Imagine being not only African-American, but Lesbian, or Gay, or Trans, or Bi, in this country as well. A nice double-whammy, isn’t it? Not only do you face discrimination and bigotry for being Black, but for being Queer too?! Sad, but yes, it does happen. LGBT African-Americans not only face racial and homophobic discrimination and bigotry from hetero whites and blacks, but sometimes and unfortunately even from the white LGBT Community as well. Hard to believe that some people of the LGBT Community would divide themselves and even discriminate amongst themselves, as they already have a whole population homophobic bigots with more than plenty of political power to reduce their already few civil rights to nothing. Fortunately, a majority of LGBT people could care less about the color of one’s skin or their ethnicity, as vitriolic homophobia appears to be on the rise within our society and political atmosphere, and is taking precedence over small differences such as race or ethnicity. However, though race and ethnicity may seem like small differences, they still matter here in America,…and who you sleep and fall in love with also matters. Still, some LGBT African-Americans are encountering racial discrimination within the LGBT Community and a lack of representation, as this article from The Black Commentator details…
[…]…As Black gay pride organizers scramble to provide comprehensive cultural celebrations for their thousands of anticipated guests this year, the [Miami] Herald’s top ten list was a slap in the face and further feeds into the notion that gay and now gay pride is white.
The International Federation of Black Prides is home to 25 Black gay pride celebrations, including Toronto and South Africa. These cultural celebrations are flocked to each year by thousands of Black same-gender loving persons are all over the country, some with a cult following…[…]
These celebrations each typically bring in around 10,000 people that are culturally diverse, socially active, event loyal, frequent travelers and beauty, health, fitness and fashion conscious. Given all of these facts, why then do Black prides still receive less financial support than their white counterparts?
A look at the websites of the Herald’s top ten picks shows financial support from Delta Airlines, Travelocity, Absolute Vodka, Gay.com, Showtime, Starbucks, Bud Light, Bank of America, PlanetOut.com, Hertz, Virgin and more. But take a closer look at who is sponsoring Black pride celebrations.
Black pride organizations cater to the Black gay community and unfortunately, this community is still being affected in large numbers by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. So it’s only obvious that pharmaceutical companies and AIDS service organizations would want to sponsor events where they can target a high number of Black gays with their message. However, there is so much more to the Black gay community than HIV/AIDS prevention. We dine out, read the newspaper, watch television, travel, buy clothes, and are included in the overall contributions of African-Americans to the U.S. economy.
In addition, it’s not just at the corporate level that companies do not sponsor Black gay pride celebrations. Many elected officials shun off Black pride celebrations to their health deputy’s (HIV/AIDS) instead of to their city’s cultural affairs office where these celebrations should be getting support from as well. Like Black film festivals that highlight Blacks in the filmmaking business, Black gay pride celebrations are cultural events that celebrate the uniqueness of being Black and gay. So that should open up a plethora of sponsorship opportunities for Black gay prides, not only from the companies listed above but from Viacom who owns Black Entertainment Television, TVOne, RadioOne, Ebony, JET, ESSENCE, Walmart, Target, NAACP, Urban League, music labels, and other businesses that thrive off of Black dollars.
[…]
I once had a corporate marketing executive tell me that they sponsored a Black film festival and sponsored a gay pride celebration so they didn’t see the need to sponsor a Black gay pride. In their minds, Black was straight and gay was white and there was nothing in between. Sadly, that’s the misinformed thinking of many corporate executives when it comes to marketing.
The irony in all of this is that at most white gay pride celebrations, you see about a handful of Blacks. In a recent poll, Black gays were asked, if given a choice would you attend a white pride celebration or a Black pride celebration. An overwhelming number of those polled indicated that they would attend their Black pride celebration.
If white Conservative Christian evangelicals can see the value in marketing to straight Blacks regarding gay marriage, why can’t companies see the value in marketing to Black gays?
[…]
So while, the Miami Herald probably boosted the incoming sponsorship dollars for the 10 prides it listed in its article, it did a disservice to people of color gay prides across the nation and further fed into corporate America’s notion that gay is white.
Well we do have a tendency to hold white as the default race in this country. Old habits die hard. I just love how this is about marketing and appeasing corporate sponsors. Thanks consumer-based economy. I also find it disturbing that there’s a sense that you, as a LGBT African-American (or any racial or ethnic minority), must choose between either racial/ethnic pride or LGBT pride. You can’t be both, according certain individuals. I don’t buy that b.s. for a moment. I suppose it’s just our country’s legacy and “tradition” of racism, being carried on into new sociopolitical movements such as LGBT civil rights. Of course, those perpetrating the racial discrimination and bigotry within the LGBT Community do not represent LGBT people as a whole. It’s only a few individuals, not the entire LGBT Community. But it only takes a few to screw it up for everyone else, and alienate a group of people (ie: LGBT Blacks) from the entire community.
