Romney’s empathy or the lack thereof
12 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in 2012 Election, Civil Rights, Culture, Gay Rights, Politics Tags: 2012 Election, Bullying, Civil Rights, Don Gorton, Gay Rights, Mitt Romney, President Obama, Seamus
I’ve been following closely the stories on the bullying incident at Cranbrook. I was, like many, horrified at the incident. But I was more horrified by the fact that no one at Cranbrook thought it necessary to discipline the young men involved. And I was most horrified by Mitt Romney’s nervous giggle when asked about the incident. I’ve been groping for an explanation of why he doesn’t remember what happened when the others involved remember it clearly. Then I read this very interesting article in the Boston Globe this morning. The story quoted a gentleman named Don Gorton.
While some observers have expressed doubt that anyone could forget such a dramatic episode, one activist who has studied bullying said he believes Romney may, in fact, have no recollection.
Teenagers who bully others often don’t remember the incidents because they weren’t traumatic for them, said Don Gorton, chairman of the Anti-Violence Project of Massachusetts, a nonprofit group that seeks to reduce violence against gays and lesbians.
“Empathy is the critical variable,’’ Gorton said. “If they don’t feel their victims’ pain, the episode won’t stand out. It wasn’t a big deal for them.’’
Empathy. That is what explains a great deal about Mitt Romney. He lacks empathy. People have been saying that he can’t relate to the common person and he has given many examples. He likes to fire people. A young person who can’t find a job should get his or her parents to give them a loan to start a business. He supports the Ryan budget which raises the defense budget at the expense of the middle class and poor. Plus he certainly was cruel to poor Seamus the dog.
In the Massachusetts Governor’s Office
More from Gorton
Gorton, however, said he was offended that Romney described the episode as typical high school hijinks, even though an 18-year-old Romney was reportedly using scissors to cut Lauber’s hair as Lauber screamed for help.
“I wish he had said nothing,’’ Gorton said. “The fact is, high school pranks are whoopee cushions and wedgies. This was assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.’’
Gorton and other gay-rights activists in Massachusetts said the episode made them recall how Romney disbanded the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth and the Governor’s Task Force on Hate Crimes – two panels that sought to combat bullying and were created under a previous Republican governor.
“It is relevant to judge him for his record in office and he was lackluster, to put it kindly, in his efforts to fight bullying when he was governor,’’ said Gorton, who was cochairman of the Task Force on Hate Crimes when it was disbanded in 2003.
“It is relevant to judge him for his record in office and he was lackluster, to put it kindly, in his efforts to fight bullying when he was governor,’’ said Gorton, who was cochairman of the Task Force on Hate Crimes when it was disbanded in 2003.
Romney has said the groups were disbanded to save money.
I understand that some people are disappointed that President Obama has not brought about miraculous change. But ask yourself this question: Would you rather have a President with the courage to come out in favor of an idea, gay marriage, that, while growing in acceptance, is still viewed in horror by many or a President Romney who lacks any kind of empathy? The answer for me is clear: a President without empathy is a dangerous one.
Another problem with evolution
11 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Civil Rights, Culture, Gay Marriage, Politics Tags: Dan Wasserman, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, Obama
Dan Wasserman is a genius.
Needs no further comment.
The President and Gay Marriage
10 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in 2012 Election, Civil Rights, Culture, Gay Marriage, Human Rights, Politics Tags: 2012 Election, Andrew Sullivan, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, President Obama, Richard Socarides
The commentators are in full flower. “This is a great move.” “It is risky.” “This could cost him the election.” What does it really mean? We won’t know until the election in November, but we can try to bring some clarity to some of the noise.
Photograph by Pete Souza
We know that many of those who oppose gay marriage for religious or other grounds will never be convinced, but I expect that some will come around to saying something like “I personally don’t support gay marriage, but as a matter of rights, people should be able to choose.” Kind of like what many Democrats have said about abortion. But the majority of the opposition will remain opposed.
