Will Bernice King continue to 'run game' on lgbts of color?

Bernice King, the youngest daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr., has been chosen to lead the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization that her father help to found.

Personally I am reticent about the entire matter; that is to say I am undecided on whether this is a good thing .

Bernice King has been very vocal against marriage equality. She has led marches against it and her opinion of marriage equality is best typified by the following statement:

“I know in my sanctified soul that he (Dr. King) did not take a bullet for same-sex marriage.”

It not so much the statement that angered me but what it represented.

An unfortunate consequence of the cultural battle over marriage equality is how it allowed some black leaders to shirk their responsibilites to lgbts of color.

Evoking the implication that the fight for marriage equality was a bastardized attempt by "wealthy white gays" to piggyback on the so-called untouchable legacy of the 1950s/60s civil rights movement allowed black leaders to neglect the needs of their own.

Never mind addressing the HIV rate amongst African-American MSMs, never mind addressing issues of isolation, and lack of self esteem that plague lgbts of color. As long as the focus was on fighting marriage equality and labeling it as a plot of "the white man," black leaders like Bernice King were able to willfully and intentionally hide the mess of the outright dehumanization of lgbts of color by their own people behind the curtain.

Now that King has a bigger spotlight,  I can't help but to wonder will she continue those shenanigans?

Or will she step up and be a true leader?

Will she take the easy road and publicly demonize lgbts (and by extension lgbts of color) in front of eager crowds via religious condemnations?

Or will she note the irony that in some circles, the same religious condemnations will be thrown at her for being a woman who dares to take a leadership position in the black community?

Will she get the poignancy of President Obama signing hate crimes legislation named after both a heterosexual African-American victim of a hate crime and a gay victim of a hate crime?

Or will the poignancy conveniently slip her mind? Or worse yet, will she try to push away the poignancy via talking points surreptitiously provided by religious right groups?

Will King address the fact that lgbts of color have a place in the black community and deserve as much respect as their heterosexual counterparts?

Or will she try to placate us via silly patronizing comments about "not having a problem with anyone's sexual preference" -  comments that are not the words of a thoughtful conscientious leader but a Machiavellian leader trying to play both sides of the issue.

Will Bernice King break the chains of ignorance and hypocrisy that shackle not only the lgbt of color community but the black community at large?

Or will she add another link to that chain?

I'm waiting to see what Ms. King will do.

And I am not the only one.

Will Bernice King be a leader to ALL African-Americans?

Or will she continue to run game on me and mine?

Know your lgbt history - The Warriors

The Warriors (1979) is a cult classic and one of my favorite movies.

It is about a Coney Island gang going to a conclave in Brooklyn where the leader of the largest gang in New York, Cyrus of the Grammercy Riffs, is uniting them all together to take over the city.

However during the conclave, Cyrus is murdered in the middle of his speech and everyone thinks that the Warriors committed the crime.

This means that the gang members must battle their way back home through a multiude of gangs gunning for their heads.

And to make matters worse, the gangs are clued by a mysterious D.J. (played awesomely by the late Lynne Thigpen) who serves as sort of a biased Greek chorus and urging on the gangs.

These gangs include the Grammercy Riffs, the Baseball Furies, the Orphans, the Turnbull A.C.'s, and the Rogues (the gang who did in fact murder Cyrus).

And then there is my favorite gang, the Lizzies.

Now whether the name is a take off of the word "lesbian" or the infamous Lizzie Borden (the New England woman put on trial and found innocent of the axe murders of her father and stepmother in 1892 and who was rumored to be a lesbian herself) is not known.

Whatever the case may be, when the Warriors are separated into two camps by pursuing police (let't not forget about them either), one group ends up with the Lizzies who offer them comfort and a little touchy-feely.

Of course comfort and a little touchy-feely are the last things the Lizzies have in mind for the Warriors as the following clip (the good stuff begins at 3:02) shows:



I know some folks are going to give me hell about this but I liked the Lizzies.

Despite the fact that the clip embodies three of the ugliest stereotypes about lesbians (i.e. very lascivious amongst each other, very masculine to the point of aggression, and they use sex to manipulate men like one would use toilet paper), I see something different about them.

I've seen so many ugly stereotypes of lgbts and they all have one thing in common - showing our community as the weak or dangerous others.

You can't feel the same way about the Lizzies. Despite seeming like a group of stereotypes, they actually aren't.

They are people in a bad environment who've learned to united and take care of themselves; just like all of the other gangs.

The Lizzies aren't a stereotype here and they aren't the other. They are the norm.

And most of all, they are survivors.

And you have to respect survivors.

Past Know Your LGBT History postings:

Know Your LGBT History - New York Undercover

Know Your LGBT History - Low Down Dirty Shame

Know Your LGBT History - Fortune and Men's Eyes

Know your lgbt history - California Suite

Know your lgbt history - Taxi (Elaine's Strange Triangle)

Know your lgbt history - Come Back Charleston Blue

Know your lgbt history - James Bond goes gay

Know your lgbt history - Windows

Know your lgbt history - To Wong Foo and Priscilla

Know your lgbt history - Blazing Saddles

Know your lgbt history - Sanford and Son

Know your lgbt history - In Living Color

Know your lgbt history - Cleopatra Jones and her lesbian drug lords

Know your lgbt history - Norman, Is That You?

