Best Posts in Forum: Race, Religion, Science and Politics

He could've stood there and scratched his ass while diggin in his nose. I will be voting for the Democratic candidate "regardless of". Just like the GOP senators voted for Brett Kavanaugh "regardless of" him lying under oath.

 

Now why am I not surprised the anti-gay preacher is actually pedophile?

 

White folks have nothing to fear. For anything dude said to be accomplished in reality, that would mean Black people would have to be unified and that will never ever happen.

Even though I may share his sentiments, I don't have faith in humanity and at the end of the day, all dude's comment gets from me is an LOL

 

10 points for the 'fetch' gif! I still use that quote waay too often.

I'm not religious at all. I pray all of the time to whoever keeps waking me up and keeping me out of terrorist attacked buildings and hurricane/tornado/earthquake _______. I guess I just believe in karma and being conscious of the way you treat ppl.

 

Now they know God damn well that's not the message this bb is trying to convey, especially with some black folks in this vintage photo.

 

This is absolute BULLSHIT!! Clearly this "reporter" must have been bored AF and the Daily Beast needed to fill its space with click bait. I say fuck him and the Daily Beast. I also think there should be a journalistic ethic investigation at minimum.



P.S. Why are so called straight people so damn curious about what goes on in the Grindr app and the other gay hookup/dating apps? These MFs....

 

So, there are black women who sometimes end up raising kids as single mothers because for whatever reason, the father is out of the picture. And black women are somehow responsible for all of the issues in the black community? Negro, what? What kinda myopic, preschool analysis is this?

I get that there is nuance. The father may be around and they simply have issues. There's a possibility that some women have hindered their child's father from being in their child's life. But there's also a good chance that the dad was physically not there. Maybe he left. Maybe he's in jail. Maybe he's dead. For whatever reason, his absence may not be the result of the mother's action, so how can you place blame solely on the woman? All of those problems listed can be tied to poverty, racism, lack of education, mass incarceration, excessive policing, and a multitude of other causal factors. The attitude he describes of a few black mothers is miniscule in the grand sceme of things. To me, this is like burning someone's house down and then when they struggle to build it back up, you blame them for being homeless.

I don't support these pseudo negro intellectuals.

 

The real question isn't whether or not is there a place for gay people in the black church or church in general. The real question is why would gay people even want to belong to such a monstrous and destructive institution? It's because of the church we are in the position were in American society where we still have to struggle to be respected as human beings. In places where the church has even more influence, like Africa and the Caribbean gay people are in even more of dangerous position where they can be imprisoned, beaten up, tortured, or even executed by a lynch mob. The church encourages the state to sanction this. Even now in the USA the church, including black churches oppose gay rights, promote anti-gay attitudes, and discrimination. Why would any gay person support and want to belong to an institution that hates you, that says you're an abomination, that says you should be executed, that says you will not enter the kingdom of god? Christianity has been dehumanizing and encouraging hatred of gay people for centuries. Believing in this backward and repressive mythology is like a Jewish person who wants to belong to the Nazi party.

 

I literally just read an article on yahoo about this. People are idiots. They think that they're giving a deep perspective on something but usually they're just being idiots. He can date whomever he likes. Every successful black person doesn't have to date another black person just to satiate some obligation to the black community. He's a grown ass man. I think once people come to grips that even if successful black figures/celebrities were to date exclusively their race, what are the chances that they'd be with your ass? Pretty slim to none.

 

Just got text message from the campaign of a young Black mayoral candidate here in my Atlanta suburb in the lead up to our local election on Tues Nov 5th, 2019.

The text was raving about an endorsement from Dr Jaha Howard, a pediatric dentist here who only 2 yrs ago came under fire for misogynistic and homophobic Facebook posts discovered while running for GA Senate.
















After the old posts were reported, he quickly deleted them and apologized...but the damage had been done. He lost that election, thankfully to another Democrat Jen Jordan, who now sits on the Georgia State Senate.

Dr. Jaha Howard, who once posted this on Facebook:



Now sits on the Cobb County School Board.

I know all of this is local politics in a city none of you live in, but it just reminded me of the Tank and Brandon T. Jackson Discussions we had recently....and just how much of a hold 2000+ year old archaic religious teachings have, not only on the world, but Black people specifically.

This is also a prime example on how nothing you post on the internet ever really goes away.

 

Haven't looked at CNN since they fired him.



When noted black intellectual Marc Lamont Hill spoke at the UN last month about justice for the Palestinian people, critics like those in the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) were quick to condemn him. They said his words implied support for the “one state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which his detractors claimed was an anti-Semitic and even genocidal notion. Just one day after Hill made his comments, CNN responded to the furor by firing Hill from his post as a commentator on the network. Soon thereafter both the president and chair of the board of trustees of Temple University, where Hill teaches, denounced him and his “hate speech.” Civil libertarians were quick to defend Hill and his right to free speech, and supporters of the Palestinians groused about yet another public figure silenced for evidencing sympathy with the Palestinians.

Yet some of the most insightful criticisms of the way Hill was treated pointed out the controversy’s racial context: Hill’s was just the most recent case in a long history of blacks being publicly excoriated for “daring” to speak out on the great issues of the day in ways that defy white conventions. This was particularly true when discussing the Arab-Israeli conflict in a manner that challenges the carefully circumscribed discourse enforced by strongly pro-Israeli groups like the ADL.

