HuffPo’s David Kaufman Needs To Learn How To Play In The Civil Rights Sandbox

Let me make a few things perfectly clear:

• No one, and I mean no one, owns the patent, trademark, or copyright on civil rights. Not blacks, not gays, not anyone.
• No one, and I mean no one, owns the patent, trademark, or copyright on civil marriage. Not the Catholics, not the Jews, not the Christians, not the Muslims, not anyone.
• It is unacceptable that an oppressed minority would turn tables on another oppressed minority. For blacks to not support the LGBTQ community (and vice-versa,) for the LGB community to not support trans people (and vice-versa,) is unacceptable as we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century.

Now, having laid that groundwork, let me respond to David Kaufman’s ill-considered Huffington Post piece, “Co-Opted: Marriage Equality’s Civil Rights Rip-Off.”

The very title exemplifies my three bullet points above.

You may consider the remainder an open letter to Mr. Kaufman.

* * *

Mr. Kaufman, your statement, and the basis of your piece, that “LGBT Inc. demands the right to appropriate the Civil Rights struggle wherever and whenever possible” is incorrect and offensive.

Civil rights are not owned by African-Americans. In fact, just last week, as she cast her vote for marriage equality, New Jersey Senator Nia Gill (who, herself, is African-American) had this to say on same-sex marriage:

“It is a civil rights issue – not because African-Americans own the copyright to civil rights, it is a civil rights issue in the analysis of the equal protection of the fourteenth amendment in the constitution. And maybe some in my community want to hold on to it, because it’s ours. Because our blood has been shed for the right to vote, and we jealously guard that as a re-affirmation of being American. And so we hold it, because no one can do civil rights and have civil rights better than we do. That’s emotional, but it is certainly not an analysis of the constitutional imperatives that face us. It’s a civil rights issue.”

(Senator Gill’s speech, which I recorded, was historic and beautiful, and wise. You can read it, and listen to it in its entirety, here.)

You go on to accuse “LGBTQ Inc.” (which, let me state, you neglect to define as our leadership organizations or the community as a whole — which is so fractured that getting even a plurality of us to agree on much of anything would be a strong achievement,) of “constantly blaming Black folks for every same-sex marriage set back.”

Um, in a word, “no.”

Not New York, not New Jersey, and no, not even Maine.

I don’t believe the majority of, as you so disparagingly put it, “LGBT Inc.” – be it HRC, or David Mixner (whom you quote) or the larger LGBTQ community – is blaming “Black folks for every same-sex marriage set back.” That’s just plain false.

You write,

“…somehow a mere 13.5 percent of the population is responsible for 100 percent of the problems.

“The math alone should render this philosophy farcical.”

Elections (and that anyone is actually voting on our rights is an abomination, but a conversation for another day,) aren’t won or lost on 13.5 percentage points; they’re generally won or lost on two or three or five, maybe eight percentage points. Prop 8 passed by a 4.48 percentage point margin. So yes, while no one is “blaming” African-Americans for Prop 8, 13.5 percent of the population can have an adverse – or positive – affect on a vote. But it could be any 13.5 percent of the population. Or eight percent of the population. Or, yes, 4.48 percent of the population.

That 4.48 percentage margin didn’t just come from the African-American community. And after the media dropped that slant, so did the American public.

If you have an issue with the numbers, talk to the people who designate the all-to-simplistic categories to which we are assigned.

By the way, who can we “blame” for Prop 8 passing? Aside from ourselves, here’s what I wrote the day after the election,

“Looking at exit poll data, a composite of the person who voted “yes” to ban same-sex marriage in California is someone who is married (60%), and has children (68%), attends church weekly (84%), does not work full-time (57%), is an Independent or Republican (66%), and voted for Bush in 2004 (80%). This person also is likely to live in the suburbs (59%), and is very worried about another terrorist attack (65%).

“None of these results should be surprising. Nor should these, given what we know about voting groups overall. 75% of black women, 54% of latin men, and 51% of white men voted to ban same-sex marriage. Overall, 70% of blacks supported the ban.”

Numbers don’t lie, Mr. Kaufman. BUT – and this is extremely important: How we, as journalists, explain them, how we present them, how we shape them, IS important. Equally important is doing the work to make those numbers change, in our favor.

Yes, immediately after California’s Prop 8 vote, the media unfairly focused on the narrative that black voters who came out to vote for Obama, voted for Prop 8 as well. That said, and despite your attempt to ignore the facts, there is a larger percentage of the overall Black community that is against marriage equality than is the average American. That is a fact that is undeniable, as polls show.

And that it is a fact merely means the LGBTQ community hasn’t succeeded in reaching out the the black community – just as we did not succeed in California in reaching out to the faith-based community. Yes, we all have work to do.

I’m sure, sir, you are doing your part in that regard. And I am doing mine. It’s a pity you’ve chosen to lash out at such a wide swath of the very support, the very community we both have to improve our chances of winning our common battle.

I appreciate your attempt to liberate the overlapping groups that comprise what we so easily refer to as the African-American community. Yes, as we all work to achieve equality for everyone, we see how deep centuries of oppression and inequality go.

I’ll leave you with yet another response to your own misguided missive. You write, “The most tragic element of Marriage Equality’s Civil Rights rip-off is that it’s simply so unnecessary.”

Rip-off? No. Categorized differently, perhaps as “shared commonality,” then, unnecessary? Still no. Listen to the words of none other than NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, who, like Senator Gill, spoke at the New Jersey State Senate’s Judiciary Committee to support the same sex marriage bill. His words, as well as Senator Gill’s, were historic and beautiful, and wise.

A few quotes:

“I believe gay rights are civil rights.”

“As my late neighbor and friend Coretta Scott King said in 1998, ‘homophobia is like racism and anti-semitism, and other forms of bigotry…'”

(I recorded Mr. Bond’s words also. You can listen to them here. I hope everyone does. They are inspirational.)

Bottom line, Mr. Kaufman, the LGBTQ community and our supporters are not proffering that there was a “Civil Rights movement [that] battled to allow Blacks to marry Whites.” We’re saying (if I may be so bold as to convey what I see as the feelings of many in our community) that our struggles for civil rights share an inherent commonality with the African-American struggle for civil rights. Yes, our battles are different. Yes, the injustices our communities have endured are different. But, there is commonality. And it is that commonality we need to focus on, if both our communities are to grow and grow away from our injustices.

You begin by attacking Andrew Sullivan; I’ll end by offering this: If Mr. Sullivan, for whom I have great respect, claims, as you write, “the Civil Rights movement battled to allow Blacks to marry Whites,” (and did you, Mr. Kaufman, challenge him on that point?) then your issue is with Mr. Sullivan’s understanding of American history, not with the LGBTQ community. I hope in the future, you will pick your fights where they belong.

If, as you write, “everyone loses in the battle for ‘most-oppressed’ status,” I welcome you to work with all the oppressed, not against us.

I welcome your – and everyone’s – thoughts.

Update:

Pam Spaulding has her own take on Kaufman’s piece. Here’s a taste:

Who’s the Homo-Tom? (Personally, I think that’s a bit harsh.)