Kentucky Fried Racism

One church in Pike County, Kentucky doesn't seem to want to join the 21st century...or the late 20th century for that matter. Just recently the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church voted to effectively ban and will not condone interracial relationships from their church. 



The man responsible for this resolution is Melvin Thompson, who has said that not only is not a racist and this was a simple "internal affair." Thompson has said on the matter, "I am not prejudiced against any race of people, have never in my lifetime spoke evil about a race...That's what this is being portrayed as, but it is not." 


This mandate is coming off the heels of the Church Secretary's daughter Stella Harville and her African then boyfriend and now fiancé Ticha Chikuni visiting the church about a month ago. The couple sang a song for the congregation. Soon afterwards Stella's father, Dean Harville was informed that the two were no longer allowed to sing at the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church.


Stella, who was raised inside this church since childhood was completely appalled by the response they had for her. "I think part of me is still in shock and trying to process what's been going on the past few days," she said. "I really hope they overturn this." 


But what amazes or for a better word puzzles me is the lack of need for major church officials to take a vocal stance on this problem. Stacy Stepp, pastor of Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church was against the resolution, it doesn't seem like he has done much of anything to stop it from being brought for a vote in the first place. The National Association of Free Will Baptists in Antioch, Tennessee has said no official stance on whether or not they support the marriage ban or interracial marriage for that matter in any of their other 2,400 churches globally. 


The executive secretary of the NAFWB said that many interracial couples attend Free Will Baptist churches. I wonder how many of these couples would feel if they learned that the churches they give their time, money and free time to condone this kind of hateful backwards thinking. 


The vote passed 9-6, and although about 40 people that day's service, many of them either left or declined to vote. It's fair to say that not everyone in the church follows Thompson's beliefs, they are guilty of letting them prosper in a place of God. Those people who remained silent or left or just as bad as the ones who voted for the ban, since they had the opportunity to stop it from happening. They have allowed a place that is supposed to be a representation of Jesus' love, acceptance and understanding; distorting God's message into division, fear, intolerance and hatred. 


Since this church believes the Bible, and more importantly Jesus to be inerrant, never in any of the books of the New Testament Jesus speaking against interracial marriage. But he did adamantly speak against hypocrisy. And in the old testament when Aaron and Miriam criticized Moses for marrying his Cushite wife Zipporah he lambasted them with leprosy. (Numbers 12:1-16)


I think Susan B. Anthony put it best when it comes to people and religion, "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."

Personal LGBT Books Picks

Benoit Denizet-Lewis has recently asked LGBT authors and literary figures to contribute a list of “five books that every LGBT person should have on his bookshelf." I have made a list of five books to share in no particular order with an annotation.

Published in 1956, James Baldwin's novel Giovanni's Room, about an American expatriate and his sexual exploration and contradictory desires with an Italian bartender in post World War II Paris was risque for its time.  David, the protaginist can be compared to Ernest Hemingway's Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises. In David, Baldwin has created a character who remains, ostensibly, detached from the world; both men with a veneer of invincibility and hard assurance. Some people have cited that Badlwin's other works like Another Country or Go Tell It On The Mountain being much better. But the homosexual content is much more subtle in them. The novel suggests, that the loss of innocence, if accepted, can be the beginning of a journey that leads to knowledge. The novel's title is well chosen. Giovanni's room, which he shares with David is confining, unkempt, grim, and threatening. The room also acts as a metaphor for love create that David and Giovanni have for one another and the possbile ramifications of it. Baldwin allows us to witness a doomed affair of the heart and it is this atmospheric, eloquently written, that adds to the sense of the inevitable isolation that makes this a great novel.

