Jeff Johnson Challenges Homophobia In The Black Community

Christmas came early for the black LGBT community thanks to Jeff Johnson.

Truth-teller Jeff Johnson

On December 17, Johnson used his platform on the nationally syndicated Tom Joyner Morning Show to declare that black America needs to have a serious conversation about homophobia in the community.

Analyzing Annise Parker’s mayoral victory in Houston, in which the black community joined Republicans to support Gene Locke, Johnson reflected on the unlikely alliances black people are making with right-wing groups in the same of discriminating against gay people.

Johnson noted that the appeal of homophobia is so strong that some black people will work with individuals who “in many cases wouldn’t even want to sit down to dinner with them.”

This comment is particularly insightful when assessing the connections of Harry Jackson and Ken Hutcherson, two of the nation’s most vocal antigay black “preachers. ” Hutcherson has written extensively about his deep-seated and profound respect for “what God has accomplished through the white male throughout history.” Jackson has ties to the Family Research Council, whose leader, Tony Perkins, gave a speech to the racist Council of Conservative Citizens.

The same organizations responsible for elevating Hutcherson and Jackson to national prominence are also exporting their hatred to Africa, as we have seen with the recent legislative proposals in Uganda .

Johnson then turned his attention to societal attitudes that make many black LGBTs feel they have to lead double lives, and called for African-Americans to put the “unity” in community.

Quoting Johnson:

“If we’re gonna be serious, we want to lift up this notion that there’s a problem, and there’s a crisis with down-low brothers — that down-low brothers are leading the AIDS epidemic — and not recognize that we have a community that is unwilling to embrace its own brothers that are gay. So if I can’t go home to see my mama, because she’s going to kill me, because I’m gay, you’re damn right I’m going to be down-low. So how are we going to start having honest conversations about the fact that these are our brothers, our sisters, our fathers, our sons, our daughters.”

It is beyond refreshing to hear these words from a straight ally. In fact, it is vital that heterosexuals begin to speak out on the ways society is harmed by shunning gay people. Among African-Americans specifically, homophobia creates a framework of duplicity, dishonesty, and detachment that prevents the black community from achieving its highest potential.

You can hear Johnson’s commentary in its entirety here.