Osler's Razor

As part of haiku Friday yesterday, I posted the opening credit scene of the 1971 film "Shaft." As I watched it, one segment (starting at about 2:20) caught my attention: the part where Shaft weaves through some kind of demonstration where protesters are holding signs saying the following:

"Fidelifacts spies on homosexuals"
"I lost my job through Fidelifacts"
"Fidelifacts traffics in human lives"
"I got my job through the New York Times" [with a picture of an ostrich in a boater hat]

It turns out that rather than being a staged bit for the movie, this actually is a snapshot of a fascinating bit of history.

The makers of the movie just filmed Richard Roundtree going through an actual demonstration that was sponsored by the Gay Activists Alliance, just a few years after Stonewall. The target was Fidelifacts, a company that provided employers with information about the (supposed) sexual preferences of people seeking work-- so that those employers could actively discriminate against them. The New York Times has an excellent description here.

It's intriguing that a movie viewed by many as "Blaxploitation" also contains this bit of factual gay history, seemingly by accident...