BET Takes A Giant Step Backward

On the season finale of Being Mary Jane, Mary Jane ended her relationship with "The White Boy".  Not really a surprise since all of her relationships are unhealthy and end in a ball of fire.  Fans expect at least one new love interest per season and, subsequently, one epic breakup.  Usually the relationships have a honeymoon period and the viewers get sucked into thinking this one might last before the hammer drops.  But the difference between the other break ups and this one is that nothing actually happened this time. 

There was no argument that lead to this breakup.  Just Mary Jane deciding one day that she was black and could not maintain her blackness if she dated a white boy.  She spouted off all kinds of BS about how black men got her in a way that white men never could and that she couldn't date a white man because of this because it was some sort of betrayal to her race.  WTF.

So all black marriages have a 100% success rate because they just get each other?  Or 0% of interracial marriages last because they don't?  Shame on BET for this sort of ignorant 1950's mindset.  Black people and white people are different and they shouldn't be together.  Stay with your race.  Never stray from what society tells you is best for you. 

Relationships work when people listen to each other, respect each other and let their guard down enough to open themselves up.  For all the single women out their who cheered when Mary Jane ended the relationship and in the next breath complained to their girlfriends about how hard it is to find a good (black) man shame on you too.  I'm so over media telling me who I'm supposed to be.  The last place I expected to see racism promoted was on a network that is supposed to make me feel good about being black.  

Homosexuality and Sports

Jason Collins is gay.  No matter what talk radio station I turn to, that is all people are talking about.  Collins is the first male American professional athlete in one of the major sports to come out while he is still an active player.  All of those adjectives are key in the description.  Tennis, swimming, figure skating and golf are all sports with male professional athletes but if one of their players came out it would be reported on the back page of the sports section.  It would be a non-story after 24 hours.  Athletes coming out after retirement from one of the big 4 (football, basketball, baseball and hockey) is nothing new.  Female athletes coming out while they are still playing?  It's been happening for years and it rarely gets a reaction. So my excitement over his coming out has been squashed by all the ignorant comments that I've heard for the past 2 days. 

The two most common arguments:

Gay people should have separate locker rooms.  If I were playing sports and one of my teammates were gay I wouldn't feel comfortable changing next to him. 

So apparently gay men are all sex fiends.  They can't stand near someone of the sex they are attracted to without wanting to have sex with him.  And of course all people of the sex they are attracted to are attractive to them.  I have never been a man but I have changed and/or gone to the bathroom in front of plenty of men and gay women over the years and, in doing so, been partially or completely undressed in front of them.  At no point did I have to fight someone off because they were so overcome by the sight of my partially naked body that they had to jump on me.  

To play the other side of this argument.  What if someone was attracted to you?  Does that mean they would act on it?  Do people typically physically assault every person they have a crush on?  More often than not, you hide your feelings from the person you are lusting after and go out of your way to seem like you are not attracted to them.  I have had men and women grab my ass or make inappropriate comments to me while I was walking down the street or into a bar.  I wouldn't advocate for all people who may be attracted to me to be banned from public places because they incidents are the exception and not the rule.  I have been well over 100 situations where something like this could have occurred; I can count all the incidents on one hand. 

There is nothing courageous about what he did.  It's not like he's a superstar.  If Kobe Bryant came out that would be brave.  That would be a story.  

Your accountant coming out is not a big deal to the general public. For the most part, kids aren't watching your accountant on TV.  Your accountant doesn't regularly bump elbows with some of the richest, famous and most talented people on the planet. Your accountant would still be brave if he came out within his co-workers and circle of friends but it wouldn't be national news. 

A 12 year old boy who knows he is gay but is afraid to come out because he doesn't want someone to call him a sissy may not have known who Jason Collins was yesterday but today he is his biggest fan.  Because he sees someone who shares his sexuality but doesn't act like the over the top, gay stereotype that is so often portrayed on American television (think the New Normal, Glee, Rupaul, etc). He sees another option.  He sees that he can be gay and still be masculine and not the but of a joke.  And he sees those guys that are superstars playing next to this guy and not blinking an eye.   

Collins pointed this out in one of his interviews.  He made a point to mention that he is not an effeminate gay man.  Many gay listeners called in and criticized him for this.  These people need to face the fact that people who's inner circle doesn't include gay people think of all gay men as the overly effeminate lisping stereotype and all gay women as  the manly, unattractive man-hating stereotype.  It is important for people to realize that gay people come in all shapes, sizes, colors and personalities just like the rest of us. Yes, sometimes you can look at a person and guess that they are gay.  But a lot of the time you can't.  And there are a lot of effeminate straight men out there screwing with this stereotype.  

