans people? Why can't
they just be monuments for people? And it's this idea that like in that identity, having uniqueness and having identity and individuality is like just not something to be that that's worth acknowledging when you when you what's I had, I had a thought and I had it put in a certain way that they they When you don't acknowledge their existence, you participate in their erasure.
And that's an excellent point. Say that again, please.
Yeah, when when when you don't acknowledge their existence in history, their contributions, you're participating in their erasure. And what that means is is that gay kids, and trans kids, and and and all types of kids, all kinds of kids from everywhere deserve to see that people just like them have always existed, have always contributed, have always mattered and participated, and that there's no one particular way that you have
to be. You're allowed to be an individual. You're allowed to have an identity, and there's nothing wrong with whatever that identity is. And the history is not the way when you take out identity, the default view of history is that it's just filled with a bunch of white men fueled by guns and God power, God by God and gunpowder. Right, and it's just not consistent with reality.
Right. I want to stick with you, Eli, So, building on what you were just talking about, so these were historical markers that were canceled, So they're really just tearing pages out of the history book. Basically, why would the inclusion of the of a marginalized segment of the population be important in a historical context.
So well, and partly for for kind of how I was describing, you know, kids deserve to see that, like you know, there's there's all kinds of individually. But also there was like a statement made by you know, one of the individuals involved in this is like, you know, we don't fund identity politics, and it's that it's that identity shouldn't be political. Like there's no one event in
I think human history. I might be justified in saying that only involved exclusively one demographic of people and no other people. And so like you think of like you know wars, the Civil War, the Revolutionary War nine eleven, like yeah, the co like the COVID pandemic, all these things have always involved all types of different demographics of people.
And when it's just like kind of how I was saying before, if you don't you don't you don't have If you don't acknowledge their existence, you're just erasing their existence and you don't have to be a part of a demographic of people that Harry and Tubman you benefited in order to acknowledge the benefit of her contributions and
the work and the effort that she put in. Right, So there's there's value in celebrating the just there are things that make you know, people different from each other, and those things are great and fine to celebrate and not be ashamed of it, not hide from and not you know, put away and a race from history and it's it's I don't know, I can't put it.
Yeah, it's almost like before you were saying, you know, why not why do we need to celebrate specific categories of people, Why don't we just celebrate people? Well, what they're doing is they're eliminating those separate categories, and so they're really they're actually saying that while at the same
time they're arguing to actually not just celebrate people. We talked before about how three out of the eighteen hundred historical markers were related to LGBTQ people, and that's you know, way less than the percentage of the population that would fall into that group.
We're part of history, right, So if you don't, we don't. If you're not, if we don't have LGBTQ. If we don't have black Hispanic Asian people designated in our history, they are in there our history. You're just trying to rewrite history. You're not concerned about history. And this budget excuse is the one that conservatives have used for time immemorial to pass discriminatory legislation, and that's what has happened
here as well. They're just and the thing is that people who are doing it do not have the authority to do that. Congress passed these these these dollars to go to that place. It's Congress's job to control the burs strings. The administration does not have the right or the authority to change what Congress said. So it's you know, it just drives me insane that they think they can just go in and we're just going to take a hatchet to the budget. No, you do that in Congress.
We don't do that. You don't get to do that as an administrator.
You know, sorry, go ahead of your life you wanted to.
That's not an oval office, you know, activity right.
Right, yeah, exactly. So, Jonathan, something that you said at the beginning of your last little bit there really stod out to me. You said, we're part of history. And I would go beyond that. I would say, we're also all part of we. It's not it's not that you're part of history or you're not part of history. We're all part of us. And so if we're talking about our history, we're talking about our society, we need to include we. I mean, it all depends on you know it.
It boils down to that, uh, well, that nasty word inclusiveness.
Right.
Do we want to include all these people or do we want to exclude them and make them into them? Right? And so if we can make them into them and then keep our we small.
And for all our problems, and we will exactly take credit for what we do wrong, exactly to be responsible for the fact that we have just managed to rip off the majority pority of people by blaming a minority of the people for doing it right. And that's just what's happening. It's a deflection, it's and it's really sad that that we fall for that every single year at budget time.
Yeah, yeah, Jonathan, I want to stick with you for a second. I'm a cisgendered, heterosexual white man. I'm not a member of the LGBTQ community. Yeah, well, you know, none of us are perfect, right, Uh, but there are many people that I care about, including people on this panel, uh, that are important to me and so that are that are part of that community. And so what could I do to help validate this existence, validate the contributions of the others that are being cast aside by by things
like this. What kind of advice would you give to me? Uh? You know, what can I do to help.
