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Similar to patriarchal male dominance, homophobia
has also played a nefarious role in the Black liberation struggle. That the black community
had embraced and mirrored the gender constructs of the white community was made clear when,
as noted by bell hooks, Amiri Baraka boldy stated that: "American white men are trained
to be ***" and posed the question "Do you understand the softness of the white man,
the weakness?" This attack on white masculinity, and others like it, were common among militant
black power advocates. It was not a critique of patriarchy. It was "asserting that white
men did not fulfill the primal ideal of patriarchal manhood because they relied on technology
to assert power rather than brute strength." Several there are several ways in which homophobia
has kicked black folks in the teeth. Bayard Rustin, for example -- pictured on the right
with Dr. Martin Luther King, had proven himself invaluable in the struggle for black liberation.
He was a pacifist, and a founding member of the Congress on Racial Equality. An adherent
of the Gandhian principles of passive nonviolent resistance, he mentored Dr. Martin Luther
King during the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 on the strategies that would become the
hallmark of the national civil rights movement that King would later lead. Rustin had a powerful
influence on Dr. King who initially did not fully embrace passive nonviolent resistance
-- in fact at the time of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Dr. King had a gun registered in
his name. Later, Rustin demonstrated his uncanny ability
for organizational detail during the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963 when he
organized every detail of the March from the programs to busing and transportation. As
valuable as he was, Bayard Rustin had two liabilities. First, he had been affiliated
with the Communist Party which, in the age of the Red Scare and the Cold War, placed
him on the margins in terms of political and social status. Second, he was homosexual.
Because of his sexuality, Dr. Martin Luther King was pressured to distance himself from
Bayard Rustin -- one of the most talented civil rights organizers the movement has ever
seen. In fact, some people around Dr. King even began to insinuate that Dr. King himself
had had a homosexual relationship with Bayard Rustin. As it turns out, Martin Luther King
did have certain proclivities toward marital infidelity -- but there's no basis to suggest
he had any *** relationship with Bayard Rustin. The insinuation, though, is indicative
of the homophobia that, in this case kicked the civil rights movement in the teeth.
Additionally, the stigma of homosexuality and homophobia has had a devastating effect
on black women. It has produced a "Down-low" culture among black men -- black men who do
not consider themselves homosexual, but secretly engage in homosexual sex with other black men.
Because many of these men on the downlow have multiple partners, black women are the
fastest-growing population of infection of ***/AIDS -- even as overall rates are continuing
to decline. As Michele Wallace found that black women
were targets of sexism among black men, and racism among white women, African-American
gays and lesbians are similarly finding themselves to be targets of oppression on multiple levels.
As we will see in the following clip, the friends and family a young African American
lesbian, Sakia Gunn, who was attacked and murdered because of her sexuality, found little
sympathy in the African American community (as voiced by the African American principal
of her high school) due to homophobia, and little sympathy in the gay community due to racism.
*Some 300 people gathered at Sheridan Square
in New York City's West Village Friday to remember Sakia Gunn. Sakia was a fifteen -year-old
African-American lesbian. Two months ago Friday, in the early hours of May, 11, she was murdered.
That night, Sakia and her friends traveled from their hometown of Newark, New Jersey
the Chelsea piers in Manhattan. Scorers says young *** people of color spend weekend
nights there where they feel safe and part of a community. After their evening on the
piers, the young group took the train back to Newark. They walked to the bus stop and
waited. A large police booth stood at the corner. It was unoccupied. A white station
wagon with two men or her home in it pulled up to the curb. According to one of Sakia's
closest friends, Valencia, the men started harassing girls asking them to come closer.
The girl said, no, they weren't interested. They said they were gay. One of the men got
out of the car. He attacked the girls holding one of them in a choke hold. Sakia and Valencia
started fighting him. Sakia hit him. He stabbed her in the chest. The man ran back his car,
sped away. The girls raced to a car that it stopped at red light and asked the driver
to take them to the hospital. He did. Sakia died in her friend Valencia's arms in the
emergency room. On Friday in Manhattan of the vigilers marched from Sheridan Square
through the heart New York's gay district down Christopher Street to the peers were
Sakia spent last night. There, one of her closest friends, Spanky Ross, did her best
to address the crowd.
**I'm not really a public speaker.
I don'treally have too much to say, because I'm going to get emotional,
but, as everyone knows,Sakia was of real close friend of mine.