This has happened before. Indeed, next year, 2019, marks the fortieth anniversary of a similar brouhaha that erupted when another black man very much in the public eye dared to challenge the rigidly pro-Israeli understanding of Americans’ approach to the Middle East: the Andrew Young Affair.

In August 1979, President Jimmy Carter forced the American ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, to resign following revelations that Young had secretly met once with an official from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in violation of an American pledge to Israel not to deal with the PLO in any way. Young, the highest-ranking black official in the Carter administration, had met the official to advance American policy aims but nonetheless was fired after facing a barrage of hostile public criticism, notably by American Jewish organizations.

When it was soon revealed that the American ambassador to Austria, a Jewish industrialist from Cleveland named Milton Wolf, also had met several times with PLO officials earlier that year but without similar repercussions, African-Americans exploded in fury and rallied behind Young. Why the double standard, they demanded to know? Some, like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Joseph Lowery and Operation PUSH’s Jesse Jackson, quickly announced they would continue Young’s efforts by themselves talking to the PLO. They then separately traveled to Lebanon, met PLO Chair Yasir Arafat, and presented him with their ideas for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Lowery and Jackson insisted that black Americans had a legitimate role to play in the formulation of American foreign policy discussions and decisions, just like any other ethnic or religious group in the country. They were not going to be muzzled by a refusal to meet with any particular side in the conflict.

What happened to both Marc Lamont Hill and Andrew Young speaks volumes about race, foreign policy, and American positions on the Middle East. Both instances hearken back to long-held black complaints that their leadership voices are not welcome, whether in fields of life long dominated by well-educated whites or even in their own Civil Rights organizations. One of the key demands of the Black Power movement in the 1960s in fact was that African-Americans must take charge of their own destinies, their own groups, and formulate their own strategies and tactics for liberation. This was exemplified when the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) asked white members to leave the group in 1966, leaving blacks to lead SNCC and whites to go out and organize their own community. Other black forces in the 1960s and 1970s similarly demanded political and cultural autonomy.

Another way that this black autonomy was expressed during that heady period of time was by asserting blacks’ right to speak out on the great foreign policy issues of the day regardless of whether or not the white establishment approved. Martin Luther King, Jr. accordingly defied his critics by denouncing the Vietnam War in 1967.

No topic proved more controversial in this regard than the Arab-Israeli conflict. Black Power advocates hailed the various Third World liberation movements underway in the 1960s, and accordingly saw themselves and the Palestinians as kindred peoples of color each fighting against a racialized system of imperialism and domination. Malcolm X visited East Jerusalem in 1959 and Gaza in 1964, and publicly denounced Israel and Zionism. SNCC issued a newsletter article that spoke out forcefully in support of the Palestinian struggle against Israel shortly after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. A few weeks later black militants at the National Conference for New Politics in Chicago arranged for the gathering to issue a statement against Israel.

Thereafter the floodgates of black pro-Palestinianism opened. Stemming first and foremost from their Black Power internationalism, the increasingly vocal stances in favor of the Palestinians emerging from activists in the Black Panther Party, the Black Arts Movement, even individuals like the boxer Muhammad Ali, also emanated from blacks’ insistence that their voices mattered. They no longer would sit in the back of the foreign policy bus lest they upset their white benefactors and political allies who urged them to stick to speaking about race relations only.

In the 1970s these attitudes began moving from Black Power radicals into the African-American mainstream. The Congressional Black Caucus and politicians associated with it like Shirley Chisholm and Walter Fauntroy, for example, spoke sympathetically about the Palestinian experience. The National Black Political Assembly in Gary, Indiana issued a statement critical of Israel. In the wake of the Andrew Young Affair, religious groups like the Black Theology Project and the National Black Pastors’ Conference affirmed Palestinian rights, as did secular organizations like TransAfrica. They once again were affirming both the need for a just and peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that included talking to the PLO as well as the right of black Americans to speak publicly about the Middle East, even if such speech angered pro-Israeli forces.

African-Americans well know the dangers of publicly speaking their minds. Yet many also have felt for decades that the Palestinians, like themselves, are a people of color seeking to be free who deserve black Americans’ public support. This is why blacks from Ferguson, Missouri and West Bank Palestinians visited one another in 2014 and 2015, and tweeted back and forth about how to deal with the guns and tear gas used against them by security forces in their respective homelands. This is why rappers like Method Man, Jasiri X, Boots Riley, Mos Def, and Talib Kweli perform songs about the Palestinians. This is why the 2015 Black Solidarity Statement with Palestine garnered over 1,100 signatures, including those of groups like the Dream Defenders and Hands Up United, and individuals like Angela Davis and Cornel West. People may be trying to silence Marc Lamont Hill, but the long history of black support for the Palestinians suggests that voices like his will continue to be raised.


Michael R. Fischbach is professor of history at Randolph-Macon College, and author of the new book Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color (Stanford University Press, 2018).


This article was originally published at History News Network

 

https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/kanye-west-doesnt-care-about-black-people-1825550492



Last year, Panama Jackson, a man who, in the 14 years that we’ve known each other, has become one of my best friends, published a piece on his mother’s support of Donald Trump, and revealed how that ruined his relationship with her.

