Gays Blacks

🔞 TOUTES LES INFORMATIONS CLIQUEZ ICI 👈🏻👈🏻👈🏻

Gays Blacks
Blacks and gays: The shared struggle for civil rights
Opinion columnist focusing on the intersection of social and cultural issues and politics
Men and women picket the White House on May 29, 1965, in a protest organized by the Mattachine Society of Washington
By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
Jonathan Capehart Jonathan Capehart is a member of the Washington Post Editorial Board, writes about politics and social issues, and is host of the "Capehart" podcast. Follow
Please tell us why you hid this ad?
Please tell us why you hid this ad?
Comments our editors find particularly useful or relevant are displayed in Top Comments , as are comments by users with these badges: . Replies to those posts appear here, as well as posts by staff writers.
Spam Offensive Disagree Off-Topic
Among the criteria for featured comments: likes by users, replies by users, previous history of valuable commenting, and selection by moderators.
Opinion A longtime conservative insider warns: The GOP can’t be saved
Opinion Dobbs makes all the difference. Both sides know it.
Opinion Why I’ve stopped fearing America is headed for civil war
Opinion The GOP reaction to Biden’s speech shows that his anti-MAGA strategy is working
Opinion Trump should fill Christians with rage. How come he doesn’t?
Unparalleled reporting. Expert insight. Clear analysis. Everything you’ve come to expect from the newsroom of The Post -- for your ears.
“It’s an issue of civil rights, as you said. It’s an issue of equality. It’s an issue of equal treatment under the law,” I said. “No one is asking for special rights. No one is asking for any kind of special favors. We’re just looking for the same rights and responsibilities that come with marriage and also the protections that are provided under marriage. In that regard overall we’re talking about a civil rights issue and what African Americans continue to struggle with is exactly what lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are struggling with today.”
That didn’t go over so well with more than a few African Americans. They don’t see the struggles as comparable, equivalent or even related. Last Wednesday, @Brokenb4God tweeted to me, “@CapehartJ still can’t believe u think the choice of being gay is congruent to the struggle of blacks. Ain’t never seen no gay plantations!”
Clearly, she’s from the misguided pray-the-gay-away cabal, so no need to address that. I’ll leave the cheap and provocative “gay plantations” stink bomb alone, too, and get to my main point. What links the two struggles is the quest for equality, dignity and equal protection under the law. In short, gay rights are civil rights. It’s that simple.
Both African Americans and gays have been targeted because of who they are. Tyler Clementi jumped to his death off the George Washington Bridge after discovering his roommate allegedly using a webcam to livestream his sexual encounter with another man. The trial of that roommate, Dharun Ravi, is going on right now in New Jersey.
Clementi’s September 2010 suicide drew national attention to bullying of young people, particularly gay teens. Back then I wrote about the harrowing week that month when there were five reports of suicides of young men and boys who felt they had no other way to end the bullying, harassment or invasion of privacy they endured because they were gay or perceived to be gay.
There have been many more, too many more, since then.
Their deaths came 12 years after the horrific murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard. At a bar in Laramie, Wyo., in October 1998, Shepard met two men who said they were also gay. They kidnapped, robbed and pistol-whipped him before tying him to a fence. He died five days later. Shepard’s shocking killing came four months after another murder that shook the national conscience. A black man named James Byrd was kidnapped by three white men, chained to the back of a pick-up truck and dragged more than three miles in June 1998. His decapitated body was found outside the small town of Jasper, Tex. According to the Jasper district attorney at the time, two of Byrd’s killers had racist tattoos and were supporters of the Ku Klux Klan.
Both murders sparked a national debate on hate crimes that culminated in passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act , which President Obama signed into law in October 2009. The bullying that has gained national attention of late has the attention of the Obamas and the administration and pop icon Lady Gaga .
Denied equal protection: the right to marry
Both African Americans and gays have been denied equal access to the rights, responsibilities and protections the Constitution provides. Just last week, Maryland became the eighth state in the country to legalize same-sex marriage. Washington State joined the club on Feb. 13. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) vetoed a marriage equality bill last month and called for a public referendum. Putting the rights of a minority up to a popular vote is wrong, un-American and immoral. And yet voters in New Jersey and Maryland very well may do just that in November.
Meanwhile, in lawsuits across the country, lesbians and gay men are fighting for legal recognition of their relationships by challenging state laws that deny it and the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Same-sex marriage was legal in California until voters passed Proposition 8 in 2008. A challenge to that ban is wending its way through the federal court system and is getting knocked as unconstitutional at every turn.
And those who are already legally married are demanding equal rights. Karen Golinski was legally married to her partner of more than 20 years in California in 2008. But when the federal employee applied for health benefits for her spouse, she was denied thanks to DOMA. Last week, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management that Section 3 of the statute was unconstitutional because it violated her equal protection rights under the Constitution.
