From the AP:
So lured was April Maxwell by the promise of the black college experience, with its distinct traditions and tight-knit campus life, that she enrolled at Hampton University in 2001 without even visiting the waterfront campus.
A lesbian who is open about her sexual orientation, she arrived eager to join the extended Hampton family.
Instead, “I felt like I was the only gay person on campus _ it seemed like nobody was really out,” said the now 24-year-old Maxwell.
She channeled her isolation into organizing a gay support group, but a panel of students and faculty denied it a charter. The panel recently denied a second attempt at chartering Students Promoting Equal Action and Knowledge, or SPEAK, headed by underclassmen after Maxwell graduated.
It’s a tug-of-war that’s emerging at other black schools, where students say outdated rules and homophobia block them from forming the gay campus voice common at majority white institutions.
At Hampton, where rules govern everything from overnight guests to student dress, officials insist they don’t discriminate against gays. They say they’re simply enforcing the regulations on student groups, and there just isn’t space for another one.
But some students here see more than a conservative approach to the regulations. They, and many others at the nation’s more than 100 historically black colleges and universities, say that a broader suspicion of homosexuality keeps gays in the shadows at these tradition-heavy schools.
“You’ve got to recognize the history of HBCUs,” said Larry Curtis, vice president for student affairs at Norfolk State University, where students recently formed a gay-straight alliance. “Most of them were founded by religious organizations.”
Church leaders are often cited as setting the tone regarding homosexuality across the black community.
Nationwide, black pastors have opposed gay marriage and shot down comparisons between the struggles for civil rights and gay rights; others have attacked “down low” bisexual men for contributing to the rising AIDS rates among black women, though the topic is a matter of debate in the public health community.
On historically black campuses, those tensions make life uncomfortable for gay students.
“It’s kind of hard to be out on campus and still be successful,” said Vincent Allen Jr., head of Safe Space at Atlanta’s Morehouse College. “As an out gay man, if I wanted to pledge, that door is pretty much shut to me. That’s just the way it is.”
That blacks trend overwhelmingly against same-sex marriage—and tend to view homosexuals with distrust, if we are to take the anecdotal evidence presented here as remotely reliable—is an uncomfortable problem for progressives who push identity politics—particularly given that their support of gay rights is often framed as a civil rights struggle (when what is it as issue is dispute over policy, not dispute over civil “rights”). Which makes it unsurprising that the tension between blacks and activist gays is something that identity politics proponents would just as soon ignore, provided they can maintain the black vote and rely upon black pastors to spread the gospel of Democratic party politics, even if the trade off is a certain social bigotry, presented in the trappings of “conservative” religious practice, against another interest group securely in the pocket of the Democrats.
George Bush was vilified for appearing at Bob Jones University—the idea being that his appearing at a private conservative Christian university meant he necessarily supported (even if it was only with a wink and a nod) all of their social policies, and so could be painted with a racist, “Christianist” brush. Which is why we heard so much about what “lessons” we were to draw from Bush’s stumping at a school that had a ban on interracial dating (a ban it lifted in the wake of Bush’s visit).
Yet we seldom hear the same kind of criticism from “progressives” when Democratic politicians visit black Baptist churches. Are Bill and Hillary anti-gay? Is Edwards?
I rather doubt it, but that’s beside the point, really. Because the trick of identity politics is to gather up grievance groups as voting blocs, and to do that, one has to embrace their grievance narratives and sympathize—usually with government largesse or group-specific legislation. When the grievance narratives of two identity blocs sharing the same political affiliation conflict, the “pragmatic” thing to do, progressives have found, is to pretend they hadn’t noticed.
And when that is no longer possible, we get stories like this one, where the transgression is explained away as a product of the “conservative” and “religious” roots of black churches. Which, while religion certainly plays a part in the anti-gay sentiment in the black community, doesn’t explain why that same sentiment isn’t pervasive among all people of faith.
