I'm a field Negro. - What are our leaders? by John Aravosis

[kpete]

I'm a field Negro. What are our leaders?

by John Aravosis (DC) on 6/21/2009 04:38:00 PM

In a million years, I never thought I'd be quoting Malcolm X. Have times changed.

*** "Back during slavery, when Black people like me talked to the slaves, they didn't kill him, they sent some old house Negro along behind him to undo what he said."

Pam Spaulding posted this video of Malcom X on her blog today, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znQe9nUKzvQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.americablog.com%2F&feature=player_embedded following the leaked news that the White House has suddenly decided to throw a big gay party for the A-listers who putatively run our movement. It's a chance for our leaders to get used by the White House, just by showing up, then get used again when they leave and tell the world how all the champagne and caviar proves that the President really does love us, in spite of that pesky incest and pedophilia thing, and those two gay service members a day he's still discharging, even though he doesn't have to.

The biggest betrayal of all? Our leaders are going to the White House to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. Irony is not lacking in this White House.

But we got cake! (And a gay band in the parade!)

more:
http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/im-field-negro-what-are-our-leaders.html

[Uzybone]

1. another slavery comparison....it doesn't help.

[BlooInBloo]

3. Don't worry about it - they'll blame black folks for Prop 8 in about 30 seconds.

:rofl:

[queerart]

7. Clever.........

You do know Pam Spaulding is African-American, correct?


She also happens to be Queer........


Things are not always the cleverly wrapped packages that others want to easily discredit......


Why don't you zip off an email and share your thoughts with Pam....... and then come back and share that exchange with the rest of us.......

[NMMNG]

10. Don't ruin knee-jerk reactions with facts

It's so gauche.

[mitchtv]

17. he Blew it

so to speak

[donco6]

He won't be coming back fast, with his knees removed. n/t

[Duncan Grant]

19. What's your stake in perpetuating this myth? Who is this "they" of whom you speak?

You could do a lot to repair this incendiary post if you were to apologize for your knee-jerk response. That would take real leadership.

I sincerely hope you're up for it.

[joeybee12]

39. Time to run along to the sports forum and cry racism there now...

...after all, I didn't see one post, not one praising Serena Williams as God...

[Fire1]

4. Oh, great. I can hear it now. n/t

[Starry Messenger]

5. .

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/11611/signorile-on-the-wh-its-all-about-buying-off-gay-leaders-by-seducing-them-very-cheaply

[NMMNG]

6. Shhh

It's not polite to enlighten them with facts.

[Starry Messenger]

11. Oh right.

I forgot the memo. Only react to subject lines.

[dsc]

16. Pam Spalding is an African American lesbian who endorsed Obama in the primaries

the first two facts would have been apparent had you bothered to click in the link. But it was easier to call us racist instead.

[NMMNG]

20. Don't you know?

All people who don't support Obama, LGBT ones in particular, are racists. :eyes:

[Uzybone]

42. I didn't call or insinuate that the OP was a racist

the writers' race or who he/she endorsed is irrelevant. I just know for a fact that comparing the current civil rights issues for gays to one of the worst abominations in human history drives away people from empathizing with our cause.

This is why people hate getting in any discussion regarding this issue, sooner or later someone will call someone a homophobe or claim they are being called a racist for no reason at all.

[FreeState]

43. Careful there...

you just discounted every singe struggle GLBT persons have had - oppression olympics is a game no one wins at. GLBT persons have been oppressed abused and killed for being who they are since the written history. Both groups have had things happen to them that are sickening beyond belief.

[Uzybone]

45. there lies the problem, the OP is oppression Olympics

thus anyone who points that out is engaged in the "who has/had it worse" game. Frankly some posters make this topic too inflammatory to touch by labeling others as homophobes because they disagree with a tactic or a post.

[FreeState]

46. Comparing the struggles is not Oppression Olympics

calling ones struggle "one of the worst abominations in human history" over the GLBT struggle (or any other for that matter) and insisting that must not be compared or contrasted is. The article does not IMO engage in such behavior.

ory

[Uzybone]

47. I didn't say the "worst ever", I said "one of the worst"

another problem with discussion this issue, people tend to see only what they want to see.

Not one thing I posted discounted the horrible persections gays and any other groups have gone through.

[FreeState]

51. I was still editing the post when you replied

just wanted to clarify I was trying to cut and paste your actual words when you replied (although my time stamp on the edit is before your reply there must have been some overlap).

I must have read your post wrong then because it still sounds to me that you are pointing out that the black strugle is/was so awful that it could not be compared without offending.

[omega minimo]

93. Comparisons there are. Offense may result from direct use of SPECIFIC history/imagery/terms that are

unique -- and devastating, still resonating today -- to African American history and experience.

Offense definitely results from those posters who ARE playing "Oppression Olympics" and being intentionally dismissive and disrespectful to African Americans.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5866170

[Duncan Grant]

95. That door swings both ways. People are talking past one another.

Offense definitely results from those posters who ARE playing "Oppression Olympics" and being intentionally dismissive and disrespectful to LGBT Americans.

Having said that, let me extend to you a sincere invitation to unite with LGBT people to end our 2nd class citizenship in America and also, our oppression at the hands of the most powerful institutions on the planet. Unity and advocacy omega minimo, will you ally with LGBT people?

[FreeState]

101. Elie Wiesel: suffering confers no privileges

http://www.notablebiographies.com/We-Z/Wiesel-Elie.html

Speaking in 1984 at the White House, where President Reagan presented him with the Congressional Gold Medal, Wiesel summarized his career, "I have learned that suffering confers no privileges: it depends on what one does with it. This is why survivors have tried to teach their contemporaries how to build on ruins; how to invent hope in a world that offers none; how to proclaim faith to a generation that has seen it shamed and mutilated."

All our suffering is our suffering - we can not separate it from group to group. I see no Oppressions Olympics in the OP.

[omega minimo]

103. Last call!!

No one said that about the OP. :eyes:



There is no "demand that we not make any comparison b/w gay and black." There is a need for understanding the differences between general comparisons that are appropriate and SPECIFIC, historic, unique experiences, imagery and terms that are incomparable. These latter are unique to African American history and culture and still resonate today, still cause pain when misappropriated.

In the earlier Civil Rights Era, people were encouraged to respect others' sensibilities and sensitivities on concepts like that -- even if they were not completely understood or agreed with.

That's how we all get there, together. Or used to.

[FreeState]

106. You do realize that when people tell GLBT persons not to compare their struggle with earlier Civil

Rights struggles its offensive to GLBT persons as well? Thats were our two communities appear to be getting stuck IMO. Both sides need to learn to be more sensitive and really learn to see what each side is trying to say before one attacks the comparison that is being used - and that rarely happens. I could go into the AAI forum and show you extremely hurtful posts towards the GLBT posters on DU - and Im sure you could do the same back. I can also find posts there that show flat out ignorance towards GLBT history (as you could the reverse here). However that gets us no were. Dont you think it would be much more productive to show compassion and understanding and then inform a poster why you personally would not draw a parallel rather than what has been going on for a very long time on DU between the AA and GLBT community?

(And yes this whole thread is full of subtle inferences that GLBT person should not ever compare struggles directly - Im not saying you did that but the poster I was replying to before you on this sub-thread did.)

[omega minimo]

108. It might work better

if you don't mind, staying with me on my comments and not assuming anything about where I'm coming from.

I know how contentious this is. I've tried to help. I'm trying to keep my posts very clear. And request others view those comments as is.

Thank you. :hi:

[FreeState]

110. Your welcome I guess

Im not sure where I was not following you - however I did assume you were discussing what the previous posters were discussing with me on the subform?

[Uzybone]

123. People can continue to make those comparisons if they wish

I think it hurts more than helps.


I love your larger point though because it addresses what both communities should do to further understanding between each other.

[MNBrewer]

171. In the earlier Civil Rights Era...

"In the earlier Civil Rights Era, people were encouraged to respect others' sensibilities and sensitivities on concepts like that -- even if they were not completely understood or agreed with."

Oh yeah? "Any SPECIFIC, historic, unique" examples to illustrate your point, coming from the earlier Civil Rights Era?

[LooseWilly]

97. The OP alludes to Malcolm X, and draws a comparison of tactics that a struggle for equality faces.

And you, Uzy, blithely dismiss that and call it a simple slavery comparison. Speaking of only seeing what you want to see...

Would you prefer that parallels of treatment of the LGBT community by the dominant power structure be drawn only to other communities, like, say the Jews in Nazi Germany?... I'm sure the Nazis had plenty of "collaborators" in the camps, who were only too happy to advise everyone to just cooperate, and in time all would be well... and they'd say that in exchange for more food. --- Note, this is a comparison of tactics being employed, not a comparison of the struggles of the LGBT community literally to Concentration Camps... merely the tactics employed to maintain the docility in the disadvantaged group.

Likewise the quotes of the OP are a comparison of tactics. There's a difference.

In any case, Uzy, would my concentration camp comparison be ok with you and whomever you think you speak for?... And, why is it that slavery is so specifically off limits? Or is it only slavery in the US?


**Edited for clarity in a growing thread**

[Uzybone]

122. A holocaust comparison would be just as unhelpful IMO

Personally I think the gay struggles for equal rights can stand on its own as appalling and disgraceful.

I don't think its a helpful tactic, I know some people who are turned off when those comparisons are made; people who would otherwise be open to persuasion. You might have an opposite view.


Like it or not, when you start talking house nigger and field nigger, you are making a slavery comparison. Saying that Malcolm X said it doesn't give any cover to the OP/blogger.

[FreeState]

125. Your probably already aware of this but it should be pointed out

Part of the gay struggle is the holocaust. After the camps were closed the gays that were still alive were sent to prison rather than freed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_homosexual_people_in_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Holocaust

An estimated 1.2 million men were homosexuals in Germany in 1928. Between 1933-45, an estimated 100,000 men were arrested as homosexuals, of which some 50,000 were officially sentenced. Most of these men served time in regular prisons, and an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 of those sentenced were incarcerated in concentration camps. It is unclear how many of the 5,000 to 15,000 eventually perished in the camps, but leading scholar Ruediger Lautman believes that the death rate of homosexuals in concentration camps may have been as high as 60%. Homosexuals in the camps were treated in an unusually cruel manner by their captors, and were also persecuted by their fellow inmates. This was a factor in the relatively high death rate for homosexuals, compared to other groups.

After the war, the treatment of homosexuals in concentration camps went unacknowledged by most countries, and some men were even re-arrested and imprisoned based on evidence found during the Nazi years. It was not until the 1980s that governments began to acknowledge this episode, and not until 2002 that the German government apologized to the gay community. This period still provokes controversy, however. In 2005, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the Holocaust which included the persecution of homosexuals.

[Uzybone]

130. Very much aware, thanks

Another reason why the sufferings of gays can stand on its own.

[FreeState]

133. Agree 100%

I figured you knew the shared history - wanted to make sure those that dont realized what was being discussed (I still come across people that have no idea how horrendous the holocaust was to so many groups of minorities).

[LooseWilly]

143. You really don't get the difference between "institution" and "tactics", do you?

Ok, first of all... this was not a slavery comparison. It was a comparison of behaviors in an unequal power structure based on maintaining docility in the powerless. The specifics could be slavery, the holocaust, Jewish slavery in Egypt, the Suffrage Movement... or what have you. Pam Spaulding happens to be black, so she referred to the Civil Rights Movement specifically... but the point of the comment was the use by those in positions of "power" of those who are in a position of "limited power" to reassure the "powerless" that things will become better, if they just cooperate. One can 'dress' those in positions of power & powerlessness in the 'garb' of any specific struggle... but certain tactics are common to power relationships... and in this case, it is the use of what's often labelled "collaborators" to pacify the most powerless. It's a comparison of tactics... to call it a slavery comparison is to willfully impose a shallow interpretation upon the comparison that was actually being made.

That said... to deny the LGBT community the legitimate right to compare a struggle for rights to another struggle for rights is a form of discrimination, IMO. The notion that there is some sort of "heirarchy" of discriminations is tantamount to setting oneself up as a judge in the "oppression olympics"... and is a cheap substitute for analysis. As far as I'm concerned, the struggles in the face of the holocaust, slavery, Jim Crowe, internment, as well as suffrage and the struggle for equal rights for the LGBT community, and Native American struggles for recognition of tribal sovereignty guaranteed by law... all of these movements... including the Indian struggle for freedom from British rule... all of these movements have a certain underlying similarity of purpose... though they will obviously differ as to specific details.

Whenever some member of one of these above mentioned "communities" tries to exclude the struggles of another of these above mentioned "communities" from comparison to his/her/their own community... In My Eyes that is a rejection of the very validity of the rejected "communities' " struggle. If some member of the black community wants to try to say that the Suffragettes' struggle is not comparable in any way to the Civil Rights Movement... then that is tantamount to tacit approval of the power structures that the Suffragettes are fighting against.

As for those who think these comparisons are "unhelpful"... well, I'm inclined to believe these people weren't going to be very helpful anyway...

[Duncan Grant]

148. ********************My God! That's a pleasure to read.********************

Thank you for that. I truly needed to read it.

It would be a "fierce" thread on it's own. Would you consider posting it? :applause:

[LooseWilly]

150. Well, how can I say no to so many asterisks?...

And thank you... I was feeling a little exhausted from all of the composing... I think you've just given me a second wind. ;)

[Duncan Grant]

151. With all this flotsam and jetsam, one must draw attention to a life line. :)

I come to DU to be exposed to new ideas and quality discourse -- both of which you deliver in abundance.

Forgive me for gushing: you post stellar material that's beautiful composed.

This place could use 10 more just like you. :thumbsup:

[QC]

154. "I come to DU to be exposed to new ideas and quality discourse"

You really are an eternal optimist, aren't you?

[Duncan Grant]

156. Like Julie Andrews in the opening long shot from "The Sound of Music".

I get a little teary-eyed just thinking about it. :D

[QC]

157. I was thinking of Pollyanna!

[Duncan Grant]

164. Yeah, her too. Down to the maryjanes.

[QC]

168. I have that hat! n/t

[Uzybone]

185. I disagree, Malcolm was making a slavery comparison

and when you start talking house nigger and slave nigger, we all know its a slavery comparison. Where do you think those terms came from. What do you think Malcolm X thought that blacks who helped/worked with whites were?

