Why You Can't Be Pro-Black and Homophobic at the Same Time

[KamaAina]

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/black-lives-matter-gay-marriage-lgbt-supreme-court

On social media, I've seen black people imply that marriage equality is a frivolous concern, and that gay people shouldn't have received the right to marry before black people got the right to walk down the street without being shot by the police. I've seen black people argue against gay marriage by pointing out that it's still not legal to smoke weed in most of the United States. Then there are those who reject gay marriage and homosexuality as a sin. Despite steady growth across the entire US population, support for same-sex marriage among black Americans remains in the minority, and is lower among black Protestants than all other religious groups except white evangelicals....

The simple truth is this: It's problematic for members of any one marginalized group to challenge the progress made by members of another, especially when both groups suffer as a result of the same system—a system that favors being white, male, straight and "cisgender," a term used by academics and advocates to describe the opposite of trans.

But it is especially problematic for black people to reject the LGBT rights struggle, especially when, over the past year, black people have been particularly vocal about their own racial oppression, via sustained, high-profile protests that have swept the nation.

Most glaringly, it's problematic because blackness and LGBT identities are not mutually exclusive. There are lesbian black women, gay black men, bisexual black people, transgender black men and women, "genderqueer" black people—identifying as neither gender or both—and black people who are any combination of any of the above.

[Behind the Aegis]

1. An old article, perhaps why none felt the need to comment.

Pitting one minority against another is a brilliant move done by those who wish to keep us all down. In the Oppression Olympics, the only medalists are the oppressors!

[herding cats]

2. We must combat all forms of discrimination.

That should be what the takeaway is from this article. That so many of us want to subdivide ourselves, and find a minority we can still discriminate against, is harming us all in the long run.

We're all vulnerable, until none of us are.

[romanic]

3. I've seen this behavior from so-called "pro-blacks"

Tariq Nasheed is a one example and he's a notrious homophobe. He once called BLM a front for the gay agenda.