Okay. I've said this before in comments, and in Black Kos on a regular basis.
But since it didn't get diaried here-I thought I'd take a stab at it.
First-read this at American Prospect (the whole thang) but here are the most relevant quotes:
It's impossible to calculate exactly how black voters came down on Amendment 1, because there was no exit polling and voting precincts are rarely single-race. What is clear is that urban voters opposed the amendment; rural ones supported it; and that division cut cleanly across the color line.
In each of North Carolina's five largest cities, voters in majority-black precincts rejected the measure: Charlotte (52 percent), Raleigh (51 percent), Greensboro (54 percent), Winston-Salem (55 percent), and Durham (65 percent). Durham's results were dramatic: Not a single majority-black precinct supported the amendment. Several crushed it by margins of 3-to-1 and even 4-to-1.
The piece is entitled "Town and Country" for a reason - cause the voting seemed to be split along urban versus rural lines - not "racial ones".
here's rural:
Once you leave North Carolina's larger cities, along with a handful of college towns and coastal resorts, the electoral map changes dramatically. Much of the state is small-town and rural, and those areas formed the backbone of the amendment's support. Many of the strongest pro-amendment counties share isolation and low education levels. What they don't share is race. Graham County in the Blue Ridge Mountains has one black voter out of 6,600 and voted 89 percent "yes." Some 450 miles away, Bertie County on the coastal plains is 60 percent black and voted 73 percent "yes."
Hat tip to
Meteor Blades for linking on the front page, and to Black Kos Managing Editor dopper0189 for exploring this further yesterday in
Black Kos Week in Review (which also featured Black Panther Huey P Newton's comments on homosexuality). And to Scottie for his link in comments to this
editorial. And to our dear sister
shanikka for writing her epic push back diary back in the days of the Prop 8 fights on here.
The media has had a field day on this issue "...the blacks ..the blacks..they hate the gays..." Chicken little chicken little...yadda yadda.
Do you have any idea how offensive this is to Black (or Latino or Ndn or Asian) LBGT folks?
Or how offensive it is to any of us who have grown up in our communities with LBGT folks who are friends, lovers, relatives, co-workers, and church members?
Talking about invisible...to outsiders. But if you are like me-and grew up with a cross section of sexual identities in your hood you will understand.
Would somebody PLEASE tell me where in a country that is majority white folks there are perfect islands of love and respect for LBGT's? And don't tell me The Castro or Christopher street.
I'm not here to refute the homophobia of some church folks (whatever their color), or non-church folks for that matter. But the fact is, the funding for the most powerful anti-LGBT lobbies doesn't come from us.
And before someone takes a blast from the past and dredges up Donnie Freakin' Mack-lurking, who I've never bought or heard, riddle me this-why did us black folks adore (and buy) artists Luther Van Dross...hell..I'll go back to Johnny Mathis. Every little straight black girl I knew growing up had a crush on him, and we knew it was hopeless.
Y'all ever set foot in a black church? Well I have, since most of my extended family is Christian.
Every congregation had its share of gay members. EVERY ONE. And they were not always just regular Sunday go to meeting members. They were prominent. Like the organist, or choir director, or soloist. Not one of them ever got kicked outta church.
Hell-some churches competed to steal them.
When I attended the most prominent historically Black University-Howard, in DC the most well known member of it's faculty was gay - Owen Dodson, the head of the Drama Department.
In DC I hung out with black lesbian filmmakers like Michelle Parkerson.
When I was a leader of a very radical left organization in the late 60's early 70's - the Young Lords Party, we had a Women's Caucus that gave birth to our Gay and Lesbian Caucus. I attended the first organizing meeting for Third World Gay Revolution. One of our community members was transgender activist Sylvia Rivera. Afeni Shakur (Tupac's mom) was engaged in outreach to LBGT groups in NY around the same time. You tell me how many white leftist groups in that time period can say the same? Remember Stonewall was in 1969. Sylvia was there and so was Storme DeLarverie (later the subject of Parkerson's film The Lady of the Jewel Box) Read black blog the Griot 40 years after Stonewall: black gays still targeted. Where is the outcry from the white LBGT community?
The clubs I remember hanging in like the Bon Soir downtown and the Hilltop uptown were havens for black and latina lesbian and bi-girls. They are long gone.
But no one can tell me we hated "teh gayz". Cause we waz "teh gayz".
Fast forward. So show me where black progressive lesbian prison activist Angela Davis is being shunned? She speaks in black churches regularly. And hell-she's a commie pinko socialist. :) And lesbian.
I could go on and name lists of known LGBT folks of color-but this is really for those of us who are just regular folks.
Give us some damn respect.
I'll stop in a minute.
I'm ranting and need more coffee.
But just like I hate the "minorities and women" phrase (I go all Sojourner Truth about that one, cause ain't I a woman?) I'm pretty tired of the drum-beating of blacks versus gays mantras.
So can we agree to simply fight homophobia together ? And stop feeding the bullshit.