Some will say this was a cynical move on the part of the President to solidify his gay and lesbian supporter. I don’t think so. Richard Socarides wrote in the New Yorker
For a long time, Democrats have taken the gay vote for granted. Political consultants tell Democrats that gay and lesbian voters have nowhere else to go, and thus, in effect, can be counted on, so long as politicians pay lip service to the issue. But that is old thinking, out of touch with the new reality of the gay-rights movement. While I know that most gays and lesbians would have supported President Obama, both with their votes and with their financial contributions, no matter what he did on the issue of marriage equality, we were also not going to take “no” for an answer on the most important civil-rights issue of our day. That meant holding the President’s feet to the fire—first on the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and then on marriage equality.
What we do know is that this was an act of courage and leadership. President Obama may be part of the tide rising toward marriage equality, but he is part of the leading edge. Andrew Sullivan
I do not know how orchestrated this was; and I do not know how calculated it is. What I know is that, absorbing the news, I was uncharacteristically at a loss for words for a while, didn’t know what to write, and, like many Dish readers, there are tears in my eyes.
…
The interview changes no laws; it has no tangible effect. But it reaffirms for me the integrity of this man we are immensely lucky to have in the White House. Obama’s journey on this has been like that of many other Americans, when faced with the actual reality of gay lives and gay relationships. Yes, there was politics in a lot of it. But not all of it. I was in the room long before the 2008 primaries when Obama spoke to the mother of a gay son about marriage equality. He said he was for equality, but not marriage. Five years later, he sees – as we all see – that you cannot have one without the other. But even then, you knew he saw that woman’s son as his equal as a citizen. It was a moment – way off the record at the time – that clinched my support for him.
Today Obama did more than make a logical step. He let go of fear. He is clearly prepared to let the political chips fall as they may. That’s why we elected him. That’s the change we believed in. The contrast with a candidate who wants to abolish all rights for gay couples by amending the federal constitution, and who has donated to organizations that seek to “cure” gays, who bowed to pressure from bigots who demanded the head of a spokesman on foreign policy solely because he was gay: how much starker can it get?
Both Sullivan and Socarides do believe that in the long run, this will not hurt Obama’s reelection chances. Sullivan first
My view politically is that this will help Obama. He will be looking to the future generations as his opponent panders to the past. The clearer the choice this year the likelier his victory. And after the darkness of last night, this feels like a widening dawn.
Then Socarides
This is not to take anything away from the courage exhibited by President Obama today. His willingness to share with the American people his thinking, indeed, his struggle around this issue will help build a national consensus. Everyone is entitled to a journey on this issue.
I suspect that at the end of this national conversation the result will be a good one, and the process, including Obama’s painstakingly slow evolution, will have been a positive experience for the country. Hopefully, it will lead us in a positive direction—which, after all, is the job of a President.
This is a conversation that is just beginning and we owe the President a conversation that is at once passionate and reasoned. Let me end with this from him
This is something that, you know, we’ve talked about over the years and she, you know, she feels the same way, she feels the same way that I do. And that is that, in the end the values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other people and, you know, I, you know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates me as president, and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts, the better I’ll be as a dad and a husband and, hopefully, the better I’ll be as president.
Elizabeth Warren and the race card
05 May 2012 5 Comments
in 2012 Election, Civil Rights, Culture, Politics Tags: Birthers, Elizabeth Warren, Kevin Noble Maillard, Massachusetts politics, Scott Brown
I’ve been thinking about this since the story broke that Senator Scott Brown and the Boston Herald had uncovered what they thought was Elizabeth Warren’s deception: She had checked off the Native American box when in law school and Harvard Law School had listed her as Native American in some directory a number of years back. First, I don’t think she and her campaign handled it well at first saying she didn’t remember ever telling Harvard about her racial heritage, but saying she did have an ancestor who was Native American. Second, why is Scott Brown doing this?
Warren has made a better answer since her initial reaction, but she would have been a lot better off if she had just said “I’m from Oklahoma and have some Cherokee and Delaware ancestors and I’m proud of it.” But checking that box is always fraught with pitfalls for anyone who is mixed race. This is the Tiger Woods dilemma. What box do you check and how do you decide? Back in 1990 when I was a census worker we were told that a person was whatever they said they were. I have a family story my aunt told me to explain why my hair is naturally curly in humidity even through I am clear Asian. She said that I had a Portuguese ancestor from long ago who had had a liaison with a great, great, etc. grandmother. True? Who knows. But I think it is clear that Warren does have the right to claim Native American heritage.
