2 Essays "Gay Rights" vs "Civil Rights"

I just saw some twitter a friend called homosexual marriage "the new Civil Rights struggle" in "post racial" America. 

This twitter was from a gay friend.  This friend, affluent, well educated and white, lives in an exclusive neighborhood (white, wealthy and probably significantly gay) and is a welcome and even sought after guest at the best cultural and entertainment venues and gatherings in New York.  Of course, the white gay community is more affluent than the white community at large (while incidentally their minority and even female sexual-as-prime-identity compadres lag far behind-- all the attitude of presumed authority and entitlement, less of the children?)  

Obviously there are those who are deluded enough to try to lie to themselves about their sexuality being the equivalent of a racial group long suffering in powerlessness on the bottom of society.   

I asked my homosexual friend who twittered the message if he really felt his status and aspirations and his quotidian existence were marked by inescapable discrimination, systemic inequality, and perhaps the tangible legacy of persecution, exclusion or second class status-- you know, the realities that fuel the Civil Rights struggle. He has yet to answer.

I can only wonder if, growing up in a gay family, likely living in a gay ghetto, how his life was attending underfunded gay schools, dealing with presumptions made about him because of his gay skin, dealing with a system where most gays are relegated to the economic underclass. I wonder how it is to be followed around by store security because he's gay, or rousted by police because he was walking or driving while gay. Do women cross the street and clutch their purse when they catch sight of him? Do they put him to the back of restaurant?  Are their people in his workplace that assume he may not be competent because he is gay? And those condo boards and real estate agents, I wonder if he has been stung by these folks?  Well I don't really wonder.  His sexual behavior obviously is not ever-discernible, not an inherited legacy and it isn't inescapable and solidified through family and environment.

It may be less material, but an arguable perspective is that there has always been those in modern Western society that engaged in sexual behavior that was frowned upon or illicit at the time—adultery, group sex, pre-marital sex, (especially female) promiscuity, whore-mongering, etc.  Homosexuality had the benefit that it tended to be the “love that did not speak its name”, something that people didn’t even gossip about or moral authorities did not shout about. Any of these behaviors could cause ruin, and other serious social penalties in some quarters.  


In other quarters however, particularly among the high brow, elite and artistic and literary world (and even in religious communities) it has long been highly accepted and in some circumstances de rigueur for a century. There's is a whole genre of literature speaking about how formerly all male boarding school and elite college culture gave itself to such rampant homosexuality, whether by "experimentation" or life choice.  


We can document how (white) FBI chiefs, Congressmen, Prime Ministers, Mayors, Governors Judges, Editors of big city dailies have in their private life been active in homosexual affairs for decades, perhaps even disproportionately. Some were sexually active with men and women, others "confirmed bachelors"-  so common has it been that term became a euphemism for homosexual more than men resistant to marriage.  And it is now thoroughly documented how some, ahem, institutions at least tacitly were of the view that pederasty was an acceptable if not laudable process. We forget today that it was the middle class and the leftist intelligentsia who decades ago often saw most sexual libertinism to be decadent.  

Current conditions means that (yet another) valid issue of discussion and debate in our culture doesn't happen-  has our fragmented, ever decaying culture manically fetishized sex to become (at least for whites) mock-ethnicity and culture of primary identity and significance rather than a private act? Has it brazenly stolen reality from same people many white gays perpetuate real current and historical of oppression, stratified opportunism, gross inequality and victimization against?  I suspect it has and that is really is cynical, perverse and opportunistic. 

The irony is that (combined with the benefits and legacy of race privilege), such rendering of  mythology is far more advantages than anyone of a real historically oppressed group could achieve. Ritualized communal identity, recognition of language and behavior, ingroup and outgroup inclusion and exclusion. 

Now they have created an ultimate cause cynically built around an issue--  marriage.   Marriage is a contract which same sex couples already can possess in legal equivalence under federal case law.  Few care enough to oppose the benefits of marriage to couples of all kinds and many support such benefits actively.  There are churches that will offer a ceremony and a their certificate of marriage as well. That isn't enough according to most Gay Rights groups.  The entire population must give their stamp of approval via the government by using the word "marriage".  The more socially conservative, which includes a overwhelming majority of African Americans and Hispanics, and a narrower majority of Whites are not willing to make the same concession.  This gives homosexual activists an "opposition" to their rights.   