" There was that house negro. In those days, he was called a house nigger. And that's what we
call him today, because we still got some house niggers runnin around
here. This modern house negro loves his master. He wants to live near
him. He'll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near
his master, and then brag about "I'm the only negro out here. I'm the
only one on my job. I'm the only one in this school."


and once again (as usual), any one who disagrees with someones tactics or words regarding GLBT issues is labelled (overtly or otherwise) as being not in support of gay rights. You have no reason to be be "inclined" to believe I do not support gay equality just because I've pointed out that in my opinion, slavery comparison are unhelpful. You disagree and have said so somewhat eloquently (minus the worthless snark) so lets leave it at that. I certainly didn't say you (or the blogger) had no right to make such comparisons (you can compare anything to anything you wish). But I do know that comparing the gay equality issues of the day to slavery drives people (who would be easily persuaded to join us) away from our cause.

[LooseWilly]

194. Technically, Aravosis was making a civil rights comparison.

Malcolm X was not a slave... therefore quoting him and a comparison he made is, technically, not a slavery reference.

Aravosis was, I believe, making a comparison to the state of affairs that persisted at the time that Malcolm X made the speech, the state of affairs that Malcolm X chose to compare to slavery. Malcolm X might have been making a comparison with slavery... but he was doing it in order to illuminate the state of affairs in his own day and age... not as a historical assertion for its own academic value. Malcolm X was making a statement about the state of affairs he saw around himself in the mid 60s. Aravosis, in quoting Malcolm X, is now comparing the state of affairs in the LGBT community now to the state of affairs that Malcolm X was actually referring to... which was the state of affairs he saw around himself in the mid 60s.

I'm not sure that the mathematical associative rule actually applies to metaphors.... once you use the associative rule on a metaphor, in my experience, you change the metaphor... and so, to those who say that Aravosis is making a slavery reference... I say that you are "changing" the metaphor that Aravosis made in the act of "stretching it" by means of the "associative rule"... and as a result I would say that those who are criticizing Aravosis for making a slavery reference are, in fact, themselves the ones making a slavery reference out of Aravosis' comments.

And, as long as we're questioning qualifications to speak on a matter, Uzy... I will thank you to speak in terms of literary analysis in response to this... or else your answers will not be deemed worthy of consideration.

:+

[omega minimo]

200. "Malcolm X was not a slave..therefore quoting him & a comparison he made is not a slavery reference"

"Malcolm X was not a slave... therefore quoting him and a comparison he made is, technically, not a slavery reference."

That post represents a very interesting way of viewing history.

[Prism]

216. Perfectly stated

Save this. Whenever future threads devolve into oppression olympics this could be posted to close out the games.

[Toasterlad]

74. Um....Far As I Can Tell, The Only One Claiming Gays Have It Worse Than Blacks Did Is You.

...or, at least, that's what you're trying to pretend Pam said.

Pam isn't playing Oppression Olympics. No one is. But you.

I'm very, very sorry that slavery happened. May I get married now?

[Duncan Grant]

22. A mis-characterization of Pam Spaulding's meaning...that really doesn't help.

Is it possible, for just one moment, that a black lesbian can offer historical context from the civil rights movement to make a personal point about LGBT leadership, access to power and finally -- privilege?

Is it a crime for anyone to then read her point of view and experience its transcendent appeal?

Seriously, this isn't "another slavery comparison" (btw, I missed the first slavery comparison...) it is simply a way to contextualize pain, confusion, betrayal, 2nd class citizenship and oppression from the most powerful institutions on the planet. I'm sorry you couldn't see that. Truly, truly, sorry.

[Zenlitened]

36. Excellent post.

:applause:

...historical context from the civil rights movement to make a personal point about LGBT leadership, access to power and finally -- privilege...

...it is simply a way to contextualize pain, confusion, betrayal, 2nd class citizenship and oppression from the most powerful institutions on the planet.

[joeybee12]

37. Good lord, you don't get it, do you...

...whenever someone tries to compare similar tactics, it's just racism and "unhelpful"...just one way for you to feel justified with your homophobia.

[omega minimo]

141. Some pretty outrageous assumptions there

[omega minimo]

142. No, it doesn't. The other (Huffpost) essay by her that's up today also

makes some very broad statements about who thinks what, that she can't possible know or project the way she does. That doesn't help; it perpetrates the tendency to overgeneralize, assume and project.

"-- and the reason is quite clear -- whites don't want to have the difficult conversation and chance being labeled racist for bringing it up, blacks who oppose equality for LGBTs toss out the race card to avoid the discussion."

[NMMNG]

2. "What are our leaders?"

I'd say House Dorothys.

[kpete]

8. only answer

that makes sense to me, i guess...kp

[mitchtv]

18. I thought it was "Aunt Liza"s

[NMMNG]

21. That works too.

:thumbsup:

[AntiFascist]

205. I've read "Aunt Thomasian"....

:rofl: or Aunt Bea which is probably a better example.

At any rate, this wouldn't be the first time we question our leader's partying while we wonder what is happening to our rights.

[LiberalArkie]

9. I agree with you. It is not the BLACK thing it is the ownership mentality,

The people in power (wheather they are the slave owners) or bankers or the politicians all want to do the same thing. Really no difference the same type of people.

[xchrom]

12. thank you pam. nt

[FrenchieCat]

13. Separating the Field Negro from the House Negro was a divisive

manner to keep slaves divided and fighting with one another, while both remained captive.

The way that Black folks got their freedom was not by hatin' on Abraham Lincoln, who was a reluctant leader for the cause of emancipation......that's for sure.

[Prism]

14. Lincoln made no difference

Politically speaking, Lincoln didn't give a fig about slavery either way in the abstract. Radical abolitionists in power kept relentless pressure on him, and the Emancipation Proclamation was issued as a mere diplomatic effort to keep European powers from recognizing the Confederacy.

I'm sure you know those things, but it's a useful illustration of just how powerless current civil rights movements are, including the LGBT community's. We have no similar pressures in our political class. Where are the powerful senators on powerful committees putting the heat on President Obama? Nowhere much. They're not going to bat for us.

Any outside pressure? Not really.

So our equality becomes a do-it-yourself project, and if President Obama will be an obstacle or - worse - irrelevant presence, then I suppose we'll have to bring all that pressure ourselves, no matter how uncomfortable that makes him.

He knows what he must do if he doesn't want to be "hated on". What the LGBT community now must do is make it very uncomfortable for the President and others to continue their policy of nothing. If the political class will not support us, if they believe inconsequential sops will cow us, they'll need to learn.

This president and his allies have not learned through donations, support, and votes. He has had unprecedented levels of positive support from the community during the general election. This is where that has gotten us - nowhere.

So I suppose the negative tactics will need a fair trying out. The President's supporters will not like it one bit, but his choices have created the current climate - not ours.

[Fire1]

15. The emancipation was economical as well as political. n/t

[gaspee]

24. Your answer to ignored

Was awesome - I can guess ignored said something comparing Lincoln to Obama and we should be nicer to Obama.

I wish I could be as eloquent as you when answering people who think we should STFU and trust a politician to be magnanimous enough to give us our basic human rights. I just get pissed and get mean and dismissive right back because I figure anyone who wants a real dialogue isn't going to tell people to be patient and accept 2nd class citizenship status. Pay your taxes and STFU basically. Or worse yet - trust in someone who has a track record of having a rather tin ear when it comes to the human-ness of the LGBT community.

[Prism]

38. Nothing wrong with being pissed

With the current situation between the community, this administration, and our rights, I certainly feel the bile rising when I read the airy dismissals of our concerns, the blithe waving away as if equal rights are just one political issue among many to be weighed and considered at leisure.

When people with full rights and protections behave in a way that reads as if they consider our equality on the same level as pothole repair . . .

. . . I usually wait about thirty minutes between reading something and posting a reply. =)

[Lex]

23. Lincoln freed the slaves because he thought they would take up arms against the Confederacy.

And because abolishing slavery would disrupt the South economically. He did it because at the time he did it he said he thought it was the only way to win the war and thus, keep the Union together.

He also said he'd KEEP slavery if he thought that would win the war and keep the Union together.

He most certainly did not abolish slavery because the slaves were just so gosh-darn nice to him. It had zero to with whether slaves were "hating on him."

[struggle4progress]

26. ... Viewed from the genuine abolition ground, Mr. Lincoln seemed tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent;

but measuring him by the sentiment of his country, a sentiment he was bound as a statesman to consult, he was swift, zealous, radical, and determined ...

Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln
Frederick Douglass
April 14, 1876
Delivered at the Unveiling of The Freedmen’s Monument in Memory of Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=39

[LooseWilly]

187. I know it's absurdly late in this thread to bother to point this out...

but I don't think the point of the Arovosis (nor the Spaulding) article was to "hate" on Obama... the point was to "hate" on the LGBT "leaders" who were willing to show up at the DNC fundraiser at the White House despite Obama's lack of apparent interest in pursuing and LGBT priorities, and the apparently shared disinterest in LGBT issues by the Democratic Party in general.

Just a detail...

[struggle4progress]

25. Here's a "field negro"

http://upload.wikimedia.org.nyud.net:8090/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Whippedslaveedit.jpg

Aravosis is a DC attorney with a degree from Georgetown, who has worked for the rightwing Ted Stevens and for the World Bank

[VespertineIconoclast]

30. I'm glad you put this pic up.

I have no idea how people who were not alive during those time and were not a part of those struggles think that they could even conceive to compare their struggles to that of a slave. It does not matter that one of the authors is an African American. She should know better than others that comparing these modern-times to those times during slavery is outrageous and highly incendiary. To me, these authors are doing what Rep. Peter Hoekstra did in making a horrendous analogy between two things that on the surface may seem similar, but in reality are not.

[struggle4progress]

32. I think Pam's House Blend is actually a great & informative blog. But she was coy in describing

the Malcolm X clip -- and I have no idea what she was trying to say. Malcolm, of course, didn't really know his history that well: a slave, who tried to encourage others to resist, was likely to get a vicious beating -- and if that didn't work, the slave was likely to be transported

[VespertineIconoclast]

33. Before today,

I've never had exposure to Pam's House Blend and so, I can't speak for any prior blog entries she may have made. I do hope that she is being coy as you say, but that was somewhat off putting making that comparison in my opinion.

I agree with you that Malcolm X did not have a good historical perspective to speculate they way he did in that speech.

[Laughing Mirror]

52. "After they glue the anuses of homosexuals,

they give them a drink that causes diarrhea. Since the anus is closed, the diarrhea causes death."

"They" is what's happening today in Iraq, thanks to the U.S. invasion. Sorry I don't have a picture of that particular mortal torture visited upon gay people today in our world. But here's one a gay couple being lashed in Iraq, but, presumably, not tortured to death.



Look familiar?

[Duncan Grant]

53. When confronted with this evidence, the result should be unity not enmity.

Thank you for this post. It's brilliant. :thumbsup:

[queerart]

54. Thank You For Your Post (nt)

[VespertineIconoclast]

55. I don't think that anyone here is saying that suffering does not occur

for gays and lesbians. I, for one, believe in the rights that GLBT individuals are struggling to get here in America. Everyone from all branches of government needs to be watched, poked, prodded, and pushed into action. No one is above criticism!

But with your post, you seem to want to make this a "tit for tat" argument about which oppressed group has suffered the most. (Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.) This line of argument is not conducive to swaying others to your line of opinion and it's offensive to some. We, as oppressed people, should understand that other groups have suffered as well and that though we suffer now our story is no less or more compelling than the stories of other groups that have successfully won their legal rights. The GLBT movement must stand on its' own because to borrow from another movement diminishes them both since there is no way to objectively qualitatively or quantitatively compare the two.

We must come to the understanding that we are all in this thing together - whether white, hispanic, black, asian, gay, bisexual, lesbian, straight, asexual, christian, muslim, jewish, atheist, etc. You don't have rights then it is like I don't have rights and that's how we should fight it - together. Thus, we should be sensitive enough to not try to be divisive but try to unite each other for fighting for human civil rights here in America.

I know that the author of the article is African American and was trying to be provocative, but it can cause the wrong type of provocation to some.

[Duncan Grant]

56. Pam Spaulding: Black, Gay and Reclaiming 'Civil Rights'

In other words, there is no ownership of "civil rights." One can acknowledge the struggles are different, but the commonality is the need to eliminate discrimination under the law...

Dr. King built his movement based on the teachings of Gandhi -- so who's hijacking what -- and more importantly, why does it matter? The argument is ludicrous on its face, yet the appropriation of "civil rights" is allowed to occur. It serves no one to do this -- and the reason is quite clear -- whites don't want to have the difficult conversation and chance being labeled racist for bringing it up, blacks who oppose equality for LGBTs toss out the race card to avoid the discussion.

Those of us who are in both groups are continually frustrated by the task of having to take this topic on almost always alone.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=140284&mesg_id=140284

[VespertineIconoclast]

61. Thank you for the great article.

It was highly enlightening and an excellent read. Spaulding makes some excellent points. A few:

...others made the quite accurate point that the LGBT community rarely gets behind social justice issues of concern to minorities. Honestly, this card can be played legitimately -- because it's true.

I mean how elementary is it that if you want support from a community that you actually have to communicate with them to get your point across and win hearts and minds over. And that was one of the failures of Prop 8. And people have admitted as much, as efforts to get it overturned begin to gain support for another ballot initiative.

What a lack of cross-community dialogue means for out minority LGBTs is that one has to be willing to put yourself out there to be attacked, over and over for addressing homophobia in communities of color knowing that few, if any, non-POC LGBTs are going to come forward to have your back. I see it time and again, with the excuses ranging from "I'll be called a racist" or "it doesn't feel safe to do this" or "it isn't my place to do it." And many of these excuses are from people who have the anonymity of the Internet to protect them. Now that's bad.

Well, I'm here to tell you that it doesn't feel great to have your "black card" revoked any more than it feels to be called racist. Plus, I don't have the cover of anonymity. Of course that's my choice, but the work is so important; I hate to see the rancor and misunderstandings go on and on with the parties talking past one another.

[Duncan Grant]

64. A pertinent voice.

I hate to see the rancor and misunderstandings go on and on with the parties talking past one another.

[VespertineIconoclast]

66. Exactly.

It's time for us all to come together on this - GLBT rights are civil rights.

Thanks again. :)

[Laughing Mirror]

68. Persecution is persecution

Civil rights is civil rights.

