First and foremost I would like to take this opportunity to thank the magazine for going head on with a topic as such. I am so proud to call myself a fan of this magazine and all of its peeks. With that said reading this article showed me there is a change for homophobia in the Hip Hop community. Listen as a gay black man who loves Hip Hop, I was a pain realization when some of my favorite rappers used words like Faggot, or Queer etc. I have supported some of those rappers and to know that someone you have support use those words are hurtful and sometimes even unforgettable, but my support stands. Because in order to educate you have to be in the race and not drop out. With that said I am also a Christian and believe in many values of the bible, but when Sigel referenced the bible to support his homophobia, I laughed. The bible that we praise so much as people of color were the same bible that use to allow WHITES slave owners to put us on trees and hang us. They would justify it with the same bible we are referencing. Now I know what the bible says about homosexual behavior, but if you really want to understand how contradicting we are as a people, Read the part that states a man should be stoned if he lies in a bed with a women having her period. PEOPLE Love is really for everyone you have to evolve to understand that GOD is not going to condemn us for who we love, but how we treated each other. WE need a Hip HOP HOMOPHOBIA summit in Brooklyn NY in 2011.

Then I would say that you don’t know much about history. gays were once a very visbile part of society. Overtime Christianity (Catholics) began to build momentum in the focus on gays (Rennasance, middle ages) and as a result a number of countries made sodomy a crime punishable by death (please read people). It’s a known although at times a disputed fact that when Hitler devised his cleansing plan that as many as 50,000 individuals that were considered homosexual were jailed tourtured and killed in the same camps as the jews.

The origingal colonist the the states, although trying to escape the heavy arm of religion eventually made laws that were also punished sodomites by death. So your argument that you haven’t seen this or that it’s not to the same magnatude is just a way to dismiss the fac that gays have a much longer history of being hated. And while they were never enslaved because of their sexuality they have had a long history of abuse.

During the 50′s when police and the public reestriced housing jobs and other rights from blacks, the same efforts were made to fire, harrass individuals that were percieved as ‘homo’. Employees from teachers to postal workers had to sign a document denying that they were gay (Google Anita Bryant). Just as MLK and Malcom X were assinated for their efforts so too was Harvey Milk and a number of others who wanted nothing more that to fight for freedoms.

here are some that say that gays are riding on the coatails of blacks to make their case and that ‘gays should stand on thier own feet, there are just as many people who say that slavery was decades ago and that recent generations should stand on thier own feet and stop making excuses for their current state. Bth comments are dissmissive and do little to address the concerns of either group.

Lastly, while I see that there are some who kept asking folk to stay focused, where were their disccusions on the topic at hand which was homophobia in Hip Hip. The discussions about GLAAD and the irreavant comparisons between the plight of gays compared to people of color while interesting was just a little off topic….

Shepard had suffered fractures to the back of his head and in front of his right ear. He experienced severe brain-stem damage, which affected his body’s ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature, and other vital functions. There also were about a dozen small lacerations around his head, face, and neck. His injuries were deemed too severe for doctors to operate. Shepard never regained consciousness and remained on full life support.

Shepard was pronounced dead at 12:53 a.m. on October 12, 1998, at Poudre Valley Hospital, in Fort Collins, Colorado.[7][8][9][10]
[edit] Funeral; Protests

Kansas Baptist Fred Phelps, pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, took his church’s “God Hates Fags” crusade to the Saturday, October 17, 1998, funeral of Matthew Shepard, held in Casper, Wyoming. Two of his picket signs read: “No Tears for Queers” and “Fag Matt in Hell.”
just saying. and i am also a heterosexual.

What up fam? We do what we do…. Thanks for not having your blinders on. Keep grindin’!

“The minute similarities are within the fight for the law structure, not the struggle. And even with the law structure fight, it isn’t similar to what Blacks had to go through. I haven’t seen not one protest for gay marriage where the protesters were beaten, had dogs sicced on them, were beaten with batons and jailed, or had powerful water spouts turned on them. Have you?”

^ these are my sticking points.

Good sticking point about the NAACP Sha…and about how GLAAD is trying to use our ancestors’ pain & suffering for their agenda. There’s no way one can compare isolated incidents of gay bashing to centuries of pure hatred and oppression.

As intelligent as many of these comments have been (and if many never stated you were gay, I would have never known), I find it hard to believe some can’t see the stark difference in this “comparison”.

