When President Obama endorsed marriage rights for same-sex couples on May 9 -- becoming the first American president to do so -- he said his adolescent and pre-adolescent daughters had influenced his thinking. The girls have friends raised by same-sex couples, he said, and they could not imagine that their friends' parents should be treated differently.
Do Sasha and Malia Obama represent a sea change in black attitudes towards gay rights?
The NAACP's May 19th announcement in support of same-sex marriage, which came on the heels of President Obama's, was a surprise to many. Superficial analysis of California's Proposition 8 ballot initiative suggested that when blacks came out to vote they voted against marriage equality. While talk around the passage of Proposition 8 asserted that black voters disproportionately fueled the initiative, an extensive study showed that other factors such as age, party identification and church attendance are more relevant than race in influencing anti-gay marriage beliefs.
Much has been said about the relationship between attendance in the Black Church and opposition to gay marriage, but less has been written about factors such as generational mindsets and the influence of popular youth culture. Polls conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reveal that black opposition to gay marriage has fallen from 67 percent in 2004 to 49 percent this April -- a huge shift.
In a blog post, Bristol Palin critiqued the president for letting his daughters make policy decisions and quipped that teens who support gay marriage are unduly influenced by TV shows like Glee. Palin's remarks might not be that far off in terms of linking TV representations to popular attitudes. And when it comes to black youth attitudes there is an unlikely source: America's Next Top Model, the reality show hosted by Tyra Banks.
The West Indian and African American teenage girls I researched in Brooklyn watched Top Model religiously. The show featured openly gay men, including "Miss J," (J. Alexander) and "Mr. Jay," (Jay Manuel) -- both of whom have since been fired from the program. Tyra Banks, the executive producer, has long been an advocate for gay rights. For the 60-plus teens I interviewed, Miss J and Mr. Jay's sexuality was never an issue. For the girls in particular, Top Model's multiple gay experts and one transgendered contestant were unremarkable.
The youth understood that anti-gay sentiments and the Black Church have been historically connected. Discussing an episode of Top Model, a 17-year-old second generation Jamaican girl said, "[Although] a Christian is supposed to be open-minded to everything," she could "understand a Christian that's homophobic or that's basically that threatened or that scared of it." This remark was tempered by another West Indian girl who summed up the relationship between Christian belief and social equality, saying, "As a Christian you're not supposed to tear people apart and treat them negatively."
These teens are coming of age within African American and West Indian ethnic groups -- homophobic attitudes have traditionally been a pressing issue in both. For an earlier generation of African Americans, popular cultural cues such as Eddie Murphy's homophobic stand-up routines reflected anti-gay sentiments while fringe voices like filmmaker Marlon Riggs' Tongues Untied broke the silence on the realities of gay black male identity. In West Indian popular culture, fundamentalist readings of the bible fed violently homophobic dancehall lyrics of the sort articulated in Buju Banton's "Boom Bye Bye."
There are more current examples including the popularized fear of closeted black men "on the down low," who spread HIV to unsuspecting female partners, and the gay distancing remarks in hip hop artist Lil' Wayne's usage of "no homo." Still, for the teens I studied, these examples are overshadowed by the acceptance portrayed on shows like Top Model and Glee, and by hip hop stars like Nicki Minaj and Jay-Z. Minaj has said that her alter ego "Roman Zolanski" is a gay boy, and Jaz-Z voiced support for marriage equality after the President's announcement last month.
If black youth are taking their cues from and influencing such trends, then they are in step with their White, Latino, and Asian peers. According to a 2003 study funded by the Pew Chartable Trusts, the majority of Americans between the ages of 15 and 25 show high levels of support for gay rights and these views are maintained across all racial, ideological, geographic, partisan and religious lines. The study also found that African American and Latino youth support for extending equal housing, employment, and hate crime protections to gays exceeded that of white youth. Majorities of African American and Latino youth also supported civil unions, marriage and adoption rights.
The Obama daughters' role in influencing their dad, the president, to support gay marriage speaks to a generational divide that is closing. Civil rights groups, including the NAACP and the National Action Network, have organized a Father's Day Silent March against racial profiling for which more than 50 LGBT organizations have announced their support. By condemning the NYPD's Stop and Frisk program and joining the march, gay rights groups are claiming the injustices experienced by black and Latino youth as their shared cause.
First President Obama and then the NAACP come out in support of marriage equality. Now civil rights and LGBT groups are joining forces. Whether we credit Top Model or Sasha and Malia, this makes a worthy Father's Day gift for a president who started out as a community organizer.
Oneka LaBennett, author of She's Mad Real: Popular Culture and West Indian Girls in Brooklyn, is Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and Director of American Studies at Fordham University. She is also Research Director of the Bronx African American History Project. This piece was developed via the Op Ed Project's Public Voice's Fellowship at Fordham University (www.theopedproject.org).
Follow Oneka LaBennett on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Oneka LaBennett
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I will pray for your healing.
Why did many media commentators of Prop 8 embrace the African American vs LGBT narrative with such alacrity? What the coverage of Prop 8 glossed over, and what LaBennett’s piece reassesses, is that religious and political affiliations and age were more decisive factors than race. The irony of one marginalized group voting to deny civil rights to another was so thoroughly publicized that it became inseparable from Prop 8 itself (even though other interest groups, such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spent incredible amounts of money to pass it).
One of the merits of this piece is its success in eluding the dichotomous “this begets that ad infinitum” mentality that characterizes so many public and political discourses. Rather, LaBennett suggests a critical and serene way of reading a plethora of modern socio-cultural phenomena.
Even before this, though, I have thought very highly of the Obama's family life. It looks like the President and First Lady are raising them to be very nice young ladies (what a change over the Bush daughters! Though in all honesty the one is turning out OK).;
However, here we are 3500 years later, with a world population of 7 billion people and growing. The earth cannot keep supporting the increasing number of people being born. I believe that homosexuality is God's brake on human reproduction--because God knows that straights don't seem able in most cases to be willing or able to control their fertility.
Sasha and Malia are growing up to be two fine young ladies and I have thought this long before the President came out as endorsing GLBT marriage. Just because the President and First Lady refuse to bring them up as narrow-minded bigots does not mean that they are trash or sinful or anything else you might wish to think. This country would be a far better place if there was less hatred and more acceptance.
It is a big sin, but that's ok, we all sin and their sin is so icky that we'll let you still hate them.
You are taught to not bear witness or judge, but in this case, we have to hate someone and this group is the one you are to hate. Now when you find out which sexuality you have, make sure you choose the one that we want you to choose, even though it is wrong to lie, it would be better if you did lie about who or what you are. We love you anyway, but want you to lie about yourself all of your life and judge and hate. To lie, to judge others and hate gays is probably not a huge sin. It's only three big sins. Being gay might be one little sin. hmmmm This is called good parenting.
In Romney this would be called flip-flopping. (And, NO, I don't support Romney.)
America is so immature on this compared to those countries that have marriage equality. The sky has not fallen in, they are doing all right considering the economic situation. Canada is an example. If anything they are doing better than we are. But we are forced to fight this every inch of the way because of those who believe that we have to live as people lived 3000 years ago...and not even that because monogamous marriage was not as prominent as now. I am really getting tired of this. We do not break any laws, we pay taxes like everyone else, but we don't have all the rights that straights enjoy. This is getting very tiresome.
Sorry you can't see the difference.