Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: Prop 8 and its aftermath
Told you. Told you. Told you. At the end of October when writing about a Proposition 8 poll, I said if California voters didn’t support same sex marriage racial heck would break loose.
“…if gay marriage in California is struck down then this site and every other gay political site will be overwhelmed with ‘conversations’ on black homophobia.”
Overwhelmed we were. Some of the comments were perceptive. Others were rants. A few were two steps from loopy town. My personal favs were the commentator who has decided he/she is never going to vote again in the future. Or the many writers who noted how they marched back in the day for civil rights and now regret that choice.
Whatever.
In all of yesterday’s talk, no one mentioned the state’s governor’s lukewarm support of the anti-Prop 8 groups or the Mormon Church handing out bags of money to folk against sex marriage. The defeat of Prop 8 wasn’t put at the feet of Schwarzenegger or the Mormons. Yesterday’s talk was based on this phrase: blame the coloreds.
And before there are any calls for my head, let’s state the obvious: the majority of black and Latino voters in California gave their votes to Barack Obama and said no to same-sex marriage. As I have said before there is a breach in the Democratic Party tent: gays and lesbians on one side, socially conservative blacks and Latinos on the other. President-elect Obama has not been very adept at bridging that gulf .
Is there anyone out there who can? Doubt it, but chasms of intense disagreement are never modified with melodramatic missives and sweeping generalizations. You want to talk about black homophobia? Let’s go at it, but let’s also point out that it is part of the same thinking that made marriage rights face defeats in Arizona and Florida.
I think the Mormon church should absolutely be held to account for their actions. Their participation has been openly discussed and derided within the LGBT community. But to ignore the fact that 70% of African Americans and a staggering 75% of Black women voted YES on Prop 8, is to ignore a very real problem of bigotry and homophobia within the African American community. Not to mention that Obama himself targeted the Black Churches during his “Faith Tours” headed up by a prominent “YES on Prop 8″ advocate in an effort to garner votes. Speaking out against homophobia, bigotry and exploitation is not racism!
Yes, I think you are right.When you are just talking and putting blam on just one group of people then yes you are being racist. no matter what you say and that’s not going to make matters any better. The only thing we can do is to work together and show people that we are not bad and that no matter what religion you are we are all the same. We are all human,we all eat, and breath the same. So no matter if we are gay or not we are all people and that is what we have to show people.
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I know you’re angry (and I am too), but blaming a group of people BASED ON RACE for their actions is racist.
We also have to remember that these are post-polling numbers/percentages. Many white people, to avoid appearing homophobic in public, may have stated that they did not vote for the campaign. The voting numbers can’t even be trusted 100% thanks to the methods used to attempt to fool gay supporters into voting “Yes”.
All these results tell me is that we need to work harder, as everyone else has said, to communicate our REAL stories with EVERYONE (all races, all religions, all PEOPLE) and to never stop our fight for our freedom.
Easy read: IT IS TIME FOR A BOYCOTT OF ALL FLORIDA AND CALIFORNIA PRODUCTS!!! ADD ARIZONA TOO.
stating that the black community voted for prop 8 isn’t bigotry, it’s a fact. i didn’t create the statistics, the votes did.
to say they took the Oval Office and mantle of hate is also accurate, not because Obama is president, but because in the process of claiming ‘change’ the African-American community embraced oppression while in pursuit of ‘change’ same as our forefathers did to them. it’s called hypocracy and it’s wrong regardless of the color of your skin.
our organizers also did a bad job getting our message out, so there’s plenty of blame to go around. hopefully they have the opportunity to make this right. hopefully Obama will too.stating that the black community voted for prop 8 isn’t bigotry, it’s a fact. i didn’t create the statistics, the votes did.
to say they took the Oval Office and mantle of hate is also accurate, not because Obama is president, but because in the process of claiming ‘change’ the African-American community embraced oppression while in pursuit of ‘change’ same as our forefathers did to them. it’s called hypocracy and it’s wrong regardless of the color of your skin.
our organizers also did a bad job getting our message out, so there’s plenty of blame to go around. hopefully they have the opportunity to make this right. hopefully Obama will too.