I am black and my husband is white.  There are a lot of people who don't approve of our relationship.  Many of these people are very vocal about their disapproval of our relationship.  30 years ago there were laws that supported people's rights to discriminate against us and, in some cases, arrest us for being married.  Unfortunately there are still many people who feel this way.  There are still towns with segregated proms and neighborhoods.  But they are the exception, not the rule. 

I hope that we are saying the same things about gay rights a few years from now.  That when a so called religious person compares homosexuality to bestiality, pedophilia and polygamy people look at those people as crazy.  That those people no longer get to be part of the mainstream.  That their hate is limited to the cult that they represent.    That those people are on the fringe with the rest of the bigots and the rest of us are allowed to live our lives with the same rights and freedoms as every other American citizen.  

Racism in America

Remember the 2007 Fiesta Bowl? Boise State had gone undefeated during the regular season and made a great case for why the BCS system is screwed up. Even though they didn't get a chance to play in the championship game, they did get to play against football powerhouse Oklahoma who many had thought would battle for the national championship before they lost to Oregon and Texas in the regular season. Boise State beat Oklahoma and showed people that a team for a smaller conference could compete with the big boys.

To this day, a lot of people still reference that game as one of the best arguments for why we need a better system to determine a national champion. But the most memorable part of that game happened on the sidelines after time ran out. The star football player from Boise State got on one knee and proposed to his cheerleader girlfriend on live TV. She of course said yes and the crowd went crazy. The young couple appeared on all of the talk shows and gave a fairy tale ending to a fairy tale season that was so perfect and cheesy you would have thought Disney wrote it.

What wasn't reported in the national media were the threatening letters and phone calls that the young couple and their families received. The death threats that made police protection necessary and forced them to change the date and location of their wedding several times. You see the football player is black and the cheerleader is white. To be accurate, the football player has a white parent and a black parent and is of mixed race but that is irrelevant to most people in this country. The bottom line is that if you appear to have any black in you, if you have brown skin, then you are black and any other part of your ethnicity is not important.

The fact that just seeing an interracial couple on television incensed so many people that hundreds of them decided to threaten them is disgusting. But the fact that none of the media outlets reported on it is even more disturbing. Sports Illustrated recently ran a "Where are They Now" story and reported this information for the first time to the general public in a mainstream publication. Was there public outcry? Did it become the lead story on the news? Did Oprah do a show about it? No, of course not. Not even a letter to the editor (or at least none published).

What does that say about us as a nation? That such rampant racism exists but isn't reported. When Barack Obama became president I heard a lot of ridiculous talk that this was a sign that racism was no longer a big issue in America. If you don't believe that a large portion of the people who say that the president is Muslim, not an American citizen and all the other bullshit that these protesters are saying has more to do with the color of the president's skin that his politics then you are lying to yourself.

When the Princess and the Frog became Disney's first movie to feature a black princess people said that it wasn't a big deal. These people have obviously never tried to find a black Barbie doll for their child. Mattel only makes some of the Barbie's in black. Many of the special edition and themed Barbies only come in white. As do many baby dolls and other toys that are mass marketed to little girls.

Anyone who believes that Hurricane Katrina wouldn't have been handled differently if it happened in a predominantly white area is lying to themselves. If there is a shooting at a school in a middle class area it becomes a national news story but a shooting at an inner city school is often back page news. When a black athlete or entertainer gets in trouble with the law or has tattoos he is a labeled a thug but that tag isn't applied to a white athlete/entertainer with the same bio.

I experience racism on a regular basis in this country. It is usually fairly subtle. No one is yelling the n-word at me or refusing to serve me but I would almost rather have that. When sales people don't wait on me in the store but ask other customers several times if they need assistance, that is racism. Or when those same sales people show up at the end of every aisle that your shopping in because they think you're going to rob the store, that is racism. When people meet me for the first time after only speaking to me on the phone or communicating with me via e-mail and tell me I don't sound black, like its some sort of compliment, that is racism. When people assume that I'm the secretary when they walk into my office because I'm the only black person there, that is racism. When complete strangers feel comfortable asking me if I'm the first person in my family to go to college despite the fact that black people have been graduating from college in this country since 1823, that is racism. When people assume that I grew up in the inner city, that I listen to rap music and that I have certain cultural and political views solely based on the color of my skin, that is racism.

It is no surprise that there isn't a large civil rights movement in this country like there was in the 1960's. Most people don't even know that this racism exists because it isn't reported. I don't know what its going to take for this country to take a serious look at itself and for people to be outraged. I am almost afraid of what sort of catastrophe would need to happen to spark a civil rights movement