Andrew Sullivan Knows Everything About Black People
By Jamelle Bouie - Nov 18th, 2008 at 10:57 amIt seems that Andrew Sullivan really can’t help but make broad generalizations about the black community. In a post about Prince’s homophobia, for example, Sullivan writes this:
Prop 8 has helped unearth the seething homophobia in much of black America. Even for a dandy, feminized midget like Prince. [emphasis mine]
The problem here isn’t Sullivan’s assertion that there is homophobia in much of the black community–of course there is, and it would be a little dishonest to assert otherwise–the problem is both Sullivan’s ridiculous assertion that a ballot initiative in California has somehow unearthed the “homophobia in much of black America,” and his description of said homophobia as “seething,” which implies that it is of a far greater intensity than homophobia in other communities.
On the first point, the logic is absurd; if the voting preferences of African-Americans in one state can be used as a proxy for the voting preferences of African-Americans in all states, then, by Sullivan’s reasoning, we can also safely say that Prop 8 revealed the seething homophobia in a huge swath of the population: the over-65 community (61 percent voted “yes”), Latinos (53 percent voted “yes”), and middle-class voters (54 percent voted “yes”). Indeed, by Sullivan’s reasoning, most communities in the United States are brimming with “seething” homophobia.
Sullivan’s second claim, that homophobia in the black community is of a greater intensity than homophobia elsewhere, is, to me at least, a plainly bullshit claim. I don’t have data to back it up (but then again, neither does Sullivan), but I do have the observation that African-Americans have never been responsible for introducing an anti-gay ballot initiative.
Indeed, looking at the demographic profile of the folks who actually donate time and money to supporting legally sanctioned homophobia (which should be a fair measure of intensity), we see that in almost all cases, it is upper-middle class, white Christians who are the driving force behind measures like Prop 8. In fact, you are probably more likely to find seething homophobia among Mormons or Southern Baptists, than you would among any other demographic.
This throwaway line in an otherwise forgettable post is just another indication that Sullivan would rather make broad generalizations than actually try to understand the underlying dynamics (the effects of class, religiosity, history, and racism) of homophobia in the black community.
what a reckless thing to do…sullivan is losing credibility
November 18th, 2008 at 11:48 amMore like A-hole Sullivan and it realllllly gets me how these snide hypcorite little snots in the gay white community can whine about ‘black homophobia’ but yet NEVER take their o-w-n to task for the rampant racism in the gay white community. Sullivan and Savage need to address that FIRST before they start pointing fingers!!
November 18th, 2008 at 1:28 pmI try to understand gay people like Sullivan’s anger (he has every right to be mad), but posts like that are maddening! I’m black and I try to be a straight ally to LGBT folks, but it gets really hard when I read crap like that.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:01 pmi love the book your blues ain’t like mine simply for the title. what i really want the gay rights movement to focus on (and any civil/social rights movement for that matter), is okay, where do our blues intersect? the arrogance inherent in any community writing their perception of their blues upon me as an african-american woman or mine upon them as an african-american woman will get neither of us where we want to go.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:57 pmi can’t wait to see what community of power and possibility gets built out of this terrible debacle.
Of course, it should be noted that Andrew Sullivan is pretty much a hardline conservative outside of his activism in the gay community, so it is not too surprising that he would attempt to mine the admittingly distressing support within the California Black and Brown communities for Proposition 8 into a lynch mob-like crusade against ALL Black folk.
I guess that the man has never been in the Black or Brown communities enough to understand that there is diversity within those communities, and that there are actual Black people in the GLBT diaspora, as well as Black straight and poly folk who are not vassels of T. D. Jakes or Donnie McCracken and who do take homophobia quite seriously enough to oppose it.
Not to mention, those of us on the Left who oppose discrimination of ALL kinds on general principle of working-class justice and equality…but, I guess that we’re much too radical and beyond the pale for Sullivan. Oh, well…his loss.
Anthony Kennerson
November 20th, 2008 at 2:22 amLafayette, LA
I wasn’t all that positively impressed by “dandy, feminized midget”, either, while we’re on the subject. O.o
November 24th, 2008 at 9:39 pm