Plus: Praise for Guv’s ex-aide Charles O’Byrne
N.Y. Assembly member would be the first openly gay U.S. Senator.
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By Herndon Davis
Friday, November 07, 2008
Editor’s note: Read our feature story about Prop 8 protests in New York here, a related article about Internet activsm here and a feature about criticism of the LGBT movement in California here. In addition, other Prop 8 opinion pieces are here and here.
AS A BLACK and gay activist and resident of Los Angeles, I watched as Proposition 8 in California was passed, creating a legal ban on same-sex marriage in the state. I also watched how within 24 hours many LGBT activists squarely placed the blame on black residents, 70 percent of whom voted in favor of the ban.
I further watched and read how black gay protesters who were against the ban and in favor of same-sex marriage were called the “N” word during a demonstration march in Westwood.
And finally, I've read how blogger Jasmyne Cannick was assailed by everyone from Mayor Durrant of West Hollywood to fellow LGBT bloggers for her recent Los Angeles Times commentary concerning race relations within the LGBT community and their impact on Prop 8.
My advice to the LGBT community, the organizers of “No on 8,” the many LGBT donors and the remaining members of the “Gay Mafia” is that they should take seriously the racial, ethnic and socioeconomic factors of blacks and other people of color communities as it endeavors further in its marriage equality quest.
As an activist and now a consultant within the LGBT arena, I can tell you there is a deep arrogance and belief among many within the LGBT community that black communities should instantly jump onto the civil rights bus for gays just because we, too, are a minority.
In some corners of our diverse LGBT community there is a blatant disregard for culture, religion and the oppression of other racial and ethnic groups. Many working class blacks and Latinos are struggling to pay rent, put food on the table and are dodging bullets—they don’t see a connection to the white-faced and seemingly privileged LGBT people to support marriage equality.
These are points that the LGBT community seems ill-prepared to tackle. In this new era of President Obama, we still need to have a much deeper conversation concerning race relations that LGBT communities seem to quickly shy away from. So instead of focusing on anger toward black communities, the LGBT community must take a long, hard look at itself. Here a few places to start:
• Why couldn’t the LGBT community get the queen of all American cities, San Francisco, to vote in higher numbers on such a crucial vote? And remember that blacks consist of a tiny 6 percent of California's total population. So this means that far more non-black people voted to ban same-sex marriage than black folks.
• Why in Los Angeles were there seemingly six radio ads an hour to vote "No on Prop 8" during the morning run on the Latino 96 FM station but absolutely none on the black 102.3 FM KJLH station or the black and notoriously homophobic, 106 FM radio?
• Why was there only one town hall meeting that I know of that was held targeting African Americans in Los Angeles? And why were there fewer than five black people across the entire state of California trying to coordinate a "No on 8" campaign targeting the black community?
Black outreach has been historically and consistently underfunded and understaffed by the LGBT establishment.
Why not hold a town hall meeting at a community center in Compton with free parking six weeks before Election Day with follow-ups in Lemiert Park, West Adams, Watts, Gardena and other areas in South Los Angeles? I guess that was too much work to do for the LGBT community to earn the black vote on such an important measure.
• Where was the door-to-door neighborhood canvassing and phone banking directly targeting black communities?
• Where was the outreach to black affirming clergy to assist with black churches in California?
• Why did the LGBT community expect to run a few ads in black newspapers in California just two months before the election to sway voters?
Remember that blacks went from slavery to “separate but equal” to desegregation to tolerance to gain. Blacks still lag behind in many areas of social justice, although we have all of our rights. From under-employment, education disparities, income inequities to driving-while-black harassment, blacks still face steep odds, despite a black man’s election as president.
So if the LGBT community would like to continue to compare itself to the black civil rights struggle, it may want to readjust its timeline a bit. It has taken several hundred years for blacks in this country to go from slavery to the White House.
Could it be that the LGBT community may have to just wait its time as well? Maybe not hundreds of years but perhaps a whole lot longer than previously expected?
Herndon Davis is media consultant and author. He can be reached at herndondavis.com.
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