[Antiracism] Ballot initiatives provide a wake up call to the LGBT community about race

[aidan kriese]

Ballot initiatives provide a wake up call to the LGBT community about race
(updated)


by Pam Spaulding

NOTE: I have updated this essay to incorporate some of the questions raised in
the thread, some of the answers I gave, as well as comments I've made on other
blogs and e-lists in response to the original post.

I didn't think this would happen in my lifetime. We did it - we jettisoned the
right-wing and its failed policies out into deep space and made history in the
process. We did it with a diverse coalition of citizens - people who look like
the America of the future, not the past. It will be a joy to see the Obama
family restore dignity to the White House.

But it is a bittersweet moment. While we have crossed one threshold, marriage
amendments in Arizona, Florida and California have passed. In Arkansas, voters
decided to ban the ability of gay and lesbian couples to adopt a child. To put
things in perspective, voters in California handily approved another measure to
improve the health and well-being of livestock - "Standards for Confining Farm
Animals," but were content to eliminate the existing right of gays and lesbians
to marry.

It makes it quite clear that equality is in the eye of the beholder, and we must
reconcile the fact that some of the same people who marked that ballot for
Barack Obama did not see fit to vote to prevent discrimination against gay and
lesbian couples.

And now I feel that a giant snowball of blame game is about to roll over and
crush me on this front. Who voted for Yes on 8 is clear now, as exit polls show
70% of blacks, (with black women at 74%) voted for the amendment. That's about
20 points higher than any other racial group. But the blame needs to be put
into perspective - blacks represent only 6.2% of California's population and
they were about 10% of those who voted. One reader noted this decision in the
Sunshine State:

That was certainly the case in Florida in the passage of Amendment 2. One of the
groups fighting it made it very clear that they were going to do no outreach
whatsoever to the black community. I fear this was a fatal flaw.

...I believe by failing to deal with the elephant in the room, so to speak, we
missed the opportunity to not only move the black community but also engage
them in a dialog that is much needed and position ourselves to improve
understanding between our two communities.

For those of us who are black and gay, a group too often marginalized within a
marginalized community, I see this as a clear signal to the LGBT advocacy
community. There hasn't been enough outreach to those groups who voted against
us. We haven't reached them; there hasn't been enough effort expended.

I've been blogging for years about the need to discuss race in regards to LGBT
issues. I hope that this is now the wakeup call for our "professional gays" out
there who represent us to come out of their comfort zones and help bridge this
concrete education gap. The belief that white=gay is big part of the problem,
and as long as black LGBTs are invisible in their own communities and there is
a dearth of color in the public face of LGBT leadership, the socially
conservative black community can remain in denial that I exist as a black
lesbian.

But the losses are about more than these racial hurdles. I thank Darkrose for
her diary "Blame the Brown People = Recipe for Failure." It puts the defeats in
perspective. A snippet:

It seems like the frame for the passage of Prop 8 is going to be "It's because
Obama's candidacy caused increased black turnout, and the black community is
homophobic." Never mind that it was voters 65 and over who put Prop 8 over the
top, or that one of the whitest institutions in America--the Mormon
Church--funnelled millions of dollars from Utah to California to make sure that
8 passed. The parts of the state that went solid for 8 were the inland areas,
which are overwhelmingly white.

...It wasn't a black group that put Prop 8 on the ballot, and paid the
signature-gatherers and bankrolled the ads. Nor is it fair to say that Obama's
have-it-both-ways position meant that black voters were going to march
sheeplike to the polls and vote as Obama dictated.

Writing off an entire race as hopelessly unenlightened isn't going to help.

There have been immediate defensive reactions and confused interpretation of my
post's point at my pad that don't surprise me. They read it somehow as an
attack rather than a call for a collective focus on the issue. My reply to one
reader:

"Who is blaming whites for homophobia in the black community? No one caused the
homophobia, but it is the responsibility of all of us to do that outreach to
change hearts and minds.

My point is that the discomfort that many whites have about race (little
exposure to and no deep personal relationships with any POC) has an impact on
dealing with communities of color when it comes to outreach. That results in a
failure to educate. That's not an indictment of whites or dropping the "racist
bomb", it simply partially explains why you see few POC at the head of LGBT
organizations (or even populating those staffs).

It's much the same as straight people are more comfortable with LGBTs-and our
issues-if they know someone who is LGBT. The discomfort melts away. "

There is a lot of work to do, and we have to be willing to accept this challenge
to communicate and bridge these gaps. All of us. I added this comment in
response to another knee-jerk reaction:

"My comments-and your reaction-are what keep the discussion about the lack of
communication between white (dominated LGBT) establishment and communities of
color that leads to less information being disseminated. This can be addressed
if people own up to the fact that unexamined white privilege and black
defensiveness plays a role in the silence. We can do something about that if we
want to. We all have biases. It doesn't make anyone evil, it only needs to be
named and accounted for so we can all move forward.

Too often the reaction to my raising this to run to see the extreme rather than
a request that we stop hiding from hurdles we have on these issues.

Who is supposed to educate the (socially conservative) religious black community
- is it seen as only a "black problem" to be dealt with by the LGBT blacks
already underrepresented in our orgs? That's my fear. As a community we stress
the support we need from allies. It's sad that when it comes to this scenario,
everyone runs for cover. It's time to talk, not retreat to corners."

We all must do outreach as we do with other constituencies. I don't pretend to
have an answer to this, mind you, I'm asking that we open up a dialogue about
the hurdles that exist but we rarely discuss.

After all, I am a non-practicing Episcopalian. I have views and life experience
that differs from the "churched." Just because I am black doesn't give me any
special power to communicate to the social conservative black religious
community. But we obviously have let this community remain off of the education
radar because of assumptions and discomfort with engaging those who are
different, then it creates a vicious cycle.

In fact, you could say that a white/Latino, etc. person of faith might have a
better chance at breaking through this barrier than an unchurched person of
color, but maybe not. Perhaps the best conduit is through members of the LGBT
black religious community.

The bottom line is that we need to have those strategic discussions instead of
writing them off completely. If we truly believe every vote counts (and the
black community is otherwise mostly politically aligned with progressive
views), then to avoid a group out of discomfort makes no sense.

Perhaps with a fresh administration, and new players in the mix, we will all be
forced to challenge ourselves to really communicate on a host of challenging
issues of this kind.