Deciding to write this was very difficult for him; we had countless email, text, Gchat, phone conversations about how his mother’s politics affected him as he also wrestled with whether to put those thoughts in print.

Included in his piece was a revelation that his mom wore a Make America Great Again shirt in his house.

The next day, my mother showed her entire ass. She basically became Trump, in my own house. My mother decided to don that bright-red “Make America Great Again” T-shirt and asked me to take her out to places while she had that shirt on, putting me in a position of having to appear to support Trump’s election. Again, I put my pride to the side. It’s my mother. She birthed me.

But this is when our relationship hit the point from which I realized we’d never fully recover. When we were getting in the car to head to Rockville, Md., she asked why I found the T-shirt offensive. I told her that by her wearing that shirt, it showed that she didn’t care about my life or those of her grandchildren or daughter; after we argued, she refused to speak to me for hours, again.

I misspoke a bit earlier. “Wrestle” shouldn’t have been in the past tense. He is still wrestling with that decision. He is still troubled by what he believes his mother forced him to do. He is still bothered by the thought of his piece hurting his mother’s feelings, because while she did what she did, she’s still his mom. But he knows he did the right thing.

I do not know if Kanye West is aware of the anger and the fury and the disgust and the terror that slogan and the shirts and hats and bumper stickers its plastered on induces. I also do not know, as some have suggested, if this is an elaborate publicity stunt or troll. I do know, however, that I don’t give a fuck.

Intent doesn’t matter as much as action and effect. And Kanye’s recent actions have shown, in a clear and unambiguous fashion, that he doesn’t care about black people. Black people who have supported him and amplified him and even shielded him from and defended him against the type of people he’s aligning himself with. Black people who watched him grow from the person with the name we didn’t quite know how to pronounce who kept getting production credits on Jay Z and Cam’Ron tracks to arguably the most important person in hip-hop. Black people who made him.

Black people like Panama who, again, ended a relationship with his own mother because of what her support of the man that Kanye just called one of his “favorite people” represents.

When this — whatever the fuck it is that he’s doing — backfires on him (and it will), some of us will still be there to lift him up. Or perhaps to help cushion his fall. Not because they’re gullible or weak. But because they’re aware of the pathology of white supremacy, and they possess an empathy for someone who allows themselves to be so infected by it. But also because he meant that much to them before he turned. And I guess that’s the irony here. He will never be as loved by them as he was by so many of us.

And yes, “was” was intentional. I didn’t misspeak this time.

 

We can’t screw our way beyond racism. Many think mixed-race babies and browner demographics will automatically usher in a post-racial world. They interpret the projections of a “majority-minority” shift in our nation – now set to take place in 2044 – as a sign of guaranteed progress. Changing faces in the US are seen as anti-racist destiny. But don’t overestimate the power of this post-racial cocktail.

Jordan Peele’s brilliant film Get Out reminds me of the importance of questioning overly optimistic narratives of racial progress. Made by someone who has been open about being biracial and married to a white women, this film creatively uses the genre of horror to depict the persistence of racism through a story about an interracial couple. In many ways, it can be seen as a strident critique of a liberal brand of racism that has blossomed in the post-Obama era.

The perspective that multiracial demographics naturally erode bias and inequality tends to lack historical and global perspective. Consider Brazil. There, white people are a minority – but are still dominant. Despite being outnumbered, their incomes are more than double than that of Afro-descendants; white men are also vastly over-represented in Brazil’s new government.

If more mixed people guarantee greater tolerance, then Brazil – and most of Latin America – should be a racial paradise. Although a great degree of ‘mestizaje’ or racial mixing has taken place since the time of conquest, Indigenous and Afro-descendent people in Latin America remain disproportionately poor, discriminated against, and locked out from opportunity.

Sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, in his book Racism without Racists, has speculated whether the racial order in the US might eventually resemble that of Latin American and Caribbean nations. In this case, white supremacy and racial stratification will continue to operate in the US even as it becomes a “majority-minority” nation.

Even the idea of a “majority-minority” shift obscures the fact that the US will be better described as a racial plurality. It’s not as if non-whites constitute one homogenous group.

The legacy of blanqueamiento (“whitening”) in Latin America demonstrates that ideals of multiraciality can run alongside white supremacy. This theory, widely adopted and practiced by Latin American nations at the turn into the 20thcentury, encouraged racial mixing for the sake of moving entire populations towards whiteness. This is a reminder that desires for a mixed future can be, and have sometimes been, grounded in anti-blackness.

To be sure, all of this does not discredit the importance of diversity and the unique perspectives that people of multi-ethnic/racial backgrounds possess because of their social location. Speaking of the consciousness of the mestiza, Chicana thinker Gloria Anzaldúa writes: “In our very flesh, (r)evolution works out the clash of cultures.”

People with mixed backgrounds can disrupt notions of purity that undergird race and synthesize vast cultural traditions. People with mixed backgrounds can also internalize and carry out racism.

Instead of reducing mixed people to being inevitable harbingers of a post-racial future, there needs to be an acknowledgement of agency in how mixed people choose to relate to the problem of racism and how society, in turn, chooses to receive mixed people.

