Black Gays Search For Acceptance In Shadow Of Martin Luther King Day

[Ian David]

Black Gays Search For Acceptance In Shadow Of Martin Luther King Day
by Doreen Brandt, 365Gay.com Washington Bureau

Posted: January 15, 2006 - 5:00 pm ET


<snip>

(Washington) As the country observes the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Black gays continue to search for acceptance within the African American community.

Despite support from the NAACP which has condemned constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage, Black churches have fueled anti-gay sentiment.

<snip>

The growing disharmony between Black clergy and gays reached a climax in October when gay African American leader Keith Boykin was prevented from speaking at the Millions More March on the National Mall, despite an invitation from march organizer Louis Farrakhan.

The position of Black churches, say gay African American leaders, would have been condemned by Dr. King.

Dr. King's widow, Coretta Scott King, has said on a number of occasions that her husband would have supported gay marriage. But, her statements have estranged her from her daughter, Bernice King, an outspoken opponent of gay unions.

The civil rights leader's 1963 March on Washington, one of the largest nonviolent protests ever held in the United States, was organized by a close associate of Dr. King - Bayard Rustin, an openly gay man.

More:
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/01/011506king.htm

[TallahasseeGrannie]

1. I think King would have championed

the disenfranchised, no matter what the reason.

[Olney Blue]

2. I miss Dr. King. I wish he were still with us.

[tuvor]

3. SFGate: King Would Not Have Marched Against Gay Marriage

King Would Not Have Marched Against Gay Marriage
by Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Published on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/12/14/EDGEBAB7KB1.DTL


The sight of the youngest daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. standing at her father's gravesite Saturday with thousands of demonstrators to denounce same-sex marriage was painful. The Rev. Bernice King and march organizers deliberately chose King's resting place in Atlanta to imply that he would have stood with them. But Martin Luther King's uncompromising battle against discrimination during his life -- and his persistent refusal to distance himself from a well-known gay civil rights leader -- show that King never would have endorsed an anti-gay campaign.

It's not the first time that a King family member has sullied King's name and legacy to torpedo gay rights. In 1998, King's niece, Alveda King, barnstormed the country speaking at rallies against gay-rights legislation. In case anyone missed the King family connection, her group is named King for America. Gay-rights groups everywhere countered King's "repent and save yourself" message to gays by quoting a public statement Coretta Scott King issued in 1996, in which she said that King would be a champion of gay rights if he were alive.

At Saturday's event, King's daughter was careful not to mention same-sex marriage in her talk. Her mentor and march organizer, Bishop Eddie Long, cautiously downplayed the issue, though media reported that Long's Web site listed promoting a federal amendment against same-sex marriage as a major goal of the march. But Bernice King is an outspoken evangelical, and in the last couple of years she and other black evangelicals have marched, protested, and written letters and petitions denouncing such marriages. Polls show that black evangelicals' hostility to same-sex marriage is much stronger than that of white evangelicals.

In the 1960s, gay rights were invisible on America's public policy radar, and homosexuality in both black and white communities was hushed up. There's not a word about homosexuality in any of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches or writings. There's a way, however, to gauge what his feelings were on the issue, and that is the longtime personal and political relationship that King had with Bayard Rustin. Best known as the driving force behind the historic 1963 March on Washington, Rustin was a close King associate and a known homosexual. (In 1953, Rustin was convicted on "morals" charges -- the parlance, in the frozen mood of that day, for homosexual acts.) King knew this, as did top FBI officials, black elected officials, civil-rights leaders and the tight circle of black ministers around King. That didn't deter King from embracing Rustin.

(More at link)

[triakis36]

4. Discrimination against one group is discrimination against all groups

It's amazing but sad that one group can champion for equal rights but denounce the rights of others. But equality is a simple equation, equal rights for all. It would do us well to remember that. But it also goes the other way around, gay people can also discriminate. Queer people of color often have to face oppression from all sides.

[joeybee12]

5. You're right, and welcome to DU....

...I have real issues with African-Americans being biased against gays, as well as gays being biased against African-Americans. You'd think any minority would be more sympathetic to other minorities.

[triakis36]

7. Thanks for the welcome!

You're right. Us minorities have to stick up for one another, even the grizzly bears. ^.~ But if you think about it, everyone is part of some minority group or another be it ethnicity, nationality, religion, sex, whatever... so really everyone needs to get involved in fighting discrimination.

