Trayvon, Sharpton, and Homophobia - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Trayvon, Sharpton, and Homophobia
by

Let’s start by mentioning the unmentionable. Unmentionable, that is, for liberals, if not for Rush Limbaugh, who has spent the last two days on his show doing the work the mainstream media simply refuses to do. Unmentionable too for the black leftist establishment and Attorney General Eric Holder. All of whom want to play the race card. But only if that race card has nothing to do with the startling question raised about Trayvon Martin by his friend, the prosecution star witness Rachel Jeantel in her CNN interview with Piers Morgan. 

The unmentionable in this case is the question as to whether Trayvon Martin thought that he was about to be sexually assaulted by George Zimmerman, whom Trayvon may have perceived to be gay. Did this cause Martin to attack Zimmerman? That is exactly what Trayvon’s friend and the prosecution star witness Rachel Jeantel stunningly suggested the other night to CNN’s Piers Morgan. As Mediate.com (emphasis added–JL) summarized:

Jeantel insisted that Martin was “creeped out” and believed Zimmerman was following him, even worrying that he might be a “rapist.” She asked, “For every boy or every man who’s not that kind of way, seeing a grown man following them, would they be creeped out?

But the really great unmentionable here is the wider problem of homophobia in the black community, the kind of black-on-gay violence on display in this gruesome video of an attack on a gay man in Atlanta. The attackers are black, as is the gay man, Brandon White. (Warning: this video is brutal.) Here’s an excerpt from an account of the story posted over at The Smoking Gun:

Members of an Atlanta street gang were filmed beating a man who was brutally assaulted because “faggots” were not allowed in their neighborhood, according to a videotape of the apparent hate crime….

As seen above, the video opens with an unseen cameraman and a second man outside the grocery store. The second man announces, “Round one. Jack City. No faggots.” Then, after a diminutive man exits the grocery, an assailant approaches him from behind and delivers a brutal punch to the side of the victim’s head. The man’s cell phone flies from his hand and he crumples to the ground.

The victim is then set upon by three men who punch and stomp him while he tries to cover his head. One of the attackers–who is wearing a shirt with “Jack Gang” imprinted on the back–even strikes the victim in the head with a tire.

As the man is beaten, the giggling cameraman announces, four times, “No faggots in Jack City.” An onlooker can be heard saying, “No faggot, man.

The black attackers were arrested and charged with a hate crime. Brandon White spoke out at a press conference, expressing concern that he would be attacked again, possibly even killed. 

A similar incident occurred at Illinois State University. The victim was white, but there was no doubt in Eric Unger’s mind he was targeted because he was gay. Headlined the Chicago Sun-Times:

Gay student claims hate attack in beating at Illinois State University

(NORMAL, Ill) A gay Illinois State University student is recovering from injuries he said he suffered during a hate-inspired beatdown Saturday morning near campus.

….Eric Unger said he had just left a party and was walking home alone about 2:30 a.m. in the 100 block of West Willow Street when a group of men passed him from behind — and one of them knocked his phone out of his hand.

The 23-year-old from north suburban Deerfield, who is openly gay, said he asked the group, allegedly comprised of five to eight African-American males, “what their problem was.”

Unger said they responded with anti-gay slurs and surrounded him. He said he pleaded that he “just wanted to go home,” but the men attacked him, still hurling anti-gay epithets.

Meanwhile MSNBC host Al Sharpton is trying to insist that the Martin case was all about race. This is the same Al Sharpton who once advanced menacingly towards a questioner on the set of the late Morton Downey Jr.’s television show; the first words out of Sharpton’s mouth were these, bold print for emphasis: “You ain’t nothing, you a punk faggot. Now come on, do something!”

Now people do get angry. On the Downey show, that was part of the theater. But there are lots of things one can say when angry, all of them perfectly plain bleep-able expletives, especially when appearing on television. What Sharpton blurted was a very decided gay slur. As a matter of fact, it was exactly the same slur those black gang members in Atlanta were shouting as they beat a black gay man senseless.

The anti-gay slur popped out of Sharpton’s mouth with the all-too-considerable ease of a man for whom gay slurs were a casual, everyday thing, just as they obviously are for those black gang members in Atlanta, and just as they were on another occasion when Sharpton was caught on audio tape referring to Socrates and “Greek homos.” 

And 50 Cent? The black hip-hop star who is idolized by all manner of impressionable black kids–kids just like Trayvon Martin–who has repeatedly drawn the ire of gay rights groups over the years for comments like these to Playboy back in 2004:

“I ain’t into faggots. I don’t like gay people around me, because I’m not comfortable with what their thoughts are.”

The attacks in Atlanta and Illinois and the remarks by Sharpton, 50 Cent are symptomatic of a problem some blacks seem to have with gay men. Or, as both men called them, “faggots” and “homos.” Nearly everyone discussing this case, including an apparently terrified Piers Morgan has been afraid to focus on that part of Rachel Jeantel’s stunning interview with Morgan. As I mentioned earlier, Jeantel suggested that Trayvon was “creeped out” that a potential “rapist” was following him. She pointedly added:

“For every boy or every man who’s not that kind of way, seeing a grown man following them, would they be creeped out?”

