From “Strange Bedfellows: African Americans and the Mormon Church”, emphasis in yellow is mine.
African Americans in California voted disproportionately in favor of Proposition 8, joining other demographic groups–the elderly, the rural, the religious, Hispanics–to help write discrimination into California’s constitution. Seventy percent of African-American voters approved Prop 8, according to exit polls, compared to 53 percent of Latino voters, 49 percent of white voters, and 49 percent of Asian voters. African-American women backed Prop 8 by nearly 75 percent.
I’m thrilled that we’ve just elected our first African-American president. I cried when CNN called it for Obama. I cried reading the papers the morning after. I started crying again when my son came down to breakfast and asked me why I wasn’t crying “like the last time” we elected a president. And I wasn’t the only one out there weeping for joy: This was a historic election.
But the African-American community’s reinforcement of bigotry against gays and lesbians sounded a discordant note on an otherwise inspiring night. Writing this online the next day brought charges of racism down on my head, but here it is in print: The relative handful of racist white gays and lesbians–and they’re out there, and I think they’re scum–are not a bigger problem for African Americans, gay and straight, than the huge numbers of homophobic African Americans are for gay Americans, whatever their color. (Read that carefully: I did not say that black homophobia is a bigger problem than white racism; I said that the huge numbers of African-American homophobes are a bigger problem for gays and lesbians–including gays and lesbians of color–than the comparatively small number of racist gays and lesbians. Which does not excuse racism among gays and lesbians, of course.)
Do I blame African Americans for the passing of Prop 8? No. But I agree with Melissa Harris-Lacewell, associate professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University: “They didn’t do enough work in the communities of color,” she said on The Rachel Maddow Show, referring to gay-rights groups. “On the other hand, the communities of color demonstrated an awfully bigoted vote.” Gays and lesbians have work to do, and straight African Americans have bigotry to get past.
The rest of the article continues with issue against the Mormon Church. The idea that Mormons are scum because the Mormon Church encouraged financial support of Proposition 8 is ludicrous. On that basis, gays should also revile Catholics and Evangelicals for financially supporting bans on same-sex marriages. Or Hinduism. Or Islam. Go Wicca!
Back to Dan’s article. He opens with a general statistic about exit poll results for Prop 8. The operative word here is general because we do not know the make-up of the “seventy percent” African-American vote. What are the ages of this demographic? Income? Married? Children? No children? Religious affiliation? There are too many unknown factors associated with this number, nonetheless he uses this statistic to build his case.
Next he assures his readers that he was estatic for the win of president-elect Barack Obama. I am not racist, I have black friends.
Then he states, in a somewhat convuluted manner, that the overall GLBT community should be worried about homophobic African Americans–based on a general exit poll percentage.
Does he blame African Americans for Prop 8? “No. But…” His answer was an easy one to make: either yes or no. To use a contraction after a declaration creates a conditional. This conditional is met with a quote that admonishes gays and communities of color.
Now is a good time for people to read Open letter to white activists. There are talking points in the post that are open to conjecture, but I do agree with one major point: “Stop assuming African-American support.”
Dan Savage is the Editorial Director of The Stranger, a Seattle weekly that is free because of the advertising sold to local businesses and nationwide companies. One such company is Coors Beer. Coors is notorious for its support of conservative organizations and think-tanks. The Coors family founded Castle Rock Foundation which funds other organziations such as Institute for American Values. From Media Transparency:
However, critics claim that these actions allowed the company to pose as progressive while the family and its foundation continued to fund conservative, often anti-gay, organizations and initiatives: “This strategy masked an ongoing funding pattern by the Coors family and foundation directly hostile to minorities, women and labor. The engine of that anti-minority effort is the free flow of cash to the establishment and maintenance of the Heritage Foundation, the Free Congress Foundation, the Council for National Policy, and a variety of other Religious Right and far-right organizations.” Russ Reliant and Chip Berlet quote Dr. Jean Hardisty of Political Research Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts: “The pattern of Coors family funding and activism stands in stark contrast to the mainstream image projected by the Coors Brewing Co., whose advertising and funding reach out to the African-American, women’s and gay communities.”
Funny how a guy can admonish a general exit poll percentage and take in money from a business owned by a family that doesn’t like anyone who isn’t straight, white and male.