Know your lgbt history - The 'Exotic' Adrian Street

Know your lgbt history - The Choirboys

Know your lgbt history - Eddie Murphy

Know your lgbt history - The Killing of Sister George

Know your lgbt history - Hanna-Barbera cartoons pushes the 'gay agenda

'Know your lgbt history - Cruising

Know your lgbt history - Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones

Know your lgbt history - I Got Da Hook Up

Know your lgbt history - Fright Night

Know your lgbt history - Flowers of Evil

The Jeffersons and the transgender community

What you can do to help in Maine, Washington state, and Michigan and other Friday midday news briefs

3-2-1 Countdown for Equality: No Bittersweet Victories - What you can do to win in Maine, Washington state, and Michigan

Obama Expected To Announce End Of HIV Travel Ban - This is good news!

LAPD to cut ties with group linked to Boy Scouts - I'm sorry but the Boy Scouts are NOT the victims here.

What's wrong with being gay? -Throughout the Kevin Jennings controversy, a critical question was omitted.

Transgender speaker approved - Another bit of good news.

Christian Anti-Defamation Commission defends exorcists and hate groups from the 'scary gays'

Now that President Obama has signed lgbt-inclusive hate crimes legislation, every wannabe religious right activist with access to a computer and someone dumb enough to fund them is coming out of the woodwork looking to profit on the supposed coming persecution of Christians by the lgbt community.

Last night, Pam Spaulding clued me in on the following from Gary Cass and the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission:

"In other nations, like Canada, where hate crime laws have been enacted, it is Christians, specifically conservative Christians who hold to the historic Christian faith and it's values, that become the object of institutionalized, governmental hate."


"Christians who dare to tell the truth about the social, moral, spiritual and health consequences of illicit homosexual acts are accused of hate speech and intimidated into silence with threats of fines or jail."


"The fact the hate bill had to be passed in such an unscrupulous and cynical manner (attaching it to the Defense Authorization Act) reveals the depth of President Obama's commitment to a radical, anti-Christian agenda. He will stop at nothing to undermine the will of the majority of Americans to pay back militant homosexual activists who raised millions of dollars for his campaign and worked to get him elected."

So the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission is claiming that Christians will be under siege thanks to President Obama signing hate crimes legislation.

Now this factoid has been refuted continuously, so there is no need to go over it again.

I would prefer to show you just exactly who does the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission feels would need defending from so-called persecution.

Remember the controversy earlier this year about the church in Connecticut, Manifested Glory Ministries, which attempted to exorcise a young teen from the "spirit of homosexuality?"



Guess who went on record defending this vile act?

The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission:

CADC wants to know where is the tolerance for a church who tried to help a young man who freely asked for help to overcome homosexual temptations? No church deserves to be maligned for trying to help a troubled teen who asked for prayer.

Why are homosexuals so outraged?

And then there the group's statement defending those 11 groups who have been referred to as official anti-gay hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a liberal pro-homosexual legal group, has compiled a list of “hate groups” throughout America. According to their latest list of 926 hate groups, if you advocate for biblical righteousness you are lumped together with violent neo-Nazis and skinheads. This is slanderous on its face.


Fine Christian groups that work hard to protect biblical marriage have been demonized on the SPLC list. The only reason Christian organizations are labeled hate groups is because of their stance on traditional marriage, as defined in the Bible. There is absolutely nothing hateful about this. In fact, the opposite is true. If you will not speak the truth to those lost in homosexuality, or in any other sin, you are unloving.

Here are just two of those "loving" groups:

The Family Research Institute - that is the organization run by discredited researcher Paul Cameron.

We all know Paul Cameron. He is the guy who has been censured by individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds including the American Psychological Association, The American Sociological Association, conservative leader Williams Bennett, and anti-gay group Exodus International.

He is the guy who makes up stories about gay men castrating children in bathrooms.

He is the guy who publishes phony studies claiming, amongst other things, that gay men eat feces.

He is the guy who said the following:

“If you isolate sexuality as something solely for one’s own personal amusement, and all you want is the most satisfying orgasm you can get—and that is what homosexuality seems to be—then homosexuality seems too powerful to resist. The evidence is that men do a better job on men, and women on women if all you are looking for is an orgasm.” - Rolling Stones magazine, March 18, 1999

Then there is Abiding Truth Ministries - that is the group founded by Scott Lively. He is the guy who wrote that fradulent book The Pink Swastika which connects the gay community to the Nazi party; the book that has been repeatedly discredited.

If these three groups (Manifested Glory Church, The Family Research Institute, and Abiding Truth Ministries) are the examples of Christians needing protection from the lgbt community by the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, then I have one question.

Who is going to protect the lgbt community from the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission?

Related posts and articles:

'Christian' organization doesn't know the difference between a pro-family group and a hate group

Who's crazier? The church that tries to 'exorcise' homosexuality or those who would defend it?

'A Mighty Army' Page 4

Queer Science

The Holy War on Gays

Making Myths