Monday, March 26, 2007

Rachel Griffiths, race, sexual orientation, and cherry-picking

In the middle of editing my book, I had a bad allergy attack this weekend. Subsequently, while still able to edit my book, I spent a good portion of time in bed.

And I didn't make it to work this morning because of it.

But there is nothing like a dose good old fashioned righteous indignation to get me going. And for that, I turn to my friends at Americans for Truth.

In his recent whining, our friend Peter is complaining that actress Rachel Griffiths dared to compare racial injustice to homophobia:

Griffiths: This lady told me she loved Brothers & Sisters, then said, “But I hope you pass this on to the producers, that we could really do without all that gay kissing.” I told her a story my grandmother told me: She went to Paris in 1932 and saw a black man holding the hand of a white woman, and she felt so horrified she almost threw up. My grandmother told me she knew that reaction was wrong, but it was the way she had been brought up. So I told this lady, “Maybe when you’re 98 you’ll tell your granddaughter how you saw two men kissing one day, and how you felt, but you know that’s wrong, and that was just how your were brought up.” She was shocked. I said, “So I’m not going to tell the show’s creators that. That’s for you to work out.”

– Interview in The Advocate, March 27, 2007, p. 20., by John Griffiths, who is identified as the TV critic for Us Weekly.

Homosexual activists regularly try to steal the goodwill of the civil rights movement, but in truth, opposing homosexual behavior is common sense and has nothing to do with racism. In fact, black homosexuals complain frequently about white racism within the homosexual subculture.

You know what pissses me off. That last sentence. For the record, as a black gay men, I do get angry at how ignorant some of our own people act towards me because of my color. I have been attacked and called names by ignorant gay racists.

Just like I have been attacked by ignorant black homophobes.

But nothing changes. I am still gay and I am still black. I am proud of both designations because God gave them to me. And I take great offense that Peter uses one to hurt the other.

With that in mind, I would like to ask Peter something. Or rather, I am calling him out. I doubt it will do any good because I don't know whether or not Peter reads this blog.

But just in case:

Peter dearest,

just how many black people are employed in your silly organization? For that matter, in your tenure with Concerned Women for America, I noticed that there were no black spokespeople. Were there any other black employees?

And while we are at it, why is it that a majority of so-called "'pro-family" groups have no representation of black people on their web pages. One sees many smiling, happy white families but very few black smiling, happy families.

One would like to think that black people hasn't fallen for your nonsense. However, the examples of Wellington Boone, Jesse Lee Peterson, and Tony Dungy proves this is not the case. Ignroance is truly color-blind,

With that in mind, what have you, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Phyllis Schafly, and the rest of the religious right done for black people? Criticizing Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and a lot others just don't cut it.

Do you know the issues that affect black Americans? Or are you like Lou Sheldon and seem to think that poverty, crime, and being on the low end of the American socioeconomic structure is because of a "gay agenda."

When it comes to the black community, you all are guilty of the same crime you have accused gays of committing.

And people, even if they are want-to-be Christians, who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.