After being slammed for taking a “neutral” stance on marriage equality, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will hold its first town hall meeting on LGBT issues, moderated by out CNN anchor Don Lemon and lesbo-comedian Wanda Sykes. Sounds fun and informative, but what will they actually discuss?
According to the NAACP, the LGBT forum “will examine the significant contributions of black gay leaders within the Civil Rights movement, the role of black straight allies in addressing homophobia, and how we can collectively overcome LGBT discrimination within the black community.”
To be fair, the NAACP has supported hate-crimes legislation and anti-bullying programs, and has opposed laws banning same-sex marriage (like Prop 8). Plus, NAACP chair Julian Bond enthusiastically addressed LGBT and black civil rights in his 2009 Human Rights Campaign speech, so the organization hasn’t been totally silent on LGBT issues. But we’ll be listening for sound bits and conversation points from the discussion.
The panel will also include National Women’s Studies Association president Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Noah’s Arc actor Daryl Stephen and writer/scholar/activist Kenyon Farrow.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Um… we want tickets to this event. Like, really badly!
EDITOR’S NOTE: Commenter QJ201 correctly points out that the NAACP panel lacks a transperson and possibly a bisexual.
christopher di spirito
Maybe someone will ask Don Lemon why CNN sucks so much?
QJ201
Some trans folks and bi folks are already bitching that no one representing them is on the panel.
Brandon h
I wonder if they just see which way the wind is blowing.
Queer Supremacist
I’m happy to see them moving in the right direction. They supported Obama; will they take him to task for his two-faced “fierce advocacy?” I hope so.
HM
Welcome but overdo. The number of black faces in anti-gay rallies, the casual acceptance (until very recently) of homophobic humor in black comedians, and the scary stats showing the number of African Americans who vote against equality legislation for gays is too overt to be ‘hushed up’ anymore. The gay community has long had the back of other minorities in battles for fairness and equality. It’s time to see some love back.
Pedro
@HM: Who?what? where? and when did the gay community fight for the civil rights of blacks? You people are fucking delusional, Jews yes, but there was never any great gay presence in the black struggle, in fact the gay movement stole and copied a lot of the tactics of the black struggle, so we should be thanking them, not the other way around. And please don’t mention Rustin, because he was black first, hence the reason he fucking got involved.
Pickles
Poppy Cock!
Julian Bond has LONG been an outspoken advocate of LGBT rights, it just rarely gets reported in LGBT press.
There is no overwhelming amount of anti-gay prejudice in the “black community” anymore than there is an overwhelming amount of anti-gay prejudice in the “white community”.
Why does this myth persist?
Black religious people are no more homophobic than White religious people and there are MORE White people (still) than there are Black people in this country.
RELIGIOUS people in both communities are the ones supporting/promoting anti-gay causes.
It is RELIGION, not race that drives these anti-gay activities in the US.
There may be a lot of Christian Right-identified people in the “Black community” but they aren’t bigots because they are Black, they are bigots because they are Christians who believe (erroneously like their White and Latino counterparts) that Christianity is anti-gay.
But the TRUTH (though most folks seem to ignore it) is that RELIGION is the basis of these folks’ homophobic beliefs and behavior, not race or ethnicity.
Are we really so anti-intellectual and lazy in our thinking in 2011 that we’d rather rely on antiquated racist beliefs about who Black people are than grasp a more nuanced understanding of homophobia in the US?
You show me an anti-gay rally of large numbers and I’ll show you a whole bunch of religious bigots MOSTLY white (because white folks are STILL the majority in the Christian Right) but all claiming to be “of faith”.
Why do gay men (because really, I’ve NEVER seen a lesbian comment’s thread go the race-baiting route) see things in such segregated terms?
And how many famous, non-famous Black men need to come out before White gay men stop talking about “the gay community” and “the Black community” as if the two have no overlap.
Gay People Come in All Colors and Ethnicities and not as sources of fetish for dating sites (though I have no judgement of hook up sites at all, just the language targeted at and about gay men of color on those sites)
Do White gay men no realize how demoralizing and demeaning it is to here them speak the way they do about Black gays and lesbians?
I would also like to say that for the first, I don’t know, 50 or 60 years of its existence, the NAACP was busy fighting things like voting rights, lynching and Jim Crow so it had a LOT on its hand.
But there have ALWAYS been Black gays and lesbians involved in the gay rights movement (though apparently they don’t count as Black people) and Black gays and lesbians involved in the Black Civil Rights movement.
