They may sound strange coming from a someone with a background in reporting. Reporters LOVE facts, (unless of course you work for Fox and Friends, where they seem to be optional.)(1)
The truth is, however, I am somewhat uncomfortable writing about the racial experiences of groups that I am not a member of. Indeed, as a white person, I am about the least minority race you’ll find in the western world. So to claim that I have some unique insight into what it’s like to be a minority in this country -- LGBT or otherwise -- is just ridiculous.
And as a rainbow-colored drag queen who wears ostrich feathers on her head, trust me: I know ridiculous.
Do I feel completely clueless? No. Having lived on a Native American Indian reservation, traveled a lot in the nation and world, and taught students of dozens of races, I do feel like I have some personal insight and opinions to add to the conversation.
But they are just that: opinions. And as I’ve said before, I want this column to be about facts. So I dig, I research, and I try to find a decent cross-section of what’s out there. Hopefully in the end I learn -- and only then do I type. Followed immediately by footnoting everything within an inch of its life.
I want you to be able to trust what you read here, and this is my way of doing it. Works for Wikipedia. (Mostly) Who knows, you just might learn something you already thought you knew. (I certainly did, but more about that in a bit.)
Maybe that’s why I also try to always find the positive in what I write about, particularly when it comes to race. It’s not my place to scorn or stereotype communities that I really don’t know much about. Especially when those groups are changing so quickly, like the Latino LGBT community, which I wrote about last week.
Another place, however, the culture seems to be deviating from the stereotype is the African-American LGBT community, of whom 4.6 percent self-report they are LGBT.(2) That’s the good news.
First, however, the bad news. (You knew that was coming.)
Like the Latino community, African-American LGBT youth report a higher rate of contemplating suicide. A survey from Black Gay Youth in America, “found that 43 percent of black gay youth have thought about or attempted suicide as a result of issues related to their sexual orientation.”(3) A number about 50 percent higher than the LGBT youth population as a whole.
Also similar to Latinos, within the African-American community some see a long-lived cultural discrimination against LGBT people. In fact, when Anglo members of the religious community of San Antonio came out to protest a new gay and lesbian anti discrimination law in 2013, they stood with similar leaders from the African-American community.(4)
African-American and LGBT Huffington Post writer Aaron Anson doesn’t find these types of behaviors surprising: “Blacks have been unusually reluctant to accept gays. We've used inherited religious beliefs to condemn gays for many different reasons. Some say they find it appalling or are uncomfortable with it, while others proclaim that God condemns it.
“Like many who grew up in the black church, I inherited the belief that gays were inferior and their sin was unforgivable. Raised to be heterosexual, I was falsely led to believe that I was worthy and virtuous enough to judge and condemn gays.”(5)
Don Lemon, a CNN anchor who is LGBT, said: “It’s quite different for an African-American male,” he said. “It’s about the worst thing you can be in black culture. You’re taught you have to be a man; you have to be masculine. In the black community they think you can pray the gay away.”(6)
Not exactly a glowing portrait of acceptance of LGBTs within the African-American community. And that’s from people inside it.
Truth be told, this was my perception as well. I recalled, in particular, the role African-Americans played in passing the law banning gay marriage in California in 2008. Without their overwhelming support, (70 percent) many people believed it would never have passed.(7)
The truth is, however, when I went digging for data to back up African-American homophobia, I really couldn’t find very much. There was the aforementioned study regarding African-American LGBT youth and suicide, but most was the opinions of men like those I’ve listed above.
Now, I am not saying their opinions are irrelevant; they are honest and well-founded. But for a stereotype that so many people seem to hold, it’s remarkable how little research data I could find to support it. Indeed, what I often found was the opposite.
For instance, in 2008, 63 percent of African-Americans were opposed to gay marriage. In 2012 that number had dropped to 49 percent, the same as the country as a whole.(8)
Among African-American leaders, people as diverse as Jay-Z, Ben Jealous, the then-head of the NAACP, and Barack Obama -- you know, the President of the United States -- have come out in support of LGBT equality.(8)
Even that 70 percent number from the California election of 2008 seems to not be as true as people -- like me -- may have thought. “In January 2009, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that an analysis of exit polls found that 58 percent of black voters supported (banning gay marriage) and not 70 percent, as several mainstream media outlets first reported.”(9) Still higher than the 52 percent of total voters that supported it, but only by about 10 percent, not the 35 percent as had been reported.
