A black lesbian's perspective on Prop 8 (LA Times)

[silverojo]

I'm not saying whether her opinion is right or wrong, just saying that perhaps these issues need to be taken into consideration, to win black voters to the gay marriage cause in the future. After all, the best way to understand the "other side" is to listen to what they have to say, rather than trying to second-guess them.

Then there was the poorly conceived campaign strategy. Opponents of Proposition 8 relied on an outdated civil rights model, engaging the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People to help win black support on the issue of gay marriage. This happened despite the warnings of black lesbians and gays that it wouldn't work. While the NAACP definitely should have been included in the strategy, it shouldn't have been the only group. Putting nearly a quarter of a million dollars into an outdated civil rights group that has very little influence on the black vote -- at least when it comes to gay issues -- will never work.

Likewise, holding the occasional town-hall meeting in Leimert Park -- the one part of the black community where they now feel safe thanks to gentrification -- to tell black people how to vote on something gay isn't effective outreach either.

There's nothing a white gay person can tell me when it comes to how I as a black lesbian should talk to my community about this issue. If and when I choose to, I know how to say what needs to be said. Many black gays just haven't been convinced that this movement for marriage is about anything more than the white gays who fund it (and who, we often find, are just as racist and clueless when it comes to blacks as they claim blacks are homophobic).

Some people seem to think that homophobia trumps racism, and that winning the battle for gay marriage will symbolically bring about equality for everyone. That may seem true to white gays, but as a black lesbian, let me tell you: There are still too many inequalities that exist as it relates to my race for that to ever be the case. Ever heard of "driving while black"? Ever looked at the difference between the dropout rates for blacks and for whites? Or test scores? Or wages? Or rates of incarceration?

Full story at link:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-cannick8-2008nov08,0,3295255.story


Again...please don't think I'm posting flamebait, because I'm just trying to understand the AA community's viewpoint about this issue, as much as the rest of you are. Thanks.

[jonnyblitz]

1. yeah this crap has been posted 4 or 5 times already.

she was a huge hit. :eyes:

[W_HAMILTON]

2. Fuck her.

I read the same article on GD.

Just because equal rights for gay people isn't a priority for her, doesn't mean it's not a priority.

There were lots of whites back in the day that didn't see the problem in having separate water fountains, either.

She says that there is still racial discrimination in this country, but a lot of the reason for that was the long-term denial of equal rights, which led people to believe that they were better than black people, and that type of superior thinking leads to discrimination, even when equal rights finally are granted. When you deny gay people equal rights, or strip back the rights they do have, it only continues the same cycle of thinking that allows that discrimination in the first place.

So, she can go fuck herself. Gay people are usually supportive of the struggle for equal rights and elimination of discrimination of all minority groups, whereas this stupid bitch apparently only cares about herself. If the civil rights movement was made up people with this same sort of attitude -- I got mine, now yall get your's! -- she would have a helluva lot more to bitch about, because it would have accomplished little to nothing without the help of people that were already blessed with equal rights.

[Maat]

3. In my humble opinion ...

she seems way off base here. I'm not discounting the phenomena that she is talking about. I put my life literally on the line many times helping families of color as a social worker. I know of what she speaks.

The passage of Prop. 8, HOWEVER, represents a constitutional crisis. It represents the tyranny of the majority denying a fundamental right to a minority. It is a civil rights issue (a legal concept, as opposed to criminal rights) period - as well as an issue of denial of equal protection of the law (another legal concept).

We don't need to pit against other issues in terms of importance. I, for one, can walk and chew gum at the same time. I can work on other injustices as I campaign against the implementation of Prop. 8, and I did campaign for many candidates while I campaigned against Prop. 8 (I was even able to continue volunteering at the Food Bank). The point is that the sad state-of-affairs with regard to other issues was NO excuse for failing to attempt to stop this constitutional abomination.

The Yes-On-8ers are a bunch of bullies, and they will not stop here. They have established the most dangerous precedent of all ... allowing a constitution to be used to eliminate rights. They will continue to abuse the process unless they lose this fight. It is a vital fight.

For that reason, this woman fails to persuade me to go along with her point-of-view. O.K. - I'll just come out with it - she's full of crap.

[bluedawg12]

4. Guys- she comes from a different set of priorities

seriously, I was pissed off when I read this at first because I thought she would see herself as gay first and black second.

I was wrong. I posted over on GD aboutthis just now. I am white and I haven't a clue what it is like to be black nor to have the concerns of a black person.

The first priorities in life are food, shelter and safety.

I haven't grown up around gangs, nor been poor, nor been black.

I don't know why the news paper published that letter because it was bound to get people pissed off.

