I'm disappointed in my people.

Any group that suffers or has a history of suffering oppression, unfair discrimination, or general mistreatment ought to be quite averse to causing or allowing such harm to befall others.

I heard a radio program, this morning, accepting calls from mostly Black folks on the subject of homosexuality, especially gay marriage. The responses weren't terribly surprising. With some exceptions, I basically felt the same disgust and disappointment that I usually feel when people from this program call in... and most times my people talk about gay rights issues.


Big ups to Russ Parr, though, for saying some of the things that needed to be said.





It's odd, to me, when a Black person...

• doesn't want to be called "nigger," but doesn't mind calling a gay person a "fag."
• doesn't want to be told who they can marry, but doesn't mind telling gays who they can marry.
• doesn't want our historical struggle with equality to be forgotten or denied, but doesn't mind denying the similarities between our struggle and that of gays in the U.S.

Those that don't object to the mistreatment of others apparently never had a problem with mistreatment, in and of itself, so much as they had a problem with being on the receiving end of it.

Obviously, this behavior isn't limited to African-Americans. No particular group of people has the patent on hypocrisy.

I'm similarly disgusted (and surprisingly shocked) by homosexual men and women who are highly critical of other people for not being open to change, reconsidering social customs, and even voting to change ridiculously restrictive laws, but who are completely close-minded to any such examples that don't benefit themselves (or those that they already like).

Want to see a chain of outrage and hypocrisy?

• Tell most Black people that there are valid comparisons to be made between the Civil Rights Era struggles of African-Americans and the long-term struggles of gay Amerians.
• Then, tell the wrong gay people that there are similarities between the discrimination and close-mindedness they face and that of the poly-amorous community.
• Tell most Christians that the substance of their religious beliefs is no more or less empirical than that of the religious groups for whom they hold so much disdain.

It really is something how, so often, semantics only seem to matter when it's in our best interests. It's particularly sad when it results in the alienation of those we claim to care about.

There are a whole lot of gay Black folks out there that we pretend not to see, but whether they look or act like us or not, they are all our sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, sons, and daughters.

Let's act like it.