The Fight For Civil Rights and Hypocrisy

Imagine a world in which your people have had to fight for basic civil rights. The right to marry, the right to live, the right to have the same opportunities, the right to be free. Imagine a world in which your people fought for and won the fight to gain full equality in stature and basic civil rights. Imagine that same lineage now participating in the deprivation of those same basic civil rights of someone else. Sounds horrible yes? Sounds depraved yes? Sounds like a throw back to a different time that was thought to be over and done with doesn't it? Sounds like the type of thing that could only be a part of the past and a far cry from the present and the future.

This is the world in which we live today. Many people try to differentiate the fight for African American civil rights and the fight for Gays civil rights. We need a wake up call. These too fights are the same. Basic civil rights and equality under the law. Some may want to throw around religion, separation of church and state. We as Americans have the right to follow whatever faith we want. We however do not have the right to force those beliefs upon someone else. That is the very basic foundation for which this country was founded. So we shall leave religion out of this little discussion. Basic civil rights and equality under the law.

Some would say, "Well African Americans had to endure some of the harshest conditions to get those rights both before and after.". This is true, but so have Gays. In fact, while it is not socially acceptable to run around calling black people niggers it is still very acceptable to call a homosexual a faggot. Both are slurs, both hurt to hear and both place a stigma on a single group of people.

In the black community, one that has fought tooth and nail for legal equality, gays are treated much like blacks were all those years ago. It is a community that fosters being "on the DL", fear, hatred and violence. Those very same things that very community fought against. How can we as a race of people deny the civil rights and legal equality of anyone? We of all people should know better. If it is against your religion that is fine, but you don't have the right to deny someone else life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness... especially given African American history. The African American Community and the Homosexual Community share this common struggle. Lets see if you can tell the difference between these events.

Midwest, a man is found bound, naked, beaten and bloody. No one knows his name. No one knows any other reason as to why this happened.

Name: John Doe
Age: approx. 30
Race: Black
Reason: He was black.

Midwest, a man is found bound to a herding fence, naked, beaten and bloody. We do know his name. We do know why this happened.

Name: Matthew Shepard
Age: approx. early 20s
Race: White
Reason: He was gay.

New York City, a small bar in the village. Police perform their normal raid in which they harrass, beat and arrest mutiple people for being who they are and congregating. This leads to a minor riot that sparked a nation wide movement.

Place: The Stone Wall Inn

Do I really have to go on about this? We can see the similarities and the commonalities. The Gay Community and the Black Community would better serve each other by fighting on the same side. To have any member of the African American community deprive someone else of basic human rights is a travesty and blatant hypocrisy.


Over the next few weeks I intend to do a small series of articles to touch on a few subjects pertinent to the Gay Black Community. Subject such as being on the dl, false machismo, civil rights and the gay black renaissance. Who am I to write such things? I am a gay black male that got to look at the black community and its interaction with the gay community from the outside looking in.