Black media ignores the Obama / anti-gay recloseted McClurkin controversy

good interview

your two laid out the situation clearly and concisely - well done.

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by: Lurleen @ Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 12:20:22 PM CDT

Kudos

Great interview Pam!!! 

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by: HDBiker @ Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 12:49:31 PM CDT

Wait, a reasoning media personality?

Isn't it wonderful that Pam is able make her points without being mean and nasty? She just delivers a reasonable argument based on facts and makes it clear when she's giving an opinion.

When you look for the bad in mankind, expecting to find it, you surely will.

- Abraham Lincoln.

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by: Fritz @ Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 12:50:13 PM CDT

I like your posts on this, Pam...

...but I'm wondering what you think of some blog posts and comments -- not necessarily here -- which have a lot of unnecessary and racial baggage attached to them. For example, John Aravosis endorsing the idea that Obama should become "Huckabee's valet" (since wiped from the site) or various commentators making analogies that say "what if Hillary invited an anti-black speaker"?

There seems to be a lot of focus on the races of both the candidate (Obama) and the gospel singer (McClurkin). In some cases, that's not a bad thing -- as you said, you've long spoken out against homophobia in the black church. But I see other cases in which people take this one mistake by Obama (and I agree it's a serious mistake that his campaign has horribly mishandled) and use it as a way to attack and condemn "the black community" and "black culture."

It worries me, because in practice, the white "liberal" mindset seems to take every possible opportunity to attack blacks and stigmatize them as "the other." I don't believe this is ultimately beneficial for our allies working within the black churches to effect change.

How do you feel about this? Am I just oversensitive to things like "Do you think being black is a curse? And how would if Hillary put someone on stage to raise money for her who thought that your race was a curse?...How would you feel if one of Hillary's people claimed that you are the way you are because you and all your people were sexually molested?"

I remember that one of the worst things about the Imus affair was the way how certain people seemed to relish the opportunity to use "nappy-headed ho" as a new sexist/racist insult of choice, and the conversation quickly turned from sexist and racist old white men into how terrible the rappers (i.e. "blacks" in code) are for being sexist and racist.

Likewise, the opportunity to "discuss" Kramer's improv meltdown morphed from one washed up actor's racist tirade to a privileged discussion by whites about how unfair it is that they can't say n-----.

I said on another blog -- which banned me for saying it, apparently -- that the right analogy is "what if Hillary had invited an anti-LGBT singer," not "what if Hillary had invited a klansman."

The fact that many white people are so quick to jump to making this about Obama's race and comments like "your people" shows me that ultimately, white "liberals" don't really think of Obama as "our people," but rather A Black Other. And as we know, Black Others are held to much higher standards than Us Whites, especially once they've proven they don't Know Their Place.

Again, this isn't anything about your criticism, which is activism from within a group to effect change, but rather concern about out-group criticism based on othering and on privileged stereotypes.

Thoughts?

http://kynn.com/

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by: Kynn @ Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 13:12:31 PM CDT

Hmm, you make the same comparison...

...to a skinhead band, on Signorile's show. So maybe my comments are directed to you too!

Which, admittedly, puts me in a weird spot -- I don't like the idea that I should be telling you how to speak on racial issues. (I have no problem with telling off privileged "liberal" white guys, being one myself.) But rather than me lecturing you, I'd like it if you could give me your perspective. 

Do you worry that this is playing with fire? Is it a good comparison to leap right to the neo-Nazis? How can we talk about what's wrong here without making it about Barack Obama's race? If John Edwards had made this (serious) mistake, what would be said of him and expected of him?

Those are my concerns. You don't have to address them, but I would like to hear what you think. 

 

http://kynn.com/

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by: Kynn @ Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 13:24:06 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

the issue is obvious

Unfortunately this is about race; but my problem with some white liberals is, because of their discomfort in discussing race and the underlying issues of privilege, they feel the problem of black homophobia is something to be handled only within the black community itself, as if one's whiteness precludes pointing out bigotry where it exists, regardless of color.

I also have a problem with statements automatically jumping from the boneheaded decision by Obama and his team on this issue to "he's a homobigot". He's shown nothing to suggest he is personally homophobic; I would classify him as a "heterocentric ally," meaning that he supports equality in the general sense, but cannot place himself into our shoes with the level of empathy to understand why working with McClurkin was a big mistake. It shows an unfamiliarity and cluelessness (not running the idea by any black gay leaders) that many straight folks do because these issues don't affect them personally. Now that the "error" has been brought to his attention, how he acts on it will be telling.

Condemning all of black culture, all black X is ridiculous. There is no one black culture, but you'd never think that listening to white folks, or even some black folks (who can be equally bigoted when declaring who is "black enough," something Obama has had to deal with).