But, all I'm saying that ethnic experience seems to be more of a commonality than sexual orientation.

I think we need to let the P8 CNN poll go. It could be flawed, as pointed out on Kos, or it could be close.

But as a white person, it hit me tonight after six days of being sick to my stomach about being betrayed by those I thought we had a kinship with, that I was wrong and talking outmy @ss. I mean, just that. Plus, we may be doing some harm to AA gays.

That's why I think this is a legal battle, one for the Courts. Hell we can't even get the tidy white fundy vote with us. We need to stay focused and work together.

Flame me if you wish, but you know I was feeling the same way until it hit me.

We really have, thanks to the douche that's leaving in January, a f*cked world and the rich are richer and the poor are poorer and that trumps marriage for many.

Peace

bd12

This helped me understand:

http://www.ifbprides.org/ifbp_news_june_08_irene.php

>>The growing gulf between whites and blacks, rich and poor can be seen in the HIV/AIDS epidemic that was once an entire LGBTQ community problem and is now predominately a black one.

Another example of our division can be seen in the white gay ghettos that have developed and thrived safely in neighborhoods throughout the country. However, with homophobia in black communities, where most of us reside, we cannot carve out a black queer ghetto within our existing neighborhoods and expect to realistically be safe.

OUR THEMES FOR Black Pride events are different from the larger Pride events. Black Pride focuses on issues not solely pertaining to gays, but rather on social, economic and health issues impacting the entire black community. For example, where the primary focus and themes in white Prides have been on marriage equality, gay people of African descent have used Pride events to focus on HIV/AIDS, other health issues, gang violence and youth homelessness, to name only a few.

By 1999, Black Pride events had grown into the International Federation of Black Prides, Inc. (IFBP). The IFBP is a coalition of 29 Black Pride organizations across the country. It formed to promote an African multicultural and multinational network of LGBTQ/Same Gender Loving Pride events and community based organizations dedicated to building solidarity, health and wellness and promoting''unity throughout our communities. <<

[mondo joe]

7. Different priorites is one thing. Voting against civil rights is another, as is dismissing

that loss.

[bluedawg12]

8. mondo joe - they didn't vote in a vacuum

They brought their history and life experience with them.

We are not going to change that from an outsiders perspective and life. I hold everyone accountable but in the process this last bit just puzzled me so Ihave been searching for answers. here's one I found on the possible experiential differences in life that shape attitudes to wards gays, the other is about demographics.


I think this anger will just tear us up emotionally as individuals, and it probably hurts the black GLBTQ's.

I think there are cultural chasms as a white person I can not understand. What changes will occur will be internal for the AA commun.

For gays, it will not be the court of public opinion, it will be the Courts.

peace-


Sexualities, Vol. 10, No. 5, 603-622 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1363460707083171

'At Least I'm Not Gay': Heterosexual Identity Making among Poor Black Teens
Carissa M. Froyum
University of Norhtern Iowa, USA, [e-mail]

This ethnographic study examines the ways in which a group of American low-income Black teenagers construct affirming identities through heterosexuality. The youth undertake a number of strategies to create and protect their heterosexual identities, including adopting heterosexist ideologies, conflating heterosexuality with gender nonconformity, disassociating from gay-coded behaviors, and threatening nonconformists. These strategies allow girls and boys to fashion themselves as moral, legitimate, and superior to others: benefits they otherwise lack. While previous research suggests that policing sexuality is a way to construct masculinities, this study finds that policing gender is a way to affirm heterosexuality.
........
..........
http://poq.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/67/1/59

Public Opinion Quarterly 67:59-78 (2003)
© 2003 American Association for Public Opinion Research

Black-White Differences in Attitudes toward Homosexuality and Gay Rights*
GREGORY B. LEWIS

Abstract

Black homophobia has been cited as a contributing factor in slowing mobilization against AIDS in the African-American community, as an obstacle to black lesbians and gay men in coming to terms with their sexuality, and as a challenge to the legitimacy of the gay rights movement. Yet evidence that blacks are more homophobic than whites is quite limited. This article uses responses from almost seven thousand blacks and forty-three thousand whites in 31 surveys conducted since 1973 to give more definitive answers on black-white attitudinal differences and their demographic roots. Despite their greater disapproval of homosexuality, blacks' opinions on sodomy laws, gay civil liberties, and employment discrimination are quite similar to whites' opinions, and African Americans are more likely to support laws prohibiting antigay discrimination. Once religious and educational differences are controlled, blacks remain more disapproving of homosexuality but are moderately more supportive of gay civil liberties and markedly more opposed to antigay employment discrimination than are whites. Yet religion, education, gender, and age all have weaker impacts on black than on white attitudes, suggesting that black and white attitudes have different roots.