Merely looking optimistically into the future erases the past that the US has with multiraciality. The figure of the “Tragic Mulatto/a” arose in US literature and filmprecisely because our racial architecture is based upon a series of denials. Speaking to the West Indian Student Center in London in 1968, James Baldwin captured this incisively:

“What is really happening is that brother has murdered brother knowing it was his brother. White men have lynched Negroes knowing them to be their sons. White women have had Negroes burned knowing them to be their lovers … the American people are unable to face the fact that I’m flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone.”

Baldwin exposes the naïve belief that racial intimacy and mixture are some inevitable bulwark against racism.

Demographics are not destiny. Having a multiracial background may no longer be necessarily tragic but it is not automatically heroic.

What is the racial future of this nation? As a social construct tied to political and economic power, racism has proven itself adept at employing difference to prolong its entrenchment. Notwithstanding Trump’s efforts to engineer a white nationalist future, where we go from here is not determined. It’s up to us. It depends on what we all decide to do.

Diversity doesn't make racism magically disappear | Daniel Jose Camacho

 

Today I read another Christian article alluding to a “same-sex lifestyle”. How we’re still talking like this as reasonable, intelligent adults in 2016 is fairly baffling in itself, but since some of us are let’s try to dig a little deeper and figure out just these folks are saying when they say it.

The implication in such terminology is that there are somephysical behaviors that can be separated out from someone’s core identity; that a person can be authentically one thing as an internal reality and yet act very selectively in a way that runs in direct opposition to it.

Without fail, a Conservative Christian makes this assertion about an LGBTQ person, in an effort to say that their “homosexuality” is what theydo, not who they are. They contend that these people can manage these outward behaviors and all will be well. A man who is attracted to men, they suggest, is really heterosexual and simply acting in a way that denies this (for reasons they usually can’t coherently name other than they hate their fathers or God).

This leads to the common Church concept of a person being a “practicing homosexual”.

Those lazily tossing around such terms usually have little regard for just how such an idea falls completely apart if they are asked to consider whether or not they are a “practicing heterosexual”. (Such an idea then becomes rightly ludicrous.) When it comes to their own identity and their own sexuality and their own sense of attraction and affection, they know full well that they act because they are a particular way. Their identity is not dictated by their behavior.

We all have a gender identity and a sexual orientation and these things all fall along a vast and complicated continuum. It is this specific combination of both how we see ourselves and who we are drawn to that form this essential part of who we are.

This is such a simple idea, but one the Church seems willfully intending to miss in order to still hold onto the prejudices and fears our faith inherited 3500 years ago when we didn’t know what we know now. These people are deliberately choosing to not know now; preferring religion to reality—and it’s ruining people’s lives and pushing them from the Church in droves.

The idea for any of us, that who we are internally and what we do with our bodies can be compartmentalized is plainly ridiculous, and furthermore it’s irresponsible and dangerous to perpetuate such falsehoods in the Church. These teachings compel people, out of some guilt-induced desire to please God or in an effort to fit into religious community, to curb any outward expressions of their gender identity and sexual orientation. Many go as far as getting married to people of the opposite gender in an effort to behave themselves right; to fake-it-till-they-make-it.

And one of two things invariably happens: They either die never being their most authentic selves, or they decide to stop suppressing their truth and it all blows up.

The trail of depression, addiction, self-harm, divorces, and broken families it leaves is one of modern Christianity’s greatest sins. It’s creating unnecessary suffering. It’s forcing people into duplicity. It’s applying a rule to the LGBTQ community that doesn’t exist for straight, cisgender Christians.

Whatever our gender indentity and sexual orientation are, these things do not become less or more so based on our behavior or by what we choose to show to the world. The Church and its leaders need to allow this simple reality to inform our theology, rather than clinging to our theology even if it perpetuates an old lie. We need to allow time, Science, History, and Humanity to educate us so that we treat people with the dignity befitting them. If we are to rightly love others as ourselves, we need to agree that they operate the same way that we do.

There is no such thing as a heterosexual lifestyle.
There is no such thing as a homosexual lifestyle.
There are only lives.

There are only individual human beings who have completely unique identities and inclinations to love and be loved, and God has placed them there. There is nothing we can do to alter those things in ourselves by acting or not acting in certain ways, and we can’t change those realities in other people by forcing them to behave in a way that we desire.

People need and deserve to be the most authentic version of themselves; at home, at work, with family, in society—and especially in spiritual community.

We need a Church and Christians wise and honest and brave enough to admit this, and to move ahead with creating a bigger table where all people can gather as they are.

This doesn’t have to be difficult. Christians need to stop making it so.

Repeat After Me: “There is No Such Thing as a “Homosexual Lifestyle.”

 

John Legend is teaming up with WGN America to bring the real life story of “Black Wall Street” to a television near you.

‘Black Wall Street‘ was a wealthy black neighborhood in Greenwood, Tulsa that was attacked in 1921 by a mob of angry whites who burned it down and massacred hundreds of black residents over two days.

In spite of the devastating attack, the community rebuilt from the ruins until desegregation began.

According to Deadline, John Legend, Mike Jackson and Ty Stiklorious’s company, Get Lifted Film Co., has already gotten a deal for early development on Black Wall Street, which will examine the historical role of Black Wall Street itself.

The series will examine how Black Wall Street and the community around its creation became a safe haven even at a time of deep segregation. It will also examine the backlash that the community faced over the course of the two day rampage.