In this matter, the Court finds that DOMA, as applied to Ms. Golinski, violates her right to equal protection of the law under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution by, without substantial justification or rational basis, refusing to recognize her lawful marriage to prevent provision of health insurance coverage to her spouse.
That’s a narrowly tailored argument the judge is making there. But “as applied to Ms. Golinski” could be replaced by millions of other names and “to prevent provision of health insurance coverage to her spouse” could be replaced by any number of the 1,138 rights and benefits denied to same-sex couples because of DOMA. And as I wrote last month, the inability to file joint federal tax returns, and avail themselves of Social Security survivor benefits or child tax credits compounds the income inequality and financial insecurity of gay and lesbian families. All because the person they love is of the same gender. This insecurity is exacerbated by the fact that you can still be fired because of your sexual orientation in 29 states . That number goes up to 34 if you’re transgender.
African American resistance to same-sex marriage and linking the quest for it to the black civil rights movement emerged again in the push for marriage equality in Maryland. But an excellent counter to that are three black leaders who have been unashamed and vocal in their support of gay rights and who see the struggle of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans as part of what they’ve fought for their entire lives: equality.
Rev. Al Sharpton, long a proponent of marriage equality, lent his voice to the successful effort in Maryland.
All of us must fight for what’s fair and for what’s right....Maryland, the time is now. Let’s be fair. Let’s do the right thing.
When DOMA came up for a vote in 1996, civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) delivered an impassioned speech on the House floor before voting against the measure.
You cannot tell people they cannot fall in love. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used to say when people talked about interracial marriages, and I quote, ‘Races do not fall in love and get married. Individuals fall in love and get married.’ Why don’t you want your fellow men and women, your fellow Americans to be happy? Why do you attack them? Why do you want to destroy the love they hold in their hearts? Why do you want to crush their hopes, their dreams, their longings, their aspirations? We are talking about human beings, people like you, people who want to get married, buy a house, and spend their lives with the one they love. They have done no wrong.
In a 2003 opinion piece for the Boston Globe, Lewis wrote, “I have fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. I’ve heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred, and intolerance I have known in racism and in bigotry.”
Civil rights icon Julian Bond told me during an interview for the PBS program “In The Life” in 2008, “Black people, of all people, should not oppose equality. It does not matter the rationale – religious, cultural, pseudo-scientific. No people of good will should oppose marriage equality. And they should not think civil unions are a substitute. At best, civil unions are separate but equal. And we all know separate is never equal.”
When I asked Bond what is the connection between the black civil rights movement and its gay counterpart, he said it was the immutable characteristics of the individuals involved. “You are what you are,” he said, “and you cannot be discriminated against in this country for what you are.
“It’s not that these movements are taking from us because the black movement took from other movements before us,” Bond continued. “We took from the labor movement. And I never heard anyone from the labor movement complaining about this. We ought to be proud of this and say, ‘Look what we did. We created a model that other people have followed.’ ”
Black people led the way to this nation being more fair and equitable. That some vigorously oppose LGBT Americans following in their footsteps, seeing kinship in their cause, is dreadful. As Bond said, “Black people, of all people, should not oppose equality.” And he’s right.
Sign up to get email alerts every time Jonathan Capehart publishes a new opinion column.
You are now subscribed to Follow Jonathan Capehart
SuperFan badge holders consistently post smart, timely comments about Washington area sports and teams.
Culture Connoisseurs consistently offer thought-provoking, timely comments on the arts, lifestyle and entertainment.
Fact Checkers contribute questions, information and facts to The Fact Checker .
Washingtologists consistently post thought-provoking, timely comments on events, communities, and trends in the Washington area.
This commenter is a Washington Post editor, reporter or producer.
Post Forum members consistently offer thought-provoking, timely comments on politics, national and international affairs.
Weather Watchers consistently offer thought-provoking, timely comments on climates and forecasts.
World Watchers consistently offer thought-provoking, timely comments on international affairs.
This commenter is a Washington Post contributor. Post contributors aren’t staff, but may write articles or columns. In some cases, contributors are sources or experts quoted in a story.
Washington Post reporters or editors recommend this comment or reader post.
You must be logged in to report a comment.
You must be logged in to recommend a comment.
Comments our editors find particularly useful or relevant are displayed in Top Comments , as are comments by users with these badges: . Replies to those posts appear here, as well as posts by staff writers.
All comments are posted in the All Comments tab.
To pause and restart automatic updates, click "Live" or "Paused". If paused, you'll be notified of the number of additional comments that have come in.
Thought-provoking opinions you may have missed amid the news of the week.
Success! Check your inbox for details.


