A note to my Black SGL/LGBTQ community, and those who stand in Solidarity with us:
Beloved Sisters and Brothers,
Beloved Brothers who would be Sisters,
Beloved Sisters who would be Brothers:
The Black community in California is being falsely blamed for the passage of the discriminatory and bigoted proposition 8. We can not stand back and ignore this occurrence, We can not stand back and ignore the knee jerk racism of some white gays who have perpetrated racist acts against the black community in California and across the nation.
We must call into account that in California 7 out 10 African-Americans, who voted, were in favor of the proposition 8, and THOUSANDS of us voted in favor of Arkansas' initiated Act 1.
Too many times I have heard, analysts, pollsters, political science professors, and so-called professional types state religion is the reason for our "confusion, misguidance." As Rev. Irene Monroe has stated "...never forget, and continue to remind those folks of how we discarded and rose over the damning and damaging statements and scriptures about us in the name of religion, such biblical passages that cursed all people of African Ancestry (The Curse of Ham) and justified American Apartheid (Ephesians 6)."
Too many of our beloved community voted to support Act 1 ignoring the constant changing or our family units. A fact that we SGL/LGBTQ know best. Too many of Arkansas' Black ministers, political leaders, and community heads, argue for the traditional nuclear family; the stresses and strains of racism has and continues to thwart the possibility. So we created our own family structures. These family structures should not pose a threat to the black community because they are what have Sustained, Saved, and are STILL SAVING our black families here in Arkansas and across this nation. A grandmother or an aunt and uncle, straight or gay raising us in their loving home have anchored our families through time. The ongoing, unyielding SUPPORT, EDUCATION, LOVE we provide to our nieces, nephews, cousins, neighbors..it is what Black families are about. It is these family structures, which we have had to devise as a model of resistance and liberation, have always, by example, shown the rest of society what really constitutes family...its spiritual content and not its physical composition.
We must realize it is our voices, our bodies, our preciousness that must begin the dialog within the black community on the need for of EQUALITY.
Peace, Namaste, Keep on Keeping on.
