*Roland Martin of CNN and TV One fame was thrust into the middle of boiling hot sauce after the Super Bowl for some remarks he made on Twitter. Finding himself offended by an ad featuring a nearly nude David Beckham, Martin decided to make a “lil jokey-joke” out of the situation:
“If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him!” said Martin.
Being the professional that he is, Martin fired back at every Twitter missile sent his way, arguing that his remark was more of a joke about soccer fans than something having to do with the nearly naked man on the screen. The move might have worked, had it not been for the diligence of GLAAD and other activists who seemed to feel that they had Martin cornered.
There is an old Chinese saying that “the fattest pig always gets slaughtered.” Being a regular on CNN makes you into quite the chubby target. So, the same jokes that regular folks can make on Twitter don’t apply to analysts who are paid well for their perceived objectivity.
Due to his “fattest pig” status, GLAAD and other groups appear to have been trailing Martin for quite some time. They were actually able to find a 2006 copy of the text from his website (yes, you can go back and look at someone’s site before they changed it) and found Martin’s statement in support of “conversion therapy,” which is apparently something designed to turn crooked (read: “gay”) people into straight, normal heterosexuals like the rest of us.
The group also noted the fact that Martin seemed all-too anxious to defend comedian Tracy Morgan after Morgan said that he would stab his son if he found out that he was gay. Notice that when Morgan made his remarks, most of us either corrected him or said nothing at all. I cannot support Morgan’s brand of ignorance, and I certainly hope that Roland (my friend and brother) doesn’t think that Morgan’s comments are OK.
I have no idea if Roland Martin is homophobic or not, but I do know this: Millions of African Americans in the black church treat the gay community like Osama bin Laden’s relatives were treated the day after 9/11. We openly joke about “beating the sh*t” out of men who are attracted to other men, and black women will forgive a lying, cheating, chronically diseased womanizer before they forgive a man for admitting that he’s gay.
It saddens me that a community which knows oppression all too well is so quick to terrorize another group of people for their choices. While “stabbing your son” or “beating the ish” out of someone for being gay might bring forth a chuckle or two, the joke isn’t funny for those who must withstand the real threat of serious violence due to their sexual orientation. What is also interesting is that Martin’s head-to-head with the gay community will further endear him to many members of the black church who agree with his point of view. We should never celebrate an attack on a group that has not collectively tried to harm us- black people cheering on any form of possible homophobia is no different from conservatives applauding when Newt Gingrich says that black people love receiving welfare.
As a result of our community’s commitment to sexual McCarthyism, African Americans face an AIDS epidemic resulting directly from all the gay men who are afraid to come out of the closet. For these men, conversion therapy only gives them coping mechanisms to pretend that they aren’t gay anymore. We also have millions of young men who are ostracized by their families and condemned to hell because God made them different from the rest of us.
Let me keep it real for just one second: I like women, especially black women. Like any other healthy man, God injected me with an appreciation for hips, lips, curves and all the things that make women physically appealing. No matter how much therapy you were to give me, no matter how many times someone prayed for me, and no matter how quick you were to beat the sh*t out of me, I would still be attracted to the same thing. Converting me into a gay man is as silly as making a gay man turn straight.
I’m not sure how things are going to work out for Roland, he’s pretty good at handling the pressure. But I hope that we can take a moment to realize that violence against homosexuals is very real, and it’s certainly nothing to joke about. Maybe it’s time for us to do what we’ve been asking white folks to do for the last 400 years: stop hating other people just because they are different. If the rest of America were as intolerant as some of “us” in the black community, we would all still be on the damn plantation.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Professor at Syracuse University and founder of the Your Black World Coalition. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.
Roland, I don’t know bro. It’s not looking good for you. The worst thing you want to do is get on GLAAD’s shit list.Them fags have some really powerful connections. They got their cronies in the DOJ to set Buju Banton up on drug charges. Then when you think the judge would throw out the obvious entrapment, they charged, convict and sentenced him to prison. This is a well respected Reggae Grammy artist. Hope they don’t go as far with you as they did with Buju.
Note: the above rant has nothing to do with the article at-hand but instead veers from the DOJ to a silly Jamaican.
You obviously didn’t’ read the article or your limited intellect did not allow you to fully comprehend it. Maybe the length was a bit too much for you.
In addition to speaking about why blacks should not be judgmental towards gays, Dr. Boyce clearly indicated with the following statements why Martin may now be on GLAAD’s shit list:
1.”Being a regular on CNN makes you into quite the chubby target. So, the same jokes that regular folks can make on Twitter don’t apply to analysts who are paid well for their perceived objectivity.”