Steven Senne/Associated Press
And then I read this very thoughtful piece in the New York Times by Kevin Noble Maillard. Titled Elizabeth Warren’s Birther Moment, It begins
If you are 1/32 Cherokee and your grandfather has high cheekbones, does that make you Native American? It depends. Last Friday, Republicans in Massachusetts questioned the racial ancestry of Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Senate candidate. Her opponent, Senator Scott Brown, has accused her of using minority status as an American Indian to advance her career as a law professor at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Texas. The Brown campaign calls her ties to the Cherokee and Delaware nations a “hypocritical sham.”
In a press conference on Wednesday, Warren defended herself, saying, “Native American has been a part of my story, I guess since the day I was born, I don’t know any other way to describe it.” Despite her personal belief in her origins, her opponents have seized this moment in an unnecessary fire drill that guarantees media attention and forestalls real debate.
This tactic is straight from the Republican cookbook of fake controversy. First, you need a rarefied elected office typically occupied by a certain breed of privileged men. Both the Presidency and the Senate fit this bill. Second, add a bit of interracial intrigue. It could be Kenyan economists eloping with Midwestern anthropologists, or white frontiersmen pairing with indigenous women. Third, throw in some suspicion about their qualifications and ambitions. Last but not least, demand documentation of ancestry and be dissatisfied upon its receipt. Voila! You have a genuine birther movement.
In this case, Brown seems to be claiming that Warren’s success is all because she checked that box. Of course when Warren first came to public notice working for Congress monitoring the financial bailout and making sure consumers weren’t hurt no one questioned her smarts or her ability. Neither did all those Harvard students she has taught over the years. Neither did anyone she worked with when she was doing her famous early study of bankruptcy. The whole idea that she owes her success to her having checked that box is laughable. More from Maillard:
Even within Indian Country, the meaning of race and citizenship is contested. And now the Brown campaign wants to dictate Warren’s own belief in her identity. According to the Brown campaign, Warren could not be Indian because she is blonde, rich and most of all, a Harvard law professor. Her 1/32 Cherokee ancestry, sufficient for tribal citizenship, is not enough for the Republican party. To most people, she appears as white as, well, Betty White, but to the Scott Brown campaign, she is just Dancing With Wolves.
The Brown campaign asserts that Warren knowingly classified herself as Native American in the 1990s when Harvard weathered sharp criticism for its lack of faculty diversity. During this time, they argue, Warren relied upon this classification to enhance her employment opportunities and to improve Harvard’s numbers. Her faculty mentors at Harvard deny this and assert that the law school hired Warren without any knowledge of her ancestry.
…
For the Cherokee Nation, Warren is “Indian enough”; she has the same blood quantum as Cherokee Nation Chief Bill John Baker. For non-Natives, this may be surprising. They expect to see “high cheekbones,” as Warren described her grandfather as having, or tan skin. They want to know of pow wows, dusty reservations, sweat lodges, peyote and cheap cigarettes. When outsiders look at these ostensibly white people as members of Native America, they don’t see minorities. As a result, Warren feels she must satisfy these new birthers and justify her existence.
As a law professor and Native American himself, Maillard concludes that Harvard could not have used Warren’s status to promote her since
Looked at from the inside, however, the Warren controversy is all new. When the Brown campaign accused Elizabeth Warren of touting herself as American Indian to advance her career, this was news to Native law professors. We have a good eye for welcoming faculty to the community and identifying promising scholars. We know where people teach, what they have published and we honor them when they die. Harvard Law School named its first Native American tenured professor? Really? In our small indigenous faculty town, we would have heard about it already.
My own conclusion is that Warren checked that box somewhere way back. She has said she was hoping to meet others like her by doing so. She has every right to call herself Native American. Someone at Harvard picked up on the checked box and noted it in the directory, but Harvard never made a big deal about it and they could have. Hey, maybe someone messed up and forgot to announce the appointment of a Native American.
