Defending marriage, defending the family
Just a get-it-off-my-chest rant ...
Last month, when Bush met with some African-American businessmen and clergy, gay marriage was brought up as a threat to families. And I wanted to laugh. Because over the course of some 400 years, so many generations of Africans and African-Americans have suffered so many degradations to the notions of family and community.
Families were threatened when young adults and children were traded, sold or kidnapped into slavery, wretched away from their families to be stacked like cargo in the holds of ships and carried across the ocean to the Americas. Many died on the way.
Families were threatened when those kidnapped African and their progeny were enslaved. Of the many deprivations they endured, they were not allowed to:
* have a legally binding marriage
* lawfully resist the sexual advances of their owners or any other whites.
* maintain the family unit if the owners decided to give/trade/sell one or multiple family members to different owners
* determine the welfare of their children, such as in education or occupational training.
Families were threatened by the actions of the Ku Klux Klan and the lynching culture that followed Reconstruction, by the economic and socio-cultural instability that were the hallmarks of Jim Crow and by jury-rigged systems in labor, agriculture and real estate that emphasized migrancy, share-cropping and tenancy over investment and ownership.
Families were threatened when the freedom to form families were curtailed by miscegnation laws.
Families were and are threatened by decades of the inequities of the criminal-justice systems--which despite the supposed blindness of justice always manages to keep track of the race of the victim and the race of the suspect--and the resulting prison-industrial complex that increasingly punishes without any regard or attempt towards rehabilitation, even for juvenile offenders.
Families are threatened when single mothers are characterized as selfish and self-absorbed, indifferent to the possibility of raising warped, damaged children who are and will continue to be drains on the society.
Families are threatened when underfunded, overcrowded schools are continually first on the chopping block when the budget turns red.
And you know ... gay marriage doesn't have a thing to do with any of these past or present threats.
It was very thoughtful of Mr. Bush to express concern over the strength and viability of African-American families. But I hope, in the end, that most African-Americans can recognize a threat when they see one.
Last month, when Bush met with some African-American businessmen and clergy, gay marriage was brought up as a threat to families. And I wanted to laugh. Because over the course of some 400 years, so many generations of Africans and African-Americans have suffered so many degradations to the notions of family and community.
Families were threatened when young adults and children were traded, sold or kidnapped into slavery, wretched away from their families to be stacked like cargo in the holds of ships and carried across the ocean to the Americas. Many died on the way.
Families were threatened when those kidnapped African and their progeny were enslaved. Of the many deprivations they endured, they were not allowed to:
* have a legally binding marriage
* lawfully resist the sexual advances of their owners or any other whites.
* maintain the family unit if the owners decided to give/trade/sell one or multiple family members to different owners
* determine the welfare of their children, such as in education or occupational training.
Families were threatened by the actions of the Ku Klux Klan and the lynching culture that followed Reconstruction, by the economic and socio-cultural instability that were the hallmarks of Jim Crow and by jury-rigged systems in labor, agriculture and real estate that emphasized migrancy, share-cropping and tenancy over investment and ownership.
Families were threatened when the freedom to form families were curtailed by miscegnation laws.
Families were and are threatened by decades of the inequities of the criminal-justice systems--which despite the supposed blindness of justice always manages to keep track of the race of the victim and the race of the suspect--and the resulting prison-industrial complex that increasingly punishes without any regard or attempt towards rehabilitation, even for juvenile offenders.
Families are threatened when single mothers are characterized as selfish and self-absorbed, indifferent to the possibility of raising warped, damaged children who are and will continue to be drains on the society.
Families are threatened when underfunded, overcrowded schools are continually first on the chopping block when the budget turns red.
And you know ... gay marriage doesn't have a thing to do with any of these past or present threats.
It was very thoughtful of Mr. Bush to express concern over the strength and viability of African-American families. But I hope, in the end, that most African-Americans can recognize a threat when they see one.