“We’re so excited to continue to grow our relationship with WGN America,” Jackson told Deadline. “Our experience working with them on Underground has been fantastic. Additionally, we’re looking forward to working with our friend Tika Sumpter to help tell this incredible story that many people know nothing about.

 

As I often do, I was recently listening to African American talk radio and the host was reflecting on the death Eric Garner. It was approaching the anniversary of his murder and the family settling with the state of New York for 5.9 million dollars. This settlement and sober anniversary came on the heels of the Supreme Court having ruled in favor of Marriage Equality in previous weeks.

A caller (whom I could tell was an older gentleman) called in to voice his anger over the Garner’s family settlement and the actions of the police. In the process of voicing his dismay, out of the blue he stated (paraphrasing) “the Supreme Court has let these sissies get married and black people getting killed in the streets.” He made a couple of more “sissy” references before the host disconnected. I could tell something was going on with the host in the studio but would discover after the next caller what was transpiring behind the scenes.

The very next caller made an excellent point about how not all black people’s struggles are the same. In essence; depending on your circumstances and environment your struggles will be different. He made this point to say that we still have common struggles that impact people of color and those should be the ones we unit against. This very simple point in addition to the older caller, struck-a-chord with me.

After the break the host apologized for the caller’s “sissy” remarks. He stated he was attempting to censor out the offending remarks and apologized if he failed to catch them. This is something that he hasn’t had to do before and was slow on the technicalities of achieving it while on air. By this time, I had already called the show and was on hold awaiting my turn to speak. From previous shows I knew the host to be tolerant or accepting of LGBT peoples and marriage equality.

When it was my turn to speak, I thanked the host for taking my call and begin to give him a brief background on myself before moving on to my points.

I summarized:

I was in my late 30’s, almost debt free, gainfully employed, pay my taxes and own my home. The host then interrupted stating, “you sound like a responsible brother and got you stuff together.” I continued by saying even though I don’t fully embraced the term “gay” but for conversation and to put a label on it, I’m gay and have been with my partner going on seven years. He is a Gulf War vet who suffers from PTSD and other military related ailments. He is a former Maryland police officer, has owned his own business and has done some contracting work in conjunction as it relates to national security.​

I then told him about how I’ve lived in the south my whole life from Virginia to North and South Carolina while currently living in Georgia. I gave my respects on air to Eric Garner’s family and told him how in 2001 my female cousin was killed by the police in Hampton, VA after a police chase that begin when an unmarked and unidentifiable police car started aggressively following her.​

Dash cam video showed when boxed in, she drove her car forward and reversed into the two patrol vehicles (a capital crime in Virginia). Viewed as aggressive and fearing for their life, the officers shot into the driver seat, hitting her four times in the chest. A grand jury did not indicted the officers and cleared them of all wrong doing. Citizens were outraged and Jessie Jackson appeared at rallies while her family hired the Johnny Cochran’s law firm to sue the city for millions. Due to little evidence of civil rights violations, the case was dropped.​

My question to the host; “Living in the south I have experienced racism from White people. All the anti-homosexual sentiments or homophobia I have experienced has been from Black people. If I’m shot down by the police, will my black gay life matter? Or will black men just say “oh well, he was a sissy so who cares?” Will black women say “oh well, he was a waste of a black man anyway.”

The host gave an impassioned response, which I really appreciated, but I already knew he would. I called in not to hear his response but to pose my question over the airwaves to the listening audience.

As the caller before me suggested, my struggles were different then my female cousin who was killed by police. While she struggled with drugs, raising a daughter, her daughter’s father and previous encounters with the legal system; I can trace many of my struggles (up into my 20’s) directly to my homosexuality. At the time, anti-homosexual attitudes permeated throughout the black church and community. Yes it has lessened but it’s still very much present.

By default my homosexuality made me an abomination, effeminate, weak, not a real man, wanting to be woman, a pedophile, a weirdo, and a queer, whose faggot soul was to burn in hell. None of these things were true but this is what I heard throughout my surrounding environments from 3 years of age up into my 20’s.

Even though I have occasionally suffered some bulling, I was never out-right bashed. Regardless of my masculine leaning presence, I couldn’t shield my eyes and ears from the anti-gay messages and stance the world around me put into the atmosphere.

At the intersection of racism and homophobia exist many African American LGBT peoples who look to and seek comfort in the African American community. There may be progressive political correctness support in public but from many in pulpits, around dinner tables and in barber shops, black homosexuality is one of many cancers that helps to keep the community weak and un-unified. I wonder if some blacks who are anti-gay but supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement are aware that many Black Lives Matter activists are also LGBT activists and in some cases LGBT themselves. I wonder do anti-gay blacks know LGBT peoples of color face the same racist discriminations and oppressions they do but for some, it’s intensified because they are outwardly or visibly lesbian, gay or transgender.

If a video recording was released showing the police brutalizing me and its known that I’m a homosexual man, will it be shown across popular white gay media and websites, condemned with outrage the same as when white LGBT peoples are harassed and gay bashed by homophobes? If the police kill me and my sexuality is known, will #blacktwitter react in anger and spread the call for multi-city protests via social media with #ockywilliams? Will Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton stand at the podium with other black clergy decrying my death at the hands of police with my sobbing mother and my spouse as a back drop?