I’ve emailed this thread to some of the homies and went to an event this weekend and we had a long discussion with some other homies about this thread. They feel the same way, although there IS discrimination present, it’s not the same plight. I KNOW there have been incidents, but it’s not of the same magnitude.

Did I need to notate that “we” is my girl and I…and some of the “homies” are gay couples & singles of all races?

I enjoyed this convo, but it’s getting to the point where if you don’t agree with the GLAAD sentiment you’re a gay hater.

Good looking fam…. I never was knocking Gay people in general. But NAACP, GLAAD, THE GOVERNMENT…. These companies ( and yes the government is a company) may seem to have positive goals, but until people start being honest about those problems they will never get fixed. Who knows? I could co-sign GLAAD’S efforts one day. But not until they deal with some major ish.

Good convo….. Thanks for the dialog.

Also to my “piss in cup” theory. You get props for being kinda clever and trying to use that as a foundation for my argument. But there’s only one thing….. Stay focused and stay on subject.

I believe when I told Mr. ATL GUY that he shouldn’t be swayed, I was referring to him not standing up for his beliefs and abandoning something he loves or enjoys for the sake of another person.

When we are talking about GLAAD, it’s different. GLAAD never had my support from day one. It doesn’t mean that I have something against them. It doesn’t mean that I believe everything they do is bad. It simply means that until an organization (not a culture, which hip-hop clearly is) changes it’s ways, it should be held accountable.

Hip-Hop is a movement. A culture.

GLAAD is a company.

Nice try dude. But stay focused.

My opinions on this issue haven’t changed.

One, GLAAD is still on my sh*t list.

Two, No one has clarified why cross dressers are breast fed by the gay community, even though the definition of being gay has nothing to do with wearing womens’ clothing and being flamboyant with their behavior.

If you took my statements as overtly mean or evil, that’s on you. It wasn’t my intention and maybe instead of jumping to the first assumption that someone is being evil and mean spirited you should dig deeper to find out what they are trying to say.

This dialog was good for hip-hop in general because others saw the comments. But as it pertains to my position, I am unchanged.

“Let me ask you a question. If you had a glass of water, and you saw someone taking a piss right beside the glass of water (with a few drops splashing into the glass), would you still drink it?”

No, and I think that a number of folk who identify as LGBTQ have decidely walked away from Hip-Hop for this very reason. While I respect ‘Slim Shady’ and all of the things he’s been through in life, why should I spend my $19.99 on his CD when every other word out of his mouth compares his nemises to being a fag…Again, not purchasing his CD sends a clearer message of my lack of interest in his homophobic lyrics.

You say don’t let folk sway you or make you walk away from what you believe or love and I say to this: Have you let the NAACP or GLAAD for that matter know what you think and feel about what they are doing in the community? I mean you did say they do good things. Should we abondon advocacy all together becasue of corruption. Isn’t there a lot of corruption in politics? As I mentioned earlier agencies like NOM use their money and clout to control who gets into certain offices. I hear NOM is raising 2 million dollars to oust senators in NY that voted for marriage equality. How interesting is it that during a recession that a segment of the population can afford to focus its money and attention on one of the states in the union. With 2 million in the coffers available to hit NY what state is next and which agencies should get tasked to defend civil rights?

While I agree with you that there is corruption in adocacy and politics abondoning and saying FU#@ doesn’t help those in need of protection.

‘In my opinion, partly contaminated is the same as completely contaminated. GLAAD (and numerous other organizations) have done some grimy things to gain their clout. Am I supposed to overlook those things just to give them credit for the visible good they do?’

And if this is tru then what do we do about Hip-Hop. I mean, this started out as a call for action. KRS One and those that stood with were about equality and not division. Today, many Hip Hop artists are pissing on LGBTQ folk in order to get ahold of that almight dollar. Many are willing to ignore the hate and calls to violence because it has a catchy beat behind it. I’ll pass on that glass of water with dribblets of piss floating in along the edges thanks.

I am glad (no pun of course) to see (read) that the hate charged rhetoric about gays was dropped from your correspondence. I shows me that you can be empathic towards the hurt that many feel when those are hurled so freely. While many may think that being black, gay, from a low socio economic status, or living in poverty are mutually exclusive events I’ll argue that they are just as interconnecting and inseparable as civil rights is to all of the forms of oppression that the movement (s) have and continue to address over time.