[mondo joe]

9. No excuses for voting against civil rights. None. Sorry. I'm sure all bigots have

excuses, but I don't accept them.

But if you think I'm wrong, just chalk it up to my history and life experience.

[bluedawg12]

11. mondo joe - no excuses

just facts, they did what they did. Now we need to go and do what we need to do as a community.

But, I don't think from what I am reading that we are going to win over hearts and minds as outsiders. That has to come from within.

We have a lot of work to do ourselves, it's starting all over..again.

[mondo joe]

12. Yes, and I'm giving much thought to what I need to do as an individual, as well

as what we need to do as a community.

[bluedawg12]

14. mondo joe -Good.

I've read your posts, you are a smart person, you get to the point and I have been in some of the same debates as you totally on your/our side.

I am past the point of worrying about straights for a while. Really. That's why I hope for the Courts, and the future in SCOTUS, stay united, be an online community as many of us are isolated and remain focused.

Any suggestions or ideas are welcome on how to proceed.

[mondo joe]

17. I don't have any conclusions of value to suggest at this time.

My only inkling is to hit our enemies as hard as we can economically.

That includes attacking tax exemption for any and every church against my civil rights.

That includes individual donors, and voices such as the author of that editorial.

And it means restricting my resources to this cause, and no others. Many people have sought, and benefited from, the volunteerism and charitable contributions of gays - but turned against us when it counted. IMO, they ought to go without our support.

[bluedawg12]

18. Exactly!

I agree. I am at the moment heterophobic. So I am mostly staying around supportive people, my partner and this forum and DU.

I worry about the psychological impact that years of open gay bashing may have caused many GLBT's especially the singles, those without a gay support group in their home towns, and the youngsters coming up the line. You know the stats.

I am funding gay causes, as you, and I am going to participate in this forum because I wish to see it as an internet home and community and a source of support. Isolation and bigotry make people very unhappy and very sad.
And because I am proud of my GLBTQ brothers and sisters, what a smart, fun, funny and passionate group.

This is day six after the gut punch and I am ready to move onward and upward.

[xchrom]

5. oh well -- again nt

[yardwork]

6. Everybody is an individual. Nobody gets to speak for their whole "community."

One good thing that might come out of all this, on DU at least, is that a few more people noticed that there is no single "gay community" that speaks as a monolithic whole. Likewise, there is no single "black community." Nor is there a single "black lesbian community" that speaks for all black lesbians. Everybody speaks from their own personal experience.

Personally, I think that the writer of this op-ed piece is a jerk and a narrow-minded one at that, but she has a right to her opinion.

[bluedawg12]

10. She wasn't my fav either

but I have to wonder if the newspaper could have found a more divisive letter to print? :sarcasm:

The letter was flame bait for sure. Still, if I don't expect anything from others, other than what they can give, I won't be disappointed.

[yardwork]

13. Her piece serves one very useful function.

It proves that at least one black person in California was opposed to Prop 8. That will be very disappointing to a couple of DUers.

[bluedawg12]

15. LMAO!!

Like I said, everyone now has their own work to do. :rofl:

[yardwork]

16. ..

:toast:

[bluedawg12]

19. ..

:toast:

[bliss_eternal]

20. I frequently read her blog...

...but disagreed with a lot of this particular opinion piece. Though, I am trying to understand her perspective on some points.

I found the comments offered in response to this piece (on her blog) more.......inclusive. Quite a few glbt's of color seemed to call her on her comments.

Personally, I feel she creates a misleading picture of black residents of Southern California. She seems to be speaking for a very specific demographic within the black community, so this probably shouldn't be taken as any sort of gauge of "all things black."

In Los Angeles there are several areas considered middle class. There are also upper middle class black communities. Baldwin Hills, Winsor Hills and to a degree Ladera Heights are wealthier areas--consisting of black celebrities, business owners, professional people (i,e, doctors, lawyers, music industry executives, film industry, etc).

Her comments seem more concerned with blacks outside of the demographics I speak of above. For example, parts of south central los angeles, parts of compton, watts, etc. It's frustrating to see things like this, as she makes it sound like no blacks are even registered to vote, most don't have transportation to polls, etc. Which isn't the case to my knowledge. Not all black people in southern California are immpoverished, charity cases--like the picture she paints. Is there poverty in some multicultural areas--sure, but that's not specific to one race.

Anyway, just trying to clear up some of the glaring generalizations she seems to make, that could prove to be misleading.
Hope this is helpful, at least in filtering through some of her piece.

Take care.

[bluedawg12]

21. Thanks - good comments n/t