Queer?

In Cathy Cohen's; Punk, Bulldaggers and Welfare Queens, I found it interesting that many Blacks and other people of color prefer not to use the term queer to describe their sexual orientation, she states that "... like other lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered activits of color, I find the label "queer" fraught with unspoken assumptions which inhibit the radical political potential of this cateory (547)".

 I wonder if these people of color who turn away from the label of queer must turn away from the activitist groups that identify with the term queer and as a result are excluded from the demonstrations, texts and other forms of outreach that these groups partisipate in. Is turining away from the term queer worth being exculded? It seems that queer politics follows the model of interlocking systems of oppression by excluding those who have a lower SES (social economic status) and who are of color and can't be as flexible as the majority who can just turn away from their cultural norms and standards and create their own. Isn't the whole point of queer theory and activism to create a safe space for ALL homosexuals so that they can choose their own idenity? Whether it be bisexual, transgendered, curious, lesbian, gay, or etc?

Isn't queer just another label, a term that is used to separate homosexuals and pit them against each other, its like the article we read last class that spoke about how labels push butch women away from transgendered males, when both are considered homosexuals and should be fighting for the same human and civil rights, instead of trying to split one another into boxes. What would have happened if during the civil right's movement blacks would have split themselves up into categories; light-skin and dark-skin? We'd probably still be drinking out of a different water fountain and sitting in the back of the bus. How much stronger could the Gay movement be if they all just did away with labels?