Wade D. Albert
Political Science & Classics
walbert@temple.edu
215-387-4238
I recently discovered an AP story by Mark Niesse titled “Black Clergy Rally Against Gay Marriage”, which describes how a group of African American pastors in Georgia declared their aversion to same-sex marriage. Quoted in this story is Temple Professor Clarence James, from the African American Studies Department: “When the homosexual compares himself to the black community, he doesn’t know what suffering is.”
I find this statement appalling. I believe it is indisputable that after years of civil rights advancements, African Americans still live in a nation of institutionalized racism. Unfortunately, blacks are not the only group of people against which society discriminates, and it behooves no one to rank minority groups in a hierarchy of “who is more oppressed.” It seems foolish that marginalized groups do not unite in solidarity. If both African Americans and sexual minorities are fighting for civil rights, why work against each other rather than with each other?
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