Unusually cold weather here today, with overcast skies that look almost snow-laden—though snow this early in the season would be out of the ordinary. Steve and I are making chow chow. Steve happened to notice that our neighbors’ tomato vines, which overhang the little old-fashioned wire fence between our back yards, were laden with green tomatoes as the frost neared.Since the neighbors had kindly offered for us to pick tomatoes on our side of the fence, and since these end-of-garden stragglers were going to waste, Steve retrieved them. And now we’re commemorating my mother’s birthday by canning a relish she loved and always made this time of year during my childhood, chow chow.
As I mind the pot of vinegar and pickling spices, a quick scan of the news. Two articles today pick up on themes about which I’ve blogged in recent days.
In “Don’t Give African Americans a Pass for Homophobia,” Clay Cane addresses Jasmyne Cannick’s recent LA Times opinion piece about gay marriage
(www.alternet.org/sex/108137). I blogged about Cannick’s views a week ago (http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/11/finding-common-ground-gay-and-african.html).
Some key quotes from Cane:
As a black gay man who has endured the words "n****r" and "f****t", who lives in this duality of gayness and blackness, I have a vested interest in both inequalities.
+ + + + +
Homophobia in the black community equals a "real man." Sadly, homophobia is a conversation that we, as the black community, are absolutely refusing to have.
On the issue of civil rights, some black leaders say, "Gays need to stop comparing their struggle to blacks!" Sadly, it's the ruling class that wants these two minority groups to engage in comparisons of victimology. What it really says is, "Don't you n****rs let those f****ts think they have it worse than you!"
From my years of working in historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that Cane is correct when he says, “Sadly, homophobia is a conversation that we, as the black community, are absolutely refusing to have.” There is a conspiracy of silence within the African-American community as a whole about homophobia.
And the community is paying a steep price for that silence. Because the myth that gayness is a white boys’ disease persists in the black community, women of color are being infected with HIV at a much higher rate than the population as a whole by men who sleep with men while maintaining a façade of heterosexuality.
Silence equals death. Until African-American leaders—particularly educational and church leaders—call for open nationwide conversation among people of color about the damage that homophobia does to people of color themselves, black women will continue to contract HIV at a much higher rate than that of other demographic groups; young gay people of color will live in shame and court self-destructive behaviors, because they are not allowed positive role models in their communities and churches; and energy for change that could positively affect the nation as a whole, if one demeaned minority group did not permit itself to be played against another, will continue to be siphoned off in enervating in-fighting.
It is for these reasons that I have called repeatedly on this blog for church-sponsored HBCUs to open spaces for honest, wide-ranging conversation about these social problems (see, e.g., http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/06/and-pilgrimage-continues_03.html). The historic cultural breakthrough represented by the election of the first African-American president in American history should become a backdrop for such probing conversation of homophobia within communities of color—even more so, because of the high percentage of African-American voters in California who simultaneously supported Mr. Obama and proposition 8.
These are not simply gay issues. Nor are they simply issues for the black community. They are human rights issues that drive to the heart of what democracy is all about. Though I suspect the new administration will do all it can to dodge these issues in the name of political expediency and centrist governance, I think that it would be a mistake for the Obama administration not to call for educational initiatives about human rights, homophobia, and the role of religion in pluralistic democracy, in light of what happened with the recent anti-gay initiatives.
The second news item that catches my eye today is Waymon Hudson’s “Domestic Partnership Benefits? They Are after Those, Too.” Pam Spaulding has linked to this article from the Bilerico blog (www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=9B4E72CF65BC6F88AFBF6F2B8A4B7C50?diaryId=8355).
Hudson reports alarming, but not unexpected, news from the the Florida Family Association, one of the groups that led the fight for amendment 2 outlawing gay marriage, in Florida. Hudson notes that David Caton, executive director of FFA, recently informed the Miami Herald,
We're going to use the momentum from the marriage amendment to speak to the fact that most people in this state don't want a recognition of that type of relationship. At this time of economic stress, our government should not be providing benefits to nonemployees on the basis of their sexual relationships.
As Hudson points out, during the months leading up to the vote in Florida, FFA and other groups advocating for a ban on gay marriage in the state claimed that they were not trying to abolish health benefits and hospital visitation rights for gay couples. Now, as he says, “the truth comes out.” The goal of these initiatives against gay marriage is to roll back as many rights as possible from gay citizens.
We who are gay would be foolish in the extreme if we did not recognize that this is the game plan of those using gay lives and gay human beings to make political points. “[M]ost people in this state don't want a recognition of that type of relationship”: the ultimate objective of those using gay persons in these ugly political battles is to tell us that we are unwelcome, and should return to the closet in order to make our fellow citizens comfortable.
If we do not intend to do that—and I, for one, don’t—then we need to push for the kind of national conversation for which I’m advocating under the new administration. If the Obama administration does not make human rights—and, in particular, gay rights, because it is in the lives of gay citizens that human rights are most threatened in American society today—a centerpiece of its program of change, then the change promised us is not going to accomplish what we expect. Not for gay citizens. Not for the nation as a whole.
