A few points.
- I refuse to criticize those fighting for justice for pushing too hard, too fast, or poor word choice. No crucifying Gavin because he got used in pro-prop-8 ads. He was right. It is going to happen. If not him, they would have picked another poster child.
- To those surprised by the way the black vote** went, I wonder why.
- 30*% were on the side of justice, which is cool. And it means that alot more than just the gay blacks see that there’s injustice at work.
- 70*% were not.
- Christian churches are a cornerstone of many/most african american communities. Many (not all) christian churches hate the ‘mos.
- Black culture is justifiably paranoid about white oppression and the association of the queer mainstream with white is not at all new.
- The black people I’ve interacted with at work have all been less culturally sensitive about my queerness than the whites.
- blame is not helpful. Identifying groups to work on/with is. I believe the poll is probably correct and that African American probably did vote for prop 8 at a much higher rate than other race culture groups. This is useful information. This is a population we can and should contact.
- The Mormon church** officially encouraged its members to promote discrimination. Their church deserves to have their faces rubbed in this fact. It will not work in their evangelical favor in the US. I’ll be protesting outside their oakland temple this morning.
- Everything I’ve heard says that “No on 8” was mismanaged, and sorry to say it folks, but spent it’s money in terrible ways. Learn the lesson. Do better next time. And don’t put the same people in charge. They had a commanding lead, lost the entire undecided vote and a fair bit of the people that initially agreed with them. This is mind bogglingly bad campaigning. You have to consider your audience and reach out to the undecided. Uh.
* = (according to exit poll data)
** = Jon Stewart’s comments about oppressees becoming oppressors are very relevant. Think about it.
I agree with all your points except the last. People who blame the No on 8 campaign are simply playing the blame game.
We all are No on 8, and if we are to blame them, we should be blaming ourselves. They put out very effective ads and reacted very quickly to the Yes on 8 ads, but Yes on 8 was playing the fear card and it’s a tough one to follow. On the last day, Yes on 8 robocalled millions of voters with a message that Barack Obama was against gay marriage. This was very damaging as people believed it. That is where a lot of the undecided vote went.
Re: black vote
You can say we are all No on 8, but I didn’t draft the commercials, I didn’t manage the money and I didn’t plan the events. Could I have done more? Yeah, but not nearly as effectively from Chicago.
I agree on all points! And to Sneeper’s point re: “They put out very effective ads and reacted very quickly to the Yes on 8 ads,” that’s part of my reasoning that the No on 8 campaign didn’t handle this right. The No on 8 people should have anticipated what the Yes people were going to do so that the Yes on 8 people were the ones reacting to our ads. Playing defensive in a campaign of this magnitude just doesn’t cut it.
we’ve been passive for too long. time for civil disobedience.
And what particular civil disobedience do you have in mind?
Very much agreed on the last point – of course it isn’t “their fault” or anything like that. But it was frustrating to see their ads … and nearly miss the point they were trying to convey. They certainly had a few good ones, but most of them were not compelling.
The black vote(and minority) vote is what it is. Hope that will shift, but it totally made sense that with such good minority turnout, getting Prop 8 blocked was going to be even harder
And yes, oppressed humans love oppressing others. Even in the gay community we see it as well (although that could be the larger race relations just playing out in a microcosm, hard to tell – still we should be MORE sensitive to it rather than less or equal). Certainly the Mormons are a poster child for it this time around but one could say the same thing for the African American community too at least for this election. Although I do agree in that case its more complex due to the perception of gayness being a largely white thing – although no less reprehensible.
black vote
http://bias-cut.livejournal.com/610141.html
this is worth reading. stats about what would have happened without the black vote.
“oppressees becoming oppressors are very relevant”
not really. HRC stopped trying to outreach to black voters a long time ago, concentrating on white, gay, rich, cismen. blame them, not the black vote.
Re: black vote
Why do we have to ‘outreach’ to anyone, for the same rights as all other Americans? Sorry… but I don’t feel the need to kiss ANYONE’S ass for my rights. I expect reperssion from evil, religious nutjobs; those who have suffered themselves should know better.
Re: black vote
almost all hrc ads feature white people. they could have ads that feature black gay men, or black lesbians in them. any person of color in one of their ads is invariably a token, and partnered with a white person.
it’s not kissing ass to display the diversity of gay community.
Re: black vote
those who have suffered themselves should know better
also, considering how much gay people oppress trans people, this quote is obviously wrong.
Re: black vote
Right, you can wait for people to recognize your rights and hand them to you on a silver platter. Let me know how that works out for you.
We don’t live in an ideal world.
Re: black vote
blame them, not the black vote.
In which portion of his post did blame the black vote, as opposed to, say, the No on 8 campaign or others? Let’s not make the mistake of assuming that just because someone has identified an issue that they suddenly forgot about all the others.
