20 years ago, these trends were chronic. it’s not worse today, just more acute. the black community’s indignant fever is breaking, thank god. marion barry, vincent gray, and most black religious leaders have made careers out of the manipulation and arbitrage of poor blacks’ jealous feelings of entitlement. they are trying (with temporary success) to prolong d.c.’s ugly cultural war because they are profiteers. that’s why things look so bad right now.

I haven’t lived in DC in 20 years, so I don’t know what it’s like today. if it is what you describe it is worse off than 20 years ago.

I’ll get back to you on lunch. Some of your assumptions are racist, some are not. Based on your post, I will assume, for the time being, that you are not.

But…later.

you might be right. at any rate, i know that i’m the wrong messenger; my tone got so shrill there, in part, as a reaction to a lifetime of not being able to intimate ideas like these gently. i’ll concede that the lack of a gentle option might be a (the?) seed of hatred.

but that word, ‘racism.’ does it refer to a belief in the different nature of a group of people? this belief exists (it was once the unchallenged definition of ‘racism’), but you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who subscribes to it today. does it refer to an unexamined preference for people who look like oneself? i’ve introspected this preference, and since my discovery, it has almost gone away (all gay people of a certain age can relate; when we ignore our own predilections, they become grotesque).

d.c., i’m sure you know this, is mostly a dilapidated place, filled with people whose fathers are dead or in prison for violent crime; whose wealthier inhabitants are self-segregated, white, and transient; and whose system of community representation is essentially a poll that asks the local black community whom they trust most not to call them on their bullshit. (a crackhead, duh.)

so i’ll turn the tables. according to the traditional definition of ‘racism,’ it is racist to believe that d.c.’s blacks are uniquely resilient and incorruptible. they are not. they are precisely as dysfunctional as you’d expect their environment to make them. i am not at all interested in assigning blame; public dialogue about race has proved how useless blame assignation is. however, in light of the sickening number of (black and white) gay men shot to death on 13th st. recently, it’s become clear that d.c.’s black culture, insofar as it is an aggressive, prison culture, has got to go.

i’d like to tell you what’s in my heart, as a gesture of trust. i take no pleasure in writing observations like these. rather, i feel grim relief. please believe this.

“second: poor, urban black culture is terrible. before you pounce, i’d remind you that this isn’t racism —”

I am actually more or less with much of what you up to that point.

Damn near everything after that is pure, unadultrated racism. I say that as an African American former resident of DC (but not the 8th Ward).

i am from washington, d.c., and i grew up with marion barry as my mayor. i watched as he was removed from office — twice! — for drug use and solicitation of prostitutes. my high school’s student body was 20% white; as far as i know, i was the only gay, white kid. i was threatened and asaulted daily, both metaphorically by the institution that keeps marion barry in office, and literally by my (black) classmates. i guess i have two points to make.

first: all of us who know marion barry know what he was thinking yesterday: opposing gay marriage will put him on the losing side of the fight, and supporting it will lose him his ignorant, black, church-manipulated constituency. marion barry, now in the formidable shadow of people like adrian fenty and barack obama — elegant, upstanding, temperate black politicians — thinks, “this time, I’m fucked. if i don’t vote with the pastors, they’re gonna throw me under the bus like they did to o.j.! and if i do, fenty will eat me alive!” it is naive to think he is standing up for his principles. marion barry may be a felon, but he is foremost a politician.

second: poor, urban black culture is terrible. before you pounce, i’d remind you that this isn’t racism — i don’t believe that black people are by nature inferior, by any means. that being said, in d.c., skin color, for cultural reasons, is a pretty good indicator of cruelty, contented ignorance, misogyny, homophobia, aggression, psychological imbalance, jealous entitlement, self-satisfaction, and arrogance. more to the point, skin color is a better indicator than wealth of those things. in the interest of our continued progress as a species, urban black culture, as it exists in d.c., needs to be gentrified all the way into the atlantic fucking ocean. seriously, i’ll go down to ward 8 and open a starbucks with my own two hands, if that what it takes.

on a side note, why do you think d.c. has such an astronomical aids rate? it is because gay men with the misfortune to have been born black in d.c.’s 8th ward are having terrified, anonymous, unprotected sex, and then going home to fuck their many girlfriends.

love,
adam

Marion Barry’s black community isn’t my black community, and judging from that 12-1 vote; homophobes are not doing too well in DC.

And now I can hold you, Jason, personally responsible for the white Mormon Church and their $20 million effort to ban marriage equality in California and the efforts of the white Karl Rove and the “white boy culture” in the Bush Administration and their evangelical allies for their successful efforts in funding, endorsing their amendments banning gay marriage.

So I should hold you responsible for the James Dobson’s and the Carrie Prejean’s and the Rick Warren’s and the Hank Williams’ and the Ku Klux Klans of the world?

Gotcha…

And I don’t personally listen to or purchase Jamaican dancehall or hip hop music and don’t and have never endorsed those sentiments. And I could direct you to very specific posts by black bloggers and black authors that have condemned the very things you site.

So if you choose to maintain a myopic and racist attitude that is your problem, not mine.

