Celebrating Obama While Mourning Proposition 8

Celebrating Obama While Mourning Proposition 8…

I still find myself pinching myself to see if this is in fact real. I haven’t felt this way since I was an international observer for the elections in 94 (exactly 30 years after my mother, Gwendolyn Robinson/Zoharah Simmons, at the age of 19, went to Missisissppi in 1964 where for 18-months she was the project director of the Laurel Project) when Nelson Mandela became president. I turned 25 during that his/herstoric time in South Africa. While I will never ever forget what I experienced (consistently overwhelmed with emotions)/witnessed there…I must share that this feels just as if not all the more special and I know it is because I am an African-American woman.

I am also very reminded that as a Black feminist lesbian I must work very hard, in concert with so many others, to dismantle patriarchy and heterosexism in both my own non-monolithic community as well as in the world. I’m a bit alarmed about the (community) conversations about Black manhood… Black masculinity (in the absence of Black womanhood) as it relates to President-Elect (love it!) Obama.

I’m alarmed and outraged that while record numbers of African-American and Latino voters came out in Calfornia to vote for Obama, 70% (of the 6.7%) African-Americans who supported proposition 8 and more than half of Latino voters supported it as well. This is very, very unacceptable and I firmly believe that we must publicly (in our families, schools, churches, mosques, organizations, temples, etc.) make the argument why this is not acceptable..

I’m reminded of the sobering reality that South Africa has one of the highest rape rates in the world, post apartheid; Black South African lesbians have been both raped and murdered execution style; Algerian women are not safe post French Colonialm… these women fought side by side in both of these struggles and then once “liberation” was achieved they were pushed back, maligned and assaulted…

I am not wanting to rain on this parade at all. I just want to learn from the herstories and contemporary realities of my sisters throughout the world… This is why I was so moved by President-Elect (love it) Obama ended his powerful, humble acceptance speech on the life of Anne Nixon Cooper, a 106 year old African-American woman… He included the word gay in his acceptance speech… No, he doesn’t (publicly?) support gay marraige but he acknowledged our existence and that was/is a very important step…

I believe those of us, who are progressive African-American and Latino, must hold our communities accountable to their ongoing political and spiritual oppression of lgbt people. if it’s not us (Black and Latino folk), then the Black and Latino perpetrators of homophobia and heterosexism, will easily write it (LGBT) off as a white issue. Not to mention the his/herstoric and contemporary racism of White LGBT folks, which makes it all the more easy for many folks of Color to not address homophobia and heterosexism in our communities and in the world in the name of racism of White folks. Additionally there will be this debate about racism vs. homophobia, which is absurd– because I can’t nor I won’t chosse between racism, sexism or homophobia… I am explicitly clear that no one is free while others are oppressed. Anyway, I (hope) I am preaching to the choir. I’m just alarmed about the role that African-Americans and Latinos played with proposition 8…

I know there are many debates in progressive circles about Marriage (straight or gay). I get that and respect those debates. However, as long as straight people are allowed to get legally married, then I firmly believe that if I want to get married to a woman, I should have the civil and legal right to do it. And it is, in my humble opinion the one of the biggest contradictions for African-Americans to play an active role (in the name of God/Allah?) in oppressing and disenfranchising both countless members of their own community as well as beyond their community.

Personally, I do beleive there are many more pressing issues than gay marriage. However, at the same time, if we don’t see and make the public connections between these forms of oppression, which I firmly believe are rooted in patriarchy and control of pepole’s sexuality (not only in terms of identity but also in terms of practice), then we, especially all bio women, regardless of their sexuality, gay men, and transpeople are vulnerable.

A Luta Continua

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Technorati Tags: Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Barack Obama, Black Lesbians and Gays, Black Manhood, Feminism, Gay Marriage, Heterosexism, Homophobia, Nelson Mandela, patriarchy, Proposition 8, South Africa, Transgender People