Megan Izen
Lessons From Prop 8
Seems like everyone has been weighing in across the country on the passage of Proposition 8 in California. Out of that has grown a disturbing trend to blame Black voters who came out in support of Obama for the anti-gay legislation.
Two things have become abundantly clear in what Kai Wright calls “The Blame Game” of Prop 8: 1) Gay rights activists and advocates need to address issues of racism within the LGBT rights movement (co-opting civil rights language and imagery isn’t enough to get people of color engaged), and 2) the Black community needs to address the homophobia that supposedly led people to vote 7 times out of 10 against gay marriage.
This week at Facing Race, queer racial justice advocates will begin to have these discussions. For more information, please visit arc.org/facingrace.
Posted at 2:14 PM, Nov 12, 2008 in Facing Race | Permalink | View Comments
Get email updates
Subscribe to the RSS feed
Follow us on Twitter
RaceWire Mobile - m.racewire.org
Comments
Hi,
There's a lot of anger surrounding this last election and proposition 8. Something I noticed while talking to my friends is that I really didn't know why people would vote for it. I just felt really angry at them and the outcome.
I drove to some cities in counties that voted in favor of prop 8 so that I could get some first hand information about why people voted for it. I conducted a few interviews and posted them to http://www.discovertheuser.com/prop8
This isn't a partisan thing- I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I just thought it would help to see the other side's perspective.
Posted by: David | November 13, 2008 7:38 AM
i agree that there have to be conversations about homophobia in the black and latino communities but to blame the loss of prop 8 on those two communities alone is unfair. the campaign was poorly run, and frankly the post election outcry from the LGBTQ communities seems a little too late. where was everyone the last three months before the election? why wasn't there more of a committment to the cause then? blaming others for how they voted when they are, in reality, a smaller percentage of the voting electorate is just more of the same divide and conquer mentality.
Posted by: Idabelle | November 17, 2008 6:53 PM