2. Due to his “fattest pig” status, GLAAD and other groups appear to have been trailing Martin for quite some time. They were actually able to find a 2006 copy of the text from his website (yes, you can go back and look at someone’s site before they changed it) and found Martin’s statement in support of “conversion therapy,” which is apparently something designed to turn crooked (read: “gay”) people into straight, normal heterosexuals like the rest of us.
3. The group also noted the fact that Martin seemed all-too anxious to defend comedian Tracy Morgan after Morgan said that he would stab his son if he found out that he was gay.
4. Millions of African Americans in the black church treat the gay community like Osama bin Laden’s relatives were treated the day after 9/11. We openly joke about “beating the sh*t” out of men who are attracted to other men, and black women will forgive a lying, cheating, chronically diseased womanizer before they forgive a man for admitting that he’s gay.
In case your brain is still on vacation, and did not get # 4, GLAAD is an organization that’s very vindictive. They are willing to make associations where there hardly is any. They will therefore use Roland’s association with one church to link him with any negativity that’s rumored to have been displayed by any other church towards gays.
Roland and his fans may want to note one final point from the experience with GLAAD of the five times nominated Grammy award winning silly Jamaican. Buju Banton made an anti-gay song in response to a boy being raped some twenty years ago. After backlash from GLAAD, he apologized and promised not to make any more anti-gay songs. A promise which he kept, but GLAAD pursued him relentlessly for the next twenty years, protesting his tours and Grammy nominations. They finally got him framed and put in Jail. That’s simply the point I was trying to make for Roland. It might be too late for him.
But then again, I wouldn’t expect someone like you to be able to muster that projection. Perhaps only after it comes to fruition.
So GLAAD framed Buju? This makes sense. I always thought he was a nasty bottom.
Hunh? Homos coerced the federal gov’t into trumping up fake charges on Buju? The man whose own lyrics advocated killing homos?
Now come on Reds you know that makes no damn sense and you very well know it.
Are you familiar with the Buju Banton case?
I just wanted to know where you are coming from with your refutation of my claim.
Now, I understand why someone would find that hard to believe and bordering on conspiracy theory. But Let’s look at what went down . Why would the Obama DOJ try to frame a respected Grammy award winning artist on drug dealing? OK, let’s get past the most obvious. He’s black, and as even one presidential candidate is willing to admit, the war on drugs is a racist war on blacks. Buju Banton was not the first successful black man to be framed for drug dealing by the DOJ for no other reasons other than he is black.
So we are willing to consider the possibility that it may not be due to the gays, but solely because he was black.
But hold on a second. Are you then saying that my assertion that he was framed because he was perceived to be anti-gay “makes no damn sense”, but that he was framed instead because he was black does make sense?
OK.
So why do you think that people who are corrupt enough to frame someone just because they are black would not do the same because they perceive someone to be anti-gay?
But let’s get something out the way before some ignoramus comes by and say that he was not framed. Let’s go over the facts. He was first approached by an informant who was paid $50,000 by the Obama DOJ. He consistently tried to avoid this person, and did not answer most of his phone calls. After relentlessly pursuing the Buju, the artist finally decided to go and see this drugs with the informant and was charged with cocaine conspiracy and trafficking charges, even though they had never caught him in possession of any drugs. This is therefore a classic case of entrapment, where a person is tricked or coerced into doing something which they would have never done of their own volition. That is why there is now an appeal which is being given serious consideration by the appeal Court.
“Grammy-winning reggae star Buju Banton claims in an appeal of his federal drug conviction there was not enough evidence to prove he was involved in a cocaine conspiracy.
The appeal filed by attorney David O. Markus also says Buju was relentlessly pursued by a federal informant seeking a US $50,000 government payday. Markus says that resulted in improper entrapment.
The attorney further argued that there was entrapment as a matter of law because of the US government informant Ian Johnson who first approached Buju about getting involved in a cocaine deal.”
I don’t know how far are the reaches of homos into the inner sanctums of the federal government, but given the fact that the Obama DOJ cannot give any reasons why this man was targeted, what other alternatives do we have as a reasonable explanation why he was?
Being black or being on GLAAD’s shit list seems the only plausible ones at this time. The latter has been forwarded as a very plausible reason by most sane individuals familiar with the case and aware of GLAAD’s history of vindictiveness, in particularly towards this artist.
What makes your argument ludicrous is that it relies on GLAAD being powerful enough to control the US Government. If that were true, gay marriage would be legal on a national level. Don’t ask don’t tell would have been repealed eons ago… oh and Lady Gaga’s birthday would be a national holiday! lol
Where is the other evidence of GLAAD’s power over the DOJ? What other person has been framed and imprisoned for being anti-gay? I would love to see who else is on that list.
