Huffington Post Article: Why Is The Racism Of The White American Gay & Lesbian Community Against Black Heterosexuals Ignored?

50 Cent, The Gay Community, and the Big Black Boogeyman

By Rob Smith              

 

As we deal with what is undoubtedly a frightening rash of teenage suicides in the LGBT community, most involved within it are frightened, nervous, and insecure about what the next steps are. Unfortunately, some have decided to join in the time honored tradition of shoving the blame onto the nearest scary black man, this time targeting rapper/actor/knucklehead 50 Cent for a vulgar tweet. As unenviable the position of defending someone like 50 Cent is, I’m compelled to say something about the disturbing familiarity of the situation.

The subject of the community’s ire this time is a tweet that he sent to his presumably straight male followers that said something to the effect of “If you’re a man over 25 and you don’t *perform oral sex on women*, you may as well kill yourself!” The tweet was made in the perfect storm of grief in the LGBT community about 5 gay teen suicides that have been publicized in the past week, and gay and gay-friendly celebrities as diverse as Perez Hilton and Zachary Quinto have taken 50 to task for his “homophobic” comments in the virtual high-school cafeteria that is our online social networking world. The 50-hate has then viral, resulting in the predictable race-baiting posts and comments on the most popular gay blogs. Sigh. Is this really the most positive course of action right now?

I wouldn’t feel compelled to call out the behavior, especially in regards to someone who has made some very real homophobic comments in the past, if it weren’t so typical of the gay community. Indeed, every time the community feels backed up against the wall due to an issue, it predictably pushes back against some real or mythical African-American contingent that seems to rile up the base and breathe fire on the blogs.

While latent race problems have always persisted in the gay community in some fashion, the “Black Bogeyman” syndrome, as I call it, seems to have appeared in force right around the time of Barack Obama’s election in 2008. As historic as his election was, it came unfortunately wrapped in a time of crushing defeat for the community, as California’s gay-marriage banning Prop 8 passed. One faulty CNN exit poll indicating 70% of blacks being in favor of Prop 8 later (when the final numbers were in they hovered closer to 55%) and it was open season on blacks in the gay community.

Race-baiting blogs and “commentary” by such influential people as Dan Savage followed soon after, with the former writing a piece on his popular blog titled Black Homophobia that was so incendiary in its content and the racial hatred spewed from its readers that it was removed within hours of posting (the link is to a cached page.) It’s also interesting to note that during this time black gay voices were nowhere to be found in any mainstream media coverage.
In the years since, Barack Obama has become the biggest black bogeyman of them all in the gay community due to his perceived lack of movement on gay issues. And you know what? He is moving slowly. Much too slowly. However, there has been a bizarre and disturbing racial angle seeping into the conversations about what Obama is doing, and about how his race factors into it. Americablog gay’s outrageously offensive article Does The White House Understand That a Black President Cannot Institute a Policy of Segregation? isn’t even the half of it, and the disturbing thing is that this is what is coming from our alleged leaders under the cover of fighting for our rights. This is only the beginning, and a few clever google searches will undoubtedly uncover the rest.

So I bring it back to my original question that at a time when LGBT teenagers of all colors are taking their own lives, is attacking 50 cent or really any singular entity what we need to focus our energies on? An African-American LGBT teen rooted in hip-hop culture may or may not take offense to 50’s arguably innocuous tweet, but I’m sure that teen will take offense when they go looking for community online and discover the vicious race-baiting and breathless claims of “black homophobia” that has become normative in the place of direct action to fix the problems that we all face. As long as the LGBT community continues to seek out the black bogeyman as a all-purpose punching bag for all of our frustrations and oppression, we’re never going to get anything or anywhere, and we’ll certainly do nothing but alienate potential heterosexual African-American allies and put those like myself who are black and gay into an awkward “us or them” position that helps nobody.

These teenagers deserve better than this from people purporting to stand up for them. After attending the powerful and deeply moving candlelight vigil for these kids at Washington Square Park in New York City on Sunday, the most overwhelming message was that the answer to the problem at hand isn’t hate, it’s love. What the gay teens still with us deserve to see is a community that is bound by our love for one another and not shared hate directed outwards. What they deserve is to feel like the part of a community no matter what their skin color is, and not to feel like they have to choose sides. That’s what these kids would want to see, and that’s what we should show them. Love overcomes hate every time. Perhaps it’s time to take the hate out of our activism.