No, the inconvenient truth is that progressives are loath to risk losing an important constituency by overplaying the gay rights angle within the black community. So while they give plenty of lip service to support of gay marriage, for instance, they consistently vote to defend “traditional” marriage.
Not so much hypocrisy as it is, well, let’s just call it nuance
Other than hair salons and Hollywood, is there anywhere gays don’t feel uncomfortable? Is that really a problem?
In Dallas, Jesse jackson and Al sharpton came here before the 06 elections to meat with local “black community pastors and leaders” to specfically ask them to not speak on the subjects of gay marriage, abortion and homosexuality. They said that it would hurt the black community’s representation in the political process to speak on these devisive subjects. For the most part, you heard nary a word about it in the press.
I will say that, to his credit, TD Jakes, who pastors the largest black church in Dallas followed that visit up with a letter to CNN, which they suprisingly published online, in which he more or less said what a preacher preaches is between that Pastor and God and that politics shouldn’t play into it at all.
Still, you have to think the gay rights crowd and the race baiting crowd look at each other and ask “Is the enemy of my enemy, my friend or my enemy” daily.
Is Edwards [anti-gay]</em>? </em>
Is it anti-gay to attempt to use the sexual preference of one’s political opponent’s daughter as a wedge?
(oh uff da! Sorry ‘bout the tag mismatch.)
So we won’t be seeing any more Democrats stumping at churches? Or attacking the (often imaginary) positions of religious conservatives?
Annoying article.
I lived for years in Oakland, the center of gay/black (non-)interaction, and our side ran a pretty heavy hate-trade deficit with San Francisco. Of the places I’ve known well enough to judge, only NY and Boston are even nearly as racist. (Yes, I’ve lived in the South.)
What black antigayness I did see there that was real, not Coulterish sissy-jibing, was motivated not by conservatism, but its opposite, if anything; it was reactionary, but that reaction was against the political alignment of gays with anti-black-male interests–with the old-boy conservatism that’s currently misnamed liberalism, what a black man in the city knows as the Establishment. “Faggot” was a straight-substitution synonym for “Whitey.”
Looking at the voting numbers at the time, it seemed that the ‘04 debate get-out-the-black-vote Mary Cheney outings must have been designed to tap into that–underclass urban black male anti-establishment animus in places like Philly–not into rural black religiosity (because the South was already lost).
And, again– Journalists are not intelligent people.
I’ve asked it before, but why do blacks support the Democratic party when the Democratic party treats them like political lawn jockeys?
It’s a Different World.
Democrats (shining a flashlight up from under their chins): “Would you rather be a lawn jockey or a (ominous chord) tree ornament?”
Freudian slip?
I’m sure you will, but at least you won’t see them at his church, which I regard as a step in the right direction.
It might sound odd coming from a southern baptist, neo con but I don’t want anything fired off from the pulpit that isn’t tied to scripture. God doesn’t endorse political parties despite their desire to be tied to him for votes.
I know what we should do. We should all join hands and sing a song. How about this one:
Link
I’m sure some liberal professor can explain it all as the remnants of slavery: black men weren’t treated as men, got called “boy” and worse, so they have to be true men to show them white oppressorfolk just how much they are wrong, et cetera. But I think it’s the generally the same reason any group has idiotic bigoted opinions of any other group: ignorance.
Call it a political issue if you wish, but really it’s almost a universal part of the human condition. Not liking the other is not rare, whether you are an Icelandic ninja, an Iranian terrorist, a Brazilian lumberjack, a Colorado blogger, an Arizona librarian, a black guy in a college, or a rightwing television commentator in a newsroom. We all have our blind spots, opinions, stupid opinions (yeah you Don Imus,) moments of recognition, and dismissals of reason. Well, all of us but me anyway.
This seems like a distinction without a difference. Policy is how civil rights are protected or abridged.
What is it about gays and lesbians, and their need to be “out” or “open” about their sexual proclivities? Why don’t they keep it to themselves, like most of the rest of us?