We already knew that the Mormons sucked. And the evangelicals too. I blame the religious, of all colors first. Non-believers voted 90% against Prop 8. NINETY. Probably only gay people had a higher margin.
And yes, Schwarzenegger and Obama have some blame here, because probably either one could have turned that 2% we needed.
But 49-53% support among non-black races, compared to 70% support among blacks. That’s a pretty big gap. And I don’t think it’s as irrelevant as you’re trying to make it out.
Of course, we shouldn’t just be criticizing blacks, but asking how we can get that number down. And in a related issue, how can we get blacks to start rejecting religion, which is the real problem here, though many would rather not call it what it is.
Withers said: “President-elect Obama has not been very adept at bridging that gulf.”
It was infinitely more important that he get elected first. That in itself was a difficult enough job; fortunately, a number of circumstances, such as the economic mess, came to his aid. Now, let’s see what he does as President. I’m optimistic.
By the way, there’s a good article on the topic at the Advocate:
http://www.advocate.com/exclusive_detail_ektid64943.asp – What Obama’s Victory Means for the LGBT Community
“It certainly helps to have a president who will sign equality-granting legislation. But that’s not the big reason we can celebrate President-elect Barack Obama.”
I am amused at the comments from people who are surprised that Blacks, who felt the sting of discrimination, this week voted FOR discrimination. As an Armenian, I have to deal with the fact that Jews, who went through the Holocaust, routinely support Turkey, who engineered the Genocide of the Armenians in 1915 (and, please, it IS a proven fact; I can cite pages of US and Turkish sources from the time). Not to mention the fact that White Protestants, who came to America to escape religious persecution in Europe, then ganged up on the Irish and Italian Catholic immigrants. Or, for that matter, gays who talk smut about “wetbacks” and N–s (you know the word).
Discrimination is the fear and distrust of the Other. If we want gay marriage to pass in the US (or at least in California), we have to find ways of being something besides the Other. That means continuing to come out to our friends, employers, neighbors, pastors and priests. If we can put a face on gay marriage, then we will have a much higher chance of being accepted as husband and husband, or wife and wife.
RJ,
“the black community has taken the Oval Office and the mantle of hate.”
Unless something has changed the White House belongs to the citizens of the country, not a racial group. Please stop with the over the top language.
Sincerely,
James
You are one of the reasons 365Gay is no longer worth the time of day.
I agree that we need to start talking with the black community to bridge the gap between what they believe and what we want them to believe and I am sure we will. 25% of black women voted NO on proposition 8 so that is a good start. Nevertheless people are angry and feel betrayed and they need to vent that. We didn’t expect any love from the mormons or a soothing pad on the back from Arnold, but we did expect it from the other minorities who, or so we thought, would be the only ones that would know where we are coming from. They didn’t do what we hoped and expected, so we are mad at them, and for a day or 2, we have every right. And we are relatively nice in our anger because as far as I can tell from the news, so far there has been no African-American who has been dragged from his truck and beaten by a group of gays, no businesses were looted nor did the Castro burn. If posting some nasty and stupid messages out of hurt is the furthest we go in our anger, then hey, deal with it. We will be the first ones to reach out after this calms down, we always have and we always will.
Everyone talks about the Mormon Church giving tons of money for Prop 8. They are 100% wrong. That Church hasn’t given a penny to Prop 8. They just encouraged their individual members to donate. That’s where all of the money came from. I can guarantee you that the Mormon church didn’t give anything.
yes, more black voters checked “yes,” but who’s the bigot now? who is the one who is going to judge that they are bigots under the umbrella of race. so quick to judge.
i agree with you about Schwarzenegger, but at the end of the day, he’s not the one who cast all the votes. i agree with you about the Mormons too, but they’re not the one’s who know first hand the sting of hatred and bigotry. it’s the black community’s hypocracy that makes us angry with them. is anyone truly surprised Arnold didn’t do more? really? the guy is a closet nazi, i’m surprised he didn’t do more against us!
sorry, but protecting the black community from the blood on their own hands is naive and foolhearted.
the black community has taken the Oval Office and the mantle of hate. they’ve become the bigots and the oppressors they fought all these years.