Proposition 8 passed in California on November 4th, 2008 and The Advocate released its issue #1021 in December 2008, featuring the text "Gay is the New Black" on its cover ... and I'm just now blogging about this all on February 16, 2009. The issue remains: race and racism must be addressed among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communalities, sexuality and heterosexism must be addressed among communities of color, and the relationship between LGBTQ and communities of color must be assessed and improved.
I'm sure most people know the story by now: immediately following the November 4th election in the US, statistics were released indicating the passage of Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage in the state of California. Included in these numbers were breakdowns by a variety of sociodemographic variables. The number that caused quite a stir: an overwhelming majority of Black voters in CA approved the proposition. These numbers were taken out of context, leading to an explicit blame for the proposition's passage on Black Americans. Although later reports, including one from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, report a much lower percentage of Black voters who supported the proposition, the issue remains: racial hostility among LGBTQ people reared its ugly head. Even today, with a much lower number of Blacks favoring the proposition's passage, critiques of...