Comments on: We Are Not Monolith

By: Terrance Heath

Terrance Heath — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:14:41 +0000

For my part, as a black gay man who has experienced and been hurt by homophobia from my own people more than I care to remember, I have about as much anger as some of the people who are protesting in the wake of Proposition 8's passage. The question is: How to deal with homophobia where it obviously does exist in black communities, and whose responsibility is it? Terrance Heath ´s last blog post..Their Own Receive Them Not

By: Chris Clarke

Chris Clarke — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:28:12 +0000

What’s especially galling about the scapegoating is that with the current political realities in place in California, Prop 8 did not have to pass. The No on 8 campaign was lackluster, half-hearted, turned away volunteers and didn’t even motivate the base.

There was 49% turnout in San Francisco County on Tuesday. If Prop 8 opponents had done even a little work to energize that base, that’d have put them halfway to beating Tuesday’s vote on 8.

The vote totals among African-Americans, in other words, may well be an artifact of No on 8 folks failing to 1) GOTV and 2) educate people about the lies spread by Yes on 8 folks.

Don’t know whether you saw this related post of mine, K, but I think you might find it of interest: http://faultline.org/index.php/site/item/on_centrism/

Chris Clarke ´s last blog post..Letter From The Desert: Stoip Bush’s End Run Around Nuclear Waste Safety

By: Jeff Rosenberg

Jeff Rosenberg — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:48:52 +0000

It's unfair to blame "the black community" for the passage of Prop 8, just as it's pretty much always unfair to paint blacks as a monolith. Some blacks voted for it, and some voted against it; we can say the same about any single demographic group. That said, I think it's particularly frustrating to see so many black people, who have battled for civil rights for centuries, vote against civil rights for others. Jeff Rosenberg ´s last blog post..Happy to pay for a better Minnesota