"They're all out with their radios," Jeffries said, "and they're just hip-hopping all over the street....
Bob Kohler, 80, a gay rights advocate who has lived in the West Village for 60 years, said the discrimination young people face in the West Village is no different from decades ago when gays could not hold hands in public. He said his neighbors simply "don't want black faces on Christopher Street."
A new generation in the West Village
For decades, this neighborhood has welcomed gays of all backgrounds, but now old-timers are finding young people from the hip-hop era too disruptive. The kids say this is the only place they can be themselves
By Erika Hayasaki
Times Staff Writer
May 18, 2007
New York — THE young gays and lesbians stream from subway stops dressed in their flashiest gear: rainbow sunglasses, 6-inch-high gold wedge sandals, a fatigue-printed hoodie, a rhinestone-studded pink Playboy bunny bag.
Hundreds of them make their way through the West Village — home of the gay liberation movement of the 1960s and '70s — toward the pier overlooking the Hudson River, where a drag queen in a platinum-blond wig and gold bamboo-style earrings swishes past a group of boys in baggy jeans. One shouts, "Hey, baby!" and she stops. With her backside facing the boys, she bends over in her pleated denim miniskirt and flashes them.
They come to this Manhattan pier at night from Brooklyn, Staten Island, the Bronx, New Jersey. The black and Latino gays and lesbians say this is the only place where they can be themselves. Here, boys in Timberland boots and fluorescent sweatshirts know they won't get beaten up for kissing each other, and girls with cornrows beneath backward baseball caps are not embarrassed to cuddle other girls.
"This was like the first place I could really be exposed to people of my kind, without having to worry about getting bashed," said Cliff Jones, 20, of Harlem, whose neighbors don't know he is gay.
Jay Jeffries, 65, is white and gay. He has lived for 40 years in the West Village, where he participated in the first gay rights marches. From his second-floor window, he watches the roller-skating boys with boomboxes pressed to their ears and the fistfighting girls wearing do-rags and jerseys.
He has never felt so out of place.
Residents like Jeffries say they want the gays of the hip-hop generation to take their rowdiness elsewhere. They have demanded stricter curfews at the pier. They have lobbied to close a train stop on weekends to make it more difficult for people from New Jersey to travel to the West Village, and to ban loitering in their neighborhood. They have suggested that park patrol officers — who police the pier — carry guns.
For decades, the West Village has welcomed gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual people of all backgrounds. It was here that a police raid — which happened frequently in gay bars in the 1960s — at the Stonewall Inn set off the most famous gay riots in this city's history and fueled the start of the national gay rights movement. But old-timers still living in the West Village are more subdued now. While there are those who accept the young gays who flock to the village in the spring and summer, others can't relate.
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Black Faces on Christopher Street
When are some older gay black men going to step up and say what everybody knows is true: these white folks didn't want black faces on Christopher Street back in the day either. It doesn't matter whether the black faces are hip-hoppers or were disco devotees. Their presence was not desired. Period.
Isn't it interesting how
Isn't it interesting how the most progressive tax we got is the Black one?
The Black tax is consistent, isn't it, P6?
And, I've never found gay neighborhoods to be all that welcoming of Brown folk. Just like their White, straight counterparts. Got as many looks trying out the restaurants in their neighborhoods, as in other ethnic areas. Which is another reason why I cringe when gay rights folks insult me and tell me that gay rights are like civil rights. Not gonna hear it.
I Don't Cop To That Argument But...
I do believe that gays and lesbians have or should have the same rights under the U.S. Constitution that I enjoy, including the right to marry, no ifs, ands or buts about it. I also believe based on personal experience and stories that I have heard from black gay males and lesbians that anti-black racism is far more prevalent among white male homosexuals than among white female homosexuals.
In my hometown, for example, the gay press would periodically carry stories about black gay men being asked to show two or three pieces of identification before they were permitted to enter some gay clubs and bars. It is my understanding that these incidents are not as common as they once were during the so-called halcyon period of the city's gay community but every two oe three years a complaint or incident around race flares up.
One of the deeply hidden stories that may never receive any recognized legitimacy because it is difficult to disentangle the facts is the extent to which closeted gay white men working in the private and public sectors participated in denying black people jobs, mortgages, business loans, lodging etc. This is one of the reasons that I shrink from any attempts on the part of the gay and lesbian community to link their struggle with the Civil Rights Movement.