Tit for tat? I don't see how it could be if we accept the truth that we are all one.

I live a few blocks from Cedar Hill, the home of Frederick Douglass, high up on a hill in Anacostia, overlooking the federal city, Washington, DC. And I go by the Douglass house very often. So he is constantly in my thoughts and I hope in my actions. He is a strong presence to me.

I wonder what his thoughts would be on what you perceive as provocation from our sister, Pam Spaulding.

And when did provocation become an undesirable thing in this world? I don't think it is. I think it is a necessary thing when the intention is just.

[NMMNG]

71. Thank you

I get weary of people who think they own concepts, words, movements and the like. The fundies are a prime example; thinking they "own" marriage, family and the like, and insisting that we have to (if we're allowed to even begin to participate) have our own, "lesser than" terms (complete with watered-down rights) to describe our inferior-status lives and perpetuate the caste system. Because you know gays using their things "devalues" their stuff. :eyes: I'm surprised we're allowed to breathe the same air they are.

[VespertineIconoclast]

73. I hope to disavow you of

the thought that I feel that you are of lesser value. I can admit when I have misinterpreted a situation and am therefore wrong. :)

I do not believe that GLBT individuals are inferior in any way. And I commend those, who "stir up the pot" and become catalysts of change. To get your rights you must agitate and make those of the status quo "uncomfortable" to get what you need and what you want. As far as I'm concerned, we are all in this together to fight for human rights.

[VespertineIconoclast]

72. Did you by any chance see my post in response to another poster on this thread?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=140150&mesg_id=140367

I agree with you. :) You will not find any argument from me with you. It took reading another of Spaulding's eloquently written articles for me to "open my eyes." Article found here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pam-spaulding/black-gay-and-reclaiming_b_208013.html?show_comment_id=24845225 As she aptly and succinctly put it:

I hate to see the rancor and misunderstandings go on and on with the parties talking past one another.

Frederick Douglass has always been an important historical figure in my mind and in my heart. There is nothing wrong with "constructive" provocation meant to bring about positive change as far as I'm concerned. We are all in this fight together for human rights.

[Toasterlad]

75. "you seem to want to make this a "tit for tat" argument"

Actually, YOU seem to want it to be that. Your whole point seems to be that since gays didn't suffer through slavery*, we've not been "oppressed" enough to compare our struggle. Happily for me and my not wanting to feel completely abandoned, Coretta Scott King and other prominent civil rights leaders have already done just that, many times. They don't play "oppression olympics". They look at our fight and see the similarities to the civil rights crusades of the 50's and 60's, not the differences. They embrace us and they support our use of the symbolism and terminology of the fight they lived. Because they know the truth: ANY oppression is bad for ALL people.

If you truly want to "come to understand that we are all in this thing together" - which I don't believe you have - you have to stop being insulted when gay people make legitimate comparisons to a VERY similar fight for equality several decades ago. Sadly, YOU are the one being divisive, not inclusive. Your message of "I support you, as long as you understand that we had it worse", is not helpful.

*some slaves were gay, you know. As were some of the Jews murdered in the Holocaust, not to mention the ones who weren't Jewish, just killed because they were gay. Gays have been on the receiving end of every holocaust since the beginning of time. We're the Swiss Army Knives of minorities, to paraphrase Lisa Lampinelli.

[queerart]

76. Just An Interesting Fact

You mentioned:

Gays have been on the receiving end of every holocaust since the beginning of time

... and you might already be aware... but if not I thought I would share with you..... "The Tomb of The Bulls, in Tarquinia"


Where a bull is charging copulating Sodomites, and this depiction is from the 1st century A.D. which is slightly odd, as I has always though the Etruscans were a bit more liberal concerning sexual conduct.... I just thought this depiction was interesting, and sort of meshes with the point you were making......


(text from website talking about this piece of art)

The above image is from the Tomb of the Bulls (Tombe dei Tori) in Tarquinia. The frescos on this tomb are characterised by fertility symbols, although the meaning of some of the symbolism is not entirely clear. The panel on the left depicts a heterosexual scene involving two couples *(where the bull is calm), whereas the scene on the right depicts a homosexual scene*(where the bull is charging). This has been variously interpreted. It is noted that the bull on the right has an aggressive pose, whereas the bull on the left is completed passive, which has been interpreted by some authors as a disapproval of homosexuality. Note also that the bulls have human faces, possibly indicating some mythological context.


(asterisk denotes my own personal comments)


The image for this piece of art is midway down the page:

http://www.mysteriousetruscans.com/theopompus/index.html

[VespertineIconoclast]

77. I understand your ire;

however, please do not EVER presume to know what is on my mind. You sir, are NOT telepathic!

If you truly want to "come to understand that we are all in this thing together" - which I don't believe you have - you have to stop being insulted when gay people make legitimate comparisons to a VERY similar fight for equality several decades ago. Sadly, YOU are the one being divisive, not inclusive. Your message of "I support you, as long as you understand that we had it worse", is not helpful.

If you sir, had taken time to read another of my posts made to a poster who very kindly pointed out another very well written article by Spaulding that was both very enlightening and eye-opening you would have read that I now better understand your perspective. I never wrote "I support you, as long as you understand that we had it worse" nor did I ever insinuate it either. The above sentiment that you have written is completely off-base and unfounded when directed at me sir! I have NEVER felt that GLBT individuals have not "suffered enough" -- I don't even understand what that means?! You have made some rather erroneous assumptions on what I believe through your misinterpretations of the my posts that you selectively read on this thread.

But in particular, sir, do not patronize me. I for one know that GLBT people have been in ALL facets of human history and they are even represented in the natural world and animal kingdom. The spectrum of sexuality found is a part of nature.

I hope that you take the time to calm yourself and find that you are not posting against a foe, but a friend. I hold no grudges and I wish you the very best.

[Toasterlad]

82. Wow. If You Thought I Was Mad, You REALLY Don't Know Me.

That was me at my calmest and most rational.

In any case, I would certainly not presume to know your mind, which is why I was careful to say "seemed" and "believe" a lot. I DID miss your response to the earlier thread, and I am glad that you've changed your mind somewhat on the subject. I apologize if I appeared to be patronizing; that truly was not my intention, although I'll admit to some snark.

I am glad to welcome you as a friend, and I hope that we can agree that the current battle that faces us is much like the battle that was fought decades ago, in that it involves ALL of humanity; if some of us are oppressed, we are ALL oppressed.

[VespertineIconoclast]

87. We are on the same page.

I never have a problem admitting when I am wrong. :) One thing that I strive to do is to understand an issue from as many points of view as I can. I am very open to changing my perspective if compelling evidence is given to me and such a thing occurred in this particular instance. As I previously mentioned to another poster, I completely misinterpreted the whole situation previously. As Spaulding very aptly put it in another article, for whatever misguided reason, African Americans feel that they can own the "civil rights" movement and this view just isn't true. Also, I truly and sincerely accept your apology. :)

Yes, it is true that I don't know you but, I wouldn't mind getting to know you. You shall get no argument from me that the current battle is our collective battle because if you're oppressed it's like I'm oppressed too.

[imdjh]

86. We have the right to our COLLECTIVE history as gay people.

Slavery didn't start in the United States. It didn't end with the Emancipation Proclamation. The history of black people is not confined to their brief enslavement as residents of the United States of America, a mere 87 years out of the some 400 years of slavery outside Africa and God only knows how long in Africa.

Our KNOWN history of persecution as gay people goes back to the edicts of the Christianization of the Roman Empire. It includes the centuries of murder of gay people in Europe, and then in Asia with the rise of Islam. It includes the executions, imprisonments, and physical torture of gay people in colonial and modern times when simply being gay was a capital crime.

Anyway you slice it, the demand that we not make any comparison between gay and black because it is an affront to some people is a demand that comes at the expense of truth and dignity.

[VespertineIconoclast]

88. I know that you have not read my responses to some of the other posters.

But that is fine because I do not mind making individualized responses. :) For a more in-depth understanding of my point of view, I politely ask you to read my other responses to some other posters.

I appreciate your knowledge and use of history. As I have mentioned numerous times on this thread, I freely admit that I was wrong with my previously posted assessment that your current post is a response to. As another poster very kindly pointed out to me by linking another Spaulding article, African Americans have a tendency to try to own the "civil rights" movement. This perspective is not only wrong, but it can be damaging.

I have no conflict or argument with you. Also, there is no affront on my part if comparisons are made in the GLBT struggle and the black struggle. We are on the same page. Simply put, your fight is my fight. I wish you well.

[omega minimo]

94. "Brief"? This appears to be playing "Oppression Olympics"

"87 years"? Aside from parsing the African American experience of slavery in order to dismiss it by calling it "brief," that doesn't even make sense.

"Anyway you slice it, the demand that we not make any comparison between gay and black because it is an affront to some people is a demand that comes at the expense of truth and dignity."

Truth and dignity will be found with those who honor human rights and civil rights and don't play different groups against each other. That was the spirit of the actual Civil Rights Era and of Rev. Martin Luther King. United we stand, divided we fall.

There is no "demand that we not make any comparison b/w gay and black." There is a need for understanding the differences between general comparisons that are appropriate and SPECIFIC, historic, unique experiences, imagery and terms that are incomparable. These latter are unique to African American history and culture and still resonate today, still cause pain when misappropriated.

In the earlier Civil Rights Era, people were encouraged to respect others' sensibilities and sensitivities on concepts like that -- even if they were not completely understood or agreed with.

That's how we all get there, together. Or used to.




http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5866170

[Duncan Grant]

96. Here's a link to post #56:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=140150&mesg_id=140358

[omega minimo]

98. Here's the point you missed

There is a need for understanding the differences between general comparisons that are appropriate and SPECIFIC, historic, unique experiences, imagery and terms that are incomparable. These latter are unique to African American history and culture and still resonate today, still cause pain when misappropriated.

In the earlier Civil Rights Era, people were encouraged to respect others' sensibilities and sensitivities on concepts like that -- even if they were not completely understood or agreed with.

That's how we all get there, together. Or used to.




We can support civil rights for all without misappropriating specific imagery and terms that are unique to African American experience.

[Duncan Grant]

107. Here's the point you miss:

Our stories transcend time and place. The experiences of others (throughout time) informs our own existence.

How is it possible then to appropriate the events of 1981? or 1845? or 300 BCE?

People are struggling to understand and overcome the most insidious oppression -- worldwide. How can we further alienate them, isolate them, "specialize" them? They remain "the other" - not like "us".

It seems to me that our best course of action is to be generous mentors and allies for all humanity.

Granted, that's my 2 cents. Others are free to feel differently.

edit: time and place not space x(

[omega minimo]

109. "Our stories" are not all the same.

In the earlier Civil Rights Era, people were encouraged to respect others' sensibilities and sensitivities on concepts like that -- even if they were not completely understood or agreed with.

That's how we all get there, together. Or used to.

We can support civil rights for all without misappropriating specific imagery and terms that are unique to African American experience.

[Duncan Grant]

117. I didn't say they were the same, read it again.

Regarding "our stories": stasis or transcendent?

[omega minimo]

119. Funny you say "people are talking past each other." That's what you are doing.

Your speech had near zip to do with my comments. I picked up on the one relevant bit.

I have already answered, in the context of my posts, which you are talking past. If you want a different philosophical discussion, this may not be it.

* Again:

Truth and dignity will be found with those who honor human rights and civil rights and don't play different groups against each other. That was the spirit of the actual Civil Rights Era and of Rev. Martin Luther King. United we stand, divided we fall.

There is no "demand that we not make any comparison b/w gay and black." There is a need for understanding the differences between general comparisons that are appropriate and SPECIFIC, historic, unique experiences, imagery and terms that are incomparable. These latter are unique to African American history and culture and still resonate today, still cause pain when misappropriated.

In the earlier Civil Rights Era, people were encouraged to respect others' sensibilities and sensitivities on concepts like that -- even if they were not completely understood or agreed with.

That's how we all get there, together. Or used to.

[Duncan Grant]

126. You saw that did you? But not the invitation to unite with LGBT people?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=140150&mesg_id=140505

Having said that, let me extend to you a sincere invitation to unite with LGBT people to end our 2nd class citizenship in America and also, our oppression at the hands of the most powerful institutions on the planet. Unity and advocacy omega minimo, will you ally with LGBT people?

Again, I extend the invitation warmly.

You do keep making a point of saying:

In the earlier Civil Rights Era, people were encouraged to respect others' sensibilities and sensitivities on concepts like that -- even if they were not completely understood or agreed with.

Which seems to imply there's something inherently wrong with LGBT people of color referencing their own experience (and culture).

Is that what you mean? My point about transcendence applies directly to LGBT people of color (like Pam Spaulding) as well as others.

[omega minimo]

128. So far you have

not actually commented on anything I've posted, as clear and simple as I've tried to make the points, except for this (intentional?) false insinuation.

The confrontational attitude isn't necessary.

[Duncan Grant]

129. No confrontation on my part. Feel free to ally with LGBT people at any time.

We'll keep a chair warm for you. :hi:

[omega minimo]

131. If you bothered to read or consider any of my posts here or other posts and OP

you would not be acting as if that is in any doubt.


This game you're playing? You think it helps?

[Duncan Grant]

138. It's no game. And we don't have to make this personal.

We're not talking about LGBT people trivializing the experiences of others because LGBT people have been a part of everything that has come before -- in its entirety.

All of world history is our history, too. All of it. Imagine the implications.

If others feel embarrassed, ashamed, angry, or otherwise demeaned by LGBT people and seek to shut down their invitations to relate, empathize, connect, support - what have you - then so be it. Let them wrestle with their own conscience (and consequent actions) as it applies to the equality of LGBT people.

[omega minimo]

139. It is a game. Apparently you don't play fair. Just project and insinuate. No thank you.

[Starry Messenger]

99. I think VespertineIconoclast is a person of color...

You might want to ask before assuming he/she doesn't understand the spirit of civil rights.

[omega minimo]

102. Starry please don't be confused

There is no "demand that we not make any comparison b/w gay and black." There is a need for understanding the differences between general comparisons that are appropriate and SPECIFIC, historic, unique experiences, imagery and terms that are incomparable. These latter are unique to African American history and culture and still resonate today, still cause pain when misappropriated.

In the earlier Civil Rights Era, people were encouraged to respect others' sensibilities and sensitivities on concepts like that -- even if they were not completely understood or agreed with.