Being a good ally? It means a lot of things. One is first just recognizing the people in your life that are of LGBTQ. The other is getting acquainted with our history. That's something that even LGBTQ plus people should do. It's it's not a pretty history, but it is a history and it needs to be out there. And you know, if you see somebody or if somebody is telling an off color joke or something like that, speak up. It's
all an ally can do. The rest of us have to be there to show them that we're human beings. You can't do that for us. We have to do that. But you can say that's not cool, dude, that's just not cool, you know. And and when they say, well what do you? You can say it's none of your business.
What it is that what.
You're doing is you're putting people down that you don't even know, right, you know, or however you want to do it, or whatever your idea is. ELI tends to come up with some pretty good ways of phrasing things like that that kind of get attention. But I'm not a poet, so I can't I use brute force a lot of the time. Like you know what, the language I would use probably shouldn't be broadcast.
Well, you are a sailor, right, You're a sailor, So that's what I mean.
You don't want to hear it.
All right? All right? So yeah, so speaking of ELI, I wanted to jump over to ELI real quick here. So author Michael P. Watson Uh says that quote strong people don't put others down, they lift them up. And so how could how how could that reflect on this situation here? What do you what do you what kind of light do you think that that statements like that cast onto what's happening here?
Yeah? I mean it's firstly, I think I wholly agree with that. I don't know if there's if I find any flawed in that, uh in that idea and when you take a look at what this, you know, these budget the particular budget cut or you know, actions like this are doing that are pretty clearly just targeting a group of already marginalized people. How is that lifting anybody up? What is and even it's not only not lifting up that group, it's not really lifting up anybody, it's not
helping anyone at all. To not have these markers in place. I mean, you could, I guess, make the argument, well, now that money can go somewhere else, like you think that's gonna do something good for.
You, But well, what about the other you know, seventeen hundred and ninety seven historical markers too, That money could have gone to something else too. True, Yeah, and it's not.
And I don't I don't mean because of like the small amount that these three you know, structures would have caused. But I mean, like, I just I think that the there's a lot of discussion around government spending going on, and I'm just not of the opinion that it is going to become any more transparent than it ever has been.
And I think there's a strong case that may be made that probably less so, So I just don't think that those those funds that would have otherwise gone to celebrating people that have done great things for others in their community and their society. That's what that money would have gone to. I would have celebrated those people, and now it's going to go to you know, question, my question, my question?
Right right? I have one last question I want to ask both of you. I'll ask Eli first because I want to give Jonathan the last word here, but so uh in this same question for both of you? Can the harm that is being caused by this and other similar recent events? Can this harm ever be healed?
You know, I am not a part of the group to whom the harm is being done, and for that reason, I don't I I don't know if it is my place to comment on that. I don't know if I could, if I could accurately make a judgment about that, because I I think that's up to the ones that are that are being harmed.
Okay, fair enough, fair enough, Jonathan, what are your thoughts then? Can't? Can't? Can this? Can this real damage that's being done to an important community in in our in our society? Can this ever be healed? I mean, is this something that we can put behind us, or are we doomed as a species and as a civilization and as a nation to forever well to ever be shitting on other people? I guess well.
I would say that all all harm can be dealt with and can be in the past. The repercussions of it will resonate through at least several generations. Eventually it will just be a footnote in a history book someplace. That's okay, But the real harm and pain it causes now, they're real people, and I just I don't think that people really understand that everybody who is in a minority situation anywhere in the world are real human beings. They
could be your sister, and oftentimes are. If you own a uterus in this society, they're trying to put you back in the kitchen, and that's all that they want you to do, because you threaten men when you're better at their job than they are. And that's the same with all minorities. But the only thing you can do is be who you are and be the best that you can be, and do it publicly so that people understand that you're human and you're a good human and
you're doing good things for them. As well, and I think that'll turn the tide eventually. I find that people who were pretty bigoted that I got to know and talk to on a daily basis, when they found out I was queer, they all of a sudden changed their mind on that. Well, they can't be that bad because here's John, you know, and he lives a very quiet life, and you know, he works hard, he does his stuff. You know, that's what we do as LGBTQ plus, as
other minorities do. But you know, the one last comment I want to make about the whole thing is that the opposition to us always uses the budget while they are blowing the budget it up with financial giveaways to their very wealthy friend. Right, we're targeting the wrong people. You want to get a better society, target the people who are making ripping you off essentially. So I'm going to stop there because I don't want to get too involved in that, but just a.
Thought, sure, sure, So I just want to clarify. Did I detect a hint of optimism in what you were saying there?
Yes, that's right. Yeah, I'm old enough to where I might not see it, but I have I have optimism that people are people and they basically are good, they're not They don't like being angry and mad, so I think that eventually that will wear off and we'll get together and at least not be trying to beat each other up every day.
Well, hearing that from you, Jonathan, it does make you know, because I know many of us have difficulty these days finding room for optimism, and so I'm glad that. I'm glad to hear that you know that there is some of that out there, So thank you for sharing. I think both of you actually