In Jersey we don't really have anywhere to go
to be free with our sexuality so, we come out here to be around people like us . . .
It's a shame that we have to walk down the streets not knowing what's going to happen to us ...
*With that, Spanky you Ross left the stage and cried. . . .
*We're joined in the studio by Laquetta Nelson, who is the founder of New Jersey Stonewall
Democrats and an organizer of the Newark pride alliance. Also in the studio with us is Mick
Meenan. He's a reporter for the Gay City News, one of the few publications in this country
that has given consistent coverage to the *** of Sakia Gunn. Were also joined on
the line by Jamon Marsh, who is Sakia Gunn's girlfriend, and by Kathryn Cuomo Cessare,
the director of Health And Human Services for the city of Newark. Let's start Laquetta
Nelson. This happened on May, 11 in the early morning. Just this weekend in the Washington
Post there was a major profile on Judy Shepard becoming the mother of a movement. Judy Shepard
fighting so hard for justice in the of her son Matt Shepard, who became a national symbol
of violence against gay men and lesbians when he was murdered. Sakia Gunn's name is almost
nowhere in the press.
***. . . One thing, as far as the press goes
that I've discovered is that I was under the impression, just as all of us were, that everybody knew
about Sakia's ***, and what had happened in Newark. But, a few weeks later I discovered
that story had only been covered in the Essex County section of the Star Ledger which is
New Jersey's, a major newspaper, and so that that meant that everybody else the state did
not know or was not aware of what we were going through in Newark.
*And yet, at Sakia's funeral thousands of especially young African-American lesbians turned out.
Let's talk about what's happening in the school. We are joined on a line by Jamon Marsh,
Sakia Gunn's girlfriend. Welcome to Democracy Now. It's good to have you with us. Can even
talk about the response in the school?
****As far as people morning, or as far asthe principal?
*As far as the principal.
****Like I told Laquetta, I graduated from west side already, and people were coming
to me and they were telling me about how we couldn't get a memorial service for her in
Westside, and I believe it has a lot to do with the fact that she was gay, because
a lot of people that passed away had a memorial service, they had grief counseling, and they
just didn't do that. They basically just sent students home and told them that they could
not come back until after the funeral, and they did not offer any grief counseling
for none of the students - even Valencia that is here right now. They didn't offer any counseling.
They told her that she had to get it on her own.
*Lauqetta, the statement of principal . . . we attempted, by the way, to get the principal
on, the superintendent the mayor we didn't succeed, although we have with us, the head
of of the Department of Health and Human Services of Newark . . . but, the controversy around the principal.
***Well, I called and spoke with someone in
the... at the school board, and I told them what the children were telling us, and what
I told was that the principal denies not giving them grief counseling. He also denies making
any anti-gay statements towards the Sakia. And . . .
*What was said that he said?
***Well, basically the kids said that... something
to the effect that if you live a certain kind of life, you deserve certain kinds of outcomes,
but he said it a little differently.
*****Well, again, I've never been able to
get Fernan West on the phone. The school system has done a really great job of stonewalling
any media contact with any local school officials, and he's been in Westside high school for
quite some. And, I should add that the mayor of Newark, Sharp James, once taught at Westside
High School. So, there is a nexus of political connections here that needs be explored. However,
the youth told me on the street and... Again, just reiterate, there were thousands of young
people on the street. I spoke to a lot them. The comment was that when you choose a certain
lifestyle, you must pay a certain consequence, which of course, is a horrendous thing to say.
Femiphobia and homophobia have clearly taken
a toll in the Black liberation movement -- causing Black families to adopt patriarchal models
that don't work for them. Putting patriarchy aside, perhaps it will be possible to adopt
new models in which in Black men and women can be equal and mutually supportive partners
of within the family. Putting aside our fear, perhaps we can allow space in which Black
women gays and lesbians are embraced as valued members of the community and are able contribute
to their full potential. To do so will be an enormous challenge, but consider the alternative.
When we consider the extent to which the civil rights movement defined equality as looking
at white gender roles as a norm black people should imitate -- we have to ask ourselves,
How is it working? That's it for this episode. You can see
everything you've seen here as well as the entire archive of episodes at my website www.africanelements.org.
You can also join the discussion on our Facebook Group African Elements.
I'm Darius Spearman. Thank you for watching.