Time to Overcome Black Homophobia
Whilst marking their ballot boxes in favour of Barack Obama last Tuesday, 70% of African American voters in California -- just one of the states that have passed Proposition 8 -- also marked their ballot boxes against gay marriage.
With African-Americans turning out in record numbers last week to vote for Barack Obama -- California saw an increase of some 500,000 black voters -- many gay rights supporters are now angry at what they see as an apparent hypocrisy amongst African American voters, who they perceive as having used their numbers to help elect America's first black president whilst simultaneously voting to deny freedoms to another minority. (It's interesting to note Barack Obama's position on the matter -- he is against gay marriage, but supports civil unions and doesn't believe there should be a ban on same-sex marriage, a slightly contradictory position.)
Gay rights supporters are surprised that African Americans could have voted against gay marriage believing that they, more than anyone, should understand discrimination having suffered from it for so long. However, not only are African Americans traditionally conservative when it comes to homosexuality -- carrying strong, often negative and deeply religious feelings about the issue -- some are not convinced that that gay rights are, as many activists believe, on a par with the civil rights issues that black people have faced.
Naturally, many African Americans are pretty irritated at the blame that is being heaped at their doorstep. After all, they were not only ones to vote for a ban on gay marriage. As Raymond Leon Roker points out 49% of Asian Americans, 53% of Hispanics and nearly 50% of white voters -- who make up 63% of the voting population in California voted in favour of the proposition. Furthermore, in California, black voters make up a small proportion of the population and therefore could not have statistically have made the major difference.
Regardless of who is to blame, the African-American community (and black communities around the world) does have an issue -- a deep rooted and as yet very much unresolved one - with homosexuality that needs to be addressed.
Discussions about homosexuality within the black community still often revolve around homophobic attitudes, often couched in and absolved by references to religion and the Bible. We often hear, from young and old, about sin and Sodom and Gomorrah in conversations about homosexuality. Using religion is a good way for people uncomfortable with homosexuality to shut down discussion: after all, how do you argue with the Bible? Preaching the Bible is fine, but it does nothing to address the very pressing issues that our black lesbian and gay community members face.
Our issue with homosexuality is also partly about our own struggles and conflicts over black masculinity and femininity. Whilst black people often complain about the images of black men and women that have been forced upon us and perpetuated through the media, we also struggle with our own ideas about what it means to be a black man or woman. Unfortunately, there is little room for homosexuality within any such discussions.
"No homo," a phrase popularized by rappers is one example of the issues surrounding black masculinity. Expressions of emotion or intimacy (particularly between two men), according to the "no homo" rule, is gay and therefore bad and it should be made known that said expression carries no homosexual connotations, hence the use of the phrase "no homo."
When intimacy and expression are equated in black popular culture, with being gay which is openly and unequivocally equated with being bad, what message does that send not only to gay black men and women about how they are viewed but to heterosexual men and women about how they express themselves?
It's also about our unwillingness to adequately address sexual health issues within our community, with diseases like HIV and AIDS still remaining taboo subjects despite the fact that they disproportionately affect us. Recent research from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention shows that "there were more new HIV infections in young black [gay and bisexual] men aged 13-29 than any other age or racial group".
It's also about the role of the black church, its ability to influence and what it does with that influence.The church has historically blazed a positive trail on civil rights issues affecting the black community, yet on homosexuality they remain either silent of vehemently against it.
Similarly, it's about the black community's willingness - at times - to engage in a head-in-the-sand attitude about certain issues that we feel uncomfortable about. There are a multitude of rumours about black actors, musicians and entertainers who are gay, but there are very few -- if any -- openly gay high profile black people. Those people are not out because homosexuality is still not socially acceptable within the black community, but we all know they are there. With homosexuality, as with some other matters, many of us in the black community seem to operate a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
Regardless of whether or not we agree with it -- I personally do not care who people sleep with or who they marry so long as they are consenting adults -- the fact is that we have brothers and sisters who are gay who require support: emotional, mental and sexual. And supporting them, by constructively engaging with and deconstructing our own prejudices and dealing with some of our own internal conflicts about the issues I've raised above helps the entire black community, in a myriad of ways.
It's not all bad though, apparently. A study by Gregory B Lewis of Georgia State University found that "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 anti-gay employment discrimination than are whites."
That's all good to some extent. However, there's still plenty of work to be done surrounding the attitudes towards homosexuality within the black community.
It's hard enough being black without the added stress and turmoil that I can imagine comes from being gay within the black community. It's time for us to face up to our issues.
Follow Lola Adesioye on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lolaadesioye
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Thanks for your great post. I was reallly hoping someone would pass along these thoughts.