Scott Brown has nothing of substance on which to talk so why not create a birther controversy. He is the one playing the race card. It is tight race and if he can convince a few voters that Elizabeth Warren is untrustworthy and of mixed race ancestry, it might just make a difference.
Open Letter to LGBTQ-phobic Pastor Sean Harris
02 May 2012 1 Comment
in Civil Rights, Culture, Human Rights Tags: Civil Rights, Gay Rights
Homophobic North Carolina preacher Sean Norris recently gave a sermon in which he advocated physically assaulting gender variant toddlers. Listen to it here. This letter is my response to him.
Dear Pastor Harris,
Hi. I’m C.J.’s Mom and boy would you hate me! I have a little boy who likes “feminine” things and I’ve allowed him to do so. I’ve even shared it with people on the internet.
Mourning Facts
27 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in Culture, Philosophy, Politics Tags: Aristotle, Bacon, fact, Politics, Rex W. Huppke
Did you know that Facts has died? On April 19, the Chicago Tribune published an obituary for Facts brilliantly conceived and written by Rex W. Huppke.
Facts, 360 B.C.-A.D. 2012
In memoriam: After years of health problems, Facts has finally died.
Over the centuries, Facts became such a prevalent part of most people’s lives that Irish philosopher Edmund Burke once said: “Facts are to the mind what food is to the body.”
To the shock of most sentient beings, Facts died Wednesday, April 18, after a long battle for relevancy with the 24-hour news cycle, blogs and the Internet. Though few expected Facts to pull out of its years-long downward spiral, the official cause of death was from injuries suffered last week when Florida Republican Rep. Allen West steadfastly declared that as many as 81 of his fellow members of theU.S. House of Representatives are communists.
Facts held on for several days after that assault — brought on without a scrap of evidence or reason — before expiring peacefully at its home in a high school physics book. Facts was 2,372.
It’s very depressing,” said Mary Poovey, a professor of English at New York University and author of “A History of the Modern Fact.” “I think the thing Americans ought to miss most about facts is the lack of agreement that there are facts. This means we will never reach consensus about anything. Tax policies, presidential candidates. We’ll never agree on anything.”
Facts was born in ancient Greece, the brainchild of famed philosopher Aristotle. Poovey said that in its youth, Facts was viewed as “universal principles that everybody agrees on” or “shared assumptions.”
But in the late 16th century, English philosopher and scientist Sir Francis Bacon took Facts under his wing and began to develop a new way of thinking.
“There was a shift of the word ‘fact’ to refer to empirical observations,” Poovey said.
Facts became concrete observations based on evidence. It was growing up.
Through the 19th and 20th centuries, Facts reached adulthood as the world underwent a shift toward proving things true through the principles of physics and mathematical modeling. There was respect for scientists as arbiters of the truth, and Facts itself reached the peak of its power.
But those halcyon days would not last.
Yes, anything can be stated and if done so with enough authority it is believed to be factual. There is, in my opinion, a failure to distinguish between fact and opinion. It is a fact that I am sitting at my computer on Aril 27 at 6:11 am typing these words. It is my opinion that the budget plan proposed by Paul Ryan is bad for the economy.
Facts was wounded repeatedly throughout the recent GOP primary campaign, near fatally when Michele Bachmann claimed a vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease causes mental retardation. In December, Facts was briefly hospitalized after MSNBC’s erroneous report that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign was using an expression once used by the Ku Klux Klan.
But friends and relatives of Facts said Rep. West’s claim that dozens of Democratic politicians are communists was simply too much for the aging concept to overcome.
As the world mourned Wednesday, some were unwilling to believe Facts was actually gone.
…
Facts is survived by two brothers, Rumor and Innuendo, and a sister, Emphatic Assertion.
Services are alleged to be private. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that mourners make a donation to their favorite super PAC.
Representative West can be proud: He is responsible for finally killing Facts. But we all helped.
Neighborhood design, the foreclosure crisis and the death of Trayvon Martin
08 Apr 2012 2 Comments
in Culture, Economy Tags: Foreclosure Crisis, George Zimmerman, The Retreat at Twin Lakes, Trayvon Martin, Urban Design, Zach Youngerman
Neighborhood design? Is she nuts? What does that have to do with Trayvon Martin? Isn’t his death related to race, guns and stand your ground laws? My reaction when I saw the headline in yesterday’s Boston Globe. But after reading Zach Youngerman’s op-ed, it all became clear.
