Bigotry and Pride

It's amazing to me how people can, on the one hand, whine and complain about the effects of bigotry on their demographic group and on the other hand, engage in bigotry against others. Three things immediately come to mind.

First of all, there's the whole thing with the modern-day nation of Israel. There you have people who live in a nation created as a refuge from the hatred and bigotry visited among Jewish people throughout history, but most notably in the holocaust of world war II (and no, I'm not capitalizing it). I've ranted on it before and will likely rant on it again when I go back tot he Middle East in a few months.

Then I look at us African-Americans. I work in the ghetto, and about the only places that deliver in the ghetto are what I call the "ghetto Chinese" places. They're the cheap Chinese joints you only find in the ghetto. There was a delivery guy cycling through the ghetto, and a group of folk - I think they were black, but may have been black and hispanic -- and they started talking about "ching chong" and that "effing ch**nk." I think the racism is despicable. I also think it's significant that you have people who are strolling along happily in a culture of government "entitlement" programs that effectively destroy and erode the natural human tendency towards self-reliance -- you have people immersed in that culture who are lashing out at folks who choose not to be part of that culture. If I haven't ranted on this before, I will at another time.

Finally, you have the Christian bigots who have just worked my last nerve. The Gay Marriage thing passed in NY yesterday. OK, my Christian friends, I get it that you think homosexuality is an abomination. I get that, cuz I read the same Bible you do (although nobody has ever yet explained to me why it's ok to harp on that Levitical teaching but we can sell ham sandwiches (I believe eating pork is also an abomination) and wear two different kinds of clothes and fail to stone people caught in adultery and we black people no longer have to remain slaves and obey our masters. Nobody ever explained to me why it's ok to rationalize away some parts of the Word of God but not be able to rationalize away other parts.

But what gets me is that the Bible I read says that "WHILE WE WERE YET IN OUR SINS, CHRIST DIED FOR US." Now, in my understanding, that means that even though Christ knew I would fall short of the Law, He still saw fit to shed His blood and offer His life as a sacrifice for my sins. So who am I to judge someone else's sins instead of offering them the love of Christ? Yeah, you think being gay is a sin. OK. While you were sinning, Christ died for you. And you're going to repay that by being a jerk to somebody who's gay. That says a lot about your Christian witness.

I was particularly perturbed by the posting of a friend of mine. He's a guy I know and love. He's also a guy who looks to be about 4 or 5 hundred pounds. I've struggled with weight all my life, and shed about 100 pounds only with surgical intervention, so I'm not trying to be anti-People of Size. But when I was larger, I was painfully aware of the fact that my weight contributed to multiple other health issues which, collectively, led to the malaise of my temple, the body God entrusted to me. And I just think that before we Christians get all crazy about what somebody else is doing with their bodies, that perhaps we ought to take a look at what we're doing with our bodies, and how our temple maintenance reflects our Christian witness.

It seems there was some confusion in the Harlem community regarding Harlem Pride. Now, the Pride phenomenon has existed for probably a couple of decades. I know I was in Gay Pride parades with Standup Harlem before my mother died. When, after the Marriage Equality bill passed, a friend of mine posted to his FB status, "now I'm as good as you!" I was shocked and suddenly remembered the early days of the Pride movement. Of course African Americans would stand in solidarity with gays. It was all about equal rights. So anyway, apparently last year there was a Harlem Pride event and some people showed up thinking it meant Harlem (Neighborhood) pride. They were apparently offended to find out it was a Harlem gay pride event, and tried to start some madness, saying they were going to protest Harlem Pride today.

Never one to miss a good controversy, and since some friends of mine were in the area, I went with them to Harlem Pride. What a disappointment. Instead of something fierce or fabulous, I saw a ragtag group of folk who remind me of the people at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center. They are, I contend, people who need a club or something to belong to in order to give them identity. (Most of the gay people I know have lives that are full and complete. The few gay people I've met at events around the Gay and Lesbian Community Center just seem challenged in a variety of ways. To me it seems they have issues and the whole sexuality thing is just a shield. And that's what I saw at Harlem Pride today: not the hunky, muscular guys in shorts and tees who'll be dancing tomorrow, but just a bunch of people with issues wrapped up in rainbow colors.

But I was happy to check it out. We didn't tarry, and went to one of the friend's new apartment. He's moving from East Harlem to Central Harlem, just off 125th, near Lenox and 7th. You don't get more Central Harlem than that. Yet he lives in a building where I didn't see any black people. He says there are two black people that he's seen -- but there's 24 or 26 units in the building, and we're talking 1 or 2 units with black people in it. But then, what is to be expected when apartments are at least half a million dollars? More and more, Manhattan is a haven for people in the projects and the wealthy. Most of the projects were built with government tax credits or other subsidies. As these subsidies and the benefits for building low-income housing expires, I believe more and more of these buildings will become homes of the weathly. Increasingly, poor people will be forced to the outer boros.

But that's another kind of bigotry. In a day where we celebrated the social rights of people with diverse sexual orientations, I saw highlighted the waning economic rights (as in opportunities) of people who are not academically or intellectually or socially prepared for the ratrace that is Manhattan Island. We need poor people to guard and clean our buildings, deliver our food, and clean and repair our homes, but we don't want them to live among us. That's the message I saw today. What I saw today was that in New York, "I'm as good as you" apparently is true for people who are black, and/or female, and/or gay or lesbian, but not for people who are poor.

Bigotry and Pride. They're still alive and well in New York....