Incidentally for this reason I support homosexual marriage contracts free of semantic difference (as long as it is not forced upon churches or individuals vested with the power to perform ceremonies).  Allowing gay marriage would end the charade for the dominant political players in the gay movement, upper middle class white males, who preposterously are looking to be aggrieved even as they look to dispossess others. Divides and affinities really are one of the most important factors in American life but it has also become a tool of "victimization", an avenue for political sophisticates and the entrepreneurial savvy. The real marginalized and downtrodden don't have a chance against.  Having worked with minority teenagers and young adults, and thereby taken an interest in their real lives, historical conditions and (statistical) patterns, it is obvious. 

Poor, minority teens across America but particularly in our inner cities, are getting no education except one of frustration and lies. And I can totally understand their frustration because they too are denied a realistic look at the "what is what".  This isn't a story that is centered in Birmingham and 1960, it is about what is going on in present day Long Island, which  has the highest rate of neighborhood and school segregation in the country.  In fact, schools today are more separate and unequal than in 1950 and attended college at a higher rate when measured against the rest of society. Blacks also had a higher share of societal wealth, and less income disparity internally and vis a vis society at large in 1965 than in 2005.

I'm not concerned with slavery or even Red Summers, lynchings, etc. except the conditions they leave adults and youth in today; and the causes are real and the conditions stark.  One needs only to look at  modern slavery, contemporary slavery; housing, communities, high caloric malnutrition, banking discrimination.  In fact blacks suffered more from policies barely that we are hardly removed from today more than the hangman's rope, such as business districts systematically destroyed throughout America without compensation, (destroying prospects for generations to come or in other cases shipping people out away only to have future generations work as slaves).

And have no doubt, American we have had a war on a segment of our population, even as we accorded "civil rights".  Cointelpro assassinations and witchhunt, denial of work, destruction of institutions, brain washing,  underpaying for the same work,  joblessness, environmental poisoning. 

The teens who I work with contend with court system that is essentially the concentration camp bureaucracy. In a nation with the highest prison rate that is highest ever in history of the world which they, as a small segment of the population will fill.  They can look forward to seeing themselves or those around them arrested for offenses that they commit in proportionately less numbers; for example, whites engage in a higher degree of drug use, and have a higher proportion of financially motivated crime. In fact, black crime is overwhelmingly drug related, and motivated by the income derived from drug sales.  The real financial crime lies elsewhere and because of it, the incarceration rate for blacks increased .

For the same crimes their arrests will be more frequent, charges will be more serious, conviction rates higher and sentences longer.  Privatization of prisons and contracts for prison services (prison industrial complex) started in 1980; in the time since the black and Hispanic incarceration rate has increased by a whopping 400+ per cent.  So at any given point, 1 out of 3 black males (and a roughly equivalent amount of Hispanic males) will be engaged in the criminal justice system- awaiting trial, probation, prisoners or parolees.  Many will be engaged in labor for minuscule compensation while inside, further enriching the prison industrial complex. Is it then any wonder that the average single black woman has a net worth of $5? (Despite black women having $1 trillion in purchasing power, and a relatively low employment rate, their money is cycled immediately out of their hands.) 

For blacks the goal is a return to nuclear families, who have stable gainfully employed parents and children attending good schools. There is a popular line of thought that many black homosexuals see their sexual orientation to be an entree or means of socialization into the dominant white community.  There is also a line of thought that sees black homosexuality as an aberration born of incarceration and frustration with futile gender roles in the face of broken homes and economic displacement. Valid or not, it is small wonder that blacks especially resist the comparison of homosexual behavior and Civil Rights.

These conditions are not something that is entirely of a "legacy of racism" from decades ago as Barack Obama put it.  And it would be hard to understand the "fatigue" that whites experience from some mythical reparative largesse.  For instance minorities get less than 2.8% of Fed contracts (Wait a minute, the statistic is 1.1% because over half of those "minority contracts" go to non-minority prime contractors that "work with" minorities.)   And minorities garner less than 1% of state and municipal contracts, despite owning 12% of business and being almost 30% of the population.  In a nation where government is directly responsible for 40% of the GDP, and this wealth transference process continues at all levels, one can understand why this is troublesome.   