PUBLIC OPINION about the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Fla., shifts every time new evidence emerges, as though each of them had a fixed character that could be revealed as easily as a video recording can be enhanced. But behavior is not simply a matter of character; it is also a matter of setting. Less than 1.2 percent of the population in Sanford walks to work, and the subdivision where the killing took place is designed for driving, so something as human as walking is odd behavior. Suspicious even.
“It’s raining, and he’s just walking around, looking about,’’ Zimmerman told the 911 dispatcher during his first exchange. Martin was in front of the clubhouse at the Retreat at Twin Lakes. He may have been looking for a sidewalk.
Depending on which way Martin entered the subdivision, he would have found at the clubhouse either a rare length of sidewalk merging into a parking lot or leading away into a sort of jogging path encircling an artificial lake. If Martin chose simply to cross the street from the corner where he was, he would have been forced to transgress in the most literal sense. The 30-foot street (enough for two driving lanes and one parking lane on Mass. Ave. [in Boston or Cambridge]) doesn’t have a painted crosswalk. Probably because the other side only has private lawns and driveways.
Most of the Retreat at Twin Lakes lacks a conventional sidewalk – a public pedestrian thoroughfare parallel to vehicle traffic but protected by a curb. Together with a landscaped tree belt, parking lanes, and occasionally bike lanes, sidewalks and roads make up what is called the public right of way. Without public rights of way, we would all be constantly having to trespass on private land or pay tolls to get anywhere. This was the situation Martin faced inside and outside the gated subdivision. On his mile walk to the nearest convenience store, the sidewalk ends twice and becomes a no-man’s-land of grassy highway shoulder. If Martin were trespassing, he had no choice but to do so.
So you have a place with wide streets, few sidewalks along the street and those not connected, and a rainy night with a teenager walking and not driving. You can see how George Zimmerman might have been thinking that Trayvon Martin was casing the neighborhood. Youngerman goes on
After a tragedy, we try to imagine alternatives. What if we change the laws? What if we raise awareness? To those important questions I would add: What if we design places differently, places for people?
Houses with front porches rather than driveways bring residents outside even in rainy weather and put “eyes on the street,’’ as the pre-eminent urbanist Jane Jacobs described it. When houses are closer to the property line and on narrower streets, residents feel like they are more responsible for what happens outside. Zimmerman was a self-titled neighborhood watch volunteer. Design can make residents neighborhood watch volunteers naturally.
In a place meant for people with a denser residential street, maybe the man and the boy might have felt less like they were all alone. In a place meant for people with sidewalks and street lights, maybe they would have been less alone. Maybe a couple of neighbors could have stopped the altercation before it got out of hand.
Of course, some people did hear the altercation after it started and there are accounts from the 911 tapes, Trayvon’s girlfriend, and some neighbors so this was not a totally isolated incident. But Youngerman does have a point: a kid walking in the that community, for at matter, anyone walking in that community was unusual enough that George Zimmerman followed the walker.
I wanted to see the location myself to confirm Youngerman’s description so I did a search for The Retreat at Twin Lakes and like a lot of Florida, there are a number of houses for sale including bank owned properties (REO’s) and some on the market as short sales.
This is one of the REO’s. The picture is a little fuzzy since I had to enlarge it, but it does show some of the surroundings.
This is a better picture of the surroundings. It appears there are sidewalks but not, as Youngerman pointed out, conventional ones parallel to the street.
The Tampa Bay Times had a story about the community on March 25 which pointed out that there were to be 263 houses built and at the time of the story 40 were vacant and half were rented not owned. This is what happens when the housing market bottoms out and you have a foreclosure crisis. Whether the property is under foreclosure or not, no one can sell. The community was not stable. This is the kind of place where break-ins happen and they had started there.
This picture from the Tampa Bay Times makes the place look like an apartment complex, different from the real estate sales pictures appearing to showing single family homes or Youngerman’s description. But the sidewalks in the picture are between buildings and not near the street.