That's how we all get there, together. Or used to.

[Starry Messenger]

104. I'm not confused at all omega.

Not confused at all. I respect heroes like Julian Bond:



http://www.queerty.com/naacps-julian-bond-delivers-the-gay-black-bond-weve-been-working-toward-20090317/

• "The fact that many had to struggle to gain these rights makes them precious; it does not make them special and it does not reserve them only for me or restrict them from others. Because when others gain these rights, my rights are not diminished in any way. My rights are not diluted when my neighbor enjoys protection from discrimination. He or she becomes my ally in defending the rights we all share. For some people, comparisons between the African-American civil rights movement, the movement for gay and lesbians rights seems to diminish the long black historical struggle with its suffering, sacrifices, and endless toil. However people of color ought to be flattered that our movement has provided so much inspiration for others. That our movement has been so widely imitated. That our tactics, our methods, our heroes, our heroines, and even our songs have been appropriated or served as models for others."

• And in a special message geared toward certain individuals: "Many gays and lesbians worked side-by-side with me in the 1960s civil rights movement. Am I now to tell them, Thanks for risking life and limb helping me win my rights, but they're excluded because of a condition of their birth, that they can't share now in the victories they helped me to win, that having accepted and embraced them as partners in a common struggle I can now turn my back on them, deny them the rights they helped me win, the rights I enjoy because of them? Not a chance. No."

That's a man who knows how to get there, together.

[omega minimo]

105. Your assumptions were incorrect

Did you have any comment on my post, on the need for understanding a difference b/w general and SPECIFIC?

That you are replying with this quote, which is absolutely not in conflict with my post, indicates that you haven't considered it.


"That our tactics, our methods, our heroes, our heroines, and even our songs have been appropriated or served as models for others."

Mr. Bond endorses the valid comparisons. He does not endorse SPECIFIC imagery and terms being misappropriated. That is what my comments refer to. The need to see and respect the difference.

Thank you.

[Starry Messenger]

111. What assumptions?

:shrug: I've never seen anyone make the kind of comments you seem to be suggesting they make, so I don't really know how to address that. There are several good websites with lots of information about all these issues and I was just using one as an example. There's some more on this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x138166

[omega minimo]

115. .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=140150&mesg_id=140530

[Starry Messenger]

120. .

[e-mail]

[LooseWilly]

121. In the scale of Human History, 87 years is brief.

The parsing you refer to is a matter of context.

Slavery didn't start in the United States. It didn't end with the Emancipation Proclamation. The history of black people is not confined to their brief enslavement as residents of the United States of America, a mere 87 years out of the some 400 years of slavery outside Africa and God only knows how long in Africa.

WIth the opening sentence "Slavery didn't start in the United States." the poster has changed the context of the discussion from US history to World History... in which context 87 years is, yes, brief. This isn't a dismissal, it's a widening of perspective, which then leads to a sentence in the next paragraph "Our KNOWN history of persecution as gay people goes back to the edicts of the Christianization of the Roman Empire." Again, a world history perspective, not just US history.

Your reaction "Aside from parsing the African American experience of slavery in order to dismiss it by calling it "brief," " is in and of itself a round of "Oppression Olympics". (As, yes, the gist of the conversation you jumped into had degenerated into... which all goes back to post 25, which seems to have disappeared... but was an accidental beginning to the sport.)

That said... what the hell are you talking about when you say

There is a need for understanding the differences between general comparisons that are appropriate and SPECIFIC, historic, unique experiences, imagery and terms that are incomparable. These latter are unique to African American history and culture and still resonate today, still cause pain when misappropriated.

?? What SPECIFIC terms were used that were incomparable? The bit about the House Negro following behind and undoing what is said by Malcolm X feeling comparable to the EGL coming along behind LGBT activists and undoing what their saying... the both being an analysis of the tactics of the power structure faced by each group, respectively?

Is that what you're saying is too SPECIFIC for anyone else to... think?

[omega minimo]

137. OK

"WIth the opening sentence "Slavery didn't start in the United States." the poster has changed the context of the discussion from US history to World History... in which context 87 years is, yes, brief."

Yes, shifting the context of the discussion away from (my comments on) African American history, which is not "brief." The word and the tactic are both dismissive -- including dismissive of whatever point I tried to share.

"This isn't a dismissal, it's a widening of perspective, which then leads to a sentence in the next paragraph "Our KNOWN history of persecution as gay people goes back to the edicts of the Christianization of the Roman Empire." Again, a world history perspective, not just US history."

Looks like Oppression Olympics, don't it? :scratcheshead:

The claim in that post was that there exists "the demand that we not make any comparison between gay and blacK..."

That's not correct. Pam's broad statements don't help the misunderstanding.

The point is:

"There is no "demand that we not make any comparison b/w gay and black." There is a need for understanding the differences between general comparisons that are appropriate and SPECIFIC, historic, unique experiences, imagery and terms that are incomparable. These latter are unique to African American history and culture and still resonate today, still cause pain when misappropriated."

I know enough about the history, about the use and history and objections here to using the imagery in the OP, to consider it all with a reasonable amount of respect. You may recall the use of other specific (Civil Rights Era) references than the ones in this thread. Other SPECIFIC imagery and terms that are unique to AA history, yet have been used as watered down "metaphors" are what I'm referring to. "House Negro" is a volatile one to pick up. Esp. as our current POTUS is a black man. And American gays never wore chains or cages.

Pointing out the pain the misappropriated terms brings to those sensitized to African American history in no way undermines or ignores the civil rights struggles of others.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=140150&mesg_id=140498

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5866170

Hope that helps, Loose Willy! :toast:

[LooseWilly]

147. Thanks for giving me more to work with, trying to figure out what you were talking about.

Tracing the conversation back... I find this evolution.

Post #86 had been talking about 87 years being brief in the context of World History (in response to post #55, in response to post #52, in response to post #25)

You then responded in post #94 by saying that 87 years wasn't a long time...

So, when you say: "Yes, shifting the context of the discussion away from (my comments on) African American history, which is not "brief." The word and the tactic are both dismissive -- including dismissive of whatever point I tried to share." I can't help but feel that you've gotten lost in your own swirling posts... because it is you who decided to change the context back to US History- and now you turn around and accuse imdjh of having shifted the context away from your comments? You can't be serious?... you are in fact accusing imdjh of doing what you are actually guilty of!

As for your oppression olympics taunt... you might recall that I said this:
"Your reaction "Aside from parsing the African American experience of slavery in order to dismiss it by calling it "brief," " is in and of itself a round of "Oppression Olympics". (As, yes, the gist of the conversation you jumped into had degenerated into... which all goes back to post 25, which seems to have disappeared... but was an accidental beginning to the sport.)"
Which is an acknowledgement that it was a spot of oppression olympic slugfesting that you'd wandered into. Maybe you should read a little closer before you recycle ideas the next time.

As far as I can tell, this is the gist of your response to the question I actually asked... about what SPECIFIC comparison you were talking about:
"Other SPECIFIC imagery and terms that are unique to AA history, yet have been used as watered down "metaphors" are what I'm referring to. "House Negro" is a volatile one to pick up. Esp. as our current POTUS is a black man. And American gays never wore chains or cages."

Hmm... "And American gays never wore chains or cages." ??? Really? Don't you remember the sanctimonious tone 4 paragraphs earlier about "oppression olympics"??? I'll just go ahead and dismiss this part of your answer with similar sanctimony.
-->" "House Negro" is a volatile one to pick up. Esp. as our current POTUS is a black man." Well well... here it sounds to me like what you're admitting is that you and others don't feel comfortable with allegorical comparisons to Civil Rights, and especially Slavery, because of some sort of suspicion that, since Obama is black, that there is some sort of subtle attempt to cast him, allegorically, in with the "House Negroes"... and since Malcolm X has done such a masterful job of turning the black community against "House Negroes", I suspect you and others are interpolating an attempt to split the black community away from Obama. At least, that is the conclusion I draw from the nervousness about the term "House Negro" specifically, and the highlighting of the "Esp. as our current POTUS is a black man."

The irony is that, in the little allegorical comparison that we are talking about today... Obama is not being associated with the "House Negroes"!! Obama is being associated, allegorically, with the Slave Masters. You know, "the Man". And, in any case... the comparison was between the tactics of maintenance of power, not the SPECIFIC example of slavery.

So... if you would take a little more time, stop accusing others of rhetorical devices that you are actually guilty of, stop trying to score rhetorical points over proofs that have been previously stipulated, stop engaging in activities that you have previously tried to score rhetorical points on 4 paragraphs earlier... and kindly take the time to map out the allegorical implications and assignations that logically follow a comparison before jumping to criticize said comparison... I think your posts will be far more lucid in the future.

[omega minimo]

158. "Taunt"? "Sanctimonious tone"?

This is really very sad. I came here peacefully, I posted to you peacefully.

I even removed the subject line, which would have seemed like a taunt, "I will give this one try and one try only. Here goes."

Because the loose cannon has a tendency to fly off the handle. I did the best I could do.

It is disappointing that you chose to make it a battle. If you wanted to inflict a smackdown, congratulations. Well done.

Except for the part where the aggression and hostility solve nothing and help no one.

Except for the convoluted power trips about how someone else should read a thread, follow and reply to posts.

Except for the truly bizarre and frightening imaginings you came up with to project -- not only at me but at others. I don't know how such crap occurred to you and I don't want to know. But rest assurred, it has nothing to do with what I tried to convey.

"Well well... here it sounds to me like what you're admitting is that you and others don't feel comfortable with allegorical comparisons to Civil Rights, and especially Slavery, because of some sort of suspicion that, since Obama is black, that there is some sort of subtle attempt to cast him, allegorically, in with the "House Negroes"... "

The fact that it "sounds to you like that" is scary and completely off base.

[struggle4progress]

57. Be sure to thank jackasses like Andrew Sullivan who supported the invasion:

Since invasion, gays in Iraq lead lives of constant fear - Homosexuals have been increasingly targeted by militias and police, human rights groups say. Officials deny the claim.
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Times Staff Writer
August 05, 2007
BAGHDAD — Samir Shaba sits in a restaurant, nervously describing gay life in Iraq. He speaks in a low voice, occasionally glancing over his shoulder. The heavyset, clean-shaven Christian says that before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, he frequented the city's gay blogs, online chat rooms and dance clubs, where he wore flashy tight clothes, his hair long and loose to his shoulders. After the invasion, he and other gays and lesbians were driven underground by sectarian violence and religious extremists. Shaba, 25, packed his flashy clothes away, started wearing baseball caps and baggy T-shirts and stopped visiting clubs and chat rooms ... http://articles.latimes.com/2007/aug/05/world/fg-iraqgay5

If international human rights issues interest you, there are a number of fine organizations that have worked against flogging and similar brutal punishments for years

I will still suspect that Georgetown-educated lawyer John Aravosis, former staff member to rightwinger Ted Stevens and former employee of the World Bank, has never been flogged like the "field negro" he suddenly pretends to be

[QC]

59. Do you honestly think people here have any admiration for Captain Bareback? n/t

[NMMNG]

65. Don't you just love

how they throw him out as the token Representative Gay? Like we all march in lockstep and we're supposed to bow down to everything he says and does. "OMG Bareback Andy said ABC/XYZ! I have to change my opinion now!"

[QC]

67. You'd think that someone who apparently monitors this forum 24/7

would know that Sully is not popular here.

[struggle4progress]

173. I guess that response is easier than reading the LAT article I linked and recognizing that the

US invasion setback the struggle for rights in Iraq

[QC]

174. Any reasonably bright person knows that.

Geez, do you ever get tired of pontificating?

[struggle4progress]

175. Your response can serve as a good example of the sort of tactics used to disrupt grassroots groups

[QC]

176. And your endless smug, masturbatory pontificating is an example

of why even self-declared 'progressives' can be utterly clueless about their own privilege.

[struggle4progress]

177. Your response can serve as a good example of the sort of tactics used to disrupt grassroots groups

[omega minimo]

178. Indeed

[Duncan Grant]

63. He has as much credibility as Jayson Blair. n/t

[Laughing Mirror]

69. I cannot speak for either Sullivan or Aravosis

I can only speak to anonymous posters on this board, from me, another anonymous poster.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

27. honestly, this article and this post is inflammatory. there are comparisons

to the civil rights movement that are valid and some that are just inflammatory.

this imo is the latter.

[VespertineIconoclast]

29. I agree with your sentiment.

Some parallels can be made with the civil rights movement. But, to compare any modern-day struggle (whether it be women's rights, GLBT rights, and even civil rights) to slavery times -- that's going too far in my opinion. None of us can truly appreciate and understand that type of oppression.

I understand that some above would like to point out that one of the authors is an African American lesbian woman, but even I think that she has no right to try to compare modern-day struggles to the struggles of slaves.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

31. i think depending on the time and the place comparisons to slavery can be made by the womens rights

movement. when talkign about not being allowed a vote etc. however any modern day american movement for equality is a civil right movement which is nothing like the emancipation of slavery movement. it also uses words that almost instantly makes people cringe which imo is self defeating

[VespertineIconoclast]

34. To some degree, I agree with you;

however, my own interpretation of when someone tries to compare the suffering of one group to another they seem to be saying that they can objectively measure by either qualitative means, quantitative means, or both the two struggles. It is fine to parallel two struggles, but to say that one struggle is like another makes me cringe because my next question is "how do you know?" Did the person who made the comparison also go through the other struggle too? Do they have first hand experience? It smacks of "my struggle is the same, if not worse than yours." This sort of thought demeans both struggles in my opinion.

[Veruca Salt]

78. +1

:thumbsup:

[MNBrewer]

155. What "THE civil rights movement" are you referring to?

Is there only one?

[omega minimo]

172. Are you unfamiliar with recent history?

[MNBrewer]

180. No, I'm not

That's why I ask which "THE" civil rights movement is being referred to here. There have been many.

[omega minimo]

181. Um, no, there haven't. Maybe you don't know your history.

[MNBrewer]

186. So, you're agreeing with me, then?

[keepCAblue]

28. I think "house Negro" perfectly describes Barney Frank...

...just read Frank's "defense" of Obama's disgusting DOJ brief and decide for yourself.