And how do you know he wasn’t just guilty? Just because his lawyer argued something does not make it true. He is SUPPOSED to say stuff to make his client look innocent, like he was framed, or procedure was not followed.
And based on what you typed, the argument was that he was entrapped. If someone approached me about getting involved in a cocaine deal, Guess what? I would still be a free man… why? BECAUSE I DON’T DEAL COCAINE! I am not saying that if he was entrapped, that it is right. But this whole ‘well respected grammy winner’ picture your painting is as ludicrous as the argument that GLAAD coerced the President and the US govt to target, frame and unlawfully imprison a reggae artist who hasn’t had a hit in decades…
Why are we even discussing Buju Bonton anyway? This comment section is the most press he has gotten in 20 years… lol
Please do some research before getting involved in the discussion of a topic which you know nothing about.
Buju Banton won the 2010 Grammy for the Best Reggae Album of the year just after he was charged with drug trafficking
Regardless of what you, being a black man, is still unconvinced of what the US government would do, consider the following. Black males were arrested and charged in the war on drugs at twelve times the rate of others, despite statistics showing their drug use comparable with that of others.
What would be the motivation for the DEA to give so much of tax payer’s money to a notorious criminal with the explicit goal to entrap a reggae artist?
Up until that point, his only known enemies were GLAAD, pursued him relentless.
“The defence team representing jailed entertainer Buju Banton says it has dug up more dirt on the informant who helped United States (US) federal agents build a drug case against the reggae artiste.
A report in the Tampa Tribune newspaper quotes Buju’s lawyers saying that the informant has been paid US$3.3 million for helping US law enforcement in numerous cases over several years.
Buju’s lawyers made the revelation in a Florida court on Thursday.
An attorney for the entertainer whose given name is Mark Myrie Buju Banton, whose real name is Mark Anthony Myrie, says he plans to argue that the singer was entrapped by the informant, who pestered him for months to join him in a cocaine deal.
Buju is being held without bail on charges of conspiring to distribute cocaine as well as aiding and abetting his co-defendants in possessing a firearm during the course of cocaine distribution.
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has said in court filings that Banton contacted a confidential informant about a possible cocaine purchase.
The next day, Buju and other men met with the informant at a restaurant, where the DEA and local police had set up video and audio surveillance.
Defense attorney David Oscar Markus told U.S. Magistrate Thomas Wilson on Thursday that prosecutors have not provided enough information about the informant for him to be prepared to cross-examine him at Buju’s trial scheduled for April 19.
Mr. Markus outlined information that the government has given him about the informant that he was paid more than US$35,000 for his cooperation in the case against Buju Banton and is also paid on a contingency basis, receiving a portion of the money the judge orders the defendant to forfeit.
The informant was convicted in South Florida in 1993 of distributing cocaine in a case that brought a minimum mandatory prison sentence of 10 years.
He transported large amounts of cocaine and marijuana from 1984 to 1993 and is a legal, permanent resident of the US from Colombia.
It was also revealed that the informant is in involved in a tax dispute with the IRS.
He has also worked with the prosecutor in Myrie’s case for more than 10 years.
But Mr. Marcus says he needs more details, such as details about the tax case, information on other cases the informant has worked and specifics on his criminal history.”
If you are black, and you can’t smell something here, then God help us in this struggle.
Reds, do you realize how dumb your quote sounds :” After relentlessly pursuing Buju, the artist finally decided to go and see this drugs with the informant and was charged with cocaine conspiracy and trafficking charges, even though they had never caught him in possession of any drugs”. The only way you could defend this stupidity is 1) you are either Buju posting from jail ([do they have Wi-Fi?]or 2) you are a relative of Buju or 3) you are ust plain stupid. Which one is it? If you are not into dealing/selling drugs, no amount of relentless pressure in the world would make you go along with this. He should have simply declined to go along regardless of the “pressure”. In the past you’ve twisted several posts about GLAAD into a discussion about Buju. You’re nuts.
OK, I’m going to ignore all the indictment which you handed down on me, but I think it’s safe to assume that you are not familiar with the legal defense for entrapment.
A person is ‘entrapped’ when he is induced or persuaded by law enforcement officers or their agents to commit a crime that he had no previous intent to commit; and the law as a matter of policy forbids conviction in such a case.
“no previous intent!”
As long as the lawyer can make the argument that the defendant would not under normal circumstances commit this act, then the legal defense of entrapment can be applied. This defense was utilized with some degree of success in Buju’s first trial, where the jury was deadlocked, and the judge granted a mistrial. But as you should know from the Blagojevich case, once the government gets a second go at you, you are pretty much dead. Because they are going to twist the wording of the charges in a manner where the jury has little option but to find you guilty.