It's almost comical if not for the direness is the fact that it is so ingrained that it never ends, from birth to disease and death. More than economics there is a psychology deeply embedded in whites; and blacks as well.  Belief of inferiority, assumption of lower social position and intelligence and inescapable economic, cultural and educational realities are self affirming, compounding victim-hood. And let's face it, victims' behavior tend to distasteful, even to each other and are often made incapable by their very status of fully comprehending or expressing it.  

I am still puzzled by what my friend means about the "new Civil Rights".  Amongst his friends he has been fair-minded, with integrity on the issues of privacy befitting his work as an attorney.  He has argued among amiable and informal gatherings that a single facet of private behavior, should not in his opinion be discriminated against but that no one should insist that others approve and condone what his private behavior is.  If you disapprove, fine, just don't bring that disapproval to places where private behavior has no place. Private, independent entities however should be allowed to operate as just that. If a business benefits from government in any specified form, or is organized as a public corporation then the public (including employees) should be defended from discrimination against judgment on personal behavior (in other words the public should not subsidize disadvantage, inequality or disproportionality).  

That means that disadvantaged minority groups on the bottom of the pile can expect more displacement and hostility (as can the rest of society). Minorities can also expect a cynical looting of their struggle from much of the homosexual community.  As for my friend, I guess privacy, freedom, proportionality, equality and justice have all gone out the window for him.  Opportunism and the politics of affinity make these things seem out of date, like a thing from the past.

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Interesting related story following the California Defense of Marriage Act (Prop 8) that passed a year and half ago partly because Blacks voted for it at a 70% clip which drew the ire of White homosexuals.

The openly gay president of People for the American Way, Kathryn Kolbert, has released a statement. You could see this coming, and this is what I'm talking about when you ignore the elephant in the room. Rod McCullom of Rod 2.0 blogs reports on the escalation of the "blame the blacks" meme that has been swirling about the blogosphere and the MSM. A number of Rod 2.0 and Jasmyne Cannick readers report being subjected to taunts, threats and racist abuse at last night's marriage equality rally in Los Angeles. Geoffrey, a student at UCLA and regular Rod 2.0 reader, joined the massive protest outside the Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Westwood. Geoffrey was called the n-word at least twice. It was like being at a klan rally except the klansmen were wearing Abercrombie polos and Birkenstocks. YOU NIGGER, one man shouted at men. If your people want to call me a FAGGOT, I will call you a nigger. Someone else said same thing to me on the next block near the temple...me and my friend were walking, he is also gay but Korean, and a young WeHo clone said after last night the niggers better not come to West Hollywood if they knew what was BEST for them. Los Angeles resident and Rod 2.0 reader A. Ronald says he and his boyfriend, who are both black, were carrying NO ON PROP 8 signs and still subjected to racial abuse. Three older men accosted my friend and shouted, "Black people did this, I hope you people are happy!" A young lesbian couple with mohawks and Obama buttons joined the shouting and said there were "very disappointed with black people" and "how could we" after the Obama victory. This was stupid for them to single us out because we were carrying those blue NO ON PROP 8 signs! I pointed that out and the one of the older men said it didn't matter because "most black people hated gays" and he was "wrong" to think we had compassion. That was the most insulting thing I had ever heard. I guess he never thought we were gay. The backlash is upon us, and it's going to get uglier unless our organizations step forward and say something. The desire to scapegoat blacks for Prop 8's defeat has exposed the now not-so-latent racism in our movement.
Pam Spaulding :: The N-bomb is dropped on black passersby at Prop 8 protests
On the matter of the blame game, Alex Blaze has an excellent post over at Bilerico that tries to poke at the anger directed at the black community (as you read above, it didn't matter if you were black and gay -- it was hurled at him because he represented The Other regardless of his allegiance to the gay community).What is painful is seeing the how easily I am marginalized...  The knee-jerk response in the wake of the painful passage of the initiative was that fast and that irrational. You know what? This reminds me of the Freeper reaction to Condi Rice making mildly positive comments about Barack Obama's speech on race -- all of a sudden she became a wild-eyed Trojan Horse Black Radical in their eyes, when nothing of the sort occurred. Apparently she needed to completely divorce herself of her blackness for the comfort of the denizens of the swamp, even though nothing had changed about her views on policy. Discussing the whys and hows of human nature when it comes to these biases shouldn't be such a difficult matter, but it is. I don't have a problem opening the door,  but I can't walk through it alone...