Dreaming, Telling, Occupying, and Destroying: Interest Convergence between Militarism and Social Justice in the Dream Act and the Repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

Abstract

The recent attempt to pass the DREAM Act and successful repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) manifest ways in which seemingly progressive political efforts can be strategically coopted to support US imperialism, especially during times of war. Although the DREAM Act would have opened up avenues for undocumented immigrant youth to obtain some sort of legal status in the United States and possibly some higher education, it also provided a way to build the volunteer U.S. military. The repeal of DADT for the first time formally allows LGBQ individuals to participate in the US military without being closeted; it also works to build the volunteer U.S. military. As both the DREAM Act and DADT were attached to the National Defense Authorization Act for the Fiscal Year 2011, it is transparent that they could work in favor of and in unison with a larger military interest.As Derrick Bell's theory of interest convergence explains, incremental social change is often rooted in sustaining and/or building the power of the elite. Both The Dream Act and DADT demonstrate this phenomenon in that both could benefit the liberal non-profit sector (by building momentum around potentially winnable campaigns on behalf of sympathetic populations), the Democratic Party (by supporting limited rights for LGBQ people and immigrants while diverting attention from other concerns and issues) and the military industrial complex (MIC) (by explicitly providing ways to recruit more people into the military without a draft and therefore benefiting all corporate and conservative interests involved). That one has succeeded and the other failed reflects the less perfect interest convergence in the case of the DREAM Act, which would have provided some limited material benefits to certain immigrant youth outside of the MIC.We begin with a brief overview of the history of both the DREAM Act and DADT to help understand their trajectories in context. Next, we look in more detail at how the MIC, nonprofit industrial complex, and politicians coopted efforts to gain legal status for immigrants and end discrimination against LGBQ people in ways that 1) furthered war and thus the destruction of lives and homes of racialized people around the world; 2) sowed division among marginalized groups with rhetoric identifying some as deserving and others as undeserving; and 3) distracted attention and resources away from efforts to fundamentally alter relations of power and distribution of wealth and life chances among marginalized and dominant groups. We conclude our analysis with some of our dreams, sharing strategies that queer immigrants, straight immigrants, queer citizens, and allies are using to make more fundamental change and ideas for resisting future cooptation.