Now it’s one thing for you to say “If you are not into dealing/selling drugs, no amount of relentless pressure in the world would make you go along with this”, and I would confidently say the same thing about myself, but in a legal case, a more objective standard is applied. The argument can be made that none of us can know exactly how we would behave in a certain situation that we have never been in before. The legal system takes this into consideration. Peer pressure is something which both young people and adults are susceptible to. When you add in the extra incentive of money, which the feds were not limited by, then you begin to understand how a person could be entrapped into doing something like that. But even with all that, Buju resisted for months. Why did he finally give in, no one knows. But I’ve been in similar situations where someone wants me to do something, not necessarily good or bad, but I just did not want to do it. Usually it’s a favor, to borrow something or money. You keep saying no but eventually you give in out of resignation. You just give up fighting them, whatever the consequence. A very extreme case of this are people who confess to doing crimes which they did not commit under extremely long interrogations. Judges are aware of these psychological frailties of human beings, and takes this into consideration in entrapment cases. As long as you can prove that you were reluctant to do it, you have a legitimate case for entrapment. The problem is that most of these judges are scared of the feds. When you add in politics and race, you begin to see why more drug cases against black men are not dismissed.
“Grammy-winning reggae star Buju Banton claims in an appeal of his federal drug conviction there was not enough evidence to prove he was involved in a cocaine conspiracy.
The appeal filed by attorney David O. Markus also says Banton was relentlessly pursued by a federal informant seeking a $50,000 government payday. Markus says that resulted in improper entrapment.”
Here’s my video response to GLAADs pressure for CNN to fire Contributor Roland Martin. Bottom line the organization is inconsistent with how it pursues and applies pressure on high profile individuals. And all too often its easier targets are people-of-color and not the well white well connected politicians running for president who have said far worse on gay issues.
Watch my video and please repost, retweet and send to CNN and GLAAD with your personal thoughts in support of Roland Martin: http://youtu.be/l-nhTpR6TB0
Here is a recent video of someone randomly being beaten up for being perceived as gay. http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhgCrD8ld5DC705rNx
Its not excusable to joke about smacking the shyt out of anyone… stabbing your son… or any such statement. It’s not overly sensitive. And violence like this happens more than you think.
I believe in justice for all, but I have to say that GLAAD is really beginning to get on my nerves. There need to complain about every politically incorret comment that they deem to be offensive to the LGBT community is making them lose all credibility in my opinon. It is to the point that people have to be afraid to make a sarcastic comment, because GLAAD doesn’t have a sense of humor.
I understand the outrage when someone makes a direct derogatory statement, but they are even outraged when someone makes a ill-advise joke. Why isn’t Roland’s apology enough? Why are they still asking for CNN to fire him? He said that joke was not intended to be offensive to gays, and he apologized just in case individuals took it that way? So why isn’t that enough. No, they have decided that they are not only around to fight Gay Rights but they can also read people’s minds and hearts. They overreacted to the original 2012 Academy Award director’s joke, and gave him no leeway when he apologized.
I don’t know how they expect for individuals to be sympathetic to their plight when they have absolutely no mercy. This need to constantly use the “gay card’ is growing old and if they don’t choose to back off some on these minor unintentional infractions, and focus on the big items (i.e.DADT) they are going to experience a backlash.
Quite frankly I think they are being overly sensitive in regards to Roland’s comments, and I plan to write CNN in support of Roland. Roland has stated his intentions of his comments, and he has apologized if anyone misinterpreted them and that should be the end of it.
Also, individuals who beat up individuals because they are gay are not doing it because of one comment by a comedian or a tweet. They are it doing because they have been taught to devalue homosexuals. It is no different than racists. When Seinfield’s Michael Richards constantly used the N-word (which BTW indicates a direct derogatory incident) he didn’t turn someone else into a racist with his rant. So let’s stop simplifying the issue by acting like one comment has brainwashed a nation.
ANGEL wrote:
I understand the outrage when someone makes a direct derogatory statement, BUT THEY ARE EVEN OUTRAGED WIHEN SOMEONE MAKES AN ILL-ADVISED JOKE (MY QUESTION: what was your position on the Seinfeld actor’s joke about blacks) Why isn’t Roland’s apology enough? ( MY COMMENT: INSERT DON IMUS OR SEINFELD GUY HERE– same question) Why are they still asking for CNN to fire him? He said that joke was not intended to be offensive to gays, and he apologized just in case individuals took it that way? So why isn’t that enough. This need to constantly use the “gay card’ (My Comment: WE ARE OFTEN ACCUSED OF USING THE “RACE CARD”, DO YOU AGREE?)
Wait… what? Someone who perpetually sports an ascot is homophobic? He doth protest too much, methinks… : http://youtu.be/U8m5QVxREXY