Focusing on Barry's opposition to recognizing gay marriage causes us to miss the forest for the trees; in a majority black city with a majority black political leadership, the City Council voted overwhelmingly (12 to 1) IN SUPPORT of recognizing gay marriage (albeit ones performed outside of DC). This represents a great political victory for the gay rights movements, and refutes the meme which claims that the African-American community is monolithically, implacably, and irresolutely opposed to recognizing gay civil marriage.
I don't think that can be said loudly enough. There are 12 members of the City Council. Seven of them are black. One is Marion Barry. To anyone who's followed Barry's career, I'm not sure why "Marion Barry Is A Demagogue" is breaking news. It's really wrong to erase the other six votes on that measure, and make Barry the face of blacks on the Council, and blacks in the City.
Here's something else--consider the fact that D.C. is in the South. Not the deep South, but the South all the same. It's bordered by two slave states, and one Confederate state. I can't think of any other southern jurisdiction that's gone this far on gay marriage. To the contrary, most Southern states have set about the business of a constitutional ban.
That leaves with a very uncomfortable fact--the most progressive place for gays in the South, is also the blackest. I wouldn't draw too much causality from that statement. Much like I wouldn't draw too much causality from black and Prop 8. But that didn't stop anyone then, did it? Why should it stop them now?
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Demagouge? Demogorgon? (A) Demagogue?
Wasn't Demogorgon edited out in the second edition Planescape re-write?
All I know is that I kicked his ass in Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal.
Pfft. Real nerds use dice and paper.
Chill, folks. I assume TNC's writing "Barry is Demagogue" as if it were a news headline. And headlines eschew definite and indefinite articles.
Not really fair to compare D.C. with other southern states--a more fair comparison would be with other southern cities. Is D.C. that much more progressive than say Atlanta, Miami, Charlotte or New Orleans? Granted, many of these cities might not be considered typically "southern" in that they have large numbers of transplants living there, but same goes for D.C.
As for Barry getting so much attention, well, quite simply he's the best known member of the D.C. City Council, and his constant stream of idiocy gets him press. Not that that justifies him being looked to for a "black" voice, any more than clowns like Sharpton--but the media knows to stick with lightning rods which is why you're more likely to hear what Ann Coulter thinks about something than say the late William F. Buckley.
Miami's not the best example, thanks to the overly-powerful Cuban exile community, though that's changing a bit as the older hard-liners die off and are replaced by their children who don't have the same venom for Castro. Fort Lauderdale's a better example, especially since our last douchebag mayor is no longer in office. Your larger point is a good one, though--cities in general tend to be more progressive than the states they're in.
Yeah, but even by that measuring stick, DC is way more progressive. Maybe Atlanta comes close. This isn't just a matter of sexual orientation, either. Moreover, being urban doesn't mean your not Southern. Houston and Dallas are certainly southern cities. Nashville and Memphis are certainly southern cities. Richmond is a southern city.
I buy everything else you are saying here, TNC, but calling DC a southern city is really, really questionable. Culturally, historically (at least since the 1860s), politically, and demographically, DC is worlds apart from the southern cities you mention, including Richmond. People here in even the "shallow" south would be frankly astonished to find out that anyone would think DC is southern. I'd be more inclined to call DC the "geographically southernmost northern city."
I'd like Lee to defend exactly how DC is worlds apart from Atlanta or Houston.
*Strong Black middle class? Check
*Struggling Black Underclass? Check
*History of a persistent Black business economy? Check
*HBCUs around? Check
*South of the Mason Dixon? Check
*History of slavery? Check
In what worlds are they apart?
Yeah, I gave him the fair enough, because I think it's debatable. I was also weighing it in my head. I guess the fact that it's capitol makes it different, still I think Juba makes a damn good case. I mean, the damn dome was built by slaves. D.C. is more Richmond and Atlanta than it is Boston and New Haven.
Fair enough.
My question about all this is: Why is Barry still around? I mean, can't Ward 8 find someone better to represent them? Is it that bad?
I think Andrew and co should not propell this nonsensical great grandfather any more platform of relevance. He is more like an old white man that I met in Scranton during the primary, who told me that his children and grandchildren do have friends from other races--that is, he is not a racist--that he would like his children and grandchildren to see a colored president but not him.
I think we should remember that this man is more than 75years--he was an adult even before we went to the moon. If he was a more prominent black politician in the country during the primary, he would not have endorse Barack--just as Andrew Young of ATL was viciously against my President. In fact, he (Andrew Young) said the dude haven't had enough sex with black women than the white dude named Bill Clinton. They are both from the lost generation (both whites and blacks)whose entire fruitful era was brutally engraved with hatred and bigotry.I would have been mad to hear that Mayor Fenty is fervently against the rights of our gay brothers.
"To anyone who's followed Barry's career, I'm not sure why "Marion Barry Is A Demagogue" is breaking news."
Seriously. I have one and only one Marion Barry story: In 2001 on Christmas Eve Day, I was in Foxy's on Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands. For anyone who doesn't know, Foxy owns a helicopter, no shoes, and owns the rockingest bar in the Virgin Islands for a New Year's party. He sits in that bar, day after day, strumming an old guitar and making up songs on the spot based on questions he asks the visiting patrons. Upon hearing that my family and I were from the U.S., he made up a five minute song about a guy named Barry doing cocaine off a hooker's ass in Washington D.C.