It is so incredibly offensive that people spew such irresponsible race hatred on this site every time a Black person is featured (regardless of the content of the article)
How exactly are LGBT Black folks supposed to respond to all the “we” and “they” talk?
the crustybastard
@Pedro:
While black people where securing their rights, being gay was still a crime. Therefore, the assistance blacks received from gay people was from deeply closeted, secretive gays. Which is why you don’t know about it.
But by all means, google “Bayard Rustin.” The March on Washington, that was him. Nonviolent resistance, that was him. So, the fact is that gays didn’t “steal” the winning tactics from a civil rights struggle from blacks, MLK learned those tactics from a gay man.
By 1986, Mr. Rustin was able to make the point, “Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination. The new “niggers” are gays…s in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change…The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people.
Pickles
No. 6 · Pedro
Jews, Blacks, Gays are NOT distinguishable characteristic. They are completely and inextricably intertwined.
Unless you KNOW for a fact that all the Jews participating in Civil Rights Movement were straight (something you couldn’t possibly know), one can only logically assume that amongst the thousands of White folks who participated in Black Civil Rights movement, some percent were gay and lesbian. In fact we KNOW now because so many Civil Rights activists have come out later in life.
There is no WE and THEY when it comes to civil rights movements.
Gay people benefit from ALL civil rights movements because we are literally part of EVERY community.
That’s just common sense.
James
Why do so many people seem not to get that there are gay people who are black?
Ernest
I want a ticket too! I’ve never met a race of people so set on making themselves the only group to deserve rights, yet they will go out and protest against gay marriage. Come on if it weren’t for the white people who believed black people should be treated fairly and have the same rights, America would not be the one we know today. We are all human and we all deserve the same rights!
Oh Dear (John From England)
@Pickles:
Pickles, you are wasting your breath on these guys but saying that as much I agree mostly with you, we need to understand and analyze deeper why an overwhelming majority of black people are so religious.
Africa, like pre fundamentalist Islam and Christian societies were not homophobic places but alas, they really took to colonization ways hugely.
Urgh. Too much of a long, complex and depressing issue to get into especially in a non political blog.@James:
Yeah, exactly. So mad.
@Pedro:
But Pedro why don’t you send us the links of how you know no gay people fought for civil rights for blacks? Look at old pictures of the bohemian areas in New York or Paris. Don’t be ignorant. Many people you don’t even KNOW fought for civil rights for blacks.
Did you know that many women-underground-fought for the civil rights movement by pretending to be having cake, sewing and tea parties but instead were thinking of ways to give educational materials to blacks in the south who weren’t allowed to go to school?
You know nothing.
Aiden
@Ernest: Just STFU.
Moses
@Pedro: Pedro, please watch the documentary film “Before Stonewall” available on Netflix. The glbt community absolutely was right there for the black community. I do also recall that the NAACP did come out against California’s Prop 8.
OrchidIslander
@HM: “The number of black faces in anti-gay rallies”
I take it you didn’t compare the number of black faces at the anti-gay rallies to the number of white faces at the same anti-gay rallies, because if you did – you wouldn’t make such a foolish statement.
Mike in Asheville
@Pedro: And I guess the MLK and the civil rights marchers didn’t borrow any of the lessons learned from the suffrage movement? And since when is fighting for equality (as in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) some secret mission of one oppressed group not to be allowed to assist other oppressed groups?
Mike in Asheville
@James: I certainly do — have had many nights of much fun sharing my body with their bodies. In my experience, black men are great kissers and really do have larger cocks. Of course, in my personal experience, I know there gay native Americans, Asians from every country in Asia (okay, maybe I haven’t sleep with someone from Tibet, though I did dine next to the Dali Lama in LA one night), Europeans, Aussies (loved the accents), trashy Italians who dump a guy as soon as a pretty girl shows up, Hispanics who seem to have the highest ration of uncut cock, the French sooo sauve, English a little too uptight… Homosexuality knows no national nor ethnic borders. Once, the then Jewish regular squeeze and I had a four-way with an Egyptian and Iranian — none of us were too concerned about politics or religion — just fucking.
Mike in Asheville
TO DANIEL VILLARREAL: While your report about the NAACP not endorsing marriage-equity is accurate, you have not given proper acknowledgment to NAACP officers who have been VERY outspoken in their personal support: you mention Julian Bond, but he has not simply spoken enthusiastically in his support for full civil and marriage rights for G/L to HRC, but at state legislatures and NAACP board and membership meetings, in national interviews, and his personal statements. To New Jersey’s legislature, he testified that “separate but equal IS NEVER EQUAL”.
