28 pages • 56 minutes read
Harvey MilkHope Speech
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1978A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
LGBTQ+ Pride in Action
The most explicit theme in Milk’s speech is pride in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) community. Specifically, the speech emphasizes the necessity of pride in an environment that wants to force LGBTQ+ people to remain closeted or face bitter consequences. “The Hope Speech” presents pride as the answer to LGBTQ+ prejudice and the only working solution for hatred and prejudice.
LGBTQ+ pride is conceptually based in opposition to the stigma and shame historically attached to LGBTQ+ people. Pride is queerness made visible; it serves as a language between LGBTQ+ subgroups, allowing unity and personal identification all at once. Pride flags and other symbols, for example, allow LGBTQ+ people to display their unique identities without needing to openly make a statement. Milk references the purpose of pride by saying, “Once you have dialogue starting, you know you can break down prejudice” (4). In line with Milk’s demand for dialogue, pride and the symbols that go with it invite conversation, both among LGBTQ+ people of varying identities and between LGBTQ+ people and their allies. The purpose of pride is to be visible and, through visibility, to be understood.
While a value system and belief at heart, pride manifests in actions meant to bolster unity between LGBTQ+ subgroups, such as parades. In 1977, the year of Milk’s election, the crowd at the San Francisco Pride Parade was approximately 250,000 people strong. As such, the speech’s emphasis on pride and visibility comes from a strong local and national foundation. Milk uses this as the background for his speech, encouraging his audience not to give up the ground they have achieved.
Milk uses the theme of pride to emphasize the need for gay visibility not just in society but in the government: “I think it’s time that we have many legislators who are gay and proud of that fact and do not have to remain in the closet” (4). He clearly advocates not only for members of the LGBTQ+ community to be proud of their identities, but also for them to reorient their positive feelings toward practical, legislative action. For Milk, pride is deeply intertwined with action. Pride means more than having a particular emotional reaction, although he certainly affirms his personal pride in himself and his audience. Instead, one must be out, visible, and acting against the opposition to fully embrace pride. The concept of pride achieves its goal if LGBTQ+ people are not only visible and advocating for themselves and their community, but also creating hope for all who are marginalized.
The Importance of Representation and Intersectional Solidarity
While recognized primarily for its importance to the LGBTQ+ community, “The Hope Speech” also engages with the broader issue of representation, as Milk advocates for all disenfranchised groups to have the opportunity to stand for themselves in government. Milk uses this theme to inspire solidarity among marginalized groups while still acknowledging the differences between groups as valid and deserving of recognition.
Representation connotes ideas of visibility and invisibility. When marginalized groups are unrepresented, avenues of societal and political power—the government, the media, etc.—likely do not represent their needs or beliefs at all. Those without representation are functionally negligible, unless indirectly represented by an ally to their cause. Milk argues that such indirect representation is no longer sufficient; rather, marginalized people need to ensure their own visibility by taking a more prominent role in society and in government.
Representation in American government has varied throughout history, but many struggles for representation began in the mid-1900s. Prior to that point, white men almost exclusively dominated government, either straight or closeted. Milk’s speech insists that this must change in order for those who are marginalized to challenge the stereotypes attached to them, which those in power often promulgate. Perhaps the most prominent fight for such representation in the US was the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, which sought equal rights for Black Americans, who had been struggling under segregation and other unjust expressions of systemic racism. Milk references this movement’s achievements in the past tense, saying, “[T]oday, the black community is not judged by its friends, but by its black legislators and leaders” (4). Although the fight for Black civil rights was far from over in the 1970s, Milk’s framing points to the success of Black activists and movements as an example worth following.
Milk’s frequent reiteration of the needs of various marginalized groups emphasizes just how many people need representation. While he primarily advocates for gay representation in government, he argues that a victory for one disenfranchised group is a victory for all. Some disagree with this approach, arguing that conflating the struggles of different groups silences those more in need of representation than others. This would merely replicate the problem that “The Hope Speech” identifies with allyship: No matter how sympathetic they might be, a member of a more privileged group lacks the personal experience necessary to know the issues at stake for members of disenfranchised groups.
Harmful Stereotypes and Heightened Expectations for Minorities
The primary enemy of the gay rights movement during the 1970s was prejudice, often manifesting as harmful stereotypes portraying LGBTQ+ people as misguided at best and actively dangerous and perverted at worst. Milk emphasizes the need to overcome these stereotypes throughout the speech, strengthening his argument by framing stereotypes about gay people as equally harmful as stereotypes about other marginalized groups. A consistent effect of this across marginalized groups is the need to present the “best” version of themselves in order to dispel any potential prejudice that may be directed toward them, evening if non-marginalized groups aren’t expected to reach the same standard.
Stereotypes about gay people during this period ranged widely, but Anita Bryant and other anti-gay activists promoted the most harmful ones—namely, those connecting gay people to child pornography and sexual assault. By encouraging American society to believe all gay people were sexual predators, anti-gay activists were able to pass legislation that penalized openly LGBTQ+ people for their identities. Such stereotypes also contributed to an atmosphere that facilitated hate crimes, one of which—the murder of a gay man shortly before Gay Pride Day—Milk references in his speech. More broadly, stereotypes strip people of their full humanity. As Milk notes, the stereotypes about gay people erase the many other identities and roles they occupy: as family members, friends, workers, etc.
Milk develops his theme of stereotypes and prejudice by referring to them as “myths,” highlighting their centrality to public perceptions of marginalized groups. A myth is stronger than a simple stereotype; it is central to a country or group’s belief system. He argues that all marginalized groups, not just LGBTQ+ people, face “myths” that they must fight to overcome. Milk uses this terminology to emphasize the difficulty facing the gay community. Since the gay community has been slandered as criminals, overcoming stereotypes requires proving the opposite to be true—hence Milk’s overwhelming focus on politics as the solution. At this stage in the fight for rights, he argues, gay people must focus on promoting an image of respectability to combat the stereotypes that they are deviant and criminal.
This may mean holding oneself to a higher standard than the one to which those currently in power hold themselves. Milk insists that gay elected officials must be “above wheeling and dealing” (4), which (as his opening joke about the Chicago mayor demonstrates) is certainly not true of all politicians. After listing these requirements, Milk pivots to his audience’s “anger and resentment” in implicit acknowledgment of the emotional cost of what would later be called respectability politics (4): His listeners have good reason to be angry and to want to express that anger, Milk suggests. Nevertheless, he stresses the importance of positivity in combatting stereotypes, and not only to influence the opinions of the broader public. Rather, Milk argues that striving to be positive role models will ultimately serve gay people (particularly gay youth) by challenging internalized prejudice and instilling self-respect.