[kpete]

35. bingo,

peace, kp

[keepCAblue]

40. In re: this post being inflammatory or racist...

Here's a comments thread from the AmericaBlog post referenced in the OP. The many rebuttals "Dave" received expressed perfectly and pointedly many LGBTQIs POV, so I am posting the sub-thread in its entirety. BTW, some commenting on the AmericaBlog post have coined a new, alternate label for LGBTQI "leaders" who have been likened to house Negroes: House Faggots, or H.F.s, for short. Perhaps that phrase will stifle the blathering of those who resent any comparisons of the LGBTQI civil rights struggle to that of AAs and other minorities. Or perhaps not...

##############################################

#
Dave 18 hours ago
Unless I have misread history, and gay people were systematically ENSLAVED, BOUGHT and SOLD for 400 years, you have no right to talk about 'field Negros' or 'house Negros'. You do not help your cause by this type of inflammatory rhetoric.

Replies to "Dave":
#
cowboyneok 14 hours ago
Most recently gays were tortured to death in Baghdad by having their anuses super glued shut and fed laxatives until their intestines exploded and died of peritonitis...

"Recent reports out of Baghdad document the gruesome gluing of anuses of gay men, who are forced to swallow laxatives, leading to death by diarrhea, come amid continuing genital mutilation of gays."

http://mpetrelis.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archiv...

So, stop with the whole comparisons with the way gays are treated versus other minorities.

We have been burned at the stake as demon possessed. In fact, I can think of very few societies who treated us honorably and as equals.
3 people liked this comment.

#
lileasy 16 hours ago
A year before his death in 1987, Bayard Rustin, the civil rights leader, said: "Twenty-five, thirty years ago, the barometer of human rights in the United States were black people. That is no longer true. The barometer for judging the character of people in regard to human rights is now those who consider themselves gay, homosexual, or lesbian." (Wikipedia -Bayard Rustin)
3 people liked this comment.

#
PeteWa 16 hours ago
Uhhh... guess what?
There are black gay people too.
So, even by your incredibly narrow view of the world, gay people were ENSLAVED, BOUGHT and SOLD for 400 years.
Maybe you don't see gay people as your brothers and sisters, but I DO see black people (and gay black people) as MY brothers and sisters.

Also, as was noted, please try and do the LEAST amount of work and click the links (goes to Pam's House Blend) before you let your preconceived notions determine how you are going to interpret any one post.
4 people liked this comment.

#
Seansmith 17 hours ago
As a black man, I must say demeaning a civil rights struggle to the level of “mine was worst than yours so shut up” is most inflammatory. As a gay black man I must say that this notion of the gay civil rights struggle being a walk in the park is sickening.

While us blacks had it terrible, gays have also been murdered, beaten up, electrocuted, emotionally enslaved, mentally crippled, and taught – to themselves and others – that we were less than human from everyone else.

So what’s the major difference between our struggle and any other one? For us, all of those horrible things are still happening to us. And it’s been happening since the beginning of society. Longevity-wise, the gays are the only group who have been discriminated throughout history; past, present, and for now, future.

So instead of misreading history, maybe you should just start with reading it.
8 people liked this comment.

#
John Aravosis 17 hours ago
Pam is black, she posted the video, and the text, and said she'd been thinking about it lately because of the gay uproar. I think that's her right. Second, I will never understand how some people feel that learning the lessons of history somehow demeans that history. No one is stealing Malcolm X's legacy by posting a video of him telling a moving story about his people's civil rights struggle, and then saying, wow that has meaning in my life and our struggle too. It's when people don't empathize with your struggle, don't find a commonality with your suffering, that you should start worrying.
7 people liked this comment.

#
Liam 18 hours ago
"Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood."

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny...I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be,"

"Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement,"

"Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions."

- Coretta Scott King
8 people liked this comment.

#
Gridlock 18 hours ago
No, we've just been oppressed since the dawn of time, beaten, murdered, burned, and gassed in concentration camps.

Calm yourself.
6 people liked this comment.

#
lileasy 16 hours ago
...hanged in Iran, brutally tortured to death in Iraq.

[Duncan Grant]

41. Thank you.

I think this is what we call "spinning it up" -- instead of "shouting it down".

:yourock:

[NMMNG]

48. Thank you

People have a very screwy idea of how long we've been oppressed (millenia) and how severe it's been. In 1779 Thomas Jefferson proposed a law where gay men would be castrated and lesbians would have their nose cartilage mutilated. That's actually tame considering the law of the land at the time was for homosexuals to be put to death. The last "Sodomy law" wasn't repealed until 2002. Yes, until 2002 a person could be subject to legal action (including arrest, fines, imprisonment, etc) for being intimate with someone of the same gender.

And of course we still have all of the other anti-gay laws to contend with, many of which people are ignorant of (either because they're not educated about them or because they choose to be ignorant of them so they can continue to pretend we're all a bunch of rich, privileged perverts living the high life and just whining to have "special rights").

[donco6]

60. This sums it up for me:

John Aravosis 17 hours ago
Pam is black, she posted the video, and the text, and said she'd been thinking about it lately because of the gay uproar. I think that's her right. Second, I will never understand how some people feel that learning the lessons of history somehow demeans that history. No one is stealing Malcolm X's legacy by posting a video of him telling a moving story about his people's civil rights struggle, and then saying, wow that has meaning in my life and our struggle too. It's when people don't empathize with your struggle, don't find a commonality with your suffering, that you should start worrying.
7 people liked this comment.

[Laughing Mirror]

44. If I was one of those gay A-listers invited to the White House, I would accept the invitation

I would go, and then I would invoke the spirit of Eartha Kitt when she was invited to the White House to meet with Lady Byrd Johnson. Recall, if you will, what Eartha did and what she said at that White House meeting, and the dire consequences to her career in the United States because of it.

I don't know who is going to that big gay party at the White House. I don't know anybody in the A-list. But I'm hoping at least one of them has the balls of Eartha Kitt. Somebody who will speak up, lay the cards on the table, and tell the president just exactly what is on our minds and why we don't take him seriously with his empty gestures. Somebody with the balls of Eartha Kitt who is willing to suffer the consequences to his or her career.

[donco6]

62. Eartha is dead . . .

And I'm afraid there's no one with her backbone left in the U.S. It's very very sad.

[Laughing Mirror]

70. Eartha was a field negro too, the real McCoy, from the cotton fields of South Carolina

In fact, that's how she got the name Eartha.

She'd certainly speak up if she was still with us in the flesh.

But she still is with us, if only in spirit. But maybe that's good enough, if anyone's listening.

[kwassa]

49. It was divisive and unproductive when Malcolm X did it, and it is now divisive again.

The house negro/field negro thing in the civil rights movement turned parts of the movement against each other. It introduced the idea of a litmus test for blackness; were you black enough? This ends up being a test of political orthodoxy, to see if a certain black person held sufficiently strong enough beliefs as exhibited by their behavior and statements to be considered 'black'. Malcolm X later changed his views, but this represents the earlier and more confrontational Malcolm.

Is this something that gays want for themselves, really?

and, once again, is it necessary to keep appropriating imagery from the black civil rights movement, or can the gay civil rights movement create strong imagery based on it's own story?

[dsc]

50. the writer of the post is black

does she lose the right to her history simply because she is a lesbian?

editted to correct an errant assumption on my part.

[QC]

58. It's an easy mistake to make. n/t

[kwassa]

79. She can still be wrong.

Malcolm X was wrong when he made the house negro/field negro speech.

I ran across this picture of Pam Spaulding at work.



a story about her ...

http://www.hastac.org/node/1462

[QC]

80. You should sign up at her site and tell her how wrong she is.

That would make for a very entertaining spectacle.

[kwassa]

81. Here is Mr. John Aravosis, self-identified Field Negro

I'm convinced.

[Duncan Grant]

84. Warning: Graphic images

All gay men/boys know the meaning of these images. Do you really want to bash John Aravosis for recognizing a transcendent moment in Pam Spaulding's words?

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ehgZDHqTA9w/R2Hw4oEnjoI/AAAAAAAAAZU/UkyYuk59dYw/s400/GayBash+Brazil.jpg
http://internetronin.blogspot.com/2007/12/gay-bashing-close-up.html


http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3317573&page=1


http://www.gayliberation.net/gaybashing/2006/0714executions.html


http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2008/09/30/arrest-made-in-adams-morgan-gay-bashing-case/

edit: removed last example

[struggle4progress]

184. The difference between your images #1, #2, #4 and slavery/JimCrow is this:

#1: ... The gay teen .. is set to press charges ...
#2: ... four men were convicted of the attack, and received jail sentences ...
#4: ... one unnamed juvenile has been charged ...

Under slavery, such inexcusable attacks would not even have been crimes -- and under Jim Crow such attacks, though nominally crimes, would not have been effectively prosecutable, due to the general prejudices of those who controlled the government and who chose the jurors

And of course, executions in Iran are a barbarity:

Execution of a teenage girl
Thursday, 27 July 2006, 19:01 GMT 20:01 UK
A television documentary team has pieced together details surrounding the case of a 16-year-old girl, executed two years ago in Iran. On 15 August, 2004, Atefah Sahaaleh was hanged in a public square in the Iranian city of Neka. Her death sentence was imposed for "crimes against chastity". The state-run newspaper accused her of adultery and described her as 22 years old. But she was not married - and she was just 16 ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5217424.stm

Iran to hang teenage girl attacked by rapists
Saturday, 07 January 2006
Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, Jan. 07 – An Iranian court has sentenced a teenage rape victim to death by hanging after she weepingly confessed that she had unintentionally killed a man who had tried to rape both her and her niece. The state-run daily Etemaad reported on Saturday that 18-year-old Nazanin confessed to stabbing one of three men who had attacked the pair along with their boyfriends while they were spending some time in a park west of the Iranian capital in March 2005. Nazanin, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, said that after the three men started to throw stones at them, the two girls’ boyfriends quickly escaped on their motorbikes leaving the pair helpless. She described how the three men pushed her and her 16-year-old niece Somayeh onto the ground and tried to rape them, and said that she took out a knife from her pocket and stabbed one of the men in the hand ... http://www.iranfocus.com/en/women/iran-to-hang-teenage-girl-attacked-by-rapists-05183.html

[Duncan Grant]

191. Is trauma, violence and terror used as a means of control? Does it send a message?

And what of the bashings that are unrecorded? What about the murder of gay men in 1932, 1908, 1973?

The examples posted here are symbolic, not definitive. I understand the point you're making. I hope you'll understand mine.

[Prism]

85. It seems everyone's stuck on metaphor vs. literal

I don't much care for House Gay or Uncle Tom in LGBT discourse and have said as much in the past. The terms are inflammatory and tend to derail a debate from the outset when not used wisely. The more likely the term is to offend, the more careful and considered the writer should be in wielding them. Given the high emotional state of recent debate, well, I wish the terms had been tossed about with more care.

That being said, no one group "owns" any portion of American History. Every citizen is heir to both the achievements and mistakes of the country as a whole. In an identity politicked world, some people like to post themselves as gatekeepers, guardians, and partitioners of historical subjects they feel are viscerally relevant to their community. This is in error, in my opinion. We are not taught our history as an academic exercise. We're given it to use with the weight and collected wisdom of time.

LGBT struggles won't be exactly like African-American struggles. They come with their own difficulties, their own histories, and their own pain.

However, as Americans, we do share a language and a history, and we should be able to draw parallels, comparisons, and lessons from what occurred before us. What happened to African-Americans in the political process of the 1960s closely mirrors what LGBTs face today. We are not in power, we are not significantly represented in great office, and we have only our words, our money, our votes, our lives, and our presence to push the political process - precisely what people like Dr. Martin Luther King had in the 1960s.

And like portions of African-American history, LGBTers are currently faced with a two tier political process. The Established Gay Leadership (EGL) and the average gay citizen on the street.

The EGL may have started well, but their position, access, and power is strongly rooted in the status quo. They collect donations, rub elbows with the politicians, attend lavish parties, and are quick to applaud the thinnest strips of meat thrown to those down below - and they are always the loudest clappers in the room. The EGL has placed themselves in comfortable inequality and they have forgotten the first rule - they are there to protect us. Instead, they protect their status as slightly more equal than their brothers and sisters, and their jobs have gradually altered into one of endless apologia for the political class above them.

Metaphorically speaking, this does mirror the different tiers of slaves and how the powerful separated and exploited the weak.

We are told by the EGL that we must always and forever support the Democratic Party, that this time will be different, that we have no choice, that we must obey, that we must give these politicians our money. If we are a crowd on the street, the EGLers are the turnstyles, collecting tolls from our work, our families, and our pocketbooks as they crush progress through their artificially constructed bottleneck, one painful human at a time.

This is an unacceptable situation, and it does somewhat mirror the two classes of slaves during the antebellum period. It also mirrors how the powerful political class dealt with other bodies of powerless people. Look no further than the history of labor in this country, and you'll find similar tiers of people - the oppressed, and the slightly less oppressed who defend their slightly less to the death. No, it does not work as perfect, literal comparison. To compare suffering lash by literal lash is to miss the point. It is simply a powerful metaphor that viscerally cuts to the heart of what we face in our current political system. Yes, it strikes a chord, it inflames people.

But people need to ask themselves why it inflames. Is it because of offense, or is it because of that sense of ownership over history? To cordon off any section of history for future comparisons and lessons is to take part in a highly reactionary ideology. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself: Which is the harsher grievance, a complaint of historical reference or a complaint of inequality?

(sorry, I rambles)

[kwassa]

91. you wrote a very good note, but ..

I strongly disagree with this point

That being said, no one group "owns" any portion of American History. Every citizen is heir to both the achievements and mistakes of the country as a whole. In an identity politicked world, some people like to post themselves as gatekeepers, guardians, and partitioners of historical subjects they feel are viscerally relevant to their community. This is in error, in my opinion. We are not taught our history as an academic exercise. We're given it to use with the weight and collected wisdom of time.

Black people own their history. Gay people own their history. You touched upon this in the word "visceral". It is something that connects on a strongly emotional and basic level. When it is appropriated by other groups, it can seem like an offense.

Even in your comparison of a dualistic level in gay society to levels of slave society is an offensive analogy to me, because gay people were never slaves, much less slaves for hundreds of years, and the comparison wildly over-dramatizes this conflict within gay society. At best you have a class system that has existed in many places in many times, and other comparisons would be more appropriate

What is worse, from my point of view, is that black history is being misused because some of those using it don't know black history at all well, or they wouldn't be making the analogy in the first place. That is my main critique. Use black history to your heart's content if it is done with accuracy and context. I haven't seen a lot of that.