I have no tolerance for gay racists or African American homophobes. None.

So what are you, Gurlene and Chitown doing about this??

How depressing.
________________________________________________________

campaigned and voted for the guy who replaced Barry, donated money, campaigned for two of the current councilpeople who supported our rights, written letters out to the neighborhood association against Barry etc… Barry is like a rundown burned out old house in a beautiful neighborhood, eventually it will get knocked down and replaced with something useful.

For people like Jason, African-Americans aren’t real human beings who are individuals and think for themselves. All African-Americans think and act alike as if they were robots.

Facts get in the way. Things like MLK having Bayard Rustin, an openly gay black man, as a chief adviser means nothing. African-American governors like NY Gov. Patterson and Mass. Gov. Patrick or D.C. Mayor Fenty can champion gay marriage but their work is meaningless. The late Coretta Scott King spoke out against homophobia but that doesn’t matter to Jason.

Nope, to people like Jason, it’s easier for them to embrace anti-black racist opinions than deal with facts.

Of course, Jason has not problem separating white homophobes from other whites. The fact that the real power brokers in this country who traffic in anti-gay hate are white doesn’t seem to register for him as being a racial thing. The leaders of the GOP who pushed anti-gay legislation have been mainly white. The leaders of the Religious Right are mainly white.

How sad to see a white gay man showing his racist beliefs, blaming all African-Americans for the actions of a few. Who cares if the city council voted 12 to 1 in favor of the marriage acceptance and the majority of the council members are black? It’s easier for Jason and his ilk to rely on their racist ideology to slander people.

Jason, how different are you from the homophobes who make blanket statements against gays? Apparently not that different.

Oh, I would stand up and say something too. I feel EXACTLY where you are coming from.

I live in the DC area and it was sad today to see video footage of the ministers using the same type of oration as MLK Jr. but for a totally negative cause. Honeslty it was a little more annoying that the media even gave them airtime. Its not like DC’s raging homeless problem or HIV crisis would benefit from the minister’s time.

Also did anyone notice how the mayor is kinda passing the buck and taking blame off himself in his comments?

I love the severely militant tone. Oh my gosh i hope riots break out and civil war happens. maybe the bigots will leave.

yup fight for your own rights and deny others theirs.

Then black gay folks in DC actually need to speak up.@John from England(used to be just John but there are other John’s):

Other than the appropriate cases that get national attention, do the queens in Liverpool and Birmingham run down to London and help them or do the queens from London run up to Liverpool or Birmingham. Or since the EU is thing, do you run to Berlin and Paris?

Wow! Does Wanda Sykes count? Rod McCollom? Pam Spaulding? Read some Harlem Renaissance Literature.

James Baldwin? Audre Lorde? Bayard Rustin There are so, so, many past and present.

Try the Congressional Black Caucus. I presume that all of them are straight, but they are our allies with the exception of that one stone fool ‘Bama Congressman

Or maybe you want to stay right where you are at with that thought.

Within “white culture” there’s the whiteMormon Church, the white evangelical church, the white Ku Klux Klan, there’s all those rednecks in inland California and let’s not talk about all those straight white cracka asses in places like Oklahoma, Texas, Mississippi…etc. etc. etc.

Not all black people are anti-gay but you can’t deny there is an anti-gay cultural imperative within black culture. Just look at rap music/hip-hop as well as Marion Barry. When I see a positive black gay role model, I might reconsider my position. But the simple fact is that blacks are hugely absent in anything to do with gay rights.

I figured that was a troll and ignored it, since that hasn’t been the tone of this thread.

Honey, I got news for you. They are not so closeted.

Well, maybe inside Barry’s Ward they are but DC is the GAYEST city that I have ever lived in. And that includes New York and where I currently reside.

@getreal: How very true! DC’s people are living proof that African-Americans aren’t all homophobes. Marion Barry can run into the NOMbies’ arms if he wants to, but that won’t endear him with the pro-equality majority.

But that culture is absolutely drenched with closeted men. When it comes down to it most will stand behind their families and church against gay rights, which in itself is ironic.

DC loves Marion Barry. People say if he ran for mayor again he would be elected.

He will have plenty of people backing him up, but I also see this as a negative action which will lead to a negative reaction over time within their own community.

The bible thumpers are cutting their own throats. Hallelujia =)

And I am quite active with gay community organizations (both mainstream and African American) here in Chicago, including donating what little money I can locally and I have also donated money to the Courage Campaign for the repeal of Proposition 8 and plan on donating more.

And I might even take a weekend trip to Iowa this summer.

Why would you ask that question (not that it’s a bad question, I am wondering the same thing about the black gay community in DC, myself)?

Uh, I do not live in DC and I haven’t lived ther for over 20 years.

So what are you, Gurlene and Chitown doing about this??

How depressing.

DC is pretty much one of if not the gayest city in the country, and at the anti gay rally Berry attended they could only get about 120 people to show up in a city of over half a million. More people show up to play kickball on the grass at the National Mall every night. Barry is just a sad old crackhead one step away from sitting on a corner picking at scabs and asking for change.