I really want to believe my black gay life will matter but have to wonder will it be marginalized due to my sexuality just as with Bayard Rustin during the Civil Rights movement.







Read the whole post here.

 

One thing that gets ignored in all the talk, Democratic or Republican, regarding U.S. immigration policy is that many LGBT folk come to the U.S., legally or illegally, as immigrants, refugees or asylees to escape repression and even death for simply being gay or transgender. If Latinos are feeling the heat because of Donald Trump's anti-Mexican, racist rhetoric, imagine how gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender immigrants must feel; escaping Uganda, ISIL/ISIS-controlled territories, Russian-influenced or other repressive regimes to come to America only to see butt hurt xenophobes decrying their religious right to further repress you or check your ID and junk Nazi/KGB/Stasi-style in the men's or women's restroom at the local gas station. All in the name of Jesus, Allah, Moses, SkyCake or whatever deity of choice must be defended for sure some warped interpretation of "religious freedom."

I thought about this when I was perusing the web site of ColumbusGuy's hometown newspaper, the Columbus Dispatch. There's a great story today about a couple of Ugandan refugees who escaped repression to come to Ohio, build new lives and continue to speak out for those left behind:

Two immigrants from Uganda have found themselves LGBT activists

I won't get too much into my personal connection to the issue, but the treatment of LGBT immigrants, asylees and refugees is an issue that's special to me. Even before I came to terms with my own orientation, years ago, I served with a gentleman from Sudan in the reserves who had lost his entire family to the Arab-Islamic slave traders and murderers. He was brought here by a church group to build a new life. Hearing him tell his story, I remember coming home from drill that evening and just tearing up. It's one of the few times as an adult man I've openly sobbed, thinking of how he escaped the kind of treatment that had (just) passed into the realm of history for me as an African-American. And that was just the horrors experienced by a straight African brother. Take that experience and couple it with the challenges of being gay in the "Old World."

As the election year drags on, and we hear more and more muddled talk about borders and immigrants, remember the immigrants that Trump et al rail against are not just stereotypical Mexicans crossing the Southwest borders, or Chinese asylum seekers. Many of them are our LGBT brothers and sisters, and most of those immigrants will have black and brown faces. These immigrants of colors come from the most repressive and dangerously homophobic countries on Earth (as you can see from the linked map from the ILGA, an international coalition of LGBT organizations).

So, as we enter the summer pride season, in addition to health, homelessness and other LGBT issues besides tight-ab, speedo-clad go-go boys on rainbow floats, remember there's a fight to be waged for sane immigration policies. It isn't just about Mexicans or Chinese immigrants wanting to stay here to work here, it's also about many gay folk want to stay here to simply live and breathe.

 

A dream for 100 years, the National Museum of African American History and Culture promises to become an instant favorite when it opens Sept. 24, its soaring spaces and magical views of the Mall a fitting setting for its tale of African American history and achievement.

Museum officials on Tuesday offered a sneak peek at the 400,000-square-foot museum, the 19th of the Smithsonian Institution, that’s next to the Washington Monument. President Obama is expected to cut the ribbon on the dramatic space, which features layers of galleries focused on slavery, segregation and the civil rights movement as well as music, entertainment, sports and politics.

Dozens of hard-hatted workers crammed the fourth-floor cultural galleries, where circular exhibition cases are being filled with objects related to food, education and sports.

“End of Phase One today; that’s like Mile 22 on our marathon,” said Collections Manager Gina Whiteman, adding that there are 12 phases in the installation plan. “This is a long time coming. It’s exciting to see it go from paper to 3-D.”

There is much to be done in the coming months. Wires still hang from the ceiling, and crates of artifacts are parked in every corner of the galleries. Display cases are being built on lower levels, while in the music galleries, cases labeled Bo Diddley, Little Richard and the Jackson 5 await their treasures.


Take an exclusive tour inside the Smithsonian’s African American museum - The Washington Post


With four months to go before its grand opening, step inside the National Museum of African American History and Culture as the galleries start to take form. (McKenna Ewen/The Washington Post)


Museum staffers must install 3,000 artifacts — as well as accompanying videos, photos and wall text — that will be on view in 11 inaugural exhibitions. Staff must be moved in, the 400-seat cafeteria brought on line and metal detectors must be installed at the two entrances.

But progress is on track, says Charles Yetter, a senior project manager with construction consultant McKissack & McKissack who has been working on the building for six years. The Oprah Winfrey Theater, a stunning 350-seat space with echoes of the building’s bronze exterior, appears to be complete, but other spaces are definitely works in progress. Officials are deciding on the quotes to be included in the Contemplative Court, for example, a room off the history galleries that includes a dramatic skylight and a waterfall.


Yetter can imagine the room’s power. “It will be aglow,” he said, noting that the walls are glass and copper. “You’ve seen all the bad and some of the good, and you can come here and think about what you saw.”



The architects, curators and designers worked collaboratively to create the museum’s inspiring interior. “What we wanted was spaces with a lot of dramatic viewpoints,” said exhibition designer Ralph Appelbaum.

The familiar bronze-clad structure on Constitution Avenue represents only about a third of the museum’s total space, Yetter said. After entering the central court, visitors will be encouraged to take an elevator 40 feet underground, where the journey begins with the global slave trade. A series of ramps will take visitors through time and space, through slavery, segregation and the civil rights era.

