Are Some Blacks Seeking to Alienate Gay Voters?

One thing about today's Republicans for good or for bad is that they are unified and focused on defeating those they deem "other." Sadly, Democrats seem more concerned about infighting amongst themselves and alienating those who, in my view, should be their natural allies. A case in point is the rift between some blacks and their apparent quest to dish Pete Buttigieg.  The irony is that both blacks and gays have been subject to centuries of discrimination, much of it based on selected Bible passages, yet what ought to be a unifying experience of being denigrated and diminished by white heterosexual society has some arguing that only they are true victims of discrimination.  Never mind that gays, unlike blacks, continue to lack statutory employment, housing and health care non-discrimination protections in the majority of the states. What prompts me to say this is the attacks Buttigieg is under for saying that as a gay man, he knows about living with discrimination and, therefore, can empathize with the discrimination that blacks face.  True, white gays can often "pass" in society in a way that blacks cannot, but we do know the harm of discrimination.  I was fired for being gay and my whiteness did nothing to protect me. I've been screamed at and call "faggot' - ironically, mostly by blacks - and find myself hated by some simply for who I am.  Both gays and blacks need to remember that we have a common enemy: Donald Trump and today's GOP.  Thus, the concept of the enemy of my enemy is my friend should apply. The Washington Post looks at what I see as Buttigieg's good faith remarks that have been grasp by some as a basis for attacking him.  Here are highlights:

Mayor Pete Buttigieg has delivered a provocative response in recent days to those who challenge his empathy with black Americans: His experience as a gay man helps him relate to the struggles of African Americans.

That has angered some African Americans, who view it as an attempt by a privileged white man to claim a type of victimhood that is distinct from the black experience in America, even while others take the comments more favorably.

Oliver Davis, a black council member in South Bend, Ind., where Buttigieg is mayor, said that African Americans, unlike gay people, don’t have the option of “coming out” at their chosen moment — as did Buttigieg, who disclosed his sexual orientation after he had been elected mayor.

LGBT activists see something different in Buttigieg — a barrier-breaker from a group that has long faced bigotry and violence, a face of the latest struggle for inclusion. And while some successfully conceal their difference, say leaders of the movement for gay equality, that decision can come with its own steep costs.

Evan Wolfson, founder of Freedom to Marry, which helped lead the fight for same-sex marriage, said Buttigieg’s message is not “an attempt to appropriate someone else’s experience.” Rather, he said, the mayor is saying that “because he, too, has had to deal with his own struggles, that has made him more aware of the need to connect with the struggles of others.”

That question — how to square Buttigieg’s privileges with the adversity that comes with anti-gay prejudice — is becoming sharper as the 37-year-old Afghan war veteran rises in the polls and scrambles for ways to connect with black voters. And it renews the issue of how Americans, of any background, will respond to the candidacy of an openly gay man, one who holds hands with his husband and publicly discusses his decision to come out.

Buttigieg has shot to the top of the polls in Iowa and is gaining strength in New Hampshire, two largely white states — but he trails badly in South Carolina, the first primary state with a sizable African American population. A recent poll gave him less than 1 percent support among black Democrats there.

The mayor’s current efforts to find common ground are prompting raw feelings, including his comments at the last Democratic debate when the question of race arose.

“While I do not have the experience of ever having been discriminated against because of the color of my skin, I do have the experience of sometimes feeling like a stranger in my own country, turning on the news and seeing my own rights come up for debate, and seeing my rights expanded by a coalition of people like me and people not at all like me,” Buttigieg said.

That drew a sharp response, including from Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), a presidential hopeful and the only black woman in the U.S. Senate.

“I think Kamala had a point, and I understood what she was saying,” the Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights activist, said in an interview, though he added that Buttigieg had been misunderstood.

He said Buttigieg is doing his best to reach out. “He’s evolving,” Sharpton said. “Do I think he’s where he needs to be? No.”

The prospect of tension between the black and gay communities worries some people in both groups. “Can’t y’all stop this mess?” Alvin McEwen, a black LGBT activist from South Carolina, recalled thinking to himself amid the furor following Buttigieg’s comments.

“No group wants to have the autonomy of their narrative taken by another group,” McEwen said. “But it also typifies how both communities want to grab on to power and don’t want to listen to each other.”

Asked about the comments during his recent campaign swing in western Iowa, Buttigieg said he was not trying to compare the black and gay experiences, only to say that he is driven to fight for African Americans the way others have fought for him.

“Having seen that, having seen how that alliance can make an impact, makes me reflect on how I can turn around and make myself useful, not only to the LGBT community but to people whose life experiences are very different,” he added.

“Let’s not get caught up in who understands discrimination the most,” Barber said. “Let’s deal with the real issue, which is that the same entities that are against gay folks are the same entities who are against black folks, and that we ought to be united in fighting discrimination in any form it arises.”

Buttigieg from the outset of his campaign sought guidance in how to frame his gay identity when talking with black voters. Two weeks after announcing his run for president, he lunched with Sharpton at Sylvia’s, a famous restaurant in Harlem.

“He wanted to genuinely know how I felt the African American community would relate to an LGBT candidate,” Sharpton said. The activist told Buttigieg something other black leaders have also said — that the level of homophobia in the black community has been greatly overstated.

In Virginia's 2017 elections, Justin Fairfax, the black Lt. Governor, eked out victory by the narrowest margin of the three statewide candidates and was arguably put over the top by the LGBT vote. Had Virginia gays employed the mindset of Buttigieg's critics, perhaps Fairfax would have been defeated.   The focus needs to be on unity and fighting our common enemies.  