US Markets Loading...

H
M
S

In the news







Home


Chevron icon
It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options.



Politics








Twitter icon
A stylized bird with an open mouth, tweeting.



Twitter





LinkedIn icon
The word "in".



LinkedIn





Fliboard icon
A stylized letter F.



Flipboard





Facebook Icon
The letter F.



Facebook





Email icon
An envelope. It indicates the ability to send an email.



Email





Link icon
An image of a chain link. It symobilizes a website link url.



Copy Link



Sign up for notifications from Insider! Stay up to date with what you want to know.


Sign up for our newsletter to receive our top stories based on your reading preferences — delivered daily to your inbox.


Loading
Something is loading.





By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider
as well as other partner offers and accept our
Terms of Service and
Privacy Policy .



Close icon
Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.




"People don't know how well we're doing with the Hispanics , the Latinos."
"I have a great relationship with the blacks . I've always had a great relationship with the blacks."
"I love the Muslims . I think they're great people."
" Ask the gays what they think and what they do."
"I will be phenomenal to the women ."
In each sentence, Trump precedes the name of a demographic subgroup with the definite article "the."
It's a rhetorical habit that has drawn the attention — and scorn — of voters around the country. Some social-media users are convinced the quotes are evidence of Trump's prejudice toward various groups.
His phrasing of "ask the gays" was mocked endlessly on Twitter, achieving meme status .
But what is it about "the gays" that sounds off to some people? Why does "the blacks" sound racist to some while "blacks" doesn't?
Using the word "the" in front of a group is a way of highlighting the group's otherness from the speaker and his or her audience, according to Eastern Michigan University linguist Eric Acton.
"There's this distancing effect, like they're over there," Acton told Business Insider. "They're signaling they're not part of it — they're distancing themselves from it."
It's the same distancing we see when a man jokingly refers to his spouse as "the wife" instead of "my wife," Acton said. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont actually used the same wording in this year's Democratic primary when he railed against "the millionaires and billionaires."
But there's a key difference — billionaires typically don't face discrimination, Acton said. The same isn't true for Muslims, or women, or any of the other groups Trump name checks. And that's what may be rubbing people the wrong way.
"If you're going to use a distancing expression to a group that already has a history of being oppressed and marginalized, then you're really running a risk of coming across as 'othering,'" Acton said.
"It's drawing a circle around a certain group of people. It's a very straight-jacketing kind of expression," Tagliamonte told Business Insider. "It's a very delineating thing that could make members of that group think they're being pigeonholed."
Trump's speech pattern isn't limited to groups facing discrimination, however. As linguist Mark Liberman noted in a post on Language Log, Trump once complained that "the whites" don't receive BET Award nominations.
Trump also certainly isn't the only person to speak this way. Tagliamonte found that the phrase "the blacks" has been in use for more than two centuries, with spikes in the phrase's popularity coinciding with critical periods of African-American history.
Tagliamonte also found that older speakers tended to use the phrase more than younger speakers, based on a review of her previous linguistic data.
Of course, most people are not running for president.

And when it’s shown on TV, revolutionary things can happen. When two Black men love each other on screen, it shows others what is possible, and it shows that you can be who you are and still find love.
So we want to take a look back at some of the Black gay couples that we’ve seen on TV who have inspired viewers and changed media as we know it. These couples show something that’s rare on TV, and we are thankful for them for doing so.
The couples in this list are not ranked and are listed in no particular order. Unfortunately, these couples aren’t as numerous as they should be, but as more Black queer creatives get chances to tell stories, we can only imagine what the futur
Video De Sexe Pornodingue
Branle Moi Maman
Morgane Porn