Jasmyne Cannick of the LA. WATTS TIMES pretty much takes the white gay community in California to the woodshed in her latest piece titled "A White Gays Guide to Dealing with Black People." Cannick, a lesbian herself, pretty much says the gay community needs to fall back while California deals with other issues—unemployment, health care, budget crisis. "[T]he fight for marriage doesn’t surpass the bread-and-butter issues that are plaguing millions of Californians today." She goes on to recommend finding a way to pursuade Black voters rather than take to the street and throw "temper tantrums" while talking greasy about Obama. She is particularly critical of the last tack considering Black people, by in large, are still very much in love with The Obama. Cannick is equally dismissive of the threats to boycott Black churches and businesses. She writes:
"Threatening to boycott black churches and businesses — which is laughable because most white gays do very little business in the black community — will not help the cause of gay marriage advocates. Besides the fact that those same gays would first have to attend the churches in question or frequent those businesses for them to be blacklisted, in the end it would only enrage a constituency that you will undoubtedly need in the future."
Cannick goes on to say:
"Chances are that this fight is not going to be remedied by the courts or the Legislature but by popular opinion…[s]o, threatening to withhold political contributions and endorsements of black candidates because of their position on gay marriage isn’t going to work…Unless the gay community changes its “entitlement” strategy, we can expect to go around and around on this issue as we do year in and year out…If the gay community is really serious about marriage, then it needs to act like it and start running the kind of campaigns that bring them closer to the constituencies that they need instead of alienating them…."
THE BUZZ says: Ouch.
What say you?