So the density that Youngerman was looking for might have been there, but the layout was poor with sidewalks between building, but none parallel to the street and with people moving in and out and lots of vacancies, Retreat at Twin Lakes may have contributed to the confrontation between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin that lead to Martin’s death just by its design and circumstances. The bottom line: Zach Youngerman is right about the impact of design if not right about all of the details. This was a driving community, not a walking one and people did not know their neighbors.
Stand your ground: Looking beyond Trayvon Martin
29 Mar 2012 4 Comments
in Civil Rights, Culture, Women's Rights Tags: "stand your ground" laws, Castle doctrine, George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin
The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. I think that is the one thing most of us can agree on. But the facts about what happened that night are murky, in part clouded by what appears to be an unprofessional investigation, a Florida law that goes beyond the doctrine of protecting your home when it and your family are threatened, and poor judgement on the part of the chief of police in Stanford and the State’s Attorney. So how did it come to this?
Cora Curry writing in Alter-Net says
Still, in not arresting Zimmerman, local officials have pointed to Florida’s wide definition of self-defense. In 2005, Florida became the first state to explicitly expand a person’s right to use deadly force for self-defense. Deadly force is justified if a person is gravely threatened, in the home or “any other place where he or she has a right to be.”
In Florida, once self-defense is invoked, the burden is on the prosecution to disprove the claim.
Most states have long allowed the use of reasonable force, sometimes including deadly force, to protect oneself inside one’s home — the so-called Castle Doctrine. Outside the home, people generally still have a “duty to retreat” from an attacker, if possible, to avoid confrontation. In other words, if you can get away and you shoot anyway, you can be prosecuted. In Florida, there is no duty to retreat. You can “stand your ground” outside your home, too.
Florida is not alone. Twenty-three other states now allow people to stand their ground. Most of these laws were passed after Florida’s. (A few states never had a duty to retreat to begin with.)
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Many of the laws were originally advocated as a way to address domestic abuse cases — how could a battered wife retreat if she was attacked in her own home? Such legislation also has been recently pushed by the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups.
So stand your ground was a way to address domestic violence. Interesting. unfortunately it has gone beyond that now. According to CBS Miami,
As some state lawmakers are calling for a re-thinking of Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which allows people to defend themselves from danger without the need to first try to get away, an analysis of state data shows deaths due to self defense are up over 200 percent since the law took effect.
The shooting death of Trayvon Martin by an armed, self-appointed Central Florida crime watch volunteer who claimed he shot in self defense has sparked a national debate about Florida’s law, technically known as the Castle doctrine.
…
According to state crime stats, Florida averaged 12 “justifiable homicide” deaths a year from 2000-2004. After “Stand your Ground” was passed in 2005, the number of “justifiable” deaths has almost tripled to an average of 35 a year, an increase of 283% from 2005-2010.
I wonder who those victims of “justifiable” homicide were and why no one is investigating those deaths. And what are the statistics from the other states? Have they had a similar increase? Massachusetts is considering a “Stand Your Ground” law. The legislature should look into these questions before they do anything. The Washington Post has some of the answers in their editorial published today.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, Florida experienced an average of 34 “justifiable homicides” before 2005; two years after the Stand Your Ground law was enacted, the number jumped to more than 100. Similarly disturbing spikes have been found in other states with similar laws. According to an analysis of FBI data done by the office of New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I), who co-chairs the 650-strong Mayors Against Illegal Guns, states that passed Stand Your Ground laws experienced a 53.5 percent increase in “justifiable homicides” in the three years following enactment; states without such laws saw a 4.2 percent increase.
The Association of Prosecuting Attorneys opposed Stand Your Ground laws, arguing that they were unnecessary and likely a danger to public safety. In a 2007 report, they foreshadowed the Trayvon Martin tragedy. “Although the spirit of the law may be to allow the public to feel safer, the expansions may instead create a sense of fear from others, particularly strangers,” the report said, concluding that enactment would have a “disproportionately negative effect on minorities, persons from lower socio-economic status, and young adults/juveniles” who are often unjustly stereotyped as suspects.
