Culture

A Letter to LZ Granderson

by michaelvine | July 19, 2009 at 10:08 am

523 views | 26 Recommendations | 7 comments

Mr. Granderson,

I hope this missive finds you enjoying the summer season. I hope you will forgive my colloquial approach. But, I wanted to address some concerns you recently shared regarding the Civil Rights Movement in your "Commentary: Gay is not the new black". http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/16/granderson.obama.gays/index.html (What? No capital "B"?)

Many turn away from the truth. Yet, there is the truth: oppression is oppression, plain and dehumanizing.

Let’s not sling complaint with myth and bull. Black Americans should jump on the bandwagon for social equality where'er it should pass—for whom’er it should run. Black Americans have not accomplished what strides in social equality we have made by Black hand alone. (Hell, including voluntary immigrants of various cultural backgrounds, Black folks make up only approaching 13% of today's American population.) White Americans lent their power to our suppressed voices. White folks fostered us. White folks encouraged us. White folks marched with us, died with us, and celebrated with us when what freedoms we now enjoy were won.

That did not, nor will it ever eradicate the plight of racial and cultural prejudice and related injustices in America. Clearly s--t is more complicated than that. Clearly, all the White folks were (and are) not supportive of racial and cultural equality. But, let's not act like we, alone, still fight the good fight. And, let's not play on our continued oppression to spite the oppressed.

GLBT persons, too, sing America, gotdamn! It is our—Black people’s—responsibility to lend our power to the struggles of any who suffer inequality. If that means we have to fight on numerous fronts, that means we just fight the f--k on. (Black Power?)

Divided, we, the oppressed, remain conquered.

Sincerely,

Michael P. Vine

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m dub (not verified)

at 10:24 on July 19th, 2009

hmmm, we must have had really different readings of his article. i read it as him trying to say that the glbt community is up in arms about our current president not moving fast enough to accommodate them all the while leaving black folks on the margins of their own organizations, clubs, history... i don't think he was advocating for the separation of blacks, black gays and gays. instead he was using things like prop 8 in california to show how the glbt groups continue to villainize blacks - blaming them for prop 8 failures, etc... he illustrates his point with the gay club in d.c. to show how there is still so little mixing between whites and gays of color, and how brazen of them to demand the president fix things now, when they haven't fixed things internally within their organizations...

michaelvine

at 11:32 on July 19th, 2009

Oh no. We read the same article. We discerned that same meaning. I wholly appreciate Granderson's airing the "dirty laundry" of the GLBT community at large. (Hell, I do that regularly.) But, he also makes additional statements.

Granderson quite clearly renounces the relationship of the American GLBT struggle for equality to that of the Black American struggle for equality. In doing so, he commits himself to the same failure he claims the GLBT community makes.

So everybody's knee jerk reactions get validated? I think not!

m dub (not verified)

at 11:41 on July 19th, 2009

i need you to point out where he is renouncing the relationship between the queer communities struggle for equality and the black communities... i'm not reading it at all in the article.

Rhonda J Mangus

at 11:05 on July 19th, 2009

Excellent michael! Would you happen to have a link to Granderson's commentary? Thanks!

michaelvine

at 11:07 on July 19th, 2009

Granderson's article: http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/07/16/granderson.obama.gays/index.html

Rhonda J Mangus

at 11:35 on July 19th, 2009

Thank you, michael. I look forward to reading it. May I suggest that you insert the link into your first paragraph where it reads, "Commentary: Gay is not the new black". Thanks!