A helpful roadmap for black folks. Nonetheless, the main stream press and the self-appointed gatekeepers of the (white) gay community have zeroed-in on black folks to express their resentment and sense of betrayal. 1st, you don't vote for civil rights; you legislate to protect our freedoms; marriage between persons of the same sex is a right, not a privilege. Find out how folks managed it in Mass. and CT. Secondly, if you have to have whipping boys for your failures, try pointing the finger at members of your own communities; there's plenty of work to do there, too.
tyrdofwaitin,
I agree with, "Secondly, if you have to have whipping boys for your failures, try pointing the finger at members of your own communities; there's plenty of work to do there, too."
It drives me crazy to have folk try to equate African-American discrimina
I'm not suggesting civil unions should be abandoned, but fight for your rights from the prespective of other "action-behavior based" platforms not using some false equavilence with race... Remember: Mary stopped being a prostitute after finding Christ~ That's why religion is important to many. Respect!
It is NOT a 'false equivalence with race' that we are arguing. READ the Proposition. READ the fliers that 'Yes on 8' put out. Every single state that had miscegnation laws used the same rationale to argue against interracial marriages-'They were immoral.' 'They were illegal." (yes, because the LAWS made them so) 'God didn't intend for the races to mix.' 'Allowing races to mix would lead to a decay of morality.' The MOST famous case is Loving v. Virginia--find a copy of the proceedings and read it. Then--come back and talk about the 'false equivalence with race'. Remember--there ARE Black, Brown and ASIAN gays and lesbians. "WHERE?" I hear you ask. Well, they're probably sitting next to you at work or on the bus or standing in line next to you at the coffee shop or selling you flowers or tending you when you're sick or building your houses or babysitting your kids. The PROBLEM is YOU don't want to KNOW that they are everywhere and further more, THEY don't want YOU to know because YOU might just be a hater. They have kids and families to protect too you know. WE didn't just 'appear' on the planet!
I agree!
I can't speak for all gay people, but I know the only "choice" I had in being gay was whether to live as God made me, or to live a lie. I lived the lie and in the process was a whirlwind of destruction in life of my first boyfriend's wife, and in the life of my girlfriend at the time. It was only when I was able to accept that I was gay, and chose to live honestly that I was able to stop acting out unconsciously and destructively in my own life and others.
I don't understand how someone who is not gay can declare with such conviction that being gay is a choice. What makes them think that they can judge what is true for an individual better than the individuals themselves? It is like a right-handed person telling a left-handed person that that is just a choice. They know with certainty that they are naturally right-handed, but quite obviously left-handed people are choosing to be so.
Being able to act straight is also not the paradise you would like to believe, but that is a whole other long discussion
The "luxury of closets"?
I don't know where to begin with that one.
It seems to me that the myth--and it is a myth--of the luxury of the closet is one of the reasons for the disproportionately high HIV rate among African Americans.
What you see as "luxury" is really a death trap.
I am white and I completely understand what you are saying -- but the reason that I understand it is that I am married to a black person. I can go outside my house and people will react to me completely differently depending on whether or not my husband and I are together. If I choose not to tell someone that I am in a bi-racial marriage, they might not ever know.
Every time my husband walks out the door, people respond to him differently than they do to me, because he is black. The color of his skin walks into the room ahead of him.
The choice that gay people have is not about whether or not they are gay, but about whether or not they choose to inform another about it. Just like me -- I can always choose not to mention that I am married to a black person, depending on whether I think they can handle it.
My husband doesn't have the choice of whether or not he wants to be treated one way or another. He will be treated differently than a white man every day of the week, every day of his life.
If gay folks want the black folks to take them seriously, they will need to recognize this fundamental difference in their experience. Many black folks may be fine with the concept of civil rights for gay folks, but stop insulting black people by equating the gay experience with the black experience.
How do you argue with the Bible? I don't even focus on the Bible. I didn't know the story of Jesus until I was ten years old when my parents and I went to Paris (that's right: FRANCE!) and the museums had paintings depicting biblical scenes. So, my mom decided to explain to me what they portray. So, I didn't learn this until I was ten, by which point I could already identify Charlie Chaplin and Chevy Chase; hell, by the age of five, I could identify Mel Blanc, Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng.
Really. How do you argue with the Bible? You say, "Yes, that's an interesting cultural document, but I don't happen to accept it as literal truth." For heaven's sake, it's a document that has been translated many times (and it's a well-established fact that the King James version was translated from a faulty translation) and even the 4 gospels were not written down until hundreds of years after Jesus' death. Even the gospels contradict each other on some points.
And let's not get into all the other things that were named "anathema" in Leviticus -- eating pork, eating shellfish, men shaving and getting haircuts, clothes of blended fiber... When the bible is used selectively as a tool and a justification for bigotry, it loses its credibility.
Let's not forget, too, that Solomon was one man who married a lot more than one woman ... and the Bible was also used to justify slavery. Read selectively, it can be used to justify or condemn just about anything.
I like Barack Obama's attitude toward religion: he has his own faith but does not seem to feel the need to impose it on others:
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