The EGLs, as you call them, may have a limited future, if you wish to draw a more modern comparison with the black civil rights movement, where self-appointed black leaders of latter years have become largely irrelevant to the general black public altogether. You can take heart from that alone.

[Starry Messenger]

92. So...none of the slaves were gay?

That just defies logic. This "gay society" of which you speak is a part of human history. It is not separate. That is the main point here. A white straight guy would have to have some cool nerve to come in and tell both groups how to think and feel about history. Yet you are the one playing oppression Olympics in this thread. Fascinating.

[dsc]

116. again the person using the black history in this case is black unlike you

and maybe, just maybe, is entitled to do so despite being a lesbian.

[kwassa]

145. so that negates what I have to say?

It would be nice if you addressed the content of my argument, however, I don't expect it. I don't think you know enough on the subject, or you would have done that already.

[LooseWilly]

188. Now this is funny...

since you seemed happy to argue that that same thing negated what I had to say in my thread "What is missing, mostly, from your background, in my opinion, is a in-depth knowledge of the history of the black civil rights movement."...

I don't recall you actually addressing the content of my OP either. Seems to me that somebody's got a case of double standards...

[dsc]

196. according to you, it does

from post 91

Black people own their history. Gay people own their history. You touched upon this in the word "visceral". It is something that connects on a strongly emotional and basic level. When it is appropriated by other groups, it can seem like an offense.

end of quote

You are the one who stated that blacks and only blacks own that history. Hence under your own logic, you don't get to speak.

[noiretextatique]

222. no, it does not...i don't care for the analogy either

i agree with lionness, you and others. the race of the author is not relevant.

[NMMNG]

89. Pam lives in North Carolina

She doesn't have the right to marry the person she loves.
She doesn't have hate-crimes protection.
There is no anti-discrimination policy to protect her WRT housing or employment (IOW, she can legally be denied housing and/or employment just because she's a lesbian).
And thanks to DADT she couldn't enter the military if she wanted to.


But she has nice clothes and hasn't been beaten recently so things are A-OK for her according to some people. Don't you just love it? :sarcasm:

[bluedawg12]

118. As an AA and lesbian Pam has a right to quote MalcomX - except when it comes to gay rights?

John Aravoises covered the story about her blog.

The analogy was about betrayal by one’s own leadership. That was her point.
As a woman, a lesbian and a African American, it’s her prerogative to post her perspective.

“ http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/im-field-negro-what-are-our-leaders.html

by John Aravosis (DC) on 6/21/2009


UPDATE: Here's a Facebook group organizing the protest at the DNC gay fundraiser this Thursday.

In a million years, I never thought I'd be quoting Malcolm X. But after seeing this on Pam Spaulding's blog, it's hard not to agree.

"Back during slavery, when Black people like me talked to the slaves, they didn't kill him, they sent some old house Negro along behind him to undo what he said. - Malcolm X"

Pam Spaulding posted this video of Malcom X on her blog today, following the leaked news that the White House has suddenly decided to throw a big gay party for the A-listers who putatively run our movement. It's a chance for our leaders to get used by the White House, just by showing up, then get used again when they leave and tell the world how all the champagne and caviar proves that the President really does love us, in spite of that pesky incest and pedophilia thing, and those two gay service members a day he's still discharging, even though he doesn't have to.

The biggest betrayal of all? Our leaders are going to the White House to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Stonewall. Irony is not lacking in this White House.”

[NMMNG]

127. Of course

Because those nasty perverted gays have to stop "stealing" everybody else's stuff and create their own instead. No marriage for them, give them something else. They can't have families, call it something else. Don't quote non-pervertsgay figures from the past or you're co-opting. If you don't have a gay hero to quote, a gay term to use or your own "thing" then make one up. Everybody else's stuff is too damn good for you and they'll be offended if you use it.

[bluedawg12]

132. True.

The offense may be as much in the association with... as in the actual comparison of?

[NMMNG]

134. Indeed

Hence all those claims that their marriages won't be as "sacred" if our unions are called the same thing, their situations are "diminished" when we use the same terminology, etc. It's like they're tainted and made "lesser" if we're allowed to share anything with them--including the English language, so they have to perpetually make us less than as a means of self-protection.

[bluedawg12]

136. Pam was right, they have to suspend reality

to attend a fund raiser and smile as if our rights were not institutionally and unjustly suppressed with the lamest of arguments that should not be supported legally and could not be, if the law were followed.

http://open.salon.com/blog/john_mortimer_esq/2009/06/19/obama_doma_treachery_betrayal_and_invidious_gay_jim_crow

"
John P. Mortimer, Esq.
As H.L. Mencken famously quipped, "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." The entire purpose of this little propaganda war (in which our jaded Washington-insider ‘activists’ collaborate and capitulate) is to beg the real questions, to avoid anything like a "fair and honest debate," and to actually avoid ‘pushing our leaders ... to take bold actions and be fierce advocates on those issues.’ In other words, behind the rhetoric and hyperbole the fact is that both sides are busy pulling the wool over your eyes and so far it’s working. Both sides are feeding you everything but the whole Truth you so hunger for. Instead they spoon-feed you half-truths and exploit your ignorance of facts and law as you remain uninformed and here’s why:

<snip>

The argument that the DOJ should have gone easier in defending DOMA is disingenuous at best for the ethical duty of the Attorney General is to provide ‘zealous advocacy.’ But here is the problem: the DOJ did not have to defend DOMA. Indeed, the DOJ was arguably compelled, on ethical grounds, to argue against it. Understand this critical principal for it goes to our entire argument for marriage equality. In a nutshell the essential argument of gay activists and legal scholars is that marriage is a ‘fundamental’ civil right that may be found in the Right of Privacy and that is guaranteed under and protected by the ‘due process’ and ‘equal protection’ clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of U. S. Constitution. Since marriage is a ‘fundamental’ right Congress is without power to legislate in any manner that denies or abrogates that right unless it can show both “a compelling legislative interest” and ‘no less restrictive alternative.’

This two prong ‘strict scrutiny’ test is referred to as the ‘kiss of death’ and ‘fatal in fact’ to any legislation since one can almost always find a less restrictive alternative than denying or abrogating a ‘fundamental’ civil right of one ‘suspect class’ of persons who labor under an immutable characteristic. For instance, presuming you can show “a compelling legislative interest” in protecting ‘traditional marriage’ (which is a specious argument itself since no one in their right mind would consent to anything like ‘traditional marriage’) then a less restrictive alternative would be to simply work to repeal all laws (such as divorce, a wife’s right to own property, etc., etc.) and thereby restore ‘traditional marriage” as it had been for centuries. In other words, if you are really interested in preserving ‘traditional marriage” heal thyself and rather then work to deny others’ their rights submit yourselves to ‘traditional marriage’ as it was before the 1970's which is when straight couples first began to enjoy all the exceptions to ‘traditional marriage’ they enjoy today. Don’t want to do that? Well then, you just told on yourself for the preservation of ‘traditional marriage’ is merely a subterfuge to deny rights to others. These meretricious arguments are seen for the travesty they are and they are no longer taken seriously by the courts.

The point is simple: the U.S. Constitution trumps all congressional law and since Marriage is a ‘fundamental’ right and since gays are ‘persons’ under the Fourteenth Amendment, then DOMA is unconstitutional ..."

[Duncan Grant]

83. And you can be wrong, too.

In my exchanges with you over the last 6 months, it seems that you would rather be right than get results.

Let me extend to you a sincere invitation to unite with LGBT people to end our 2nd class citizenship in America and also, our oppression at the hands of the most powerful institutions on the planet. Unity and advocacy kwassa, will you ally with LGBT people?

I'm not sure why a photo of Pam Spaulding is germane to this discussion. Care to clue us in? Her looks should have nothing to do with her credibility, right?

[kwassa]

90. I'd rather get results the right way.

I am only pointing out the field negro strategy was a failure for the black civil rights movement, too.

The reason that Pam's looks are interesting to me are several.

1) I'd never seen her before

2) I was curious about her age, which I did not find out, but she looks relatively young, which I guessed from the way she is, in my opinion, misusing black civil rights imagery. She was born after those mid-60s events and doesn't understand their full context, IMHO.

3) There is a not-unknown phenomenon of very light-skinned black people feeling a need to prove their blackness, their credentials, which ironically comes out of this field negro/house negro debate in the first place. Light-skinned blacks were often the children of the white masters on the plantation, or descendants thereof. This is a vast generalization, of course, and I know nothing of Ms. Spaulding's personal life or circumstances. Before the civil rights movement, being light-skinned was desirable, after, it became suspect.

[LooseWilly]

113. The OP used the words of Malcolm X to make a comparison of tactics.

I still don't understand your fixation on the field negro/house negro dichotomy. It isn't really relevant here... unless you somehow think that undermining the credibility of Malcolm X will somehow delegitimize a comparison of tactics that he pointed out to those being witnessed now?

"Back during slavery, when Black people like me talked to the slaves, they didn't kill him, they sent some old house Negro along behind him to undo what he said."

The statement by Malcolm X is a statement of the tactics employed by "they". The article cited in the OP goes on to compare the Elected Gay Leaders to the "old house Negro" of Malcolm's quote.

This is a comparison of tactics faced. Your fixation on the validity of Malcolm's field negro/house negro is not relevant to the tactical comparison.

As for your notion "She was born after those mid-60s events and doesn't understand their full context, IMHO."... let's see... mid-60s events, doing the math... have to be born early 50s at least... say 15 to have understanding of context... 1950-> So you're arguing that no one under the age of 59 is justified in making any statements one way or another about the Civil Rights Movement? No one can interpret even a statement of tactics made by a participant unless they are, at the very least 59 years old (unless they parrot the perceptions of someone who is 59 or older... say, for instance, your perceptions? You are older than 59, I presume.)

You then go on to mention "There is a not-unknown phenomenon of very light-skinned black people feeling a need to prove their blackness, their credentials, which ironically comes out of this field negro/house negro debate in the first place. ..." -- Are you now saying that she's trying to compensate for having light skin? Are you now saying that, in addition to having to be over 59 (or interpret as you say), no one's opinion who isn't as dark skinned as?... whom?... can be trusted to have a viable opinion?

Please sir, post for us a picture of yourself. And, by your own system of thought (which I obviously must bow to, as I was born after 1950)... may the darkest individual win!!!

[bluedawg12]

135. Pam called out the Pettifoggers in our midst.

That's going up against the status quo and a no, no!

Here's another political OP ED pointing it out in detail, the term he uses is Pettifoggers.

http://open.salon.com/blog/john_mortimer_esq/2009/06/19/obama_doma_treachery_betrayal_and_invidious_gay_jim_crow

John P. Mortimer, Esq.

Gay rights advocates wake up! You are being lied to, hoodwinked, mislead and bamboozled. I agree with most critics that Obama’s extension of partial federal benefits to same-sex couples was an act of good faith; but when taken with his Department of Justice brief that so ignorantly defends DOMA it certainly stings as an insult heaped upon injury. There is plenty of bad faith to go around and much disingenuous propaganda is being peddled to the LGBT community by our own activists who, in some cases, have proven themselves to be more like sycophantic and toothless lap dogs with a loud yap, yap, yap, than watchdogs with any real bite.

<snip>

So we are asked to take "take him at his word"? Really. We know his word and he has minced no words about it. He has been consistent and unequivocal that he will give us less than 'separate but equal' back-of-the bus gay Jim Crow laws and deny us a 'fundamental' right for no other reason than religion! These are not my words but his. This much at least is not editorial but report. And please let's all start calling them Gay Jim Crow Laws for that's exactly what they are. They are laws designed to take away or abrogate civil rights that are or may be recognized by an independent judiciary. That's what Jim Crow laws were all about - abrogating the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment.

When the Obama Justice Department hands over the job of a DOMA brief to an alleged evangelical megalomaniac, please, please, please do not cry 'foul' or 'victim' to us. It's sounding a bit pathetic. Instead of behaving like sycophantic toothless lap-dogs that

swallow the claptrap legal trumpery of pettifoggers who feed you the disingenuous folderol that religion is a valid reason to deny civil rights to an entire class Americans stand UP AND FIGHT! ACT UP!

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pettifog
English

Etymology
Back-formation from pettifogger


Verb
Infinitive
to pettifog
Third person singular
pettifogs
Simple past
pettifoged
Past participle
pettifoged
Present participle
pettifoging


to pettifog (third-person singular simple present pettifogs, present participle pettifoging, simple past and past participle pettifoged)

To quibble over trivial matters; nitpick
Don't pettifog or we will soon grow weary.
..........

quibbler quib'bler n.
SYNONYMS quibble, carp, cavil, niggle, nitpick, pettifog. These verbs mean to raise petty or frivolous objections or complaints: quibbling about minor details; a critic who constantly carped; caviling about the price of coffee; an editor who niggled about commas; tried to stop nitpicking all the time; pettifogging about trivialities.

[omega minimo]

183. There is a need for Pettifoggers to balance the effects of Historyfoggers

This is a grand example of exactly the mish mash of watered down "metaphors" that apparently reflect a flippant and incomplete view of history and comes across as disrespectful to those for whom that history is PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. LWilly did the math and no -- you don't have to be as old as 59 to remember the Civil Rights Era (and yes, those who know history know "which one" that means).

You could be the age of President Obama, although if you lived in Hawaii or Minneapolis, it would not have impressed you as a child the same way as if you lived in LA or Detroit. And of course, a lot of it was televised. Many slightly older folks remember or heard family stories about the Jim Crow Era and other aspects of those times -- grew up with the knowledge and experiences and see the situation today reflecting all of that history, culture and oppression. And some DUers remember the Jim Crow era and what it really meant.

IMHO, we all saw the current reverberations of AA history on TV during Katrina NOLA. Does anyone here think that W would have put down the damn guitar and done something to help, if those hadn't been mainly poor, black people? Why is it okay to calmly watch news footage of people floating in the water, bloated by the sun and being eaten by dogs? Because they're black?!!!!!!!

No, this is not "oppression Olympics." This is saying that the civil rights era for black people in this country is not over either! The way that people are viewed and treated, the man in Oakland shot in the back while cuffed, laying face down IN POLICE CUSTODY, in the BART station, shot by a white cop; the difficulty our police departments have in addressing racial profiling even when they do the damn studies......... disenfranchised elections..... segregated neighborhoods and schools......