And regarding my comment about standing onstage with a neo-Nazi skinhead band, please tell me how the bigotry of Prussian Blue is any less disgusting than this bit of a sermon by Willie Wilson, pastor of Union Temple Baptist Church in Southeast D.C. Imagine young children sitting in the pews as he uttered this (and there's must-hear audio):

You got blood vessels and membranes in your behind. And if you put something unnatural in there, it breaks them all up. No wonder your behind is bleeding. It's destroying us. Can't make no connection with a screw and another screw. The Bible says God made them male and female. The Hebrew word negade, which means complementary nature -- there is something unique to man and unique to woman and it takes those two things to complement each other. You can't make a connection with two screws. It takes a screw and a nut! [shouting]

He truly believes what he is saying (as white supremacists do), and during that sermon, people in the pews were clapping and calling out in agreement. Houston, we have a problem...

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by: Pam Spaulding @ Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 14:09:56 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

calling Obama a homobigot

may be a bit extreme until we see how he actually handles the event this weekend.  however, he has a double-whammy of expectations set up against him:  he's biracial-black, and he is a civil rights attorney.  so both by circumstance of birth and choice of profession, he has more than a passing familiarity with bias and a good brain in his head.  it's hard to let him off the hook.  personally, i want to see if he does as NancyP suggested, and kick-starts an important conversation during the tour.  but if not, i'm not going to hold back.  he will have chosen to live the roll of homobigot, even if it's not what is really in his heart.

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by: Lurleen @ Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 15:17:34 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Aravosis wrote this

...in a post labeled "Wife Beaters for Obama":

On a more serious note, this pattern of embracing gay-bashers and wife-beaters is starting to suggest that perhaps Obama is trying to curry favor within his own community at the expense of lots of other communities, and worse, his soul. It's one thing to want to win so bad you can taste it. It's another to want to win so bad that you tolerate gay-bashing and wife-beating.

In the same post, he refers to an adult black man as a "mascot" for the Obama campaign.

There's some racism right there, as I see it.

 

http://kynn.com/

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by: Kynn @ Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 19:55:08 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

sigh

Resorting to a blanket statement implying any community endorses domestic abuse to  make a point about completely undermines valid elements of criticism that are made. I have not found it difficult to discuss this issue without a need to "go there." 

Obama's not "embracing" McClurkin -- his staff made a huge blunder, he's trying to extract himself from it, and he's got zero political wiggle room to handle it well. It's a lose-lose, so it seems the best course of action is, as I said above, a direct approach -- that's leadership.  The ball is in his court.

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by: Pam Spaulding @ Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 20:27:08 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

We demand more than a press release

One of the great points Rod and Pam mentioned is that if the Obama camp had reached out to Black gays in the community, this drama would have been avoided. The Obama camp needs the diversity and experience of Black lesbians and gays at the table.  This would be a lot more meaningful that a press release about 'tolerance'.

 

As for the traditional Black media, most are not interested in covering anything gay unless it’s slanted to portray gay, bi, same gender loving men as being pathological which is why there was so much hype over the ‘down low’. No stories about proud, openly glbt men and women, but plenty of stories about Black men as the ‘dl boogey man’ infecting Black women and causing the rise of HIV cases in the Black community. Doesn’t matter that no studies have support this hypothesis, but who needs facts when you are scapegoating.

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by: brotha99 @ Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 13:14:50 PM CDT

One more thing about the "blackout"

I actually haven't read much about this in any press, besides the LGBT and Christian outlets. There's some now in the "white" press, but I wonder if the black press just simply as eager to find a new reason to tear apart a black candidate as the "mainstream" press is.

Paul Jenkins points out that the Dems have been hugging homophobes for a long time -- but (most) "liberals" suddenly only care when it's Obama doing it. There's an unconscious desire, I suspect, to take him down a peg and prove that "America isn't REALLY ready for a black president."

This doesn't apply to in-group criticism -- I see that as a different thing, whether from you as a black person or from me as a Christian. My big concern is the out-group criticism and the desire to find an issue -- any issue -- with which to discredit and destroy Obama because of his race.

 

http://kynn.com/

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by: Kynn @ Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 13:35:08 PM CDT

Thank you Pam

Kudos to you Pam, wonderful intellignet interview.  You have an unparalleled grasp of all these issues.  It is so refreshing to hear thoughtful, reasoned opinions.  You're the best.

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by: Storm @ Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 14:24:12 PM CDT

Now according to Americablog,

Obama's campaign is trying to use grassroots pressure on HRC to keep it from weighing in on the issue.

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by: gayjaybird @ Wed Oct 24, 2007 at 17:11:13 PM CDT