I wrote a post a little over 24 hours ago that basically called the gay community out for their continued pattern of knee jerk hostility to President-elect Barack Obama dating back to last year's Democratic primary. I pointed out that the man hasn't even spent one day in the Oval Office yet and the predominately white GLBT blogosphere is already making comments that he'll be the worst president ever on GLBT issues. Well, Queerty linked to that post and the commenters slapped on their pink pointy hooded sheets and began blasting away in the comment thread. One commenter compared me to Jasmyne Cannick, who is another African-American LGBT blogger that white gays have a visceral hatred for because she tells it like it is as well and got a Chuck Knipp Shirley Q. Liquor performance in LA cancelled.
By the way Queerty fans, being compared to Jasmyne Cannick is an honor, not an insult.
But comparing me to Jasmyne was one of the nicer ones. The rest were nasty, racist personal insults, weak justifications of their hatred of Obama, et cetera.
The Queerty peeps negativity in this comment thread is an example of what I and other Black GLBT and non GLBT people have dealt with for years when trying to work with the white gay community in coalition with them. While not all white GLBT peeps exhibit this behavior and are wonderful allies in many cases, there are however too many of them that exhibit the same reprehensible tactics to silence messages they don't want to hear to where it constitutes a major problem. Too many times white GLBT people will whip out the white privilege card and dish out criticism concerning my community, but are too thin-skinned to take it. They will get their noses out of joint and bellow 'homophobe', 'transphobe', 'you're playing the race card' or cry 'racist' at you if you dare utter it. If you are Black (or any color) GLBT or non-GLBT person and call them out on their shady, borderline racist or less than honorable behavior, they go apoplectic about it and give you that 'how dare you?' look as you do so.
White GLBT people, if you can't take constructive criticism then you are going to continue to have problems working in coalition with other people, especially fellow GLBT peeps of color who are supposed to be your allies.Another fact of life is that you don't get to decide what offends me or my community, nor will I or any other person of color stop speaking our minds or telling it like it T-I-S is on this blog or any other we post on.
You have the right to disagree with what I have to say, but you don't have the right to call me everything but a child of God for simply pointing out that something is unfair and my viewpoint doesn't neatly line up with your worldview.The sterling example of the racism on the Queerty thread exposed the Number One reason with a bullet why Black GLBT peeps get so sick of your crap to the point that we say 'Enough' and form our own organizations, clubs, and pride events.
Yeah, your pink sheets are showing, and if you don't stop using the Cali Prop 8 loss as an excuse to let out your inner racist, you're not only going to continue to have a difficult time getting African descended GLBT peeps to help you garner support and craft a message for same gender marriage that wins in our community, you risk creating the permanent split between you and the Black community that the Religious Right was trying to foment when they peddled that 'Blacks voted 70 percent for Prop 8' lie in the first place.