Catch those words? “…[N]ot that kind of way”? What “way” was that? What Jeantel is suggesting here is that Trayvon Martin, straight as far as we know, had a problem with gay men, and that Martin may have thought that George Zimmerman was gay. She added that Trayvon would respond to a perceived gay threat by dishing out “whup-ass.” In other words, Trayvon Martin was homophobic. Homophobic just like Al Sharpton and those Atlanta gang members–all black–who gleefully beat Brandon White senseless and the attackers who went after Eric Unger at the University of Illinois while “hurling anti-gay epithets.” Homophobic just like 50 Cent, who takes to the pages of Playboy to rail against “faggots.”

Much milder but still interesting is a poll commissioned back in March of this year by Bob Johnson, CEO of Black Entertainment Television, to learn about the views in the black community of the gay rights movement. Johnson, a prominent supporter of President Obama, said the poll showed that “55% of African-American adults do not agree with the LGBT community’s claim that gay rights are the same as civil rights for blacks.” Said Johnson:

“There weren’t any real surprises. On the issue of gay rights, African-Americans are far more conservative on that issue than I think the general population, so that wasn’t a surprise.”

The problem of black homophobia has not gone unnoticed in the gay community. Back in 2008, Dan Savage wrote about this issue the day after Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, carrying California. What caught Savage’s attention–what made him furious–was that Proposition 8, the ballot measure banning gay marriage in the state, had not only passed but had passed with huge support from the state’s black community. Wrote an angry Savage in a blog post entitled Black Homophobia:

African American voters in California voted overwhelmingly for Prop 8, writing anti-gay discrimination into California’s constitution and banning same-sex marriage in that state. Seventy percent of African American voters approved Prop 8, according to exit polls, compared to 53% of Latino voters, 49% of white voters, 49% of Asian voters.

I’m not sure what to do with this. I’m thrilled that we’ve just elected our first African-American president. I wept last night. I wept reading the papers this morning. But I can’t help but feeling hurt that the love and support aren’t mutual.

I do know this, though: I’m done pretending that the handful of racist gay white men out there—and they’re out there, and I think they’re scum—are a bigger problem for African Americans, gay and straight, than the huge numbers of homophobic African Americans are for gay Americans, whatever their color. 

This will get my name scratched of [sic] the invite list of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which is famous for its anti-racist-training seminars, but whatever.

Add Savage’s observations to the incidents involving Sharpton and 50 Cent and the attacks in Atlanta and Illinois to to the jury’s belief that it was Trayvon on top of George Zimmerman angrily beating Zimmerman’s head against the concrete: The resulting–and startling picture–is of black heterosexual boys like Trayvon on the cusp of manhood who have serious problems with gay men. The fact that Zimmerman isn’t gay doesn’t matter. According to Jeantel, Martin looked at George Zimmerman and saw Matthew Shepherd.

Matthew Shepherd was dragged out of a Laramie, Wyoming bar, tortured and murdered because he was gay. In light of Shephard’s murder and that of James Byrd, Jr., a black man murdered by three Texas white men, two of whom were white supremacists, Congress eventually passed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The Shepard Act expanded existing federal hate crime laws to extend to those who are made victims as a result of their real or perceived “gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.” As President Obama said after signing the bill into law on October 28, 2009, bold print for emphasis:

After more than a decade of opposition and delay, we’ve passed inclusive hate crimes legislation to help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray, or who they are. I promised Judy Shepard, when she saw me in the Oval Office, that this day would come, and I’m glad that she and her husband Dennis could join us for this event. I’m also honored to have the family of the late Senator Ted Kennedy, who fought so hard for this legislation. And Vicki and Patrick, Kara, everybody who’s here, I just want you all to know how proud we are of the work that Ted did to help this day — make this day possible. So — and thank you for joining us here today. (Applause.) So, with that, I’m going to sign this piece of legislation.

Jeantel is saying that her friend Trayvon did whatever he did because he was “creeped out” by a man Trayvon perceived as gay. And that, if Jeantel is telling the truth, is in fact a federal hate crime.

At the 2013 NAACP Annual Convention–a meeting that was already revealed to be shutting out black conservatives Deneen Borelli and the Rev. C.L. Bryant–Attorney General Eric Holder said:

“Independent of the legal determination that will be made, I believe that this tragedy provides yet another opportunity for our nation to speak honestly about the complicated and emotionally-charged issues that this case has raised. We must not – as we have too often in the past – let this opportunity pass…..we must not forego this opportunity to better understand one another and to make better this nation we cherish.”

If we are supposed to be, per Attorney General Holder, speaking “honestly about the complicated and emotionally-charged issues that this case has raised,” then why aren’t we discussing the problem black men like Al Sharpton and Trayvon Martin and those black gang members in Atlanta have with gay men? The problem Dan Savage calls “black homophobia.” Where is the President? Where is Eric Holder? Where is Hillary Clinton? Where is the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus?