While this law might have had as one of its original purposes protecting women who are victims of domestic violence, there are other ways to do this. While we don’t know, and may never know, what happened between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman that night about a month ago, we can look at these laws and understand that they really protect no one. Florida Governor Scott and I don’t agree on much, but we do agree that the law should be reviewed. Perhaps some good can come from all of this.
Civil Rights and Gay Rights
06 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in Civil Rights, Culture, Gay Marriage, Human Rights Tags: Al Sharpton, Civil Rights, Gay Marriage, Gay Rights, J. Anthony Lukas, Jonathan Capehart, Martin Luther King, Union United Methodist Church
In case you didn’t see it, Jonathan Capehart had an excellent and thoughtful essay in yesterday’s Washington Post. Titled “Blacks and gays: the shared struggle for civil rights”, it laid out the reasons why blacks (and I might add Asians, Hispanics and other minorities) need to support gay rights. I am going to try to give you the highlights, but you really should read the entire essay.
It opens
You may recall that last month Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) and I sparred over same-sex marriageon “Morning Joe.” You may also recall that at the end of the interview, the show’s anchor, Joe Scarborough, asked me, “[W]ould you compare the civil rights struggles of African Americans over 300 years in America to marriage equity?” Without hesitation, I said, “Yes.”
“It’s an issue of civil rights, as you said. It’s an issue of equality. It’s an issue of equal treatment under the law,” I said. “No one is asking for special rights. No one is asking for any kind of special favors. We’re just looking for the same rights and responsibilities that come with marriage and also the protections that are provided under marriage. In that regard overall we’re talking about a civil rights issue and what African Americans continue to struggle with is exactly what lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are struggling with today.”
That didn’t go over so well with more than a few African Americans. They don’t see the struggles as comparable, equivalent or even related. Last Wednesday, @Brokenb4God tweeted to me, “@CapehartJ still can’t believe u think the choice of being gay is congruent to the struggle of blacks. Ain’t never seen no gay plantations!”
Clearly, she’s from the misguided pray-the-gay-away cabal, so no need to address that. I’ll leave the cheap and provocative “gay plantations” stink bomb alone, too, and get to my main point. What links the two struggles is the quest for equality, dignity and equal protection under the law. In short, gay rights are civil rights. It’s that simple.
Capehart goes through several points of similarity under topic headings: “Bullying and Murder”, “Denied equal protection: the right to marry” and finally, “Black leaders.” He quotes Reverend Al Sharpton and John Lewis. Lewis quoted Dr. Martin Luther King during the debate in 1996 on the Defense of Marriage Act.
You cannot tell people they cannot fall in love. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used to say when people talked about interracial marriages, and I quote, ‘Races do not fall in love and get married. Individuals fall in love and get married.’ Why don’t you want your fellow men and women, your fellow Americans to be happy? Why do you attack them? Why do you want to destroy the love they hold in their hearts? Why do you want to crush their hopes, their dreams, their longings, their aspirations? We are talking about human beings, people like you, people who want to get married, buy a house, and spend their lives with the one they love. They have done no wrong.
Lewis supported Massachusetts activists during the debate over marriage equality.
In a 2003 opinion piece for the Boston Globe, Lewis wrote, “I have fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. I’ve heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred, and intolerance I have known in racism and in bigotry.”
Much of the resistance to the Maryland Marriage Equality law came from black churches who are traditionally unwilling to acknowledge a gay and lesbian presence in their own communities. One exception is my husband’s church, Union United Methodist in Boston. Their pioneering was highlighted in this recent article in the Boston Globe
Eziah Karter-Sabir Blake swiped the play debit card through a plastic reader during a game of Monopoly recently. Another multimillion-dollar sale. The buyer, Giftson Joseph, rubbed his hands together, a glimmer creeping in his eyes as he playfully nudged the Rev. Catharine A. Cummings.
The three – one gay, one transgender, one straight – sat around a table at a new youth drop-in center at Union United Methodist Church, a historically black congregation in the South End, the heart of Boston’s gay community.
Simply by being there, the trio was straddling a divisive line between the gay community and the black church, where many gay and lesbian minorities have long felt ignored or unwelcome in the pews.
