Best Posts in Thread: Racism In The Gay Community and LGBT Organizations

This was a interesting conversation. It seemed a bit generational though - but Roland is right...my FB community is robust filled with all kinds of personalities. I commented on the historic amount of openly gay ambassadors that we currently have representing the US. But I "made the mistake" of pointing out that despite this historic achievement in representation the photo was wierd to me because it was 6 white gay men. Despite that the FACT that the US Department of State has one of the highest number of LGBT employees and even higher numbers in the Foreign Service Six white men make up this picture. No Women, No Persons of Color. After I made that comment, not being critical but celebrating. I had a firestorm of people telling me all kinds of things and I received messages calling me racist and wishing that my career in the Foriegn Service would be cut short because of my comments. I was amazed.

 

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.

 

@BlackguyExecutive picture from the HRC event is typical. In the nearly 20 years I worked on syringe exchange federal funding issues here is Washington, HRC barely paid lip service to the cause. Although those of us working on the issue never had a clear explanation for their absence (and indeed the near disappearance of HIV/AIDS as an issue on their website), we were in general agreement that the reason for their absence was the unavoidable fact that the population affected by injected drug related HIV transmission (urban and rural minority men) was not their base or even their concern.