A Separate Peace by John Knowles. The novel takes place at the ficitious Devon, an elite all boy New England prep school (which is a thinly-veiled representation of Knowles' own alma mater, Phillips Exeter Academy), in the summer before World War II. Gene Forrester is a successful, amiable student. Gene is always overshadowed by his best friend Phineas  or "Finny". By comparison, Finny is faster, stronger, more flashy and handsome. They form a complex relationship that draws out the best and worst of each boy and leads ultimately to violence, a confession, the betrayal of trust and redemption.There are a few standout instances of the homosexual subtext in the novel and the intensity of the feelings that Gene and Finny share. From their wrestling scene, to their night on the beach, their admiration for each other's physical beauty. In A Separate Peace these young men attend school, bond with peers, lose their innocence, encounter hate and ignorance. Each one inevitably struggles to develop a sexual identity and otherwise. As the world continues to change around into their adulthood, so do their emotions and feelings.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Set in rural Georgia, The Color Purple tells the story of Celie, a impoverished fourteen-year-old Black girl. The novel depicts her early life, being abused and raped by her stepfather and having two children by him. Then Celie is married off to a man referred to simply as "Mr." when her father refuses to let him marry her prettier sister Nettie. Nettie later escapes to escape from Mr.'s advances. Celie writes letters to God, and later to Nettie. These letters are the outlet for her to express her dreams, feelings and desperation. A special aspect of the novel is the relationship that Shug and Celie develop. Celie is downtrodden, somber, while Shug is a jovial, worldly and independent. While Shug is much more sexually experienced as Celie, she lacks the sexual and emotional experience of intimacy in a relationship that Celie seems to crave. Before having Shug's love, Celie never have much thought to her needs and desires. Both these women help better understand themselves. Through Shug, Celie sees within herself the power to leave Mr. and create a better life for herself. Walker  writes lesbianism empathetically, without placing the lesbianism above before any other parameter.

The Hours by Michael Cunningham. The novel deals with three generations of women affected by a Virginia Woolf novel. The first is Woolf herself writing Mrs. Dalloway in 1923 whilist dealing with mental illness. The second, Laura Brown, reads Mrs. Dalloway in 1949 as she prepares her husband's birthday party. The third is Clarissa Vaughan, a lesbian, who in 1998 plans a party to celebrate a literary award won by her good friend and former lover,who is dying of the AIDS virus.'The Hours' concerns three generations of lesbian-bisexual women. Virginia Woolf was known to have affairs with a number women; Laura kisses her neighbor Kitty in her kitchen, and Clarissa Vaughn is in a committed relationship with Sally, but was previously Richard's lover. The Hours also examines the freedom that which successive generations have been able to express their sexuality freely, to the public, or even to themselves. As such, a definable sexuality for the characters of Virginia Woolf and Laura Brown are hard to ascertain.  For Virginia and Laura it would have been extremely difficult to be openly gay or bisexual. Such visibilty would have meant extreme consequences by their respective societies.

Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance: Selections from the Work of Richard Bruce Nugent by Bruce Nugent. This anthology shows glimpses one of the lesser known Gay icons. Nugent wrote and thrived artistically during the Jazz Age and Harlem Renaissance. He was a close friend of friend of Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston. Nugent was the first Black writer of the time to be openly homosexual in print.  The excerpts of Nugent's writings span a fifty-year period, the most predominantly coming from the 1930s. Nugent has often been relegated to only a footnote and a provider of anecdotal stories about the Harlem Renaissance and its leading canonized figures by researchers and biographers past and present. Nugent deserves the right to be back in the forefront as a pillar of the Renaissance. It should be pointed out that Nugent, like Langston Hughes, Zora Hurston, Wallace Thurman were all proud to be black. But again, like Hughes, Hurston, and Thurman, Nugent understood that black Americans are a multicultural people of mixed bloodlines no matter the complexion of skin and the race of either parent. But to Nugent, it was better to be openly proud of one's sexualty, no matter the ramifications.

Sour Grapes over Don Lemon's Coming Out?

Not too long ago Don Lemon tweeted that he was gay. I applaud his strength and courage for doing so. Paula D. Reed, a writer for The Daily Voice voiced her opinions on what Lemon said his fears about backlash from the Black Community, specifically from Black Women. Reed's reaction to Lemon's coming out was a bit, well odd. She spoke about how not all Black women were angry or bitter towards Gay Black Men. GLBT people have a problem with the Black Community who is volatile and angry toward their GLBT brothers and sisters. I tried to post a rebuttal, but for some reason it never showed. So I decided to post it here.


I first and forest would like to commend Mr. Don Lemon on coming out. As a gay Black male, I have to say that from my experinces the Black American Community that we are a very homophobic subculture. While we are not as volatile as West Indian or African countries, that does not mean that we are much better at acceptance and respect of GLTBQ individuals. Reed mentions Langston Hughes in her article; which is interesting since Hughes was a brilliant closeted gay man. He never had the courage to come out for fear of being made a pariah from Black churches and organizations of the time. 


