And here you have it right in this article. Bernice King is an active anti-gay bigot. The three closest aides of Dr. Martin Luther King were also anti-gay bigots: Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Dr. Ralph Abernathy, and Rev. Walter Fauntroy. So what would that tell the average person about Dr. Martin Luther King himself? I would say more hypocrisy. It's common for black heterosexual males to wax self-righteous when it comes to discrimination against black heterosexual males. They not only condemn gay people, they also preach that women are to submit to their man. So when Dr. King preached "All God's Children" he came across as a hypocrite as Eddie Long does today.
Why can't we live, work and love one another as equals? And answer is -- in the Bible. Instead of the Bible, people should be reading just as assiduously the works of Abraham Maslow. They should be reading George Orwell's Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, both which explain double-speak and hypocrisy.
If you can't practice what you preach, then what you preach is meaningless and self-discrediting.
As for Coretta Scott King, she was a wonderful person. I commend her for standing up to the bigots in her family, in her church, and the anti-gay bigots in the nation as a whole. But her advocacy for human rights for gay people was pushed aside--after all, she was "just" a woman--and "you know how women are . . .?" say the male chauvinists.
And let me not fail to include Rev. Jerry McAfee who is viewed as the black American community's spokesman and representative in Minneapolis--an ugly bigot who shamed my best friend in public (Tuesday, 17th February 1998 at Lucille's Kitchen) because he is atheist and gay. And being white didn't help him either. Shamed him on KMOJ-FM radio when he wanted to volunteer to be a tutor in the black community. That was more than 12 years ago, and since then he have contributed nothing to the black American community because of their bigotry, hypocrisy and violence. In Washington, D.C. he was beaten up badly by black heterosexual males--1968, 1969 and 1985 resulting in hospitalisation (1968) and out-patient treatment for the other two. Physically, he healed, but the psychological impact remains intact with him.
Black Americans lament: "White America is insensitive to the needs of her black citizens." And when a white American steps forward to contribute his time and experience to black members of "The Village" he's slapped down with derision and public shaming. And when you're on the other end of such hatefulness, it has an enormous emotional impact. Lessons are learned: for a white man: "Stay away from black Americans. They're very punishing people."
Yes there's bigotry in white America too, but one have a much better chance of being viewed as an equal human being by whites than by black Americans.
2 comments:
You know I'm a white American. It's really hard to figure out impressions of other place from the media. But people can come to understand each other across differences.
Martin Luther King Jr. lives on as sort of a legend, a legend I feel rather keen not to tear down. One piece of evidence against Martin Luther King Jr. being anti-gay is his close association with Bayard Rustin who was openly gay when very few people were. It wasn't an issue that King could pretend about.
Eddie Long certainly isn't Martin Luther King, Jr.
As an American I can't agree with the idea that gay people having a better chance of being viewed as equal human beings by white Americans than Black Americans.
In any case it doesn't seem right to feel convinced of hypocrisy on the basis of what people who were around Martin King have said and done long after.
I really love reading Sokari Ekine who blogs at Black Looks. Recently she wrote about James Baldwin and had others do so too. One who did was Keguro Macharia. Both Sokari and Keguro are Africans, she Nigerian, he Kenyan, and well exposed to American culture. It's interesting to see American culture through an outsider's lens and to discover they see more clearly than I.
What pains me about what you say here is a sense of alienation from Black Americans when the stories of the African Diaspora are true gifts to all humanity.
the pop is son of beach
Post a Comment