Reply #137: There was going to be a gay speaker at the march [View All]

[eridani]

Some other homophobic whackjob nixed it though. Farrakhan seems to be slowly coming around. I wouldn't have known about the event at all if if weren't for the internets.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/101705H.shtml

For once, Farrakhan had succeeded in gaining the support of the big American Black organizations, such as the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, founded by Martin Luther King. The principal Black Christian leaders - Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton - took their turn at the podium, as did some hip-hop stars - Russell Simmons and Kanye West. In an attempt at openness that was extreme for a man who not long ago made no effort to hide his homophobia, Farrakhan even invited a gay leader, Keith Boykin, to take the microphone. But in a last minute change of heart Saturday, Boykin was asked to refrain from mounting the podium.

All the speakers called attention to the gap that still exists in the United States between Whites and Blacks (about 14% of the population). The poverty rate among Blacks has reached 25%, or double the national average. One out of five has no health insurance. Among black men aged 25 to 29, one out of eight is in prison. The unemployment rate among Blacks is 9.4%, or double that of Whites. Since 2000, average purchasing power of Afro-Americans is in decline. "These last ten years, we have seen Blacks succeed, but also many have fallen into poverty," deplore Denise and Richard Mangum, a couple of magistrates who came from New York. "We're here to remind the government of that, but also to remind companies, and the rest of society." According to them, Katrina will not be enough to reanimate awareness: "The country has already begun to forget. Who is worrying about all those displaced people?"

Standing, they follow the speeches on one of the giant screens set up. Most of the speakers refrain from attacking the Bush administration directly, preferring to concentrate their blows against a "system" that, according to them, remains impregnated with racism. The opposition to Bush, in any case, goes without saying: according to a poll conducted by NBC and the Wall Street Journal after Katrina, only 2% of American Blacks still have a favorable opinion of their President, versus 12% some weeks before.