[joeybee12]

11. Do you mean real grizzly bears? If so, I am really pissed they

might come off the protection list!

[Ian David]

6. But we still have to discriminate against grizzly bears

They are soulless eating machines and they want our honey.

And our picnic baskets.

And hermaphrodite polar bears want to recruit our children.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/12/arctic_pollution/


Troy Hurtubise is mankind's only hope.

[dsc]

8. It is an honest shame that there are racist gays and homophobic

African Americans. Sadly there are a fair percentage of both. Both groups should know better.

[Ian David]

9. For one "reason," see this article:

A CounterPunch Special
"Segregation (and Hypocrisy) Forever"
The Legacy of Strom Thurmond

By KEVIN ALEXANDER GRAY

Mandinkas were the fiercest warriors of Africa. After a Caribbean slave revolt in the 1800s, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, the leading intellectual of the Southern gentry, invoked the specter of Mandingo slaughtering white masters as justification for their enslavement. Black male sexual prowess was also a big part of the myth. The often used colloquialism, "once you go black you never go back"--is the myth of the big black, well-endowed buck, Mandingo.

In the 1970s, the myth became the movie "Mandingo" in which one-time heavyweight champ Ken Norton played a noble slave who burns down the white man's plantation and escapes to freedom with the blond Southern belle in his arms. My mother took us kids to see the "controversial" movie when it was shown at the local drive-in theatre. And at the top of her stack of romance novels was a cover showing a muscular, caramel-colored black man caressing a buxom, blond lass, her ample white breast barely covered by the straps of her torn hoop dress, her long blond ringlets cascading over her shoulder with the title "Mandingo" emblazoned across the cover.

The Mandingo stereotype entraps black males to this day as evidenced by the pop culture embrace of the pimp, gangsta rappers along with a host of psycho-sexual-social illusions. The myth fuels denial over homosexuality and feeds rampant homophobia in the black community. As black gay and bisexual men practice a dangerous sexual secrecy, the AIDS crisis in the black community worsens. As a friend told me, "One of the worst thing to be is a gay black man in the south. The preacher wants you to lead the choir, and maybe even give him a blowjob every now and again, while condemning, denying or damning your very existence from the pulpit."

As for white women, during slavery a white woman marrying or consensually having a child by a black man usually found herself in legally sanctioned bondage. "Defilement" or being "spoiled" during the Jim Crow era most often meant banishment--or stripped of being "white" for one's "nigger-loving" ways. White men used "protecting white womanhood," the first plank in the Klan platform, as a pretext for controlling white women, but in some respects it trapped the men in a psychotic effort to prove their own sexual dominance.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/gray03082004.html

Part of the problem is that African-Americans have had to fight "The Mandingo Stereotype" for generations-- the notion that they could not control their sexual urges. This has been part of their struggle towards equality and respect.

Many of the heterosexual black clergy feel that if they concede that some people are "born gay" that this will cause them to lose some of their own hard-won ground. The feeling is that if they concede that someone cannot keep themselves from being gay, that they will somehow be conceding that black men cannot keep themselves from raping white women.

A more cynical reason is that many feel relieved to have a scapegoat they can blame the ills of their own community on. Rev. Louis Sheldon says that homosexuality is the greatest threat to the urban community, for example.

Many black churches are willing to share a common enemy with the white fundamentalists, under the premise they will believe, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

That particular pathological strategy is not exclusive to black churches, either.

For example:

Queer allies: The little-noticed alliance between gay marriage opponents and alleged terrorist sympathizers
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1203/marriage_terrorists.php3

Yes, Jewish groups are allying with anti-Jewish Muslim groups to fight gay marriage. Muslim groups are allying with anti-Muslim Christian groups to fight gay marriage.

It's a sick, sick world.

[dsc]

10. I think there are a variety of reasons

and stereotypes are one. But gays are not blameless here. We have racists in our community as well.

[Ian David]

12. There are racists in every community. You are correct.

And there are very many other reasons.

[triakis36]

13. Wow! Great article.

It points to the fact that racism and oppression are really institutionalized in this country. We have to work really hard to counter this kind of thinking because these people are doing whatever it takes to keep us down. When it comes down to it, it's really all about power, and if we can call people out on that notion then maybe they'll realize how sick and perverted their reasoning really is.

[Ian David]

14. Thanks! Here's more from an earlier post of mine (January 2005)

3. African-Americans and Homophobihttp://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x3942#3947


According to some statistics I have seen, African-Americans are more likely to be homophobic than any other ethnic group.