“It’s a big risk they are taking in the black community,’’ said Joseph, an 18-year-old African-American college student who is gay. “There’s already enough stigma in the church. But this is a church that is accepting of all races and sexual orientations.’’
In 2000, Union began the process of educating themself about homosexuality and gay rights.
In 2000, church member Hilda Evans pushed Union United to again change course, and the church agreed to defy United Methodist leaders by declaring itself an open and affirming congregation to gays and straight people alike. It held its first gay service in June 2007 at the height of the state’s same-sex marriage debate.
Other black church leaders and churches in Boston have not followed Union’s lead. But as the Globe story pointed out
Union United has a long history of bucking tradition. In the 1800s, black worshipers walked out of their segregated Beacon Hill church home after whites grew uncomfortable and complained about their vibrant, African-style of worship. In 1818, members founded the May Street Church, which became a stop on the Underground Railroad, according to the church’s website,
What the Globe does not point out is Union’s civil rights activism during the 1960′s. You can read about that in the J. Anthony Lukas classic, Common Ground..
It takes a long time for people to see themselves in someone else’s stuggle but we can look at Jonathan Capehart for his articulate arguments about what is right and to places like Union United Methodist Church for leading the way.
We are not a post racial society yet
04 Mar 2012 3 Comments
in Civil Rights, Culture, Politics Tags: 2012 Election, Joe Arpaio, Judge Cebull, Politics, President Obama, Racism
Anyone who thought that the election of President Obama signaled we were entering a post racial world only had to look at the news stories this past week featuring Judge Richard Cebull and Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Judge Cebull, who has apologized to the President, thought he was circulating a joke privately to some friends. I guess one of them was grossed out (as everyone should be) and outed the Judge. Politico.com reported
The chief federal judge of Montana has apologized to President Barack Obama in a letter after admitting to sending an email containing a racist joke about the president that made a reference to a dog.
“I sincerely and profusely apologize to you and your family for the email I forwarded. I accept full responsibility; I have no one to blame but myself,” Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull wrote in a letter dated March 1. “I can assure you that such action on my part will never happen again.”
He added, “Honestly, I don’t know what else I can do. Please forgive me and, again, my most sincere apology.”
Cebull landed in hot water this week when it was revealed that he had forwarded a racially charged joke about Obama to six others from his court email account.
“A little boy said to his mother; ‘Mommy, how come I’m black and you’re white?’” the joke in the email said. “His mother replied, ‘Don’t even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you’re lucky you don’t bark!’”
I don’t think an apology is sufficient. What else can you do, Judge Cebull? You can resign immediately. The Ninth Circuit is taking steps to investigate, but even if they discipline him, how could a person who is not white feel confident they will get a fair trail if they come before him. This man is not very smart what with using his court email account and thinking anything is private.
And then the crazy Sheriff from Arizona made a little news. The conservative blog Fellowship of the Minds complained that it wasn’t covered enough, even by the conservative media. The story was picked up by the Telegraph in London this morning.
A tough-talking Arizona sheriff, already embroiled in a Justice Department bias investigation and other woes, waded deeper into controversy on Thursday with an attention-grabbing assertion that a probe by his office found President Barack Obama’s birth certificate was a forgery.
Most Republican critics of Obama have given up pursuing such widely discredited “birther” allegations. But the investigation by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, carried out by what he described as five-member volunteer “posse,” was prompted by a request last August from a group of conservative Tea Party activists in the Phoenix valley.
The White House has had to deny repeated claims that Obama was not born in the United States. In April, 2011, Obama released a longer version of his birth certificate to try to put to rest the speculation within some Republican circles that he was not born in the United States.
“A 6-month long investigation conducted by my cold case posse has led me to believe there is probably cause to believe that President Barack Obama’s long form birth certificate … is a computer-generated fraud,” Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio told a news conference.
I think the Sheriff is forgetting about the birth announcement that appeared in the Honolulu papers when the President was born. I would think that would be hard to forge. What the Sheriff and the other birthers allege would require a wide-ranging conspiracy with a lot of people keeping quiet. As with the Judge Cebull email, someone would have talked by now.
A federal judge circulating a racist joke and the birther theory that won’t die are two examples that show we are still living an a racist society.