Also, there have been few who have so eloquently challenged their fellow African-Americans in the call for full civil and marriage rights as
Coretta Scott King: “We have a lot of work to do in our common struggle against bigotry and discrimination. I say ‘common struggle,’ because I believe very strongly that all forms of bigotry & discrimination are equally wrong and should be opposed by right-thinking Americans everywhere. Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender, or ethnic discrimination.”
And: “A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages is a form of gay bashing, and it would do nothing at all to protect traditional marriages.”
Mike in Asheville
@Pedro: Well, I wasn’t there, and I suspect you were not there either. Coretta Scott King was most certainly there, front and center:
“Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Georgia, and St. Augustine, Florida, 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.” Coretta Scott King, April 1998.
Pete n SFO
I absolutely love Julian Bond… nothing more attractive than a smart, articulate, man.
It’s 3 min, and you’re gonna love it.
http://youtu.be/pktRacMYSD8
Pickles
@Mike in Asheville
BRAVO!!
Well Said.
Maybe some folks here lead such segregated lives that they can afford to pretend that there are no Black Lesbians and Gays who have been out and working toward Civil Rights for LGBT folks AND African American folks but don’t get it twisted.
Black Lesbian and Gays have ALWAYS been part of the LGBT rights movement and always will be. You can’t just wash us away in lieu of focusing all your energy on the few homophobic rap stars, preachers and sports figures.
For every 1 stupid Black homophobe, I’ll show you 10 White homophobes who actually wield financial and political powers in the US and who have DEDICATED THEIR LIVES to oppressing LGBT folks.
Homophobia knows no color. If you don’t know, you’d better ask somebody.
Your ignorance will be your downfall.
QUOTE FROM Bayard Rustin
“The job of the gay community is not to deal with extremists who would castigate us or put us on an island and drop an H-bomb on us. The fact of the matter is that there is a small percentage of people in America who understand the true nature of the homosexual community. There is another small percentage who will never understand us. Our job is not to get those people who dislike us to love us. Nor was our aim in the civil rights movement to get prejudiced white people to love us. Our aim was to try to create the kind of America, legislatively, morally, and psychologically, such that even though some whites continued to hate us, they could not openly manifest that hate. That’s our job today: to control the extent to which people can publicly manifest anti-gay sentiment.”
Johnson
I haven’t seen to many blacks holding up “God Hates Gays” and “God Hates Fags” at the funerals of dead soldiers.
Shawn
More gay organizations should put some black people in the media to speak on these issue.The people are there but I only she black gays when race comes up.It’s crazy but when I think gay the first think that pops in my mind is a white male,and I’m gay so I know from str8 black people this must be the case.They think whites males have nothing to complain about they have it good.
OrchidIslander
@Pickles:
Quote: “For every 1 stupid Black homophobe, I’ll show you 10 White homophobes who actually wield financial and political powers in the US and who have DEDICATED THEIR LIVES to oppressing LGBT folks”
Well said Pickles and – IMHO – 10 to 1 is a pretty conservative estimate.
It never fails to amaze that when Queerty publishes an article about a black (fill in the blank): rapper, sports figure or religious leader making stupid homophobic remarks or slurs, more than a few Queerty readers are quick to castigate the rampant homophobic nature of the “black community.”
As an African-American gay person, I’m always going WTF? All those connected, organized and financially-set right-wing organizations aren’t headed up by black people. It’s abundantly clear whose in charge and who the vast majority of the minions are. But racially based comments are never part of THAT discussion.
I could far more endure the “f” bomb lobbed my way versus the inequality and inability to marry or serve in the military.
I really appreciate your, Mike in Asheville and Johnson’s (giggle) remarks.
As we struggle for equality, I don’t think we can afford to alienate or throw any member of our community under the bus based on such sophomoric biases.
Well-said, and thanks…
Gay Veteran
@Pickles: THANK YOU so fucking much! Nothing else needs to be said.
blaque
I really don’t care how white gays feel about this situation.. if the NAACP want to address the gays good for them, if they don’t good for them.. The more i visit Queerty the more i hate white gays.. @ mike in ashville a black dude has more to offer than great kisses and a big dick, typical of white dik thirsty bottoms, if a black dude hooks up with a white guy he could NEVER hook up with me.
Gay Veteran
@blaque: Way to match racism with racism you idiot.
blaque
@Gay Veteran: Hmmm. Now where are U when these wite gay punks are making racist cumments towards minority gays.. Funny how u dudes have a way of confronting racism when its a minority gay being racist towards wite gays. And I didn’t say i hated wite people, just wite gays.