There is, right now, a lowgrade flamewar going on in blogdom over the catastrophic success of Proposition 8 in California. Exit polls suggested that black voters supported the bigoted proposition, which eliminated the existing right of gay couples to marry, by a margin of roughly 70% to 30%.
Unsurprisingly, the reaction in the LGBTQ community is one of undisguised and bitter outrage. The result, obviously, and the support by blacks (and, one might add, of Hispanics, over-65s, and so on) for an amendment that takes away existing rights, would explain that. But there is, as always, more: gays feel that blacks, themselves the victims of discrimination, should of right bring more understanding to another persecuted minority, in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Bayard Rustin and the Civil Rights Movement. Here, too, it's important to point out that many blacks reject the lack of continuity postulated by others; among them was the late and much missed Coretta Scott King, who supported marriage equality as a matter of our common humanity.
Needless to say, caught grievously in the middle of the fight are African-American LGBTQs. Just one example: one of the parallel failings of both the black and the LGBTQ community is our respective ignorance of the suicide rates among black LGBTQ teenagers. In the black community, with its confiningly delineated gender stereotypes, that problem is ignored as non-existent; in the gay community, there's just not enough awareness that these kids are even out there. That's how little we know of each other.
Then, there is the equally grievous debate between some blacks and some gays - interestingly, that same debate doesn't take place between LGBTQs and straight women - over the continuity of the Civil Rights Movement. Gays maintain that Dr. Martin Luther King fought for us as well, and for all the oppressed minorities in this country where all men are created equal. Many blacks vehemently reject that notion, treating the civil rights struggle as a project dedicated uniquely to overcoming their own unique oppression stretching from slavery through Jim Crow through today's arrest statistics.
What's tragic about this fight is this: blacks and gays have so many more interests in common than we realize. Or you tell me which two groups of Americans would benefit more from universal healthcare. Oh, that's right, gay males coping with the Aids epidemic and blacks struggling at the lower end of the middle class.
At this point, some leadership would be helpful, black leadership and LGBTQ leadership. People need to start talking to one another. The anger and recriminations are going to dissipate at some point, and then, it will be time for that. Let's hope it's soon.
