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Ron Jackson's Perspective
Ebony Voices
December 21, 2003
My friends, the
racist and the homophobe |
Ebony Voices
Ron has begun submitting
articles & editorials for online publication at Ebony Voices.
We plan to make these documents available on Ron's website, since we
cannot link you to his material on their site. |
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Momma always said, “Be careful who your friends are.”
I know a couple of people over forty whom I consider
friends. One is white, one is black. One is male, one is
female. One is racist, one is homophobic. Now before you
get yourself all worked up, let me explain.
I meet a lot of people. What they do for a
living, if they believe in God, who they sleep with, or how they
vote is never a concern of mine. As long as they treat me with
respect, we can get along.
Take the white guy I know. He keeps it no secret
that if his daughter were ever to date a black man, he would disown
her. That’s not a problem for me. I don’t want his
daughter, nor do either of my two sons. His rationale is that
black guys, especially those his daughter’s age, have no desire to
be anything other than thugs, rappers, or drug dealers. But
get this. His biggest concern is what his interracial
grandbaby would have to endure from other children. The
classic ignorant reply.
I’m a product of mixed race intercourse. The only
problems I ever had came from ignorant adults, both black and white.
Older blacks knew no shame when they would remind me that “somebody
in your family was the Mastah’s favorite.” It was always a
white adult that would let me know that, “you're still a nigger.”
It’s adults like my buddy who produce offspring and teach them to
have a problem with other children different than themselves.
Take my black female buddy. She is a staunch
supporter of equal rights and reparations. She is educated and has
traveled the world extensively. She has seen injustice and
discrimination. She is just as adamant an opponent of same-sex
marriages. She is so against the “immorality” of homosexuality
that she wouldn’t want a gay teacher to teach her son.
How a gay teacher would teach her son anything
different than two plus two equals four is beyond me. When
offered that she sounded like the pre-civil rights era racists who
didn’t want blacks to have the same rights as whites, she was taken
aback. She was offended that I would compare her to white
people who thought their lifestyle was superior and more blessed by
God than that of black people. She believes God made man and
woman to marry and that gays will bring negativity into the
institution of marriage. As if spousal abuse and divorce in
heterosexual marriages ain’t negative! I pointed out that
folks used God to sanction slavery, too.
Although she knows my marital status and the number of
children I have, she questioned if my support of gay rights was due
to “borderline” sexuality. When I said she sounded like whites
who accused other whites who worked on the Underground Railroad of
being niggers, she disagreed.
I was left pondering how in 2003 two seemingly
intelligent people could sound like Strom Thurmond in 1948 when he
said there were “not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern
people to break down segregation and admit the Negro race into our
theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our
churches.”
Strom Thurmond died in 2003. Ignorance lives on. |
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