South Asian Mail Article: Naheed Nenshi Is Calgary’s New Mayor! He Is The First Muslim To Become Mayor Of A Major Canadian City!!!

Calgary’s Naheed Nenshi becomes Canada’s first Muslim mayor

Back To Main News

JOSH WINGROVE

Calgary: If you don’t know the name Naheed Nenshi, take note.

A grassroots campaign driven by volunteers has delivered Canada its first Muslim mayor – Mr. Nenshi, who scored a staggering win in Calgary’s mayor’s race Monday.

He defeated two better-funded candidates, including one backed by Stephen Harper’s campaign team, and saw his support surge in the final few weeks. To say Mr. Nenshi’s campaign was austere is understatement – he delivered his speech in a basement that was donated by a supporter at the last second.

The 38-year-old Mr. Nenshi survived a smear campaign and a telephone failure in the crucial final days and hours, before running away with what was to be a close vote. His candidacy was branded the “Purple Revolution,” named for his campaign colour and driven by a broad demographic that included strong youth support. He achieved what many observers thought impossible – a wonkish, even dorky, academic and visible minority elected to the helm of what is often called Canada’s most conservative city after a campaign driven by charisma and sheer determination.

“Today Calgary is a different place than it was yesterday. A better place,” Mr. Nenshi said in a speech to his supporters.

Shortly after 10 p.m. local time, CTV declared him the winner. Global News followed suit an hour later.

When returns finally showed him in the lead – one he would not relinquish – a bar where Mr. Nenshi was watching results erupted in a deafening cheer.

“The bar was amazing,” a grinning Mr. Nenshi told The Globe and Mail as he walked into his campaign office. “If you have never heard the sound of a city collectively losing its mind, you needed to be in that bar.”

He said his win “means we’ve got a lot of work to do, starting tomorrow [Tuesday],” and that he was “a little” surprised with how many votes he received.

“It means people heard my message,” he said.

His win also proves that the Internet is a key tool in politics and does indeed deliver support – Mr. Nenshi had far more Facebook friends than either of his main competitors, who themselves dismissed that support, saying it wouldn’t translate into actual votes.

But Mr. Nenshi had 39 per cent of the vote with 229 of 241 polls reporting, followed closely by alderman Ric McIver with 32 per cent and former CTV anchor Barb Higgins with 26 per cent. Ms. Higgins raced to an early lead before her numbers collapsed, while Mr. Nenshi started slow and then spiked.

Mr. McIver, meanwhile, had campaigned essentially since the last election in 2007, preparing to challenge outgoing Mayor Dave Bronconnier, a bitter rival. When Mr. Bronconnier elected not to run, Mr. McIver became the race’s de facto front-runner, with a significant war-chest and plenty of backing among Calgary’s conservatives.

Ms. Higgins entered the race late with little experience but significant name recognition, and tried to position herself as a moderate able to build consensus on city council, which has been bitterly divided for the past three-year term largely because of Mr. Bronconnier and Mr. McIver. Had Ms. Higgins won, she would have been Calgary’s first female mayor. However, critics insisted that she didn’t have the experience to take the top job, unlike Mr. McIver the alderman and Mr. Nenshi, a veteran observer of city hall.

Voter turnout was high, with early returns suggesting it could reach 50 per cent, well higher than the 33 per cent turnout in 2007.

Elsewhere in the province, Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel easily clinched a third term. The mayors of Red Deer and Wood Buffalo, a municipality that includes Fort McMurray and the oil sands, were also expected to win re-election.

In Wood Buffalo, incumbent Melissa Blake won by a landslide, with more than triple the vote of her closest rival, Councillor John Vyboh.

The race in Red Deer was closer than expected. Incumbent Morris Flewwelling appeared poised to win over his lone challenger, Hilary Penko.

And in Lethbridge, a city of 85,000 with a wide-open mayor’s race, alderman Rajko Dodic eked out a narrow, 208-vote victory over Chris Spearman. Two other candidates finished close behind. The outcome had been impossible to predict, as the city’s lone pollster had elected to run for council himself, leaving the community without a sense of the state of the race.(The Globe and Mail)