The reason why most GLBTQ Black public figures stay in the closet is because they fear becoming outcasts. If not, why are they no major Black polticians who are Gay and Lesbian? And athletes are not spared from this stigma either. When John Amaechi came out in 2007 there was a large number of Black basketball players who gave openly homophobic reactions to Amaechi. These "men" are then supposed to be then lauded and praised as heroes to young Black children and to emulate them, even their narrow mindedness. 


With Jonathan Capehart, his being an openly gay man and it effecting his marketability. Capehart seems to be the exception to the rule, specifically since he for the most part does not markets himself prodominently to a Black audience. But Lemon was more worried about about how he would come across now that he was out. 


As for Black straight women, and even Black straight men who are angry about Black GLTB people. Unfortunately in the Black community, our sociology has been indoctrinated with religion, most predominantly from Christianity and Islam. Both of who's dogmas call for the execution of our GLBTQ brothers and sisters. Yet, no one ever seems to remember what Jesus says in the New Testament, "But many that are first shall be last; and the last first." (Mark 10:31)  or “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." (Matthew 7:1) 


 Yet when Queer Black Indivudals turn the other cheek, many are quick to strike it. If we are able to move away from this negative theological thinking it would be an improvement as moving forward as a people. I've never been a woman, so I can not say why necessarily why Black women are so angry at Black men, or even Gay Black men. But I must say that Black women are the most subjagated women in the United States hands down next to Native American women. 


And as Ms. Reed, yes Black women are not the enemy of Black Gay men. But most importantly, Black Gay Individuals are not the enemy of Black Society.

Halle Berry and the Black Identity in the 21st Century

“I feel like she’s black. I’m black and I’m her mother and I believe in the one-drop theory. I’m not going to put a label on it. I had to decide for myself and that’s what she’s going to have to decide – how she identifies herself in the world. And I think, largely, that will be based on how the world identifies her. That’s how I identified myself. But I feel like she’s black.” This is what award winning actress and producer Halle Berry told in the March 2011 issue of Ebony magazine in regards to her two-year-old daughter, Nahla. Suffice to say this has caused an uproar.

Many people believe that she did this tto be a "lightning rod for racial politics" or to garner attention for her benefit to gain full custody of Nahla from her French-Canadian model father, Gabriel Aubry.  Some critics have cite that Berry is pulling "The Tragic Mulatto" card,  an archetypical mixed race person, who is assumed to be sad or even suicidal because he/she fails to completely fit in the "white society" or the "black society." While Halle Berry may have played Tragic Mulatto characters (most notably the titular role in Alex Haley's Queen), I highly doubt she has held on to those ideas. What Berry has said does not come from any kind of malice, but from the experience she has as a biracial person.

Halle Berry stated early on in her career that her own mother told her she should identify as being Black/African-American, "After having many talks with my mother about the issue, she reinforced what she had always taught me. She said that even though you are half black and half white, you will be discriminated against in this country as a black person. People will not know when they see you that you have a white mother unless you wear a sign on your forehead. And, even if they did, so many people believe that if you have an ounce of black blood in you then you are black. So, therefore, I decided to let folks categorize me however they needed to." She is just trying to save her daughter the hurt and pain that she probably had to deal with growing up. And although we are in the 21st Century with a Black President, that hasn't changed the mindsets of all Americans. 

I worked with a White Woman, who had a biracial  daughter. Whenever I would say her daughter was "Black" it was almost as if there was a stigma attached to it. From what I saw, she did nothing to help her daughter embrace her Black roots. She then lamented to me one day about how some men  get when they find out she had a daughter by a Black Man. I told her what she was doing to her daughter was neither healthy or constructive. That one day she was going to realize that she's different from her mother and her grandmother. And that she wouldn't want her daughter to be resentful towards her, simply because you did not want to accept what she is. 

So I applaud Ms. Berry for giving her daughter a strong sense of self worth and pride with her Black Idenity. And for those who are angry at Halle Berry, its admirable for her to brace her daughter for the harsh realities that American Society perpetuates. 

Thoughts & Opinions?