Do black LGBTs have any obligation to attend mainstream gay events to make their presence known?
I agree with Adrienne when she says that frequently African-Americans who are also members of the LGBT community feel pressure to choose between identities. Speaking as a black bisexual woman, my personal solution has been to embrace both identities and create spaces that I’m comfortable with. That is part of why Black pride was created in the first place: to celebrate both identities. At the same time, I would attend the mainstream pride just as quickly as I would attend Black Pride. I find both experiences to be empowering and useful to my personal identity.
As for whether we have an obligation to attend mainstream LGBT events to make our presence known, I don’t think there is an obligation. I think people should attend because they are part of the community, not to serve as the token black person. The question is whether African-Americans feel like they’re accepted into the community so that attending the mainstream Pride wouldn’t feel strange or like one didn’t belong. Personally, I have had positive and negative experiences regarding race in the LGBT community. The negative experiences have come from people who have their own internalized racism to deal with and that is difficult (for me and for them) to handle. But by far, the overwhelming majority of negative responses I’ve had for being both black and bisexual have come from within the heterosexual African-American community. Most of the LGBT community where I live has been pretty accepting.
Fortunately, a majority of LGBT people could care less about the color of one’s skin or their ethnicity
That’s optimistic.
See now take a look at how one prominent Boston area attorney does his dirt:
My name is Christopher King, and I totally agree with form Mass. Bar Association President Richard C. Van Nostrand on the point of equal marriage and other rights for homosexuals, for which he and Attorney Renee M. Landers received awards from the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar Association.
But when it comes to discrimination against a plain-old male n*gg*r, well that’s where we have a problem that you can see in my online video at my website:
http://www.christopherkingesq.com
Actually you can also view the piece in Boston and Cambridge throughout the month of June; just contact BNN and CCTV for run times.
Where I have zealously represented homosexual clients in my practice, and agree that they have a right to be married just as anyone else, Van Nostrand in his practice has:
1. Allowed his client, American Tower Corporation, to destroy sexually-tinged emails from Caucasian Manager Leslie Klaidman toward me, despite me writing him four (4) letters asking for retention — at least one such letter written with the help of well-respected Civil Rights Attorney and Professor Louis A. Jacobs, Esq.,
2. Refused to reconstruct the hard drive or mirror image even after Federal Court Judge Lindsay ORDERED American Tower Corporation to produce emails relevant to me. But Judge Lindsay is Black, so maybe Van Nostrand is just being consistent in his disrespect.
All this, mind you, is interesting because the Department of Labor fined American Tower $300,000.00 for Overtime violations after I sent another fired male n*gg*r there to the Department to issue a Complaint.
All this, mind you happened immediately after former Caucasian American Tower VP Jody Mitchell had the nerve to tell the entire staff that I was a “Dangerous Black Man,” when they fired me 2 hours after I demanded overtime pay, citing statute. She also called the Woburn Police and called me a “scoundrel.”
Interesting, n’est-ce pas?
As such, all I can say is that when you take a stand to be fair and to promote Civil Rights, you do it for everybody, not just for your own pet projects. Van Nostrand’s approach, in my opinion, is hypocritical and stands inimical to the greater Cause of Justice.
Very truly yours,
Christopher King, Esq.
cc: world wide web
>African-Americans face discrimination even within the LGBT Community
Not sure I’m following this.
1. The editorial says that corporations and the Miami Herald seem to pay attention to gay pride events while ignoring black gay pride events. And it says that mayors pay attention to black gay events, but discriminate in how they treat them. I did not see discussion of discrimination by the LGBT Community in particular.
2. Moreover, I don’t see the merit of focusing on the sexual orientation of the discriminators. Racial discrimination would seem to be an equally bad phenomenon whether perpetuated by the LGBT Community or anyone else.
I am no longer surprised to observe that victims of prejudice are not immune to prejudice. I’ve met enough racist women, sexist blacks, etc., to persuade me.
More generally, I try to avoid idealizing victims of prejudice. Portraying victims of discrimination as angels is just another form of discrimination. It suggests that minorities need to earn equal treatment through merit, whereas the majority gets to demand equal treatment as a right. And it invites retribution when victims turn out to be mere humans, not angels. Matthew Shepard’s torture and murder was a horrible crime; the fact that Shepard seemed like such a gentle soul heightened the sense of outrage, but we should feel the same outrage even if Shepard had been a total bastard. After all, Shepard didn’t become famous because he was so virtuous; he became famous because his murderers were so evil.
In short, if we condemn people for discriminating against a black gay pride event, we should condemn them equally without regard to sexual orientation. We shouldn’t have lower expectations of white gays, but we shouldn’t have higher expectations either.
