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"Black people are equal now, and gay people aren't," Emil Wilbekin, a black gay man and editor of Giant magazine, told the Associated Press recently.
If only it were that simple. But it's not. Black people still aren't equal and neither are gays. It doesn't help the gay rights cause to exaggerate the success of the black struggle or to diminish the success of the LGBT movement.
But in the weeks since Proposition 8 passed in California, much of the conversation that has taken place has moved from the simplistic to the ridiculous, including the argument blaming the small minority of blacks in the state for killing gay marriage. Fortunately, two of the smartest responses have come from African American columnists Clarence Page and Charles Blow.
What Went Wrong In California?
Page responds to an article in the Dec. 16 issue of The Advocate, a gay magazine, that boldly declares: "Gay is the New Black." Not quite, says Page. Instead, "gay is the new gray," he argues.
As a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, Page supports same-sex marriage, but he's not too impressed about the comparisons that some gay rights advocates have made between the LGBT struggle and the fight for racial equality.
Gay rights leaders are "tragically correct," he says, to point out the hate crimes perpetrated against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. "But the history and nature" of the two struggles "is so different as to serve to alienate potential allies instead of winning them over," he writes.
New York Times columnist Charles Blow is equally helpful in his recent opinion piece about same-sex marriage. Noting the significantly higher number of black women than black men who voted in California, Blow argues against the strategy of using interracial marriage as a point of similarity to gay marriage in trying to win over black women.
"Marriage can be a sore subject for black women in general," he writes. Citing 2007 Census Bureau data, Blow says "black women are the least likely of all women to be married and the most likely to be divorced. Women who can't find a man to marry might not be thrilled about the idea of men marrying each other."
I disagree with Blow's analysis about black women in relation to men on the down low, but he is exactly right about comparing interracial marriage to same-sex marriage. That's a non-starter for many black women and not an effective argument to win them over.
Are Blacks More Homophobic?
Whenever we talk about race, it's important to remember that the black community is not monolithic and sometimes paradoxical. Although blacks tend to be socially conservative, we are also politically progressive.
Despite black opposition to same-sex marriage, when you look at other LGBT issues (that don't concern marriage, sex or relationships), blacks are as likely -- and in some cases more likely -- to support pro-gay policies than whites are. Polls on employment discrimination, gays in the military, gay housing discrimination, and even the gay adoption ban passed in Arkansas last month indicate that blacks have actually been more supportive of gay rights than whites on these issues.
And blacks have repeatedly elected and re-elected gay supportive politicians. It's not just the black mayors across the country, but also the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who form the most supportive demographic voting bloc for gay rights issues in the Congress, except for the gay caucus itself. And that's not to mention the nation's only two black governors, both of whom support same-sex marriage.
The issue is not whether blacks are homophobic or not. Of course we are. We all live in the same racist, sexist, classist, misogynist, homophobic, heterosexist, culturally imperialistic society. Everyone is affected by those prejudices at some level. The question, though, is whether blacks are more homophobic than others, and that depends, of course, on how you measure homophobia.
On the personal level for many black gays and lesbians, the black community certainly feels more homophobic for those who face the slings and arrows of insult from their friends, family, church members and co-workers. But on a political level, it's hard to prove that blacks are any more homophobic than whites.
Even back in the 1990s, when I wrote my first book, polls showed blacks were more supportive than whites of outlawing employment discrimination against gays, but blacks were still far less supportive of same-sex marriage than whites. How do you explain that?
A New Strategy For Same-Sex Marriage Supporters
Many critics of black homophobia fail to grasp the difference between the politically progressive and the socially conservative streaks in the African American community. To communicate effectively to blacks, you need to know how to frame these issues.
If you can figure out how to frame the gay question as a political issue for basic rights instead of a social issue about acceptance, then blacks are much more likely to support it. That's a hard sell for same-sex marriage because many blacks see marriage as a religious structure, not a civil institution. But it creates opportunities to learn effective messaging.
It's important to remember the messenger is just as important as the message. Straight black people are not likely to sympathize with white people preaching to them about the evils of gay discrimination. That's a message that can most effectively be delivered by other blacks, straight and gay. Until the white LGBT movement learns this obvious point and implements strategies to include many more LGBT people of color in positions of visibility and responsibility, they are doomed to repeat the same tragic mistakes of their past failures.
It's also not helpful for gays to equate one movement with another. The civil rights movement is not the same as the gay rights movement, racism is not the same as homophobia and blacks are not the same as gays.
Although there are similarities between the two movements, there are also major differences. But why do gay activists feel the need to prove the struggles are the same in the first place?
America doesn't ask women, Jews, people with disabilities or immigrants to prove that their discrimination is identical to black suffering, and yet no one denies that sexism, anti-Semitism, ablism and xenophobia exist in our society. So why should gays and lesbians need to prove that their suffering is identical to black suffering in order to be treated equally under the law? That doesn't make much sense, but we're not talking logic here; we're talking prejudice.
Gay activists are also deceiving themselves if they think they can change public opinion simply by proving that homosexuality is not a choice. Blackness is not a choice either, and that hasn't stopped prejudice against African Americans.
Sure, we can easily blame black homophobia on religion, but it's not that simple either. The black church is a paradox. It is the most homophobic institution in the black community and at the same time the most homo-tolerant. Just scan the gay members of the choir the next time the pastor wanders off into one of his fire and brimstone sermons about homosexuality and you'll understand. We have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy about homosexuality in the church.
We have the same policy in parts of the black community. That's why we often downplay the LGBT identities of many of our black heroes and sheroes. And yet who could imagine black culture without James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Alvin Ailey, Angela Davis, Billy Strayhorn, Barbara Jordan or the Rev. James Cleveland?
Yes you can argue until you're blue in the face that not all blacks are straight and not all gays are white. Yes you can prove that homosexuality is not a "white thing" invented by Europeans and you can show that it existed in pre-colonial Africa. Yes you can refute the simplistic argument that "gays did not have to sit at the back of the bus as blacks did" by simply pointing to black gays and lesbians who endured segregation with their straight counterparts. And yes you can remind people that Dr. Martin Luther King's closest political adviser, Bayard Rustin, was a black gay man, and he helped to organize the 1955-56 Montgomery bus boycott.
Some people will get it; some won't. But why should you have to prove all of this simply to win the "right" to be treated equally? Who cares if gay is the new black? In the end, it doesn't and shouldn't matter.
It doesn't matter which group was first oppressed, or which is most oppressed, or whether they are identically oppressed. What matters is that no group of people should be oppressed. As long as various groups continue to focus on the hierarchy of oppression, they will validate the hierarchy and minimize the oppression.
Keith Boykin is editor of The Daily Voice, a CNBC contributor and a BET political commentator.