I call it the “too much information syndrome.” I don’t want to know because I don’t give a rat’s ass who you think is hot, or with whom you’ve been sleeping, or other sexual preferences. (And I don’t spend small talk with acquaintances, much less strangers, discussing such topics.)
Just like the issue of your personal hygiene–if you’ve caused it to be brought it to my attention, you’ve got a problem. And just like personal hygiene, it’s an issue that should go unremarked in the normal course of daily life.
Read Mr. Goldstein’s previous work on the topic. The distinction has a difference if you don’t abstract away the actual facts.
I think it’s cool to have a rigidly codified list of topics that are appropriate for small talk with acquaintances. I’m gonna go get a 3×5 card from the office supply cabinet and get to work on mine right away!
In fact, I dislike everybody who isn’t me.
I just make an incredibly good show of being tolerant about it.
You losers.
Ok. Here’s a non-abstraction. Title VII – policy or civil rights issue?
If you think about it we have the activist agenda laid bare here. It’s not enough for tolerance to be extended, although that’s what people call for. You can’t simply put up with what you dislike or disagree with, if it’s in the Agenda. You have to like it, treat it well, embrace it.
We’ve gone from “stop lynching us” to “stop being so meeeeaannn,” and the step is a pathetic one.
Maybe blacks just hate gays? Lynch em if they could, maybe.
Of course, not all blacks are anti-gay. For instance, the rather dark-skinned fellow named Cornel West speaks out against blacks’ anti-gay attitudes since he considers it prejudice. Jesse Jackson, unlike the University of Hawaii, hasn’t shied away from the term “rainbow”. And Denzel was in that one movie where he shook the AIDS patient’s hand.
But if you really want to see some anti-gay biases, look at the Hispanics. And the Brits. And Arabs, Indians (though not so much the Native American’s who are called Indians,) Africans, Cubans, some Scandanavians (most notably the gay-intolerant Finns,) Poles, and those dudes from Japan. It’s as if you could find anti-gay biases in every culture if you look for it!
And don’t forget the middle schools.
Finnish guys do that “I don’t know you but let’s get naked and get in the sauna” thing. Their homophobia may be of a unique provenance is all I’m saying.
As a child of a Finnish immigrant family, I have to say that my homeland-away-from-homeland’s views are a bit surprising, too. But that European separation of nudity/sexuality and the sensual and sexual is something I wish we could have brought much more of to this place. Of course, that stereotype is probably only as old as The Great War.
Also, Finns getting naked and sauna-ing isn’t that much more gay than African and Arab men holding hands as they walk down the street together. Nicely sporting of the President to oblige on that Saudi visit, by the way.
In America, we have football. And if you disagree, then tell me why so many of the teams’ mascots are members of The Village People?
Uh, I get the Washington Redskins, Kansas City Chiefs, and Dallas Cowboys, but where do the Bikers, Construction Workers, Soldiers/Sailors, and Policemen play? Or are we just supposed to lump all of those in as the SF ‘Niners?
Uh, Sean, you forgot Green Bay.
Vikings, Buccaneers, and Raiders sail. Patriots fight in classic uniforms (“New Romantic”, it was called in the 80s.) Look at all the fans in hardhats, and you got your construction workers. Hell, there are even officially authorized hardhats, making it gay and part of the legal system (oooooh, a double infiltration!) Every football stadium is crawling with cops.
And don’t even let get me started on the Bears.
Also, how many construction workers have a Leatherman hanging on their belt? Or in their back pocket?
Infiltrated!
In a lot of places, African-Americans support the Democratic Party because it’s all they have to support. The gerrymandering (or, in DC, a set of boundaries that effectively amount to the same thing) of districts effectively leaves a lot of African-American voters inside areas that are drawn with the specific intent of keeping the current ward heeler (who has lots of resources to distribute) in office. In the District of Columbia, where I live, the current Mayor was previously my councilmember. He was routinely reelected with ninety-plus percent of the vote when he won the seat – Castro-scale pluralities. He got them because he was the Democrat on the ballot, but he was very good at going around and talking to constituents and getting them things they wanted – and in a city whose services are as notoriously dysfunctional as DC, that counts for a lot. It’s a single party system, and I suspect a lot of urban gerrymandering produces the same results.