Re: black vote
the whole portion where he blames the black vote, the second bullet point.
Re: black vote
How is he blaming them? It seems to me he’s explaining why that 70% voted the way they did. There’s a huge difference there.
Re: black vote
No, in the second bullet, I was saying I wasn’t surprised by how the black vote split. And if you look at the third vote, I say very clearly that I’m not blaming, I’m suggesting that these are people we should have outreach to.
At no point do I blame “the blacks” or “the black vote”. I do say 30% voted on the side of justice and 70% did not.
Re: black vote
The thing is, the HRC is so into creating an image of gays and lesbians that has more to do with focus groups and political paletability than it does with reality. If you really start looking into how “gayness” itself means different things across different cultures, even within the US and many of those things don’t necessarily sell well.
Re: black vote
almost sounds like HRC is selling gay action dolls.
Re: black vote
It’s selling ONE gay action doll.
Re: black vote
I think we can just about all agree that HRC is a bunch of weasels who exist for two primary purposes, to self promote, and to suckle at the teet of the gay upper and upper middle class by validating their views. Not like HRC can successfully organize outside that.
I mean they do have money. And they’ll do the minimum outreach to other viewpoints to maintain their feelings and appearance of legitimacy in representing queers. But I’m not impressed by their actual results.
Re: black vote
word. and thanks for the link to that great post.
Re: black vote
I’m not terribly impressed by HRC either.
And trying to describe the American political dynamic without blacks is like trying to make a cake without flour. You’d end up with something totally different in form.
Re: black vote
I agree about HRC.
Nobody knows if black voters probably changed what would otherwise have been a victory into a loss, my guess is no. They just increased the margins of the loss well out of proportion to their representation in the voting population. Making a much more conservative estimate than most that I’ve read, the most shit on 6.7% of the population at least doubled prop 8’s margin of victory. Well, to be fair, black lesbians are probably _the_ most shit upon. Maybe disabled black lesbians. Homeless disabled black lesbians? But I digress.
Note that I also applied my oppressees/oppressors quotation to the mormons, who bankrolled the operation.
Truth is, there are alot of different ways you can slice and dice this one. Any number of things could have made the difference.
But I wasn’t ripping blacks. I was saying we queers need to talk to them. Especially black queers, but not just. And not the nice progressive blacks that think like we do, but the sadly regressive ones who don’t. (which also goes for other regressives, not just the black ones)
I don’t think it’s possible to understate how problematic black churches are for the gay rights movement because political candidates who target gay voters also target black churches and end up beholden to conflicting constituencies. They’re the reason we ultimately have no friends in democratic party, just people who promise incremental change at best.
Thank you for posting this — I was considering posting something nearly identical. I would only add one additional point, and it has to do with voter turn-out. I haven’t gone and researched the numbers myself, but some LJer somewhere said that the voter turnout was something like 60% in SF. If this is indicative of other metropolitan areas in California (where I’m assuming NO had more support) then voter turn-out has to also be “blamed” for playing a role in the loss: where the hell were the other 40%? Considering how close the final numbers were, this could have made all the difference.
march brother!
Agree on almost all points. Only one I disagree with slightly is on Gavin. Definitely he should not be “cruicified,” but he should have been more aware of the potential future political ramifications of his “whether they like it or not” comment. He could have given an equally electrifying speech without riling up the anti-gay-marriage folks quite as much (and handing them one of the most effective campaign commercials I’ve ever heard).
The thing that worries me the most is that we will repeat the same mistakes the next time this is on the ballot. This is why I particularly appreciate your last comment and your comment that we need to work on changing the attitudes of the African-American community rather than pretending that the exit polls are wrong.
Much of this is what I’ve been thinking; I’ve been very worried about scapegoating. I wouldn’t want to be black and gay right now.
But I say that and then turn right around and blame the Mormon church. I hestiate… and then I realize they *did* do this. Well, them and slightly more than half of Californians.
I’ve been living under a rock (where I live off orange pruno and write math papers, occasionally crawling out to check the appropriate cultural demographic in this survey we call “voting”) What is this about Gavin Newsom and pro-prop-8 ads?
Side note : my conclusion from this is that, while slightly less than half the US practices the American form of “traditional conservative culture” the Republican party appeals to, more than half comes from some form of “traditional conservative culture”
The narrowness of the “traditional conservative culture” party (by which I mean, alienating people from other traditional conservative cultures) is probably what gives the other party a chance.
Also : http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2008/11/6/45342/9914
Wait a decade, try to repeal it.
A blog entry from someone involved in No on 8
http://www.nclrights.org/site/PageServer?pagename=blog_katesBlog111808
Re: A blog entry from someone involved in No on 8
And a post from an experienced political organizer who also worked on No on 8. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-hogarth/why-we-lost-prop-8-when-r_b_141390.html