Worcester panel explores intersection of marriage and race

At a town hall meeting aimed at promoting a better understanding of marriage equality within the African American community in Worcester on Oct. 30, Joyce McKnickles, a professor of diversity at Anna Maria College and a straight black woman, recalled the messages she heard within her community and her family about gay and lesbian while growing up: "I was really involved with my church and I certainly heard messages about gay people," McKnickles told a gathering of about 25 at the Martin Luther King Jr. Business Empowerment Center. "And mostly I was getting the message that they weren't us. Gay people were white, because that's the kinda stuff those crazy white people do."

In a similar vein Kathy Linton, an African American lesbian who came out in the 1970s, shared the story of growing up with a cousin, who, apparently recognizing which way Linton was leaning on the Kinsey scale, offered some unsolicited advice: "He informed me that there was no such thing as a black lesbian," Linton, the director of education outreach for the Rape Crisis Center of Central Massachusetts, told the crowd. When a friend finally took her out to a lesbian bar, "I felt relieved. I knew that's where I belonged," Linton recalled. "Not in the bar," she quickly added, to laughs from the audience, "with the people."

Likewise, Brenda Safford, a straight black woman and the director of Multi-cultural affairs at Assumption College, recalled being told as a high school student by her pastor that she could no longer associate with a male classmate who preferred feminine clothing. "The only way I found out I could not be friends with him anymore was in church," recalled Safford, who grew up in Texas. "And we were just told, 'Do not hang with him anymore.'"

McNickles, Linton and Safford appeared on a panel of speakers that also included Rodney Glasgow, a gay black man and the director of diversity at Worcester Academy, and Henry Ritter, a gay black man and a student advisor at Quinsigamond Community College. The panel was moderated by Al Toney, a black gay man who consults on workplace diversity.

The black community's "don't ask, don't tell policy" toward homosexuality, as one black gay man who attended the meeting described it, was just one of the barriers to a better understanding of the marriage issue in the black community - and the LGBT community in general - cited by participants in the town hall meeting. Panelists also addressed complaints by some black people that the language of the black civil rights movement has been wrongly appropriated by the gay rights movement.

McKnickles observed that while she sees parallels between the struggles for gay equality and black civil rights, she is aware that the use of civil rights language by the community is "a point of tension" in the black community because many black people - although McKnickles isn't among them - believe that being gay, unlike skin color, is a matter of choice. "I think that's why we get into this conflict between blacks and gays and lesbians ... because some of us think, 'You just stop being gay and you won't have a problem.' We can't stop being black," she said. Safford expressed similar sentiments: "A lot of black people are saying to me, they don't want to discriminate, they with you on your fight," she said. "But just don't compare it to civil rights."

In response, Toney asked panelists how gay rights activists could better explain its objectives to the black community. Was it just a matter of removing the word "civil"? from the equation? "I believe so," Safford offered.

After an audience member suggested that perhaps the gay rights movement framed their struggle in terms of human rights rather than civil rights, Ritter countered that, "according to the law, the way the laws get changed, you have to go back to [the term] 'civil rights.'"

Likewise MassEqulity board chair David Wilson, a black gay man, noted that while some states have passed civil unions laws that purport to be comparable to marriage, they both utilize separate licenses. "It takes us back to when the fountains were different and the bathrooms were different," Wilson asserted. "Basically the more we start to set up these different systems, the more likely the people that are not in the mainstream are going to fall short." While Wilson said he appreciated the discussion about civil rights versus human rights, "every time you change a word, somebody gets left out, dropped off. And the laws, by the way, are all written around marriage. ... So I would propose that we continue to try to talk about language that is universal."

Glasgow said that for him, the issue wasn't a matter of semantics. "The issue is one community - specifically the gay community -trying to pick up on the momentum of the civil rights movement but they aren't always living that ... spirit. And so you can't hop on board with the language if you haven't done the work of equality and antiracism in your own community."

McKnickles sounded a similar theme in response to Toney's inquiry about whether the black civil rights movement could find common ground with the gay rights movement and if so, how it could come together. McKnickles responded that she's at a point in her life where if she's going to have personal relationships with white people, "I want to have them with white people who are actively anti-racist. If they're gay and they're actively anti-racist, fine." McKnickles added that either way, she's committed to actively combating homophobia, but it's "a lot nicer to do that with white gays and lesbians who get it about racism."

The town hall meeting was part of "Jumping the Broom," a new initiative by MassEquality to do outreach in communities of color on the issue of marriage equality. A similar event was held in Boston on Oct. 29. Additionally MassEquality, in conjunction with the National Black Justice Coalition has published "Jumping the Broom: A Black Perspective on Same-Gender Marriage," an educational resource authored by Toney and his spouse Keith Toney, who is white. Toney will also facilitate a training for those who wish to learn how to more positively engage members of the black community on issues of marriage equality and sexual orientation at the Harriet Tubman House in Boston from 6-8 p.m. on Nov. 12.

The initiative comes as MassEquality works to change the dynamics of what Wilson acknowledged at the outset of the town hall meeting has been "a pretty white movement" for the past three years. Noting his election as MassEquality board chair just one month ago, Wilson told the gathering, "You can see we have a new face on MassEquality, which is a good thing."