Most of the displays are still off-site, but several large items are in place, although many are wrapped in plastic: the weathered wood cabin used during the period of slavery at Point of Pines Plantation on Edisto Island, S.C.; a log cabin of free slaves from Poolesville, Md.; a menacing prison guard tower; a segregation-era railway car.


A slave cabin from the early 1800s, left, and a segregation-era Southern Railway car from 1920, right, will be on display in the 400,000-square-foot museum. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)
An airplane used by Tuskegee Airmen hangs above the last ramp, which ascends to a platform with a quote from poet Langston Hughes: “I, too, am America.”

The building’s upper levels offer views of the Mall and the Washington Monument, an intentional nod to its historic home. “The designers want to tie the museum to the city,” Yetter said.

After years of false starts, a bill from Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) to create the museum passed Congress in 2003 and became law with the pen of President George W. Bush. Three years later, the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents approved the five-acre site on the Mall between the Washington Monument and the National Museum of American History. Lead designer David Adjaye and Freelon Adjaye Bond/SmithGroup were selected in 2009, and construction began in 2012.

 

We’ve discussed racism in the white dominated mainstream LGBT community for years on Cypher Avenue. I feel in the last two years this discussion is gaining some ground. Nonetheless; I don’t feel real inclusion of LGBT people of color will be fully represented any time soon in mainstream publications, organizations and conversations due to them not only having a lack of understanding but also not seeing an existing problem.

Roland Martin discusses these issues on the heels of Michael Sam’s interview with Attitude magazine. There Sam brings up racism, homophobia and exclusion as it relates to the gay and Black communities. The discussion panel included Cleo Manago of the Black Men’s Exchange.

Notable quotes:

Roland Martin: “When GLAAD came after me in 2012 for some stuff I tweeted out that had nothing to do with gay folks, I had white gay folks calling me nigger.”

Cleo Manago: “We have a lot of Black people who are trying to cling onto that movement (LGBT) and trying to be queers and everything else white people have come up with and we have not built a community for ourselves.”












Read the whole post here.

 

I used to admire Ben Carson. When I started reading his books 20 years ago, I was struck by his story and his faith. I thought he was a good role model- a person deserving of admiration. I was wrong.

Ben Carson is a bigot and a fool. There, I said it. From the avalanche of outrageous statements he makes (improved health care for people who have none/Obamacare="worst thing since slavery", gay="bestiality", etc, etc) I got to sneak a peak into his mind, and all I found was venom. He's also wildly conceited and exercises poor judgment. How else can you possibly decide to end your medical career to run for the presidency with minimal background while surrounding yourself with people who are there just to profit off of your campaign? How else can you stand up, and with your Christian upbringing endorse the profane charlatan Donald Trump? None of these things were the last straw for me though. That came 3 years ago.

My biggest beef with Ben Carson is the monetary policy he supports. In one of his books (one that I couldn't finish), he endorsed a flat tax. And he tried to hide his selfishness by hiding behind Biblical tithing. Flat taxes help people like Ben Carson, and, in 1 or 2 years, people like me. If I make 200K and pay 10% federal tax, it amounts to a massive tax cut for me. It also screws over the rest of society, including my family, who won't make that kind of money. Everyone else though, will struggle to pay rent, their car note, or even afford groceries. If Ben Carson's mother was subjected to a flat tax while young Ben Carson was growing up, the food stamps that he used, the schools he went to, the services that were provided to him- likely wouldn't have been around. Flat taxes make it even harder for other "Ben Carsons" to make it. Unfortunately, I think this is by design. I don't think he really wants anyone else to be like him, unless he's the one giving the scholarship money. He certainly detests the government and specifically brother Barack, since he beat him to being HNIC. What disappoints me most is that Ben Carson has climbed the ladder of success, turned around, and is now trying to pull that ladder up behind him. I hate that. I hate when people with power punch down.

Now, for the 2 people who are still reading I have two other things to say.

The thing that scares me about Ben Carson's remarkable fall from grace is that it can happen to just about anyone. We too can get co-opted by greed, can become selfish, and start punching downwards.

Was I wrong to admire him as a child? I don't think so. I think it's more important that now that I know who he really is, I've cut him loose. At least I know how I'll try to avoid becoming him- remembering where I'm from, remaining politically moderate, drawing inspiration from those directly around me, and most importantly, having someone knock me in my head if I ever, ever decide to run for office.

What about you? Have you ever had to reject a mentor or someone you admire?

 

Yep, Im with Jussie on not giving up his phone. What the fuck they need to see the entire phone for? Fuck outta here.

Or how about this, I would answer their questions in regards to my phone. Lets all sit down at a table, (pull out my phone) what you wanna see, (as I'm holding it), my call log? (turn to call log, show them time stamps while im holding my phone) cool? (put it back in my pocket)

Any self respecting, modern gay man got some kinda ratchet, smut, seedy text messages, lord knows pics of himself or some dude that sent him pics he has saved. Might even have crazy pics friends send you of crazy gay shit, etc.

Im all for him co-operating most definitely, but I hope they weren't insinuating taking his phone and giving it back to him another day. FUCK THAT. All kind of shit would be out about him after and they would definitely act like they are not responsible.

 

I was interested in this thread, but it's way too long for me to read, so I'll just give my opinion.