2018 - A Storm is Gathering; Say "No" to Trump

As the new year, 2018, begins, it is essential that Americans (i) recognize the gathering storm that the Trump/Pence regime pose to America and the world, and (ii) that it is critical to the future of the country that those who honor the U.S. Constitution - and I would argue, common decency and even a shred of the Gospel message - come together and do all that they can to put an end to the attacks on American institutions and sending a resounding  "enough!" to Der Trumpenführer and his Republican enablers and apologists.  Two columns in the Washington Post look at the immense danger that Trump/Pence poses to the nation and the need to put aside intra-party bickering to build an ironclad resistance to the toxic threat that Trump/Pence embody. One aptly quotes Winston Churchill on what lies ahead and must be thwarted.  Here are excerpts from the first column:

A storm is gathering, and there is every reason to believe that 2018 will be the most consequential political year of our lives.

The reckoning upon us follows a year mercifully drawing to a close this weekend. Over that horrid year, President Trump has questioned the legitimacy of federal judges, used Stalinist barbs to attack the free press and cast contempt on the rule of law, while his campaign manager, his national security adviserand a foreign policy aide have been marched into federal courts. Those anti-democratic instincts were made all the more ominous by his praising of autocrats across the world as they were ruthlessly consolidating power in countries such as Russia, China and the Philippines.

It is difficult to pinpoint the nadir for a man [Trump] who has savaged Mexicans, Muslims and Gold Star mothers while fat-shaming beauty queens and face-shaming female news hosts . . . . . But the low moment in this presidency may have occurred four months ago, when Trump claimed a moral equivalency between neo-Nazis and those standing against them. Or perhaps it was three weeks ago, when the president told Americans to vote for an accused child molester who had called our country the focus of evil in the modern world and once suggested opposition to the constitutional amendments that ended slavery and gave women the right to vote.
 World leaders continue to watch dumbstruck as the United States retreats from organizations that were created following the allies’ victory over Hitler. Those same alliances that Trump now undermines with reckless tweets and discarded treaties carried the United States to victory in the Cold War. But this is a White House that heaps contempt on history. And so, America’s dangerous retreat from the world continues.

“On the morrow of the Republican success isolationist conceptions prevailed,” Winston Churchill wrote in “The Gathering Storm.” The British prime minister believed Hitler’s rise proved, above all else, “how absolute is the need of a broad path of international action pursued by many states in common across the years, irrespective of the ebb and flow of national politics.” But this president is ripping apart the carefully woven fabric of U.S. foreign policy that bound administrations together from Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, and across the American century.

Churchill’s ominous warnings to future generations will be more relevant to 2018 than at any time since it was written in the years after World War II.

While Trump’s eroding of U.S. prestige across the globe is disturbing, it is his administration’s undermining of democratic values that poses an even greater threat to our Constitution and country. Borrowing again from Churchill, America’s constitutional norms tremble in the balance as Trump unleashes furious attacks on First Amendment protections, independent counsels and law enforcement officers who refuse to be bullied. While the framers of the Constitution foresaw the possibility of a tyrannical president, they never let their imaginations be darkened by the possibility of a compliant Congress. The storm is gathering. And how we respond in the months ahead may determine our fate for years to come.

The second column calls on all true patriots to put aside differences and confront the malignant threat posed by the Trump/Pence regime and those Republicans who defend it or act as sycophants.  Here are excerpts:

In 2018, Trump’s abuses of power, his indifference to truth and his autocratic habits will be the central issues in our politics. Nothing else comes close.

This means there is no more vital business than containing Trump and, if circumstances demand it, removing him from office. This applies not only to progressives and liberals but also to everyone else, from left to right, who would defend our democratic values and republican institutions.

This may sound obvious, but it’s not. Among Democrats, there are often irresistible temptations to fight internal battles in preparation for 2020: Clinton people vs. Bernie people, the center-left vs. the left, the market-friendlies vs. the social democrats and democratic socialists. . . . . they are not the most important thing. With special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation under constant threat from Trump’s apologists, solidarity among his opponents is imperative. This is all the more pressing in the face of the Republican leadership’s shameful cowering before a president who is perpetually in search of loyalty and sycophantic praise.

 

[T]his is a year of midterm elections, not a contest for the presidency. Voters typically use off-year ballots to render a judgment on a president’s course, particularly when they are unhappy — think 2006, 2010 and 2014. The most effective midterm slogan ever was the GOP’s 1946 plea: “Had Enough? Vote Republican.” With a change in the last word, it would fit the current anti-Trump mood well.

Trump, not some ingenious new policy, will be the issue on voters’ minds, and opposition to him will be the most powerful force pushing voters to the polls. Yes, progressives should talk about Trump policies they would try to check or roll back — beginning with the GOP’s egregious tax giveaway — and work to make their ideas on health care, jobs, infrastructure, the environment and education more persuasive. But the point of 2018 is to meet the emergency this presidency has created.

Let’s not shilly-shally about this. To truly check Trump, Democrats will need to win elections in usually unfriendly territory. As my loyally Republican Post colleague Michael Gerson wrote recently, Republican politicians will abandon Trump only “if they see it as in their self-interest.” For this to happen, they will have “to watch a considerable number of their fellow Republicans lose.”

 

Many progressive positions on matters from health care and family leave to fairer taxation and workers’ rights are widely popular. The fact that revulsion over Trump has shaken loose many normally Republican voters can be embraced as an opportunity for dialogue and persuasion.

What deserves rebuke is the obsequiousness of the current Republican political leadership toward Trump as well as the indifference of the president’s protectors to the rule of law. Their willingness to pile falsehood upon falsehood in his defense amounts to a war on the basic requirements of reasoned debate in a free society.

Friends of republican democracy are called upon to set aside their differences to resist the corruption of presidential authority, to stand up for truth,and to insist that Trump be held accountable.

The priority of 2018 is for our nation to rise up and say: Enough.