Last thought that I’ll share here before logging off fr good, get out there and vote my people. I think we often sit back and allow the process to take place withoout recognizing the importance of how the 13, 14, 15, and 19 amendments have on our daily lives. Our forfathers sure didn’t think that they were unimportant-Hip Hop of the past certainly didn’t dismiss these things and so why do we?

In Peace…

I appreciate your dedication to this dialog. This is exactly what needs to be done in order to battle problems in our society. But to be honest? Half of the issues you brought up aren’t really relevant to this conversation. But I’ll address the relevant issues you spoke of.

First….for my comments to ATL GUY…
While I understand your intention of trying to give a clearer meaning to his statement, it is more appropriate to let the writer stand on his own words. We aren’t lawyers here and part of the wonderful thing about this forum is that we all have the opportunity to debate our positions. I’m not saying you can’t “co-sign” his sentiment. But let him give us the meaning of his statements and let him debate me if it’s something he feels slighted on.

Second….

I believe I know what GLAAD is “intended” to be. Yeah. I’m aware of how the company started out and what it was intended to be. But you need to be honest with yourself about some basic American History. Whenever there is huge amounts of money involved, ANY AND ALL COMPANIES CHANGE FOR THE WORSE. Not the better.

Example….. It was a time when the NAACP actually stood up for people of color. But then money got thrown into it. Now, for the most part, The NAACP chooses which case to accept based more and more off of “raising” their profile within the black communities. This can’t be disputed. It’s truth.

Let me ask you a question. If you had a glass of water, and you saw someone taking a piss right beside the glass of water (with a few drops splashing into the glass), would you still drink it?

In my opinion, partly contaminated is the same as completely contaminated. GLAAD (and numerous other organizations) have done some grimy things to gain their clout. Am I supposed to overlook those things just to give them credit for the visible good they do?

Now what am I saying here? Am I saying that GLAAD never does any good for any one? No. Am I saying that GLAAD is totally corrupt? No.

What I AM saying is that the rules by which GLAAD intended to play have been drastically tainted by M.O.N.E.Y. And sh*ting on ethnic groups is a part of that dirty equation.

And even more to my point GLAAD absolutely has stepped on the black man to get clout. To deny that is foolish because the nature of our society is to use and exploit for monetary profit. America has one religion. The all mighty dollar.

I’m not knocking anything that you said. But to stay on subject, GLAAD is guilty of using blacks, asians, and any other ethnicity to push forward their agenda.

Let me open by syaing thanks for yet another opportunity to explain my position. I just types a long winded response which was subsequently lost in the wind we call the internet; however, I’m still invested enough in this discussion to type out a reply.

Something just dawned on my as I re read some of the feedback here and that was related to the inability of folk of color to hde thier blackness and here I’ll argue and remind the readers that there wre many folk in our not so distant past who made efforts to do this to varying degrees of success. This was called ‘passing’. There were many movies and books written about this very phonomenon so I just needed to put that out there.

I think I started my response by pointing out the living breathing nature of the document that we call the Constitution. It’s a living breathing document because our so called “Founding Fathers’ created it so that it could be interpreted and reinterpreted. And over the years we’ve seen this done quite a bit.

The document was initially interpretted to guarantee life, liberty, and freedom to men. This minimized the freedoms of woman (hence the need for the womens suffrage movement and the 19th Amendment to the COnstitution) and certainly ignored the need to extend rights and freedoms to folk of color.

When we talk about the civil rights movement, this wasnt just about rights for the decendants of Africans brought over in chains, this also included Native Americans (so called Indians) and others who embodied ‘blackness’ (just wanted to make the additional distinction).

Those things that were not addressed in the Constitution are addressed in Amendments like the 13th (1863) which freed the slaves, and the Fourteth Amendmend (1868) which guaranteed freedoms for whites and blacks before the law, and the Fiftenth Amendment which gave Blacks the right to vote (remember again that while this was signed in 1870 it would be several decades before these same rights would be extended to woman via another amendment).

In order to challange the so called objectivity of the law, one must formulate an argument that has some grounding in law and lawyers do that by looking at cases that have been heard and decided upon in he courts (for those issues that go that route since we have three equally powerful brances each wiith the power to make precedints when it comes to the law).

One of the civil rights cases that acts as a precident for civil rights is Loving vs Virginia-a case that made it illegal to marry interracially and proscribed punishments for those who violated the law. The lawyers who argued from both sides of the aisle in court presented previous cases and in the end the judge ruled that anti messgenation laws violated the 14th amendment right to due process.