I shit you not.
Man, that's such a good bar.
BD,
I can't talk about Atlanta, but DC is way more progressive place than your average southern city. I've lived in Nashville and Miami(basically a plantation w/palm trees) and I don't see gay marriage recognition coming up anytime soon in either of those jurisdictions. Part of it is in most southern cities, if the city steps too far out of line then the usually more conservative state legislature will step in.
My experience is admittedly anecdotal, and I am acutely aware that the plural of anecdote is not data. But for what it's worth, I am a White lesbian who has lived in a largely Black, mixed-class neighborhood in Philadelphia for close to 17 years with my partner of 22 years. We have a 12 year old White daughter and a 6 year old Black son. I've experienced some tension -- though not much -- around being White; much more around being middle-class (tension also experienced by my middle-class Black neighbors); but exactly none around being a lesbian. I mean really: none. My kids go to a school that is 95% Black; they are not the only kids with two moms, but they are in a distinct minority. It is simply not an issue with my kids' classmates.
On the other hand, my partner and I moved from an almost entirely White community in the Midwest, which we left precisely because the homophobia was so intense, there was no way we could make a life there, much less raise a family.
It seems like if the goal is to prevent Marion Barry from grabbing the position of speaking for DC's black community, one good way to do this would be to try to locate some of those 5-6 members of the DC council who did vote to recognize marriages and get them on the record talking about their own votes. If any of those members spoke to the media at all after the vote it hasn't been widely circulated.
Or, get some of the Black Gays and Lesbians to step out and say, Marion Barry doesn't speak for us.
Or, better yet, get their moms and grandmothers to say that Marion Berry doesn't speak for them.
Lesson learned from the five black churches in Oakland that moved votes against Prop 8: Get moms out front. Because nobody can say no to a grandma who wants her son's kids to have married parents, one way or another.
A lot of focus on on this disgraced politician obscures how much shifting has taken place on this issue over the past 13 years since DOMA was passed. In 1996, a Senator as liberal as Paul Wellstone voted against gay marriage. Forward to 2009, and you even have the Governor of Utah coming out in favor of civil unions. There are legislatures passing laws for marriage equity.
Most of the front runners in last year's Presidential race were opposed to gay marriage, I wonder if we had a hypothetical open Presidential election in 2010, if this would still be the case.
TNC,
Completely off topic, but I love it when you Baltimore guys talk about how you're from the south. I have a buddy who, when we were less respectable types, nearly dragged me into more than one barfight because he wouldn't let that crap go.
Ta-Nehisi, you're killing it. Can't say it better.
My .02, and this is coming from a Northern Boy, I'd say DC and Murrland are indeed The South. Not the Deep South, but still. Bammas.
LOL!!!
After the Prop. 8 vote, it really felt that GLBT people had been left behind in the big political seismic shift. But look how far we have come since November. Amazing...
DC is mid-Atlantic. So is Baltimore. Neither has enough Italians to be in the northeast, but neither is like the deep south or the Gulf coast either.
For me, the northeast ends at Philly. But I'm not sure where the mid-Atlantic ends. Somewhere in North Carolina, I think, but the line may be more psychological than physical.
Mid-Atlantic states are generally defined as NY, NJ, PA, DE, WV and MD, but I think a good argument could be made for Virginia and the Carolinas as well.
It surprised me that NY and NJ are considered mid-Atlantic.
I think the mid-Atlantic thing dovetails some with the boundaries of the South. Generally when people say the South though, they are thinking the Deep South (GA, AL, MS, LA, TN, maybe SC, KY and FL) and thats why people so often argue "South Florida isnt really the South" or "Maryland / Northern VA isnt really the South"
Whatever lines you draw on a map, people think of regions based on culture and mental geography. Hard to consider New York as in a different region from Vermont when both go all the way up to Canada.
My definition of "northeast" is marked off by the southern and western borders of Pennsylvania, the Great Lakes and Canadian border, and the ocean. New York is the capital of the region, although the region as a whole has more than its share of cities. And a lot of people who operate in that region can't imagine leaving it for any other part of the country.
Mid-Atlantic starts where that leaves off and goes roughly as far west. Washington is capital of the region. I have no idea where the southern border is, though. It seems to be a lot more culturally diverse and fluid than either the northeast or the deep south, at any rate. There are plenty of people who think they are in the south, and also plenty who think they are in Boston even though it isn't snowing. That's actually part of why it's interesting.
South is the next one down, and Atlanta is the capital. How far west it goes is a matter of opinion, and there are definitely parts of Florida that aren't in it. (Most of those are colonial outposts of New York, Michigan, or Cuba.)
"But that didn't stop anyone then, did it?"
Anyone?... Anyone?... Sully?... LOL! That line was just hanging out there waiting for a retort.
Whether DC is considered the "south" doesn't diminish your main point. Blacks were instrumental in getting the measure passed in DC.
Its telling how "homophobic" blacks were loudly blamed for contributing to the passage of CA Prop 8; and, how 6 of 7 black legislators supporting same-sex marriage doesn't get comparable coverage.
I really resent Dan Savage for going to town on Black folk and not having the guts to admit he overreacted. Sad, as I loved his column prior to that.
I am sure someone has already said this. But if "gay marriage" is the biggest thing Mr. Barry's constituents have to worry about, then he is really doing a good job.