The Mad Professah Lectures

Last Thursday I appeared on NPR's News & Notes hosted by Farai Chideya taped live at NPR Wesrt stuidios in Culver Citym CA. Interestingly, they had webcam recording everything, so the video of most of my appearance is now available online.

Blogger Todd Beeton of MyDD wrote up this summary of the UCLA Law School's Williams Institute Election Post-Mortem event which included MadProfessah as an expert panellist on Thursday. I'll include the portions which refer to me:

Ron Buckmire took it upon himself to debunk the idea that "it's African-Americans' fault." He acknowledged that majorities of black voters voted for Prop 8 and noted that they were courted to do so with an aggressive campaign of robocalls and mailers conflating Barack Obama's position on gay marriage with his position on Prop 8.

In Arkansas, he reminded us, black voters voted against the initiative preventing non-married couples from adopting or providing foster care for children. Buckmire concluded that African-Americans are no more homophobic than any other demographic group.

He noted that there were 1.3 million voters who voted for Obama and against Prop 4 but were for Prop 8. "Maybe we should be blaming pro-choice Obama supporters."

[...]

One interesting moment came when Buckmire was asked why there is such a wide gap between people who were engaged before the election and people who are now. Buckmire answered, I think correctly, that complacency had set in because people thought "No on 8" was ahead. He then mentioned internal polls, which apparently consistently showed Yes on 8 ahead. So someone in the audience yelled out angrily "why didn't you tell us!?" [EQCA Executive Director Geoff] Kors responded that they sent out many emails saying not to believe the public polls, that their internal polls were showing a much tighter race and whenever they did that, they were accused of simply fear-mongering to raise money. Once there was a public poll that confirmed what their internal polls were showing, people suddenly got engaged.

I do agree that (in hindsight) it was a tactical error for the NO ON PROP 8 campaign not to share their internal polls with the public but Deputy Campaign Manager Sky Johnson told me on Thursday that even when theyshared actual internal poll data with potential funders they were being rebuffed in August and September--people thought it was just a fundraising ploy.

MadProfessah appeared on NPR's News and Notes this morning with Dr. Gary Gates (Wiliams Institute), Patrick Sammon (Log Cabin Republicans) in my capacity as Board President of the Barbara Jordan/ Bayard Rustin Coalition.

The program is hosted by Farai Chideya, who asked thoughtful questions and seemed generally interested in the topic, as an African American woman.

The audio (and video) of the discussion can be accessed here.

Openly gay and Black writer Kai Wright has an article at the Washington Post's political portal TheRoot.com entitled "The Prop 8 Blame Game: Why gays and blacks both need a reality check"

But first, as with all things involving race and sex, there's a whole mess of facts about the California marriage fight that must be straightened out.

Not least of these is the shaky assertion that black voters made the difference. DailyKos diarist Shanikka has gained small celebrity for her post debunking it. The fact that blacks are densely clumped in just nine out of 58 California counties makes any race-based claim in CNN's geographically random sample muddy at best. Further, the poll excludes all of the state's 3 million early votes and counts blacks as 10 percent of voters when they're less than 7 percent of the population.

Of course, you don't have to get into such devilish details to notice something weird about this blame-the-blacks narrative. Even if 70 percent truly did support the marriage ban, why single them out? So did six out of 10 people over 65. Ditto white Protestants and people with children under 18. Look at the electorate through any of these lenses and you identify a far larger share of the vote than when viewing it by race.

"The reason why people are so fascinated with the 70 percent number is Obama and this kumbaya moment that we were having," says Ron Buckmire, a leader in L.A.'s Barbara Jordan/Bayard Rustin Coalition, a black gay group. "To discover that not everyone was in the same place was really shocking and surprising for some people."

It should have been a no-brainer. The Mormon-funded, anti-gay side aggressively targeted every racial and ethnic group in California—often dishonestly. Anti-gay operatives launched a robo-call scheme directed at black voters that falsely claimed Barack Obama supported their initiative. Obama does not support gay marriage, but neither did he support Prop 8. (Not that Obama did a hell of a lot to counter the lie.) The underfunded, pro-gay side responded with too little, too late.

These shenanigans explain why many black voters supported the marriage ban. Still, that's no excuse. "I am far less concerned with a white gay backlash than I am with the need for us to have a dialogue within the African-American community about what it means to have equality," says H. Alexander Robinson, who heads the National Black Justice Coalition, a black gay rights group.

Here, here.

Well, Kai reveals his bias here. "It should have been a no-brainer"? Why?

MadProfessah will appear on NPR's News & Notes on Thursday discussing Blacks and Proposition 8.

This should be a great panel tomorrow at UCLA Law School discussing where we are now with Proposition 8 and what the next steps will be in achieving full equality in California will be.

Election 2008: A New Administration, Proposition 8, & LGBT Vote

LOS ANGELES, CA ‹ On November 13th, The Williams Institute will bring
together nationally recognized advocates, reporters, lawyers, and legal and
policy scholars to discuss the outcome of Election 2008 and the implications
for gay rights legislation. The post-election discussion will cover
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community reaction to the new
Administration, passage of California¹s Proposition 8, and the LGBT vote,
among other topics.

WHAT:
National experts discuss "Election 2008: A New Administration, Proposition
8, & the LGBT Vote" hosted by The Williams Institute and co-sponsored by the
Center for American Progress

WHEN: Thursday, November 13, 2008 from 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Reception to follow

WHERE: UCLA School of Law - Room 1347
Los Angeles, CA

Confirmed panelists include:

· Ron Buckmire, Board President, Barbara Jordan/Bayard Rustin Coalition
· Jill E. Darling, Associate Director of Polling, Los Angeles Times
· Patrick Guerriero, Executive Director, Gill Action
· Geoff Kors, Executive Director, Equality California
· Patrick Sammon, President, Log Cabin Republicans & Liberty Education Forum
· Kenneth Sherrill, Professor of Political Science, Hunter College
· Brad Sears, Executive Director, The Williams Institute
· Winnie Stachelberg, Senior Vice President for External Affairs,
Center for American Progress Action Fund
· Tobias Barrington Wolff, Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania

For more information or to RSVP to attend, call 310- 267-4382 or email
Deseree Fontenot at williamsinstitute@law.ucla.edu. For parking information, click
here.

Hope to see you there!

MadProfessah will be appearing on a live call-in radio show on 90.7 FM in Los Angeles being streamed live at www.KPFK.org on Monday November 10th at 8pm after the LGBT radio show IMRU.