From John Aravosis at America Blog, a reminder of the new president’s courageous challenge to the African-American community to overcome homophobia; Barack Obama made the following statement a year ago on Martin Luther King day at Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta:For most of this country's history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man's inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays - on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.
And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community.
We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity (www.americablog.com/2009/01/debate-continues-over-homophobia-in.html).
In making these prophetic statements, Barack Obama was walking in a trail blazed by Dr. King’s widow Coretta Scott King, who made the following statements (on various occasions) about the connection between the black and the gay communities:
Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.
We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny . . . . I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be. I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy.
Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions.
John Aravosis’s question, as he excerpts Obama’s Martin Luther King speech last year: “Why is it so anathema to discuss homophobia in the black community? Especially after Obama himself has acknowledged it?”
