It has been a strange couple of weeks. Just last week, I saw something that I never thought I'd see in my lifetime, and felt like I was witnessing it for all my ancestors who didn't live to see a hope fulfilled. But - with a "twoness of being" that DuBois probably didn't imagine when he coined the term - it was a deeply conflicted moment.
As a black man, in that moment I felt like more of an American than I ever had before, like a barrier to full citizenship and belonging had been raised. As a gay man with a husband and a family, however, I ended up feeling like less of an American than I ever had before; divorced from the celebrating and even the historic significance of the moment by a barrier to full citizenship and belonging that fell more firmly into place even as the previous one was raised.
Since then, my response to the events of the past week have been informed by that "twoness of being," and a conflict that demands I prioritize one part of my identity over another. It's nothing new to black gay Americans, and we often come down on different sides of that struggle. Lines are drawn, and suddenly I have to be careful of what I say. While I can't say which side anyone else should come down on, some of the rhetoric of the past week - particularly around race and marriage - is
troubling.
I'm struck, in particular by Jasmyne Cannick's assertion that marriage isn't an important issue to black gays and lesbians.Why? Because I don't see why the right to marry should be a priority for me or other black people. Gay marriage? Please. At a time when blacks are still more likely than whites to be pulled over for no reason, more likely to be unemployed than whites, more likely to live at or below the poverty line, I was too busy trying to get black people registered to vote, period; I wasn't about to focus my attention on what couldn't help but feel like a secondary issue.I will be the first to admit that marriage is not a panacea, and no substitute for the innumerable socioeconomic reforms our communities need, but as a black gay man Jasmyne Cannick does not speak for me or my family. Marriage equality would help my family, and it would definitely help any number of black gay and lesbian families, with or without children. As a black gay man raising two black sons, I'm not sure why Cannick thinks my children don't particularly need the benefits of having two parents who are married to each other.
The first problem with Proposition 8 was the issue of marriage itself. The white gay community never successfully communicated to blacks why it should matter to us above everything else -- not just to me as a lesbian but to blacks generally. The way I see it, the white gay community is banging its head against the glass ceiling of a room called equality, believing that a breakthrough on marriage will bestow on it parity with heterosexuals. But the right to marry does nothing to address the problems faced by both black gays and black straights. Does someone who is homeless or suffering from HIV but has no healthcare, or newly out of prison and unemployed, really benefit from the right to marry someone of the same sex?
In fact, some of the very issues Cannick brought up in her post would be impacted by marriage equality in ways that would benefit black gay and lesbian couples and families struggling with those issues. To many of them, marriage equality is not a "luxury" but a necessity in term of the benefits it would provide; starting with the economic benefits.
The economy is in a downturn, and we all know that when the rest of America catches an economic cold, our communities get pneumonia. Unfortunately, not having access to the benefits and protections of marriage leaves too many of our families out in the cold.
The National Black Justice Coalition is great source of data on this (data I imagine Cannick, Ias a former board member of the organization, would be aware of).Their joint report with the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force on Black same-sex households from the 2000 census data shows that Black same-sex couples report less annual median income than Black married opposite-sex couples, as well as a lower median income than White same-sex couples.
That means, like every other LGBT family without marriage equality, in difficult times they have to do just as much with fewer resources than their heterosexual married counterparts, because they're ineligible for benefits and protections that families afloat in crisis; like Social Security Survivor benefits, health care benefits, and workers compensation.
Figures are abstract, but they represent real families who pay a real price for inequality. Mikki Mozelle and Lisa Kebreau, a black lesbian couple - among those for whom Cannick thinks marriage equality isn't a priority - who were also one of theplaintiff couples in Maryland's marriage lawsuit, are one example of how much the lack of marriage equality can cost us. When they started their family, Kebreau and Mozelle spent upwards of $6,000 for legal documents that might offer their family at least two or three of the protections married couples take for granted, and there's no guarantee that those documents will be recognized when presented.
The piece goes on for quite awhile. It makes a coherent and cogent explanation why there are prominent Black gay activists who support marriage equality, probably better than I could. Run, DO NOT WALK, over to PHB and read it now.
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