Roland Martin
*The latest efforts of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and their cohorts to single handedly increase the percentage of unemployed Black males in America should be a wake up call to Black America.
The latest controversy that has outraged the gay mafia is a series of tweets sent out from CNN’s Roland Martin on Super Bowl Sunday that resulted in a national campaign for him to be fired.
At issue are the following tweets:
If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl.
Who the hell was that New England Patriot they just showed in a head to toe pink suit? Oh, he needs a visit from #teamwhipdatass
Granted, this probably wasn’t the smartest tweets to send out if only because like with other high profile tweeters, there’s always someone waiting in the wings for their “gotcha!” moment so why give it to them.
Were the tweets offensive? Depends on whom you ask? For me, not so much. I’m more offended by the barely bleeped out lyrics that I hear on the radio calling Black men niggas and Black women bitches and hoes. But that’s just the opinion of this Black lesbian.
No, I have to say what I am more offended by is that once again we’ve let outsiders come into our community and set the stage for the possible firing of yet another Black man from national television—almost seemingly with our stamp of approval.
Now for the record, I don’t see Roland’s tweet as calling for violence against gay men. In fact, I think it’s really stretching to say that it is. These were tweets in a series of tweets from Roland on that Sunday that were taken out of context. Roland also tweeted about Nick Cannon’s pre-game show attire as well as the suits worn by Deion Sanders, Shannon Sharpe, and Herm Edwards. And Roland being Roland, he had something funny to say about them all. I should know, I actually follow him on Twitter.
But even if I did agree with those who say the tweets called for violence against gay men, I can’t overlook Roland’s long history of publicly challenging Black America’s perceived homophobia, which he has been consistent on. In fact, Roland’s been more consistent on gay issues in the Black community as a heterosexual man than his counterpart Anderson Cooper or the same organization orchestrating his removal from CNN.
Let me be clear, GLAAD doesn’t represent or speak for Black lesbians and gays and if the Black same-gender loving community is or was offended by Roland’s tweet then that’s an issue that we are perfectly capable of addressing amongst ourselves as we do with every other issue. We don’t need GLAAD to stand up and speak for us. That’s what we have our own organizations for.
So why doesn’t GLAAD give the same respect to Black organizations on Black issues that it gives to other gay groups like the HRC (Human Rights Campaign) in not treading on their territory? But more importantly, why don’t we call them out about it? Real talk.
Organizations like GLAAD and their lynch mob tactics towards Blacks—Isaiah Washington, Isiah Thomas, Tracy Morgan, and now Roland Martin to name a few, continue to fuel the disconnect between Blacks and gays that usually ends up at the ballot box with Blacks voting against gay marriage and with Black gays stuck in the middle.
If Black gay men were truly offended by Roland’s tweet, fine. Roland should meet with the Black gay community—not GLAAD—and discuss it. CNN or no CNN, at the end of the day, Roland’s audience is Black America. From the Chicago Defender to WVON it was Black America’s trust and support that brought him to the attention of CNN in the first place and the majority of his Twitter followers are Black people.
What Blacks—gay or straight—should not be doing is taking our cues from and doing the bidding for an organization that on any other issue related to Black people is either MIA or on the opposite side from the rest of us. The campaign against Roland Martin is not our bandwagon, we’re allowing ourselves to be used to move it along.
We all know that there are a lot of issues on MLK Street in Any Town, USA, but Roland Martin’s tweeting and David Beckham’s H&M underwear commercial isn’t one of them. It’s just this week’s distraction.
Real talk.
As for the bigger picture, it doesn’t really matter whether or not Roland is fired from CNN because GLAAD has already accomplished their goal by starting a campaign to raise thousands of dollars from their mostly white middle class donors using Roland Martin as their latest example of their effectiveness. Thousands of dollars that will in no way benefit Black Americans—gay or straight—not unlike having a Roland Martin on CNN does. But will however, be used to stuff their coffers to aide in the taking out their next target.
Jasmyne A. Cannick writes about the intersection race, sex, politics, and pop culture from an unapologetically Black point of view. Follow her on Twitter @jasmyne and on Facebook at /jasmyne.
If Roland is only talking to a black audience then this all worked out for the best by removing him from CNN. He needs to be on a only on a black-only channel. Articles like this hurt the black community. Now I understand your hairstyle.
Bitch Plz!!!
“I have to say what I am more offended by is that once again we’ve let outsiders come into our community and set the stage for the possible firing of yet another Black man from national television—almost seemingly with our stamp of approval.”
But what is the reason why blacks are now so passive?
I think that for the most part, black leadership on an issue like this is missing because they are rendered impotent via their main stream associations.
Take Sharpton. Now being an MSNBC analyst, he’s basically muzzled. He can only say things which they approve of. Defending Roland, for example, would be off the list.
Another example is Jesse. Running for president and his past gigs on MSM effectively accomplished the same. He had to approve of the gays whilst being in that environment.
So it seems black activism will only survive when blacks maintain their distance and hence purity form mainstream corruption.
That’s why we need to be extremely careful how the advent of the first blk POTUS affect our focus.
He works for them and does not represent us, hence his endorsements are not necessarily a reflection of ours.
Jasymne, the problem with your post is it’s faulty logic which is quite similar to Darryl James’.
From reading your past commentary, I found out that the black gay community has a major problem with the white gay community, or at least GLAAD. That’s more of a “gay” problem than it is a “black” problem.
No one stopped black gay groups from defending Isaiah Washington or Tracy Morgan. Why didn’t you? That’s not a black america problem. That’s a black gay advocacy problem..something most heterosexual blacks don’t see as an issue. If you felt that gay advocacy groups should muzzle up and not respond to Tracy Morgan’s “joke” that he would kill his son if he were gay, then by all means, get your black gay troops out in front and make it an issue. In all likelihood, that wont’ happen.
It’s fine to expect/hope/want blacks to join the gay rights movement as it relates to discrimination and other stuff like that, but an intramural battle between “waring gay factions” will not make it on our radar..it just won’t. Not when those you expect us to “defend” jokingly suggests that men who liked David in his drawz should be slapped. Maybe that’s a very innocent thing to say and doesn’t really advocate violence.
But what’s the particular distinction between that and a rap artist talking about his desire that an unnamed, faceless women/bytch giving up the dome?
This was one weird post. Hate GLAAD in particular much? It’s not like there aren’t Black people on GLAAD’s board — why not take on Roxanne Jones on this topic? Or Eddie Murphy, for quitting the Oscars over Ratner’s comments? It’s not like there’s a shortage of non-Black public figures that have suffered worse for their (less ambiguous) comments.
I don’t know Rowland Martin, or what’s in his heart, but the argument that he has a “long history of publicly challenging Black America’s perceived homophobia” is not only pretty ambiguous (is he challenging actual homophobia in Black America — or the perception that Black America is homophobic?), but wouldn’t fly in other contexts. To take just one example, being the lone supporter of John Carlos and Tommie Smith — and many other Black athletes, as well as a great foil for Ali — didn’t save Howard Cosell from a negative interpretation of his “little monkey” comment.
At least we agree about the “b-word.”