Racism and Homophobia...part 2

California's Prop 8 same old strategy....SAME OLD RESULTS!!


Lets be clear ...... Black women constituted only 6% of the states' voters. So few Black men voted (less than 4% of the state voting population), that exit polls didn't even bother to calculate their vote. While 75% of voting Black women supported Proposition 8, Blacks only accounted for 2.3% of the total Prop. 8 vote. With this white men and women, who account for 64% of California's voters, make up the majority of who produced the actual result....SO if every Black person voted against Prop 8 IT STILL WOULD HAVE PASSED.

Other strong factors that lead to Prop 8's passage:

• Lack of outreach by mainstream LGBT organizations to people of color communities. Early in the campaign the only rallies/events/messages geared towards people of color were from the proponents of Prop 8. Mainstream LGBT organizations last minute attempt was way too little and way too late.
• The President Elect touted the favorite, and overused (especially by Arkansas Dems) DNC line “I’m not in favor of gay marriage. " This was printed on a flier by the Yes on 8 folks and targeted black communities.
  
• Ad after ad told voters that without Prop 8, their churches would be forced to perform Same sex unions, and strip churches of their tax-exempt status.
• Schools will be required to teach children to practice homosexuality.
• The un-precedented coalition that was formed between the Mormon/LDS church and conservative religious right movement. This troubling coalition was able to raise staggering amounts of funds from across the nation and throughout the whole campaign.
• LGBT mainstream organizations continued failure to broaden the message of Gay Marriage to Marriage Equality

Those points look familiar, they should...these where the same tactics that were used in winning passage of Arkansas Marriage amendment.

Don’t get it twisted........ im not saying that people of color can't be bigoted or homophobic…we are. But what irritates the hell out of me about this issue is that white gays (who are supposedly not racist..yeah right) jump to gut reactions, “Blacks have a problem with homophobia in their community,” without taking the time to figure out why something happened the way it did. I, as well as others, remember too well the same false accusations that were herald at our beloved community in 2004, when Arkansans voted to write discrimination and bigotry into our constitution, falling prey to the wedge politics that were put into play.

SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE…….
A lot of damage has been done with recent passage of Initiated Act 1 here in Arkansas, and approval of Prop 8 in California along with similar acts in Arizona and Florida. Currently there is a nationwide actions to stand against hate, along with a day without gays. Arkansas held "No to Hate" rallies in Fayetteville as well here in Little Rock, and there will be a march in Little Rock, calling for the Repeal of Act 1, on Friday November 21st starting at 4pm at MacArthur Park.
Marches and rallies are great, when people come together, stand together, raise collective voices, or show collective silence it places a picture of those who are effected, and affected by these heinous policies. However, marches and rallies without an overall strategy, and communicative vision, these actions will lead to wasted energy and prove non-effective.

Both Initiated Act 1 and Prop 8 calls attention ONCE AGAIN to the nature of community building, homophobia in nonwhite communities, religious bigotry, the idea of solidarity and how often we fail to see the interlocking oppressions that manifest themselves within our society.

After the multi-state Marriage amendments that were passed in 2004, a group of progressive lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and allied activist, scholars, educators, writers, artists, lawyers, journalists, and community organizers drafted the Beyond Marriage Statement: A new strategic vision for all our families and relationships. The first paragraph is as follows:

We, the undersigned – lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) and allied activists, scholars, educators, writers, artists, lawyers, journalists, and community organizers – seek to offer friends and colleagues everywhere a new vision for securing governmental and private institutional recognition of diverse kinds of partnerships, households, kinship relationships and families. In so doing, we hope to move beyond the narrow confines of marriage politics as they exist in the United States today.

The Beyond Marriage statement serves as a blueprint towards a vision that could be achieved here in Arkansas. ......hmmm different strategy...DIFFERENT RESULTS.