While LGBTQ lawyers could certainly bring cases to the court and argue violations of due process or any of the other interlocking pieces of the 14th amendment, they certainly use this case (which is often used in the court as a way to ground and solidify an argument) the statement and opinion of the judge at the time has and continues to have usefulness in similar challanges that make thier way to the courts. The judge stated that the statutes (existing anti messgenation laws) deprive the Lovings of liberty without due process of law in violation of the due process of the 14th amendment (see they have to groud their arguement in relationship to an established rule).” He (I assume it was a he based on this time period but I digress) that “marriage is one of the basic civi rights of man, fundamental to our very existance and survival’. He didn’t stop short and say that marraige is defined as a union between an man and a woman he said again that ‘marriage is on of the basic civil rights of man, fundamental to out very existance and survival’. But you see, because the constitution is a living and breathing document it leaves it open to interpretation and leaves room for additional challanges to be made down the road like the current cases that are making their way through the courts asking that this ‘fundamental right’ be extened to the LGBTQ community. This is the process. The law while it may have started out addressing the needs of one group can certainly be applied and made use of to address other areas that may not have already been addressed….

Just as the civil rights movement for blacks (again, this also included Native Americans {see the Loving vs Virginia case to see how colored was defined for clarity], the womans equality movement was well underway, and somewhere in the back ground the LGBQT rights (see the Stone Wall Riots of 1969) and disabilites rights movements were co-occurring all at one.

GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign and other champions of LGBTQ rights don’t wish to diminish or step on black folk in order to make their cases-they simply make use of case law just as agencies like NOM use thier money and clout to bring cases throught the courts in an effort to challange or maintain a position.

While I feel your hate and concern as it’s directed at GLADD and other agencies that serve the LGBTQ community, I’ll argue here that while I empathize with this position its a little misplaces. You see, GLAAD and other advocates make use of case law in much the same way that the National Organization for Marriage and the Conservative block make use of the courts to have their position heard. Only, NOM and agencies like them have contributors with much deeper pockets which means that they can raise funds more easily in an effort to do an end run around the courts by using elected officials to circumvent the will of those that elect them. When you get upset with GLAAD you’re missing the point that thier responding to bias and stigma that occurs at levels well beyond you and I in ways that we’ll probably never trully understand…

My brain is fried from typing a second response and so I’ll say next that the term gay is one which is used to lable same sex attraction between men, lesbian is a term used to for same sex attraction between women (I see that you used gay to describe your lesbian friends), trangendered is a term used to describe individuals who identify with the gender/sex that is the opposite of their biological or birth gender/sex (much more complicated than this and please note that this is not a pathology although the scientific community lead many to believe that it is), Queer a term used to describe those who resist that rigidly established heteronormaive binaries (male/female/boy/girl/top/bottom [these binaries make it so that one is good and the other is bad]), and many others (ie pansexual, heteroflexive,…). As I said before, cross dressers have a history of thier own and while some are gay identiied, there are a number of folk who cross dress but maintain their interest in opposite sex attraction. THese folk resist the rigid rules in somewhat of the same way that some folk of color do with their baggy clothes, gold chains, gold teeth. It’s not good or bad it’s an expression of their individuality and although some may not understand it-that shouldn’t mean that they should fear attack or violence.

The flamboyant gay that you describe has every right to be as deliciously flamboyant as that person of color has to his right to resist the rigid rules around how one is expected to speak (broken english, slang and other forms of expressive resistance) with out being called a F word or the N word for that matter. The way that they parrellel is that they are entitled to the same freedoms to express themslves in the absence of repraisal. This is called tolerance and respect of difference.

I don’t for one moment but the arguement that folk are ok with gay folk and have the strongest response to flammboyant gays or those who cross dress. Just last week to gay soldiers were vicously attacked becuase they ‘looked gay’ what ever that means…

And te last thing that I’d like to respond to is your comment to ATL Guy with regards to his advice that folk not buy from artist who may make homophobic comments or statements-I don’t think for a moment that this was the advice of a ‘pu@@y” this was good ole fashioned boycotting….Not buying products sends a strong message especially when it comes from a community of folk that has a disposable income at the helm to support the carbon prints that make on the world.

I think that flamboyant gays and cross dressers have every right to exist and be in the world as their counter parts of color and I would viciously defend the rights of each no matter the aggresser…

In Peace