"He has been consistent and unequivocal that he will give us less than 'separate but equal' back-of-the bus gay Jim Crow laws and deny us a 'fundamental' right for no other reason than religion! These are not my words but his. This much at least is not editorial but report. And please let's all start calling them Gay Jim Crow Laws for that's exactly what they are. They are laws designed to take away or abrogate civil rights that are or may be recognized by an independent judiciary. That's what Jim Crow laws were all about - abrogating the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment."

"Separate but equal" -- no
"back of the bus" -- nuh uh
"Jim Crow" -- no way possible, if you know what those were

"And please let's all start calling them Gay Jim Crow Laws for that's exactly what they are."

Let's not "all start calling them that" because that's NOT "exactly what they are."

"That's what Jim Crow laws were all about - abrogating the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment."

The following link has much information about the Jim Crow laws, including a very interesting link to the Jim Crow Museum.

Please all, look at the information for yourself and determine how comfortable you are with this equivocation. When you see the history and the horror and understand the powerful resonance that these words/images have for those who understand, you may reconsider your own usage and point of view on what is appropriate -- or not.

Pointing out the pain that misappropriated terms/imagery brings to those sensitized to African American history in no way undermines or ignores the civil rights struggles of others.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5866170

[LooseWilly]

189. Really?? This is your answer to the question of "misappropriation, or not misappropriation?"

Ok... I'll leave it to you to ask the LGBT community itself about their "oppression"... so you can hold your "oppression olympics" between the LGBT folk and the African American folk between 1863 and 1963... it should be quite a contest (of course... the LGBT folk were considered "degenerates" by everyone... at the time... so, without the same amount of sympathizers... they likely didn't get as much press... so already we're looking at a skewed contest of "opression olympics"... but I bet that several LGBT posters who know their communities history will be able to mount a very sufficient competition).

People Obama's age would remember Jim Crow like I remember Jimmy Carter defeating Ford... which is to say "probably not at all". People 3-5 years older than Obama would remember Jim Crow like I remember the Iranian Revolution (which resulted in the fact that I'll likely never meet half of my family)... which means vaguely. People 6+ years older than Obama will officially win the "I remember Jim Crow" olympics over either myself or Obama. If there were a point, I would try to make it here... but there really isn't one that I can see except that old people got to oppress black people, presuming they were white enough and especially if they lived in the South.

References to NOLA and Katrina, while touching, in this context sound like "oppression olympics". The fact that there is still discrimination against African Americans, especially in terms of things like "racial profiling"... I certainly won't disagree with... and I might point out that I actually heard the shooting of Oscar Grant... as it happened a scant 5 short blocks from where I was living at the time (though, in that neighborhood... one grows callous to the sounds of gunshots... at the time I presumed it was some psychobilly freaks 5 blocks in the other direction who like to shoot shit with a shotgun... a habit I've been a personal witness to). The highlighting of these facts and others does nothing, however, to justify the term "misappropriation"... unless you are engaging in "oppression olympics" in order to justify exclusion of any who don't "score high enough in the oppression olympics" to share in the ability to use a term in a metaphor (and even if you do... I'm sure that the LGBT community has many incidents of oppression that they could enter into your olympics).

I'm still waiting for an analysis that supports the idea that quotation of Malcolm X in order to share in a metaphor regarding the tactics of power relationships is a "misappropriation", aside from the apparent argument that African Americans have suffered so much that the use of a metaphor that compares a struggle with theirs is inappropriate in the context of said suffering. This argument simply leads to contests of suffering... which we're now calling "oppression olympics". I will unhesitatingly stipulate that African Americans have suffered, both under slavery and Jim Crow... but I am still suspect of those who would refuse to have that suffering metaphorically compared with the struggle of any other community that has suffered... or which continues to suffer oppression.

I can't help but interpret such refusals to have the struggles of others compared with that of African Americans as a judgement on the part of African Americans that the struggles of others are somehow "not equal"... either in value or justification... and I steadfastly refuse to believe that the African American community is really willing to dismiss the struggles of others thusly. I have too high of a regard for the African American community to believe that any more than a fringe element of that community would really reject the struggles of other communities.

Am I wrong?

[bluedawg12]

190. The notion is one of codified, institutionalized, discrimintation.

"And please let's all start calling them Gay Jim Crow Laws for that's exactly what they are. They are laws designed to take away or abrogate civil rights that are or may be recognized by an independent judiciary. That's what Jim Crow laws were all about - abrogating the plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment.

http://open.salon.com/blog/john_mortimer_esq/2009/06/19/obama_doma_treachery_betrayal_and_invidious_gay_jim_crow"


Laws which signal to society that one segment is less deserving of full equal rights under law than the majority then lead to consequences as during the hate crimes of the Jim Crow era.

On the other hand, hate crimes against GLBT people are legitimized, for some, by laws that signal the very message of "in"equality and "in"humanity of a minority.

These laws are wrong and and we should support the fight against the unequal appliaction of justice for all, not for some.

"Understand this critical principal for it goes to our entire argument for marriage equality. In a nutshell the essential argument of gay activists and legal scholars is that marriage is a ‘fundamental’ civil right that may be found in the Right of Privacy and that is guaranteed under and protected by the ‘due process’ and ‘equal protection’ clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of U. S. Constitution. Since marriage is a ‘fundamental’ right Congress is without power to legislate in any manner that denies or abrogates that right unless it can show both “a compelling legislative interest” and ‘no less restrictive alternative.’


<snip>

The point is simple: the U.S. Constitution trumps all congressional law and since Marriage is a ‘fundamental’ right and since gays are ‘persons’ under the Fourteenth Amendment, then DOMA is unconstitutional and the DOJ has an ethical duty not to defend it but argue in favor of higher law - the U.S. Constitution - and ask that DOMA be ignored on Constitutional grounds.

http://open.salon.com/blog/john_mortimer_esq/2009/06/19/obama_doma_treachery_betrayal_and_invidious_gay_jim_crow<<



>> "The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans.

Some examples of Jim Crow laws are the segregation of public schools, public places and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms and restaurants for whites and blacks. The U.S. military was also segregated."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws<<

[omega minimo]

193. It is a disservice to your readers to downplay Jim Crow

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5866170

[LooseWilly]

195. Succinct and compelling. The parallels are unarguable, I'd say.

Together, I think we've now just completely vindicated Aravosis' use of the "metaphor in question".

This post establishes a de facto parallelism between Jim Crow Laws, and the discriminatory laws currently faced by the LGBT community.

Meanwhile, in post #194 I laid out an argument that Aravosis' use (not to mention Spaulding's use) of the Malcolm X metaphor is in fact a reference to Malcolm X's comments... which were used in an effort to illuminate the nature of the society in which Malcolm X himself lived... i.e. African American society under Jim Crow laws.

Thus, if the LGBT community is currently being discriminated against in a manner comparable to that of Jim Crow... then the use of metaphors that compare the difficulties faced by the LGBT community to the difficulties faced under Jim Crow, is perfectly reasonable.

Congratulations bluedawg12 !! I think we've solved the "equation"!!

:toast:

[omega minimo]

197. only if you ignore what Jim Crow actually was

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5866170

Your determination to obfuscate on this issue is clear. Your glee over intentionally missing the point is odd.


Congratulations!!!!

[LooseWilly]

198. ECHO... Echo... echo...

From your link : " Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-Black racism. Many Christian ministers and theologians taught that Whites were the Chosen people, Blacks were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation."

So... I ask you to explain how current laws, especially those that restrict marriage rights, but also the lack of inclusion of gender orientation as a "suspect case" in interpretation of the 14th Amendment (a lack shared by women, you might want to note), prohibition from opportunities in the Armed Forces, etc. ... explain how these laws are not a "legitimization of anti-{LGBT} {discrimination}."

Once you are done with that, please explain to me how there is a difference between "Christian ministers and theologians taught that Whites were the Chosen people. Blacks were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation." and the current teachings of many "Christian ministers and theologians"... that "{Heterosexuals} are the Chosen people, {Homosexuals} were cursed ... , and God supports {the exclusion of Homosexuals from the institutions of marriage and the armed forces}." .

I have obviously included substitutions of words to illustrate what I perceive to be parallels between the two. If you have issue with the substitutions, please tell me why. If not, please explain how the two situations substantially differ (keeping in mind that I'm not saying that the two situations are the same, merely that there are enough similarities so as to make comparing the two a valid exercise).

[omega minimo]

199. Given all the evidence, there's really no comparison, no "Gay Jim Crow Laws"

It was more than watered down "metaphors" we frequently see on DU: "back of the bus," "segregated water fountains," etc. Much more.

www.jimcrowhistory.org - The History of Jim Crow: An in-depth site covering the history of Jim Crow.
www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/ - The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow

Jim Crow Museum - http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/menu.htm

"Our mission is to promote racial tolerance by helping people understand the historical and contemporary expressions of intolerance."

Who was Jim Crow? - http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/who.htm
What was Jim Crow? - http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/what.htm

Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-Black laws. It was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens. Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-Black racism. Many Christian ministers and theologians taught that Whites were the Chosen people, Blacks were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation.

The Jim Crow system was undergirded by the following beliefs or rationalizations: Whites were superior to Blacks in all important ways, including but not limited to intelligence, morality, and civilized behavior; sexual relations between Blacks and Whites would produce a mongrel race which would destroy America; treating Blacks as equals would encourage interracial sexual unions; any activity which suggested social equality encouraged interracial sexual relations; if necessary, violence must be used to keep Blacks at the bottom of the racial hierarchy.

Jim Crow laws touched every aspect of everyday life. For example, in 1935, Oklahoma prohibited Blacks and Whites from boating together. Boating implied social equality. In 1905, Georgia established separate parks for Blacks and Whites. In 1930, Birmingham, Alabama, made it illegal for Blacks and Whites to play checkers or dominoes together. Here are some of the typical Jim Crow laws, as compiled by the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Historic Site Interpretive Staff:

• Barbers. No colored barber shall serve as a barber (to) white girls or women (Georgia).
• Blind Wards. The board of trustees shall...maintain a separate building...on separate ground for the admission, care, instruction, and support of all blind persons of the colored or black race (Louisiana).
• Burial. The officer in charge shall not bury, or allow to be buried, any colored persons upon ground set apart or used for the burial of white persons (Georgia).
• Buses. All passenger stations in this state operated by any motor transportation company shall have separate waiting rooms or space and separate ticket windows for the white and colored races (Alabama).
• Child Custody. It shall be unlawful for any parent, relative, or other white person in this State, having the control or custody of any white child, by right of guardianship, natural or acquired, or otherwise, to dispose of, give or surrender such white child permanently into the custody, control, maintenance, or support, of a negro (South Carolina).
• Education. The schools for white children and the schools for negro children shall be conducted separately (Florida).
• Libraries. The state librarian is directed to fit up and maintain a separate place for the use of the colored people who may come to the library for the purpose of reading books or periodicals (North Carolina).
• Mental Hospitals. The Board of Control shall see that proper and distinct apartments are arranged for said patients, so that in no case shall Negroes and white persons be together (Georgia).
• Militia. The white and colored militia shall be separately enrolled, and shall never be compelled to serve in the same organization. No organization of colored troops shall be permitted where white troops are available and where whites are permitted to be organized, colored troops shall be under the command of white officers (North Carolina).
• Nurses. No person or corporation shall require any White female nurse to nurse in wards or rooms in hospitals, either public or private, in which negro men are placed (Alabama).
• Prisons. The warden shall see that the white convicts shall have separate apartments for both eating and sleeping from the negro convicts (Mississippi).
• Reform Schools. The children of white and colored races committed to the houses of reform shall be kept entirely separate from each other (Kentucky).
• Teaching. Any instructor who shall teach in any school, college or institution where members of the white and colored race are received and enrolled as pupils for instruction shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined... (Oklahoma).
• Wine and Beer. All persons licensed to conduct the business of selling beer or wine...shall serve either white people exclusively or colored people exclusively and shall not sell to the two races within the same room at any time (Georgia).

The Jim Crow laws and system of etiquette were undergirded by violence, real and threatened. Blacks who violated Jim Crow norms, for example, drinking from the White water fountain or trying to vote, risked their homes, their jobs, even their lives. Whites could physically beat Blacks with impunity. Blacks had little legal recourse against these assaults because the Jim Crow criminal justice system was all-White: police, prosecutors, judges, juries, and prison officials. Violence was instrumental for Jim Crow. It was a method of social control. The most extreme forms of Jim Crow violence were lynchings.

Lynchings were public, often sadistic, murders carried out by mobs. Between 1882, when the first reliable data were collected, and 1968, when lynchings had become rare, there were 4,730 known lynchings, including 3,440 Black men and women. Most of the victims of Lynch-Law were hanged or shot, but some were burned at the stake, castrated, beaten with clubs, or dismembered. In the mid-1800s, Whites constituted the majority of victims (and perpetrators); however, by the period of Radical Reconstruction, Blacks became the most frequent lynching victims. This is an early indication that lynching was used as an intimidation tool to keep Blacks, in this case the newly-freedmen, "in their places."


The Garbage Man: Why I Collect Racist Objects
by David Pilgrim, Curator, Jim Crow Museum

http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/news/jimcrow/collect /

I am a garbage collector, racist garbage. For three decades I have collected items that defame and belittle Africans and their American descendants. I have a parlor game, "72 Pictured Party Stunts," from the 1930s. One of the game's cards instructs players to, "Go through the motions of a colored boy eating watermelon." The card shows a dark black boy, with bulging eyes and blood red lips, eating a watermelon as large as he is. The card offends me, but I collected it and 4,000 similar items that portray blacks as Coons, Toms, Sambos, Mammies, Picaninnies, and other dehumanizing racial caricatures. I collect this garbage because I believe, and know to be true, that items of intolerance can be used to teach tolerance.