But I have read conflicting statistics in various places, so I'll accept that information only provisionally for now. (If anyone has any definitive studies on that, please let me know.)

The usual explanation is that they tend to spend more time and church and because of the rampant racism in our country they are more often deprived of an education.

And in church, they are the captive audience every Sunday of someone who tells them what he says God wants them to believe. And often what they're told is that God wants them to hate homosexuals.

I agree with that, and add my own theory.

The old racist stereotype (see: Birth of a Nation for an illustration) used to be that black people couldn't control their sexual urges and would rape white women any time they were given the chance.



Of course, come the civil rights movement, they did a good job fighting that stereotype. For the most part, it has worked. But not every bigoted racist is convinced. They never are.

Traces of the "black men are sexual beasts" stereotype linger in the form of the "black men have bigger penises" myth.

The dangers of flattering myths
http://idsnews.com/story.php?id=22646

At the risk of catching hell from my fellow black men, I feel I must make this point very clear: not all black men are anatomically gifted, either in regard to their physical abilities or sexual attributes. To think otherwise is to implicitly accept a racist stereotype, albeit a seemingly flattering one.

This particular notion derives from the "Mandingo" caricature of decades past. Mandingo is a stupid, muscular, jet-black, sub-human creature, most often portrayed as a field hand, who preys on white women. Mandingo's primary function is physical labor, and he is noted specifically for his sexual promiscuity and prowess. Overwhelmed by the animal nature of Mandingo, the helpless white women either fall victim to their own uncontrollable sexual urges and have sex with Mandingo, or more often, he takes them against their will -- similar to the snatching of Fay Wray in "King Kong" and the explicit premise of D.W. Griffith's racist "classic," "Birth of a Nation."

Not so flattering anymore, is it?

Now, people who believe homosexuality is a "choice" are more likely to be anti-gay than those who understand that gay is something you are BORN as.

So, consciously or not, the black clergy has decided to fight the idea that people are "born gay," because that would imply that homosexuals are born with certain urges (for example, an attraction for the same sex) that gay people "can not control."

And if gay people can not control being gay, what does that do when black people confront racists who believe that black men can't control wanting to rape white women?

The possibility of biologically determined sexual urges frightens the black clergy because they're afraid that accepting gay people as "born gay" means giving credence to the false idea that black men are "born rapists."

There's also the idea that African-Americans are still afraid of the same white southern crackers that have abused them for centuries. They're afraid to stand-up for the rights of those people that the white fundamentalists hate, because it would bring down the whip of whitey's lash.

In case you haven't read carefully (or in case I have not been clear enough) please understand that I am discussing racial and gay stereotypes that I do NOT agree with and that I find reprehensible.

I have nothing against black people or gay people, and I whole-heartedly endorse their liberation from oppression and bigotry. I apologize in advance if I have not been clear enough to make that obvious.

Oh, and obviously NOT ALL African-Americans are homophobes.

I can follow-up on that in another post if anyone's interested.

Actually, let me at least throw in one link:

Coretta Scott King
Links Gay Rights and
African-American Civil Rights
http://www.hatecrime.org/subpages/coretta.html

More:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x3942#3947

[triakis36]

15. Loved the Coretta Scott King Remarks

The links were a little old, but I want to dig around and see if I can't find her full speeches. They need to go on my wall too. Especially this one from MLK himself. 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'

[TaleWgnDg]

16. Lookit. It's all quite simple. George Walker Bush has been

buying black votes through out-right freebie grant monies to black churches, period. That is, federal grant monies from your pocket goes to get votes against you and your families. George Walker Bush knows that black churches are the center of life for many blacks in America. Black churches were (and are) refuge houses, houses of education teaching not only Jesus but how to read, and how to organize against Jim Crow, etc.

This of all days, the birthdate of Martin Luther King, Jr. who was a Baptist minister . . . and George Walker Bush is using religion to obtain Republican votes. And he is winning over blacks, dividing their votes, particularly in Jesus-speak language of the very religion that has given blacks solace during hundreds of years of persecution across America.


http://www.blackcommentator.com/28/28_commentary.html



Ah, money and politics. Dirty money, dirty politics. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. would say, "No! I won't take your dirty money!" However, MLK would say "yes" to the inclusiveness of GLBTs within the meaning of the constitution's anti-discrimination.