I am a scientist by training, and I am religious by birth, but I stayed by choice. I think being a scientist helped me come to better terms with my religion. I don't believe in everything that is taught in the church and I have my own thoughts and beliefs, but that doesn't turn me away from the stability and institution of religion as whole.

One problem I tend to have with both sides is intolerance. Other scientists sometimes completely write off religion, which is their choice, but they try to correct, disprove and condescend toward those that believe. Conversely, religious people are always trying to condemn people who don't believe (and others) to hell. I believe in both, I have found a happy balance with both, and I ok with what others believe or don't believe, just leave me out of it and leave me alone lol.

I can understand why people don't subscribe to religion, there's aspects that I don't agree with, but to me organized religion is bigger than the sum of it's parts. That's why a lot of people are spiritual or agnostic, they believe in something, but they'd either rather practice on their own or don't feel they have enough evidence to pinpoint it. For me, spiritualism isn't structured enough and is lonely, I need that support and "guidance" from others to help supplement what I already believe or am lacking in. Just like a scientists bounces off theories etc with others.

 

The older I get the more I have moved away from the church and all their workings. I grew up and the church and experienced the hypocrisy and I cannot support it.
My frustration with the gay community is this hunger to be accepted by a business that no matter how much you give, time, money, skills, tithes, ect., they are not going to fully accept you. There may be some pockets of acceptance but overall we are still not accepted in the church.
My anger with the black church is that they have forgotten their history. This church they are so quick to defend is the same church that justified slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, police brutality and a list of other things. Why do we hold on to something that just 300 years ago was used to demoralize us. Just doesn't make sense.

 

The Internet has no chill:

 

The problem in a nutshell:

The Democratic Party is full of privileged, self-righteous, elitist, old motherfukkas (Gen-Xers like me included) that expected the young to just go along to get along, shut up, and show up. As I mentioned to NikR offline, the DNC and black organizations have, since I was his age (Clinton era of 90s) ignored the young, expecting them to sit at the political holiday kiddie table and accept the Happy Meals handed to them. Baby Boomers like Clinton are too fucking old to be RUNNIN THANGZ (so are Gen-Xers) and the millennials should have been integrated into the process since they were in grammar school. Say what you want about Herr Donald, he involves his kids in EVERYTHING as do rural gun-nuts who take their little moppets to every NRA BBQ going on. Hillary's spoiled ass (and Obama's too) expected everyone to just show up because: white/black bourgeoise privilege.

And the Democratics STILL DON'T FUCKING GET IT
Keith Ellison, Howard Dean offered as possible DNC chairs as Democrats seek to regroup

Howard Dean? Really? Sample these here cyber-parts: NikR is a under 30 and a medical doctor. BlackExecutive is under-35 and a diplomat. A microcosm of the young talent in this country. And all they can find is old-ass fuckers to "rebuild the party"?

Now, my one criticism of you youngbloods' generation is that you DIDN'T HAVE TO REALLY WORK en masse to put Obama in office other than just show up at the polls. No GOTV campaigns, no phone calls, no manning polling places, being precinct captains, etc. My generation (old man rant) had to go door-to-door canvassing, convince people to change their mind, sign petitions, drive old folks to the poll, plant yard signs, call thousands of people from voter rolls, etc. WHERE IS YOUR SWEAT EQUITY for this election? Social media blogging don't count. Now all your less-intelligent peers are crying like little bitches because they thought Hillary's victory was supposed to be handed to them like so much as been handed to them by their sorry ass helicopter parents since the end of the cold war. You NEEDED a good bitchslapping. Just like a martial arts student that's never been hit by an opponent, you all NEEDED a good punch in your damned faces and stomachs to show you the fight is real and get you up on your feet to want to hit back.

Finally, study your enemies and not just your own echo-chamber of soundbites; "Trump is Evil," "Deplorables," etc. The trouble with having so many young men today with no military experience is that you all don't know how to calculate a strike; appreciate your enemy's moves, even in defeat; learn from them, adopt them and then beat them at their own game. Or as General Patton said of Patton as to why he was able to defeat Nazi General Rommel



@Sean @DreG @SB3 @BlackguyExecutive @NikR ...All you millennials get to work!

 

Black or American or Black American. I've been saying this for at least a decade. At this point, there's nothing culturally "African" about me or my family for at least 4 or 5 generations. Just because I may look like a few people living in Africa doesn't mean we're kin. I love those countries, the people, the cultures and the history, but even native Africans would view me an Alien over there.

 

She's great and all,but this hype around her is part of a a common problem . a rousing speech should not be what sells you on a leader,or anything.Speeches are just performances to build hype.They never give you the things you need to make informed decisions.This reasoning for choosing leaders is why we are where we are now,and why other tyrants and facists were able to gain support to get in positions of power.

 

I will say though that, as an actor, it’s convenient that his face wasn’t more seriously damaged. And that the first and only person this mob chose to attack at 2am in Chicago happened to be a black gay actor on a long running network tv show, not one of the many other black ppl in that city.

Just saying.

 

Like those same mofos ain't never drove 50 miles during an earthquake, on a quarter of a tank of gas, at 3:48 in the morning with one headlight, for some wet wet.

Even if he was cruising which he obviously does not have to do, he had every right to do so without being attacked.