<snip>

All racial groups have been caricatured in this country, but none have been caricatured as often or in as many ways as have black Americans. Blacks have been portrayed in popular culture as pitiable exotics, cannibalistic savages, hypersexual deviants, childlike buffoons, obedient servants, self-loathing victims, and menaces to society. These anti-black depictions were routinely manifested in or on material objects: ashtrays, drinking glasses, banks, games, fishing lures, detergent boxes, and other everyday items. These objects, with racist representations, both reflected and shaped attitudes towards African Americans. Robbin Henderson, director of the Berkeley Art Center, said, "derogatory imagery enables people to absorb stereotypes; which in turn allows them to ignore and condone injustice, discrimination, segregation, and racism." She was right. Racist imagery is propaganda and that propaganda was used to support Jim Crow laws and customs.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=5866170


The Jim Crow laws also were a continuation of the history of slavery and dehuanization of African Americans.

http://www.history.org/history/teaching/slavelaw.cfm
SLAVE LAWS PASSED IN VIRGINIA:
1640-1660: The Critical Period: Custom to Law when Status Changed to "Servant for Life"
• 1639/40 -- Blacks excluded from the requirement of possessing arms.
• 1642 -- Black women counted as tithables (taxable).
• 1662 -- Possibility of life servitude for Blacks.
1660-1680: Slave Laws Further Restrict Freedom of Blacks and Legalize Different Treatment for Blacks and Whites
• 1667 -- Baptism does not bring freedom to Blacks.
• 1669 -- An about the "casual killing of slaves" establishing that "if any slave resist his master and by the extremity of the correction should chance to die, that his death not be accompted Felony."
• 1670 -- Servant for life: the "normal" condition judged for Blacks.
• 1670 -- Forbade free Blacks and Native Americans, "though baptised," to own Christian servants.
1680-1705: Slave Laws Reflect racism and the Deliberate Separation of Blacks and Whites. Color becomes the Determining Factor. Conscious Efforts to Police Slave Conduct Rigidly.
• 1680 -- Prescription of thirty lashes on the bare back "if any negroe or other slave shall presume to lift up his hand against any Christian."
• 1680's -- Development of a separate legal code providing distinct trial procedures and harsher punishments for negroes.
• 1680's -- Status of the child is determined by the status or condition of the mother.
• 1680's -- Severe punishment for slaves who leave their master's property or for hiding or resisting capture.
• 1691 -- Banishment for any white person married to a negroe or mulatto and approved a systematic plan to capture "outlying slaves."
• 1705 -- All negroe, mulatto, and Indian slaves shall be held, taken, and adjudged to be real estate.
• 1705 -- Dismemberment of unruly slaves was made legal.

Slave Codes (Laws) In America
http://www.cr.nps.gov/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/histCo ...

Initially, North American colonies were not slave societies in the strictest sense. African servants and slaves arriving in the 16th and 17th centuries had opportunities to become free, some legal rights and considerable control over their day to day lives. The economic, environmental and social conditions in a colony and the nationality and class makeup of the European settlers all influenced the kinds of laws passed and the degree to which they were enforced. Legislation along with evolving social customs focused on protection of property rights, decreasing the costs of acquiring and maintaining a labor supply, increasing economic profits and maintaining political control of a colony.

For example, in order to protect property and increase the size of the slave population, almost all colonies developed laws and/or social custom that defined the slaveholder as owner of children born to enslaved women. Fear of social and political alliances between European indentured servants and Africans led to the passage of laws designed to decrease sexual liaisons or legally binding sexual relationships between Africans and Europeans, either free or bound. Anti-miscegenation laws like these continued in Virginia well into the 20th century.

[LooseWilly]

202. I don't know why I even bother to respond to you at this point.

99% of your post was irrelevant to the question, at best... and a whopping plate of "oppression olympics" at worst.

I notice your first sentence was this: "It was more than watered down "metaphors" we frequently see on DU: "back of the bus," "segregated water fountains," etc. Much more."

Are you now saying that the discrimination faced by the LGBT community is "watered down "metaphors" "?

[omega minimo]

204. It's called history. It reverberates now. Your dismissiveness and use of "oppression olympics" is

just too much. The post showing how you truncate history into bits to be disassociated from each other, rather than a continuum, was revealing.

"99% of your post was irrelevant to the question, at best... and a whopping plate of "oppression olympics" at worst."

The "question" was whether people understand what Jim Crow means, before adopting imagery and terms cuz somebody say so. You responded by cherry picking. I provided what you left out.


"Are you now saying that the discrimination faced by the LGBT community is "watered down "metaphors" "?"

Of course, not. As I said before, I have no idea how you come up with these twisted concepts.


Your logic escapes me and I will now escape your logic. :hi:

[omega minimo]

192. Yes

It seems you are the one promoting the "Oppression Olympics."

Yes, my post addressed a good example of misappropriation. Are you about to start talking about "Gay Jim Crow Laws"?

It addressed the reasons for questioning this flippant use of "metaphor," especially in the face of the pain and perceptions of ignorance or disrespect it causes.

I leave it to people to be informed and make their own conclusions. Rather than try to relate or open up to anything I've written, you prefer to take it and refute it point by point. My attempts at reaching understanding are only seen by you as challenges to knock down and kick away.

Despite your efforts, my comments about memories and experience of the the Civil Rights Era and Jim Crow are correct.

Perhaps at some point, you'll be embarrassed by sneering at the memory of those who suffered in Katrina NOLA. Or perhaps your denial is an aspect of the national denial while watching government sanctioned, televised genocide.

It's clear you are upset here and I don't want to upset you further. Some of your positions on what's been said are so convoluted, it's impossible to untangle enough to go further.

Please don't make this assumption you are making, or promote it. It's as harmful as the "whites think this" and "blacks do that" stuff Pam was pushing.

"I can't help but interpret such refusals to have the struggles of others compared with that of African Americans as a judgement on the part of African Americans that the struggles of others are somehow "not equal"... either in value or justification... "

You "can't help" because you haven't listened to those here who have tried to discuss with you, not against you.

[omega minimo]

144. It seems that the point is that the tactic was divisive.

Kwaasa said, "I am only pointing out the field negro strategy was a failure for the black civil rights movement, too."

[LooseWilly]

152. It was meant to be divisive when Mr. X did it, in my opinion.

I don't know that that is relevant to today's conversation, however. Or maybe it is? Maybe, as Malcolm X meant to put those in the black community who tried to reassure the angers, issues, and discontentment of the masses of the black community in the name of stability and defending the power structure "on the spot"... maybe it was meant to likewise put the Elected Gay Leader's on the spot.

As for those who would continue to assert black "ownership" of the Civil Rights Movement, and by corollary any and all interpretations of that movement, or comparisons of anything else to that movement... well I will refer them to the OP I just put up on the subject.

I'll summarize here for brevity though: those who would try to thusly assert ownership are wrong to do so. :)

[omega minimo]

182. your misleading turnabouts are deliberately inaccurate para-phrasings and are quite nasty

[Duncan Grant]

140. I notice that you didn't acknowledge the invitation to ally with and advocate for LGBT people.

I'm sure it's just an oversight on your part.

As for Pam Spaulding: Yours isn't a progressive analysis, imho. I'm very surprised you went there.

[kwassa]

146. no, I just didn't step into your assigned role for me.

Sorry about that.

You are practicing, in my opinion, the exact point I was making.

Unless I subscribe to YOUR version of what a progressive should be, then I can't be called a true progressive. This mirrors what Malcolm X was doing with the house negro/field negro argument. Unless you did what Malcolm called for at the time, you weren't a real black person.

Interesting. And who made you arbiter of progressive behavior, by the way? Were you elected to this post?

[Duncan Grant]

149. Actions speak louder than words, kwassa.

I need no further confirmation of your motives.

[kwassa]

153. when you are ready to respond to what I actually write, let me know.

[omega minimo]

160. That behavior was also practiced by

Joe McCarthy

[Duncan Grant]

162. If you have to vilify LGBT people, would you please be kind enough to do it out of earshot.

For someone so informed about equality and civil rights, you sure are rude.

Joe McCarthy. As if.

[omega minimo]

166. No one did anything of the sort and you know it, yet you claim it to be true. Unworthy and unfair to

DU.

The comment was about those sort of dishonest tactics and entrapments.

[Duncan Grant]

161. Let it rest, kwassa.

You're not interesting in anything I have to say. This is entertainment to you -- nothing of any importance.

[omega minimo]

167. Ah, see, another dirty trick, the reversal. I hope this doesn't do too much damage here. It can't

help.

[Duncan Grant]

169. You're making a lame attempt to get this thread locked.

Mods, please don't let omega minimo's attempts at flamebait close down discussion in this very important thread.

Delete the subthread if necessary. Thanks!

[omega minimo]

170. You're making stuff up and pretending it's true

How's that working for ya?

Don't worry about me. I'll give you plenty of room to spin your web.

[omega minimo]

159. Your actions are deafening

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x140150#140598

[Duncan Grant]

163. You're just looking for a fight. Any confrontation will do.

Try me again some other day. I'll probably be gullible enough to bite.

[omega minimo]

165. Not at all.

[Name removed]

201. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[queerart]

203. You Know.......

After this post... I am totally, and helplessly in Love with you......


:loveya::loveya::loveya::loveya::loveya::loveya::loveya::loveya:


Just thought I would say.....


That was a powerful statement you made.........

[kwassa]

206. I'll be happy to talk to you when you calm down.

until then ....

[Lex]

207. ha, you just got completely destroyed

ouch

[kwassa]

208. um, no.

[Starry Messenger]

209. You sure did.

And I took screen shots.

[QC]

210. I screencapped it, too.

I think I might use it for my desktop wallpaper.

[omega minimo]

211. Because you knew

that it would be deleted?

Because it was racist?

Because it was divisive?

Because it violated DU Rules?

[Starry Messenger]

212. Because it was truth to fucking power.

That's why. Sorry you missed it.

[omega minimo]

214. AND

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=221&topic_id=140150&mesg_id=141119

[Name removed]

215. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[omega minimo]

217. So there was some other reason many poster were anticipating the post would disappear?

I'm sorry, but the personal attacks and accusations are projections, not reality. They hurt you more than me.

[Starry Messenger]

219. I've got screencaps of all of this.

FYI. The mods should know that I alert on racist shit all the time. That post I and everyone else in this sub-thread are defending was not racist. I am on the record.

[kwassa]

221. No, it wasn't that, either. I also saved it.

mostly just a loud personal attack using banned words.

[Duncan Grant]

213. I saved it to a Word document.

I'm so glad it addressed that trivializing post about Pam Spaulding above.

edit: (It's the post that has her photo...)

[Prism]

218. I think . . .

. . . the poster was trying to say "I disagree with your paternalism." :)

[mtnester]

220. You were owned and then some

and it happend while you were showing your butt...the best kind of pwned

[omega minimo]

100. Malcolm X was black

"Malcolm X later changed his views, but this represents the earlier and more confrontational Malcolm."

[dsc]

112. I admit to having no real expertise on Malcom X

but I find it downright offensive for white people to be telling black people that they aren't entiled to their history because they are gay as well as black and that is exactly what that poster did.

[omega minimo]

114. IMHO the poster explained some history, asked good questions, wasn't "telling black people"

"white people to be telling black people that they aren't entiled to their history because they are gay as well as black and that is exactly what that poster did."

Can't agree that's what the poster did. I'd talk a second look and ask yourself those good questions. :thumbsup:

[dsc]

124. this is that posters first post

The house negro/field negro thing in the civil rights movement turned parts of the movement against each other. It introduced the idea of a litmus test for blackness; were you black enough? This ends up being a test of political orthodoxy, to see if a certain black person held sufficiently strong enough beliefs as exhibited by their behavior and statements to be considered 'black'. Malcolm X later changed his views, but this represents the earlier and more confrontational Malcolm.

Is this something that gays want for themselves, really?

and, once again, is it necessary to keep appropriating imagery from the black civil rights movement, or can the gay civil rights movement create strong imagery based on it's own story?
I will reflect on your point over time.

end of quote

boldness mine no other edits

I can't think of any other meaning to the bold words than that which I stated.

[struggle4progress]

179. Malcolm X

Timeline: Malcolm X
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/malcolmx/timeline/index.html

From his "Nation of Islam" period
Malcolm X Talks About His Early Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izy6BiCV3Nw

The Silencing, Muhammad Ali, and Out: December, 1963 – April 1964.
In March, 1964, Malcolm X announced publicly his break from the NOI. He soon created two new organizations, the Muslim Mosque, Inc., designed for former NOI members as a spiritually-based group, and the secular-oriented Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) ... http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccbh/mxp/ali.html

1964: Malcolm X letter from Mecca
... There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and non-white. America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered white - but the white attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all colors together, irrespective of their color. You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth. During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept on the same rug - while praying to the same God - with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the deeds of the white Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan and Ghana ... http://www.lancs.ac.uk/socs/islamic/documents/hajj2.htm

Malcolm X: Advice to the Youth of Mississippi (1964)
On December 31, 1964, a month and a half before he was assassinated, Malcolm X made these remarks to a group of thirty-seven teenagers from McComb, Mississippi. They came to New York City sponsored by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself. Then you can come to an intelligent decision for yourself. If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you’re going east, and you will be walking east when you think you’re going west. This generation, especially of our people, has a burden, more so than any other time in history. The most important thing that we can learn to do today is think for ourselves ... I myself would go for nonviolence if it was consistent, if everybody was going to be nonviolent all the time. I’d say, okay, let’s get with it, we’ll all be nonviolent. But I don’t go along with any kind of nonviolence unless everybody’s going to be nonviolent. If they make the Ku Klux Klan nonviolent, I’ll be nonviolent. If they make the White Citizens Council nonviolent, I’ll be nonviolent. But as long as you’ve got somebody else not being nonviolent, I don’t want anybody coming to me talking any nonviolent talk. I don’t think it is fair to tell our people to be nonviolent unless someone is out there making the Klan and the Citizens Council and these other groups also be nonviolent ... Excuse me for raising my voice, but this thing, you know, gets me upset. Imagine that–a country that’s supposed to be a democracy, supposed to be for freedom and all of that kind of stuff when they want to draft you and put you in the army and send you to Saigon to fight for them–and then you’ve got to turn around and all night long discuss how you’re going to just get a right to register and vote without being murdered. Why, that’s the most hypocritical government since the world began! ... I hope you don’t think I’m trying to incite you. Just look here: Look at yourselves. Some of you are teen-agers, students. How do you think I feel–and I belong to a generation ahead of you – how do you think I feel to have to tell you --- We, my generation, sat around like a knot on a wall while the whole world was fighting for its human rights–and you’ve got to be born into a society where you still have the same fight -- What did we do, who preceded you? I’ll tell you what we did: Nothing. And don’t you make the same mistake we made ... http://propagandapress.org/2007/04/23/malcolm-x-advice-to-the-youth-of-mississippi-1964/