Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: Washington, D.C. is more than Marion Barry
It’s easy, and necessary, to take Marion Barry to task for his crazed talk during the gay marriage debate in Washington, D.C. He supports the measure, then doesn’t. Votes for it, whines he didn’t know what he was doing. Then throws out some line about civil war and what the black community is for.
But with the spotlight on Barry, something is being missed. Wish I could take credit for this, but I’m stealing it from writer Ta-Nehisi Coates:
“There are 12 members of the City Council. Seven of them are black. One is Marion Barry. To anyone who’s followed Barry’s career, I’m not sure why ‘Marion Barry Is A Demagogue’ is breaking news. It’s really wrong to erase the other six votes on that measure, and make Barry the face of blacks on the Council, and blacks in the City.”
Look what D.C. Council member Yvette Alexander said when talking about her vote:
“I can honestly say I’m still at odds with the issue of gay marriage in the District of Columbia. I still want to learn more about that issue. But I do know one thing, I do know that everybody is equal under God.”
Some of you “radicals” are going to be all over Alexander for not being completely on board, but she gave her vote anyway. A predominately black city purchased a ticket for the gay marriage express. Not sure what that means or if it should be read in any way, but those who made race the only memo in the Prop 8 debacle have been surprisingly (maybe not) quiet about this.
In a column written by a black man chastising those who editorialized in response to the editorials regarding how unfair blaming blacks for black voting against gays, one wonders why the “only” point being raised in those responses is race?
I see, you (Withers) were chastising those who brought up race in an incredulous light due to the discriminatory practices endured by those of that race and then want us to talk about Mormons!
Sleight of hand much?
Gay people are rightfully surprised and a bit indignant that a group of people who claim to have suffered gross and unfair discrimination and then pass along gross and unfair discrimination to gay people and WE are the ones focusing solely on race?
Nope. Sorry. We’ve been fighting back against mormons, religious zealots, blacks, black religious zealots, black mormon religious zealots all along.
YOU (Withers) have been the one to focus on gay people’s reaction to the black vote/attitude in your column written by a black man.
Done a few columns about gays’ reaction to Mormon vote/attitude lately?
I must have missed them.
See, this is the way it works:
Blacks display opposition to gay peoples’ equal rights.
Gay people recognize this opposition and voice displeasure with it.
Black columnists then claim gay people wrongfully focusing on the black vote for discrimination.
Gay people say: Hell yes we’re focusing on the black vote for discrimination. They voted to discriminate against us!
Black columnist writes: Bad bad gay people. For opposing black discrimination against you, you are racists!!
Some of us own up. Some of us back peddle like crazy.
Doesn’t change the FACT of what happened.
Blacks voted en masse to discriminate against the equal rights of gay people and gay people called them on it.
Doesn’t matter how many blacks, now ashamed and shaken to their moral little cores, stand up and give token lip-service to equality.
That doesn’t change the past.
You want a better future?
Own up to it. Or back peddle like crazy…but don’t blame gay people for fighting back against discrimination by blacks.
That’s what we do. We fight back.
Thank you so much for pointing this out. I honestly praise Councilwoman Alexander above all the people who have grown up with gay friends and gay family members, and who have a stake in this. It’s easy to embrace a truth that has been staring you in the face your entire life. The truly courageous people are the ones who are able to accept a truth that is still at odds with who they were molded into in their younger years. Being able to embrace the fact that not all of America is like her, and maybe people have the right to live differently and equally is what will push our rights forward. THIS should be what we are talking about, not Marion waste my time Barry.
Robert,
“NOBODY made race the ONLY memo in the Prop 8 debacle.”
Really?! No one?! We disagree on that topic.
Sincerely,
James
James, you’re being disengenuous. NOBODY made race the ONLY memo in the Prop 8 debacle. I criticized blacks who voted for Prop 8 almost as much as I criticized Mormons (who I see as the main culprits, and to which my family belongs) and Catholics, who are behind nearly every movement toward free agency of any kind.
We applaud anyone of any color who votes for equality for us, and we will criticize anyone of any color or creed who vote against fairness.
It’s as simple as that. Always was.
And I have a question. I’m sure marriages can be performed in DC. It’s nice they voted to recognize marriages performed in other jurisdictions where marriage for gay people is legal. But why don’t they legalize the actual perfomance of marriages for gay people in DC?
I think it’s great they did this, but why not actual marriage rights in DC????
D.C. and Californai are a country apart. Maybe you can make assumptions about similarites and maybe you can’t. My recollection is that polling data in California showed blacks as a demographic heavily supporting Prop 8. This statistic doesn’t mean all blacks are anti-gay. It just means that GENERALLY SPEAKNG, a group that we expected to be on the side of equality isn’t – at least not in California. So we have hearts and minds that we must change.
Barry’s civil war comment was race baiting. I get that he doesn’t speak for all of the black community, and I don’t want his vote to overshadow the morality and support for equality shown by the other council members, black and white.
But the thing is, he DOES represent a significant and vocal part of the black community, rooted in black churches, that are adamantly opposed to any rights for gay people. By invoking race, Barry is setting this up as a battle between the gays and the blacks.
The right wingers would love nothing more than to see our two minority communities duke it out for the crumbs, while they sit back and chuckle. We need to be smarter than that.
Is there a way that equality minded black people can rise up against the religious blacks who want to deny gay rights? If indeed this is not a black thing, we need blacks to say that in very large and visible numbers.
This can’t be about blacks versus gays. It needs to be about fair minded people versus misguided/misinformed church going folks, who need to have their understanding of the Bible expanded a bit. The Bible has been used quite enough to hurt many of us. Let’s stop it.
AMEN!
Very true. DC has an African-American majority. A gay marriage measure wouldn’t have passed the council by a 12-1 vote without support from many of DC’s black residents.
Thing is, Yvette Alexander came up with what everyone else should have been saying all along: ALL ARE EQUAL UNDER GOD. Not “under law” or “under the government” but “UNDER GOD” everyone is equal. My kudos to Yvette Alexander.
Good commentary. I agree, it’s hard to assess what this “means” about the perception that blacks are hostile to gay legal issues. But I appreciate above all the honesty of Yvette Alexander. And I congratulate her for her ultimate conclusion: all are equal before the law. Her decision is all the more courageous because she apparently doesn’t see this as a… uh… black or white issue, and she admits she doesn’t quite get it. But when push comes to shove, her feelings about equality trump her moral uncertainty about something she doesn’t fully understand. That’s refreshing.