Does that mean anti-LGBT bias in the African-American community is just a stereotype? Uh, no. Those religious leaders in San Antonio didn’t just beam down from planet homophobe. And they certainly aren’t alone.
Civil rights activist and Reverend William Owens, the founder and president of the Coalition of African-American Pastors, thinks there’s no comparison between civil rights and gay rights. “I marched and many other thousands of people marched... years ago on the claim that we were being discriminated against, and today the other community is trying to say that they are suffering the same thing that we suffered, but I tell you they are not.”(10)
It’s statements like this that I have to admit I remember, and I’m sure many other people do as well. Reinforced by the gay-bashing you see hear in a lot of rap-lyrics and other artifacts of pop culture past and present, it might be understandable why the stereotype persists.
But that doesn’t make it right. Indeed, even if you allow yourself the belief that that’s how things “used to be,” you still may be missing the mark.
According to a New York Times article written 20 years ago, “Despite their differences with homosexuals on issues of civil rights, many blacks, including nearly all those interviewed for this article, support guarantees of equal rights for gay people. According to a New York Times/CBS News Poll of 1,154 adults conducted Feb. 9-11, 53 percent of blacks thought such legislation was necessary...” (11)
Maybe that’s why it’s time people -- like me -- stop believing the stereotypes. And instead listen instead to voices of the future -- and the past.
“This discrimination is wrong. We cannot keep turning our backs on gay and lesbian Americans. I have fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. I've heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred, and intolerance I have known in racism and in bigotry.”(12)
These are the words of John Lewis, a present-day U.S Congressman, who was also beaten by racists during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and was there for the “I Have a Dream” speech. If anyone should be able to speak with authority for a people and their truth, it would be him.
I find it rather embarrassing I haven’t always been listening.
References:
1) 'SNL's 'Fox & Friends' Corrections Are Close To The Real Thing
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/05/snls-fox-and-friends-parody-corrections_n_2077501.html
1a) Seriously, even people at FOX are embarrassed by this show:
Enemies and Allies for ‘Friends’
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/arts/television/fox-friends-finds-ratings-and-controversy.html?_r=0
2) Gallup study: 3.4 percent of US adults are LGBT
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=893&sid=3083798
3) REPORT: 43 Percent of Black Gay Youth Have Contemplated or Attempted Suicide
http://www.blackyouthproject.com/2012/05/report-43-percent-of-black-gay-youth-have-contemplated-or-attempted-suicide/
4) Black, Latino Pastors Rally Hundreds Against Gay Anti-Discrimination Proposal
http://www.woai.com/articles/woai-local-news-119078/black-latino-pastors-rally-hundreds-against-11606343/#ixzz2jWo5coVb
4a) It passed anyway. Ha ha!
5) Resistant Homophobia in the Black Community
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-anson/resistant-homophobia-in-t_b_997328.html
6) Gay CNN Anchor Sees Risk in Book
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/business/media/16anchor.html?_r=1&bl
7) African Americans and Latinos spur gay marriage revolution
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/11/12/african-americans-and-latinos-play-big-role-in-gay-marriage-revolution/
8) The NAACP's gay-marriage endorsement: Is black homophobia overstated?
http://theweek.com/article/index/228221/the-naacps-gay-marriage-endorsement-is-black-homophobia-overstated
9) CNN’s Don Lemon: Being Gay Is Worst Thing to Be in Black Culture
http://racerelations.about.com/b/2011/05/16/cnns-don-lemon-being-gay-is-worst-thing-to-be-in-black-culture.htm
10) Civil Rights Activist: ‘No Comparison’ Between Civil Rights, Gay Rights Movement
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/civil-rights-activist-no-comparison-between-civil-rights-gay-rights-movement
11) Blacks Rejecting Gay Rights As a Battle Equal to Theirs
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/28/us/blacks-rejecting-gay-rights-as-a-battle-equal-to-theirs.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
12) At a crossroads on gay rights
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/10/25/at_a_crossroads_on_gay_unions/