Sydney
I’m not so sure I agree about making ones presence known being the same thing as being a ‘token’ anything. I sometims find the presence of minority groups within the GLBT community to be re-assuring to my own personal issues, like a GLBT Jewish group. It’s convenient to have those sort of groups. I don’t feel like a ‘token Jew’ if I march with a Jewish group at pride. I guess it might be tokenism if you were dealing with it as an obligation though.
Besides, if we had no SIGs, we’s all have to march in the same group in the parade. Traffic nightmare! ;-)
Josh:
I agree that it is reassuring to have SIGs (by the way, I don’t like that term in this context but I understand why you’re using it so I’ll leave it alone) that represent you at Pride. It reflects the diversity of the LGBT community and it can expose members to important issues they may not be aware of.
However, I want to clarify what I was saying in my earlier post. What I meant was that I think it’s better for African-American’s to attend Pride because they are accepted and appreciated by the LGBT community as a whole, and not because members of the community feel they ought to have a black person there. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said:
“I guess it might be tokenism if you were dealing with it as an obligation though.”?
The word obligation implies a level of responsibility that I am uncomfortable assuming and I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that way. My real issue is making sure that African-Americans are truly accepted rather than just tolerated. You get my drift?
Sydney: I think this may be a bit of a vicious circle. there aren’t that many of $minority represented in the mainstream GLBT community, so $minority group fails to feel welcome there, so they don’t join in with the community.
I’m sure there are reasons other than that, but sometimes I think “priming the pump” is in order, and a few visible, accepted, and focused on $minority members might help the ones who don’t feel welcome join in.
So, perhaps if the mainstream community were to find a way of being visibly welcoming, it might help. But do you think would it be true respect rather than tokenism if an effort was made deliberatley?
The science fiction fandom community (people who go to literature conventions) has this problem. There’s a really small number of minorities represented, both as authors and as fans. There’s also a feeling in the community that they’re free of racial bias, which they aren’t. But it is a chicken-egg problem, because in order to be more welcoming, there have to be people who’re minorities who’re interested in science fiction (or fantasy) and there’s little to attract most minorities to the genre and the fandom.
And so, the problem remains.
“So that should open up a plethora of sponsorship opportunities for Black gay prides, not only from the companies listed above but from Viacom who owns Black Entertainment Television, TVOne, RadioOne, Ebony, JET, ESSENCE, Walmart, Target, NAACP, Urban League, music labels, and other businesses that thrive off of Black dollars.”
Wal-Mart?
That’ll be the day.
Josh: you’re not wrong. yeah, it does seem like this is one of those times where the problem seems to be circular. But this is why I think its important to carve out spaces that you’re comfortable with. So if I have friends in the larger LGBT community who make me feel comfortable and accept me as an African-American bisexual woman, then I will participate in the mainstream events like Pride. Now if other members of the LGBT community see me there and A) see me and learn from me or B) feel more comfortable to engage because I’m present, then hey-I don’t feel like a token because I’m comfortable in the space I’ve created for myself.
I guess that, in carving out the space, there’s the hope that what you create will jion forces with the GLBT community at large. Looking at it in that light, it sounds like an even better idea.
aww, thanks josh :)
This is an issue that has been around for a long time. One has only to think back to the controversy associated with the lack of diverse representation at the Millenium March, for example. It’s a problem in media coverage as well. Part of the controversy over press coverage of the May 2003 murder of 15-year-old African American lesbian Sakia Gunn had to do with the sparse reporting on this and other hate crimes against glbt people of color in the glbt media. Mick Meenan of Gay City News suggested at the time that subconscious racial bias led editors to ignore or downplay the story ( http://professorkim.blogspot.com/2004/01/black-and-gay-journalists-thought.html). If you look at glbt media outlets such as gfn.com or even the Advocate, you don’t see a lot of diversity reflected in story selection or play.
As for the black media, don’t expect Essence, et.al to sponsor black pride events — the risk of losing their heterosexual audience is too strong. They had an out senior editor a few years back, and they have had some stories on glbt issues, but their core audience is not that progressive.
More discrimination against blacks by supporters of gay rights:
Oh, boy I see now that Richard C. Van Nostrand’s alma mater (Binghampton, NY — see “Camille Paglia”) claimed that his intent as president of the Massachusetts Bar Association would be as follows:
“During his presidency, Richard plans to focus on improving the perception of lawyers, strengthening the legal community and challenging lawyers to be advocates for the legal profession….”
And you do that by letting your client destroy evidence relating to a purportedly dangerous black man, and by ignoring a Federal Court ORDER issued by another black man?
Yeah, right.
Christopher King, Esq.