Karen Bass is the first Black woman to ever head a state legislative chamber in the United States and celebrated her first one-year anniversary of her Speakership of the California Assembly in mid-May. Recently, Speaker Bass gave an interview to Wendy Wilson of Essence.com where she answered several questions about her thoughts about LGBT civil rights and race: ESSENCE.com: Do you see the same-sex issue similarly to the civil rights issues African-Americans have faced in the past?
BASS: No, in fact I think that it would be helpful if the LGBT community didn't compare our struggle to theirs because it's harder to win African-American support when you do that. I do believe it's a struggle for equality but I don't believe that every struggle for equality is identical to the African-American struggle. (emphasis added)
ESSENCE.com: There are rumors that conservative blacks in California are responsible for passing the measure in the first place. As someone who is black and works in the state government, what would you say to those who believe we're the reason why this measure exists?
BASS: I resent that tremendously. I believe there was an element of racism there. I was shocked at how quickly White, gay activists blamed us. Within 24-hours after the measure passed, it was decided that black voters are the reason for Prop 8.
Some White, gay activists said, we voted for your guy, how can you disrespect us and vote the other way? Last I checked Barack Obama was voted in as the President of the United States, not the president of just black people.
ESSENCE.com: What did this mean for people who are both black and gay?
BASS: Among black LGBT activist who went out to protest the "Yes" vote some of them had to leave because they were having racial epithets yelled at them. I was angry by the fact that some gay activists have such an immediate, visceral reaction without even questioning whether or not it was true.
Some gay activists called me up and asked me to intervene with the African-American community and explain why black people voted the way they did. I tried to tell them that they needed to go to the black LGBT community. One of the mistakes they made is not getting these black activists involved from the very beginning.
ESSENCE.com: So it's wrong to think that we caused this to happen?
BASS: When the vote was analyzed later, it was discovered that African-Americans were not the reason why Prop 8 passed. The analysis also showed a big divide in the way we voted based on generation. You had younger African-American voters who were against Prop 8 while the older African-American voters voted it in. Of course, we know the church plays a huge role within our community as well.
ESSENCE.com: What do you think will happen next regarding this issue in California?
BASS: You have to understand, California is in the middle of a financial meltdown right now. This is not the number one issue on people's minds but those who are actively in support of marriage equality will go back to the ballot and go through the legislative process again. But ultimately this is a national issue and states are going in different directions
Another point Bass made that I agree with is calling out people who EQUATE the struggle for LGBT equality with the struggle for civil rights based on race and gender. As I have said multiple times (and been quoted in numerous papers) the struggles are related but they are not equivalent.
I like Dan Savage's characterization as the LGBT rights movement as "a civil rights movement" but the struggle for African-American equality was "The Civil Rights Movement."
The direct quote, from Savage's appearance on D.L. Hughley's CNN talk show on Saturday November 15, is:
I think African-Americans will always have claim to the civil rights movement, capital "T," capital "C," capital "R," capital "M." Ours is not the civil rights movement. But ours is a civil rights movement, lower case C-R-M. It is a struggle. You get fired because you're gay, you get fired because you're black, you're still out of a job. If your house gets burned down because you're gay, burned down because you're black, you're still out of a house and maybe dead. Hate is hate. I'm not equating the experience with the history at all. But we are making a civil rights demand.
Well said!
1 comment:
The argument Bass presents here, which has to be sure been heard again and again, just makes me crazy! No civil rights struggle is IDENTICAL to any other. Even within the same political campaign, there are different fronts. When I was growing up in New Jersey in the 60s, our struggle for civil rights wasn't IDENTICAL to what my relatives were going through in South Carolina. Was it only The Civil Rights Movement in the South? Because while we had in common our African ancestry (but notably not skin color as many analysts would imply) and history of slavery and a cross was burned on the lawn of the first Black family that moved into our suburban town six weeks before we arrived in the neighborhood we had to sue to purchase a home in, we didn't have actual Jim Crow laws. The civil rights struggle in the urban North wasn't IDENTICAL to that of disenfranchised sharecroppers in the rural South. How many points on the scale of oppression does one need to qualify as The Civil Rights Movement?
And what about Latinos? Do they have a civil rights movement, or are they more closely related to The Civil Rights Movement, or should the rest of us be judging what rights they should or shouldn't have? After all, the white power structure "immigrated" Africans against our will and made it impossible for us to leave instead of the other way around. How much of a difference does that make? Many African Americans would say quite a lot. Are they defenders of the principles of The Civil Rights Movement, or are they quislings?
Likewise the LGBT movement in the U.S. isn't the same as it is in other places. The fight for marriage equality can't be compared with the fight to stay alive in Jamaica. Do the tribulations of the international movement make theirs more The LGBT Movement than ours?
The point is that quibbling about this is counterproductive to everyone involved. It's counterproductive to the development of African American political strategy to allow a knee-jerk reaction to the use of the term "civil rights" for something that is objectively a civil rights issue be our guide for tactical decisions. It's counterproductive to the development of LGBT political strategy to allow either the racism in-bedded in our community or the internalized homophobia exasperated by the perceived rejection of another beleaguered group to rule the day.
Of course not all prominent African American civil rights leaders agree that it is detrimental to coalition-building for the LGBT movement to “usurp” the term “civil rights.” All during the No on 8 campaign, I was assured by white activists that Black people found it offensive to hear “civil rights” or “discrimination” mentioned to describe the plight of LGBTs. When I pointed out that I am, in fact, African American, and that I found those terms perfectly acceptable, the white folks – with their focus group data in hand – kindly corrected me. It didn’t matter how many quotations I could offer by respected veterans of what I’m sure must be The Civil Rights Movement who share my point of view. I just came away with that old familiar feeling that I was being seen by my white progressive allies as “not Black enough,” that once again the more hostile African American position on the table was being taken as the more authentic one.
The imminent launch of the HRC/Jordan-Rustin effort to reach out to the African American community is to be applauded. May I suggest that another worthwhile approach to this issue may be to set up one or more roundtable discussions featuring non-LGBT African American Civil Rights Leaders from both sides to hash this out? It may not lead to a “final solution,” but it may at least finally establish that the landscape is more complicated than a focus group can ferret out, and that African Americans are quite capable of engaging in this dialogue without the assistance or the premature interpretations of white activists.
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