Friday December 5th, 2008
You don’t have to tell me who you are: I already know. You are my parents, my siblings, my children, my grandbabies.
I know where you live – right next door. I know where you work – one cubicle over. I know where you worship – you were in front of me getting Communion on First Sunday.
I know that you have fought, still fight and will continue to fight, have bled and will bleed, have died and will die right alongside me.
I know full well who you are. But you obviously have no idea who I am. Because if you did, you would have told me how much the right to marry meant to you.
You would have, as the old heads say, ‘pulled my coat.’ You would have schooled me. But you didn’t. You were silent.
We see each other every day, sometimes twice a day, and for some reason you never once told me how much it meant to you.
Why?
I thought we were fam? I thought that was supposed to mean that we could talk about what was on our hearts and minds? I know it’s uncomfortable; I know it’s hard, but we talk about other hard and uncomfortable stuff. Yeah, we get all huffy and poke our mouths out and don’t speak for awhile – sometimes a lonnngggg ass while - but we still fam.
That’s why I’m getting at you now. I have to be honest: I got issues with ya’ll right about now.
First off, the mainstream – my bad, I mean white – gay movement is looking at me all cross-eyed and calling me (and you) nigger, blaming me for the passage of Proposition 8.
Imagine that: blaming me and calling me outta my name as opposed to critically analyzing the media and the rush to pronouncement with polling data that went from 70% of Black folk voting for the measure to now saying “Uh, well, it was actually more like 57% of Black folks who are really only 6% of California’s total population.”
Secondly, they want to blame me as opposed to looking critically at themselves for not translating “No on Prop. 8” materials into Spanish AND Vietnamese AND Chinese AND Mandarin Chinese AND Korean AND Tagalog AND …
I mean c’mon … it ain’t like this is Iowa, its California, nah-mean?
And then one of my sistahs, a well known and respected Black lesbian community activist and journalist, wrote an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times admitting that she didn’t open her mouth about Prop. 8 in the ‘hood because she didn’t see it as a priority for her or any other Black person, and then turned right around and wrote a different Op-Ed castigating my peoples for our homophobia.
I mean, how you gon play me like dat?
How did we get into this mess?
We need to hollah … I mean talk … with one another.
It won’t be easy, it might not be nice, it may be down right ugly, but it needs to happen. I am committed to listening to you; are you committed to listening to me?
I know you think I have – or will desert you – that’s a legitimate fear. And I know you feel betrayed. Your hurt is a legitimate hurt. But I have some legitimate emotions too. Like disgust and anger.
That’s what I feel when I hear that “gay is the new black.” WTF?
That’s what I feel when the struggle of Afrikan people to be recognized as full human beings – not sub-human chattel or 3/5 of a person – is compared to not having the right to marry. Come again?
Disgust and anger is what I feel when I hear white gays tell me, “you’ve got your civil rights, we want ours.”
Excuse me, but I don’t fully have my human rights yet … not when Black men are STILL being dragged to death in Texas.
Disgust and anger is what I feel when I see white gays and lesbians pushing an agenda that, in my opinion, doesn’t speak to the lived experiences of you - my SGL/ lesbian and gay sistahs and brothas - like issues of safety. The violence of loved ones and the violence of the state is a reality for all of us. Will the right to marry prevent a new Sakia Gunn, New Jersey 4, Ronnie Paris or Aaron Price from happening? Will it prevent you from being a new Tyisha Miller, Deaundre Brunston or Sean Bell?
We need to have a talk, and by ‘a talk’ I don’t mean just one. Tell me the place and the time and I will be there. Since its gon be a potluck (you know how we get down) tell me what you want me to bring and I will bring it. I promise to be fully present for you and I hope you will do the same for me.
And after we talk, tell that mainstream gay movement that they need to come and talk to me too, because ignoring me until an election year and taking my vote for granted the way politicians have historically done might not win me over to their position.
And calling me a nigger damn sho won’t do it.
Thandisizwe Chimurenga is assistant editor of the Los Angeles Watts Times, founder of the Ida B. Wells Institute and co-founder of the Some of Us Are Brave radio show on KPFK 90.7 FM.
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