To that, you need to add the vilification of the GOP, and the undeniable damage Nixon’s Southern Strategy did. But the irony of it is that my middle class neighbors are in no important sense liberals – they’re basically Goldwater conservatives on matters like law and order and gay marriage.
A couple of years ago – when I first moved into the neighborhood – there was a murder (they still happen, but they were more common before 2005). The chief of police and the council member (same guy) held a meeting, and I went. I figured it would be a silly, San Francisco style thing, but it was nothing of the kind. The people who said foolish, self-satisfied things were upper-middle class white liberals; the older African-Americans grilled their reps, especially the police chief, Ramsey (a fool of the first order). One elderly lady stood up, shook William Bratton’s book in Ramsey’s face, and asked him whether he had read it, and if he had, why he was not implementing zero-tolerance policing. Ramsey (who resembled Clancy Wiggum in his better moments) replied that he had read it, but that the problem with zero-tolerance policing was that there were too many complaints “from the minority community.”
The irony, of course, is that both the cop and the elderly lady were black. It was at that point that I realized how the people in DC really are prisoners of their own political elite; I felt – European.
At any rate, the general mood was not happy, and another elderly man got up to ask Fenty why they couldn’t treat drug dealers as terrorists, under the Patriot Act. A lot of condescending smiles from the white liberals, but Fenty saw an opportunity, and launched into a grandstanding production about how “President Bush” wanted to do just that. He repeated the name, for emphasis, several times, pausing for boos after each repetition.
What he got was silence. That was early 2004. That was when I knew he had a real shot at reelection – because if you couldn’t get a stir out of a solidly Democratic crowd with that in 2004, you weren’t going anywhere with it. Fenty realized it, and moved on. But the old guy, who had done his work, refused to be browbeaten: he had, he said, done some research, and found out that drug rings were often associated with terror groups – that being the case, what, exactly, kept us from regarding him them as accomplices?
It was a real lesson, I tell you – there’s a lot more of Hank Hill than Lisa Simpson in that community. And good for them, I say.
It seems like there are often allusions to race when homosexuality is discussed, though people of all colors can be homosexual. Did she think she would be accepted because she views her homosexuality as some people view their race? (And I’m saying that as if there IS such a thing as race and not just genetically-influenced skin color…) <<ducking>>
Noting that discrimination on the basis of race or creed is a condition of civil rights is not the same as declaring a “right” to redefine marriage. And, as an example, I don’t think hate crime legislation is a civil rights issue, either—and don’t even get me started on Title IX.
And though I support nearly partner benefits for same sex couples, those are available through contractual agreements already, for the most part.
To me, civil rights struggles redound only to “all men are created equal” (with men being used to stand in for “humans”), and all stand equally before the law.
Which is why some of the policies that came about in the aftermath of the civil rights movement in the 60s have, in effect, eroded the civil rights of those not given special dispensation by law or preference.
Moops is right to note that, technically, “Policy is how civil rights are protected or abridged.”
But my argument is the civil right exists prior to the law, and is based on certain constitutional understandings.
The error is to think that the form supersedes the content. In the case of same-sex marriage, I see no ground whatever for declaring this a “civil right” that is being violated by the government.
I think this is pertinent to this thread since the editorial identifies an intolerance of contemporary liberalism, and one that is also race-related. Wandering off the liberal plantation will not be tolerated…
– Factoid #51231:
“Uneasyness is hereditary in gays” – Rock Hudson
HappyFeet: I’ll give you the short version, so you can remember it, as you’ll probably forget where you left your index card.
I’m not interested in your grooming habits or your screwing habits. And if you find that too complicated, well, good luck remembering which is which.
Cheers
I am so busted. I thought I left my index cards in the car but when I went down this morning I couldn’t find them. Thanks, F, I’m on track now.