What about the liberal media? Last year a lengthy story in the Washington Post accused Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney of bullying a gay boy while in high school. Any investigations now into black homophobia and a culture of gay bashing–or, as Rachel Jeantel put it, giving “whup-ass” to a suspected gay man–that may have easily reached Trayvon Martin? Silence. The Post and the liberal media in general simply don’t have it in them.

Why is it that only Rush Limbaugh has the guts to talk about black homophobia and the controversial news that Trayvon Martin just might have been homophobic? The reason is precisely because there is a problem between gays certain elements within the black community, and more specifically, if Rachel Jeantel is to be believed, between gays and Trayvon Martin. Liberals simply don’t want to have the conversation.

Doubtless, as Rush has pointed out, because it would embarrassingly force liberals to choose between two key interest group supporters–gays (and rich gay Democrat donors at that) and blacks. As I mentioned earlier, even Dan Savage has admitted that speaking openly about black homophobia might cause leftist gays to go after him for being a racist. Meanwhile Al Sharpton is too busy dividing the country by race to afford to ponder his own example as a black homophobe. Eric Holder, like Sharpton, has far too much invested in the race card to investigate black homophobia.

Rush is fearless in walking-the-walk while supposed black leaders like Eric Holder or the NAACP or the President of the United States can only talk-the-talk. “Speak honestly,” says Holder. Address “the complicated and emotionally-charged issues that this case has raised,” Holder says. “We must not–as we have too often in the past–let this opportunity pass” Holder declares. Don’t “forego this opportunity to better understand one another and to make better this nation we cherish” Holder pleads. But Rush delivers. He puts it out there plainly, with honesty, candor, and passion about the plight of black people in America and their fates in the hands of the left. Yesterday, he said, in part, this:

My friends, I can’t tell you the number of people — recently and over the course of my sterling professional career — who’ve said to me, “You know, Rush, it’s a lose-lose proposition to talk about race, even seriously, the way you try. You can’t win. All you’re gonna do is get yourself in trouble, and it isn’t worth it. You ought to just leave it alone. Just make it one of these things where, when something comes up, you just discipline yourself to ignore it don’t go there.” 

I’ve been told this… Gee, I don’t know. Since probably the first time I mentioned Jesse Jackson’s name on the radio back in 1983 in Kansas City.I hear it from close friends, people who say, “Rush, there’s nothing to be gained.” You know, my reaction to that’s always been, “Why isn’t there?” They may be right. There isn’t there anything to be gained? Why is it a lose-lose proposition to discuss race?

I think it would be said not just of me but a lot of people who probably would be advised the same way. “Just leave it alone.” The problem with that is that when you surrender it, you’re surrendering it to who? Who are we letting discuss it and therefore shape opinion about it? In my mind, the answer to that question is: The people who have made a mess of this country and this culture for way too long, and that is leftists.

Of all races, creeds, stripes, religions. I don’t care.

Leftists.

There is an ideology that has slowly been eating away at the foundational fabric of this country. I don’t know whether it’s race or whether it is any issue. I don’t care what. I can’t let it go. I care too much about the country, and I care too much about everybody that lives here. And I’m cursed. I am. I think I’m cursed. I’m cursed with a… Well, I have a hope, a desire that everybody in this country love it, that everybody in this country enjoy the life they’ve been given and the opportunity they’ve been given to live that life in this country.

I can’t tell you how disappointed I feel when I run across people that don’t and can’t enjoy their life, and I think that’s what this really comes down to. I mean, folks, the kind of anger and angst and tension on this and practically everything else that the American left cares about does nothing but make people miserable and nervous, and in some cases unhappy. Even the people they claim they’re looking out for.

And maybe not just “even,” but especially the people they claim to be helping. They claim to be the sole representatives. They claim to be the guardians. Those people that are under their wing are miserable, and that misery and angst and unhappiness is exacerbated by the left. It’s amplified. Anything other than that isn’t permitted. That just… Well, it bothers me, and in some ways, it honestly does break my heart. I have such a deep appreciation for the uniqueness of life.

And what will come Rush’s way? Most probably the same abuse that accompanies any serious attempt to discuss the realities of race in America.

Every heart in America breaks for the parents of Trayvon Martin. But if Trayvon Martin’s life–and yes George Zimmerman’s life–is to mean anything, then it is time either to take Eric Holder and all these liberals at their word and have a serious discussion about race and the left.

Did black homophobia kill Trayvon Martin, as Rachel Jeantel is saying? If Trayvon Martin had not been fatally shot by George Zimmerman, would he have been charged with a federal hate crime for beating up Zimmerman for no other reason than because he was “creeped out” by the idea that Zimmerman was a gay man? Just move along. There’s nothing to see here: Al Sharpton needs the money, Hillary Clinton needs the black vote, and and the liberal media needs the ratings. We can’t talk about this. Sssh.

Sign up to receive our latest updates! Register


By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: . You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Be a Free Market Loving Patriot. Subscribe Today!