Civil rights and wrongs - homosexuality in black America - Column

Humanist, March-April, 1998 by Mark F. Johnson

I was a young kid during the late 1960s and early 1970s when the greatest social change that this country has known in the twentieth century -- the civil rights movement -- was underway. Black Americans (as we wanted to be called then) were quietly and steadily demanding equal rights and equal access to all that the proverbial American Dream promised. Perhaps all those civil rights marchers didn't realize it then but, through those protests and dogged demands for social change, blacks were writing the handbook for the human rights movement.

Now, thirty years and many scuff marks later, the tried and true handbook is still being used. Today, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people are proudly and determinedly asking for justice, equal treatment, and equal opportunity. When telling the story of homophobia and discrimination, members of the community often compare the GLBT struggle for human rights to that of the (ongoing) African American quest.

Gay people still hope to follow in the footsteps of African Americans who have begun the uphill climb to the mountaintop that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of in his "I Have a Dream" speech. But there are many black people who have paved the way and don't particularly want gays and lesbians to walk in their tracks, even though there have been gay and lesbian pavers.

Alveda King, the niece of Dr. King, is one of those who objects. According to her, gays and lesbians as a group have never suffered the kinds of indignities that black people have, and therefore any demands they make on American society only demean the struggle that her uncle and countless others died for in order to achieve basic equality for black people. Skin color is an immutable characteristic, she argues; however, homosexuality is not. Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders can change their sexual orientation, she implies, and thus are unworthy of protection.

She and others who spew this rhetoric have angered many gays and lesbians who feel that, because of their sexuality, they know the sting of discrimination as much as anyone else. And many gays and lesbians have angered those who see the civil rights struggle as unique to black people and who resent GLBT people comparing themselves to Rosa Parks.

As an African American gay man, I often find there is no welcoming place for me in either camp. To blacks, I am often seen as "gay" and therefore not a part of the family. "It's not natural," say the singing Winans sisters. To many in the predominate gay community, I am often just another black man, and they have difficulty identifying with me.

Despite this persona non grata status, I understand how both sides feel and see myself as sort of a mediator or diplomat (although my services are rarely desired). What black people have gone through (and too often continue to go through) in this country is like a migraine -- you have to have experienced it for yourself to know how it feels.

To put it simply, white gay people do not know what it is like to be black. Making that claim, no matter how well-intentioned, is generally not the way to begin a dialogue with African Americans on the sting of discrimination. Let's face it, being white in America brings with it certain privileges, access, and opportunities. People of color know this, just like women know that there are certain opportunities that derive to those born male. For whites to gloss over this reality or to dismiss it only creates anger and resentment on the part of people of color.

But African Americans do not hold the franchise on discrimination either. Other people in our society -- of different races, classes, ethnicities -- know what discrimination feels like. Who should better understand this than African Americans, who have been targets of long-standing and severe discrimination?

This is why I was so surprised that Black Entertainment Television had considered keeping National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum Executive Director Keith Boykin out of the studio on the night that it interviewed the Winans sisters about the controversy surrounding their song chastising homosexuality. According to Boykin, he was the first confirmed guest for the BET news program, even before Angie and Debbie Winans. But, he says, when the Winans learned that he would be on the show, they threatened not to appear and he was then disinvited.

After Boykin protested the BET decision, the cable network finally allowed him to come on the program. And thus, the show entitled "Homosexuality and Morality" actually had a gay person on the panel. It was unfathomable that BET or any other studio would pull the plug on someone from the GLBT community to satisfy the homophobic requests of performers who hardly anyone had ever heard of before the controversy. For a minute there, BET had dismissed any notion of a balanced discussion. That's a scary thought for a media outlet that reaches millions of viewers.

Although the African American community has led the way for civil and human rights struggles in this country, there is clearly still a tenuous relationship with GLBT brothers and sisters who were an integral part of those struggles. Bayard Rustin, a black gay man, organized the 1963 March on Washington. He was out thirty-five years ago.