Coined in 1990, by Aishah Shahidah Simmons, AfroLez®femcentric defines the culturally conscious role of women who identify as Afrocentric, Lesbian/Queer, AND Feminist.
Michael Simmons on the Responsibility of African-Americans to Consistently Speak Out Against Homophobia
In 2008, Michael Simmons, an international human rights activist and my father who, with his partner Linda Carranza, co-founded the Raday Salon in Budapest Hungary, wrote comments about his thoughts on the responsibility of African-Americans who are heterosexual to consistently speak out against homophobia. To commemorate both the first day of National LGBTQ History Month (October) and National Coming Out Day (October 11), I’m reposting what he wrote. Following are his comments:
“Unlike racism towards African-Americans, many of us (African-Americans), while being tolerant, look the other way when we see and hear homophobia. It’s not unlike how “liberal” White people look the other way when they see and hear racism. We allow people to quote ignorant and hateful words if they come out of some religious text. We fail to challenge our friends, family, spiritual leaders, and neighbors when they articulate some ignorant view of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender folks. Indeed we will often defend their right to be hateful while we are (rightfully) pissed off at racist behavior of years gone by.
We are willing to deny people health care and other benefits solely based on their (non-heterosexuality). We will accuse lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of being petty and just looking out for “their interests,” as if they are less than human beings. Folks often get pissed off at the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community when they press liberal politicians to address their rights fearing a backlash–a position we (African-Americans) would not tolerate if it were race.
We all walk around quoting Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., saying that an injury to one is an injury to all while often telling the African-American lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community to shut the hell up and wait until we are ready to deal with this lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender stuff. One does not have to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender or even like LGBT folks to just leave them the hell alone and allow them to enjoy life. That is all most of us ask for ourselves. It shouldn’t be a complicated process for anyone, regardless of their sexual orientation, to fight for LGBT people to have the same exact rights and benefits that heterosexual people receive. [Human rights for all] ain’t profound. It is only profound when those folks who have power don’t want to share it with all.”
For more information about Michael Simmons and Linda Carranza’s work, please visit http://raday.blogs.com/