Gay is ‘new black’ challenged

Dear Campus Echo:

While I appreciate Mr. Hicks' position, I believe it is inappropriate to say that gay is the new black; the implication behind such a statement is that the issues of the black community take a back seat to the issues of the gay community.

The black struggle is not over, racism is not dead, and America is a far crueler and more dangerous place for blacks than it is for gays.

Mr. Hicks states that you never have to 'come out' as being black, which is wholly untrue.

Such a statement ignores a large segment of the black community: those with one parent of a different race. As the child of a white mother and a black father, I myself have experienced pressure to make a choice, and I know that I am not alone.

Though my skin is white, I have always identified myself as black. To my great dismay, at times my mother and even my sisters (both of whom are also half black) have been offended by my choice.

By embracing black culture, I have been accused of rejecting the other half of my heritage, though neither one of my sisters will admit to rejecting their black heritage.

I ‘came out' as black, as many people of biracial heritage are forced to do. Mr. Hicks lamented a lack of pro-homosexual institutions.

What about G.L.A.A.D.? What about C.O.L.A.G.E? What about organizations such as COLORS? These are more than mere ‘clubs'. Yes, there are many churches that bash gays and spew vitriolic anti-gay rhetoric like the Westboro Baptist Church, but there are also churches and religious organizations such as DignityUSA and IntegrityUSA.

There are many safe havens for homosexuals in America as well as internationally.

The gay community is most certainly under siege in America, but we must not forget that African Americans face a greater threat in this country: genocide.

The United Nations defines genocide as, "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial or religious group, as such:

A. killing members of the group; B. causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; C. deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; D. imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

A. Killing members of the group – African Americans make up 41% of all death row inmates. Many black death row inmates are convicted of crimes against white women.

Conversely, very few white death row inmates are convicted of crimes against black women.

Governor Ryan of Illinois commuted the death sentences of everyone on the row in his state, because after an investigation he discovered that in at least 50% of the cases, the inmate could be proven not guilty.

B. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group – Two words: police brutality. Amadou Diallo, Rodney King, Abner Louima, Oscar Grant, Chad Holley ...

C. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part – Blacks make up nearly 50 percent of the prison population, but only 13 percent  of the country's population.

We are sentenced to [and serve] 10 percent more time than whites who commit the same crimes. Let's not forget that felons lose the right to vote.

This disproportionately affects the black community, and as a result, our political voice is hampered. Add to that racial profiling, job discrimination and piss poor public schools; a grim picture of life is beginning to emerge, is it not?

D. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group – Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger as a eugenics effort, which is a nice way of saying that she was a virulent racist and wanted to spread birth control in black communities to slow the black population growth rate.

It should come as no surprise that Planned Parenthood operates chiefly in regions where poor, nonwhite people are the majority.

There is no ‘new' black; black is still black, and we are still on the bottom rung. The lesson we must all draw from this, however, is not to go tit for tat as to who has suffered more, but that discrimination and hatred have a chokehold on more than one community, and that there is no such thing as equality when it only applies to some.

We should not seek to isolate our struggles, but to fight TOGETHER against them.

Sincerely,

Susan Creary