I don't know about you but maybe
Gay and Latino and Blacks should probaly develop their own neighborhoods because when it comes to the "rainbow flag" they mean only gay and lesbian WHITE FOLK. White Gays are the biggest racists and pt as asserts a great many were 'in the closet' when they discriminated against African- Americans. And reading the article from what I read in past accounts "Stonewall" was mainly Black and Latino drag queens standing up for themselves. White gays have "highjacked" that moment like Jewish- Americans have taken over the civil rights movement to STEER the memory of only a few moments and a grand finale while the problem was never solved in principle. To quote my favorite 9 y.o. revolutionary Huey Freeman...
"IM TIRED OF BLACK/JEWS/GAYS TAKING CREDIT FOR SOME SHIT ONLY A FEW BLACKS/JEWS/GAYS DID !!!!
Maybe that's why there is a strain of anti-semtic, homophobic, amongst black folks outside the church itself and many A.A. feel that they are running a 'guilt trip' on African- American THOUGHT. Maybe if those young blacks and latinos had their own place without white interferene maybe they would feel comfortable. Whites will never let go of their priviledge because that's where they devire their politcal, moral, and economic power like that 80 year old 'gay activist' said, they just don't want blacks in their neighborhood. But you know some of the biggest racial and sexual sterotypes about black men comes form the white gay community and that side is never told, also it's time that the intellectual - like folk on the board took the stage on racial issues to offer a "third point" of view because all we are getting is a two-way agrument and debates aren't like just for DEMS and RETHUGS where only two parties can particpate.
LET ME RIDE THIS WHITE THING OUT, SEE WHERE IT TAKES ME -chris rock
Blacks and Jews
Following up to Newsoulus' comments:
I think it would be good to have a discussion on this issue although this may not be the appropriate thread. I should declare at the outset, however, that my tolerance for genuine anti-Semitism is somewhere close to triple zero. I don't think we can progress far on this issue if we blame all Jews for the actions of a minority or small grouping of Jews. Several years ago, for example, a so-called controversy erupted over the question of whether Jews had been involved in the slave trade. It seemed obvious to me given human behavior and American history that some Jews were involved in the slave trade. Not all, not most but some.
Some blacks who should have known better took this simple fact and tried to conflate it into an example of the underhandeness and perfidy of Jews. Some Jews who should have known better attempted to excuse it on the grounds that Jews who were slave owners and traders were simply trying to assimilate into American society. The reality is that there were some Jews who felt comfortable trafficking in human misery and did it because they could make money. The majority of Jews in this country did not own slaves but neither did the majority of white Protestants and Catholics but the practice still persisted for 250 years. All Jews are neither guilty nor absolved of the sins of this country.
Conversely, I think our ship will run aground, too, if we assume that somewhere in the 20th Century that there was actually an alliance between Blacks and Jews and that we need to recover or rebuild those relationships. There were alliances between certain Blacks and certain Jews but there never was and probably never will be any Black-Jewish alliance in this country. The participation of Jews in the Civil Rights movment reflects a long cultural, intellectual and religious tradition in the Jewish community that is still visible and vibrant today.
I do think it is vital that Black Americans begin to look after our own self-interest with the degree of dedication and commitment that we see in other communities. One way we can begin to do this is to carefully examine and explore what our historical relationships and alliances with other groups consisted of and what benefits we derived from these groupings. During the latter phases of the Civil Rights Movement when young Black men and women began seeing connections between their domestic struggle here in the United States and the plights of people in Vietnam, Northern Ireland, South Africa and the Middle East it was quite predictable and correct that many of them would criticize our country's support for Israel and the treatment of the Palestinians. In addition, they began questioning the role of non-blacks who played influential roles in various organizations.
The pity is that folks like Stokely Carmichael did not take the time to carefully and reasonably explain their evolving views on these issues to the black community. We were also hurt by the fact that black people lacked any communication outlets that would have helped to foster a discussion within our community and a dialogue with those who were not black. The result was a lot of anger, charges , counter-charges, misunderstandings, threats, disavowals and, finally, withdrawals of money, bodies and support. Much of this may have come about anyway but, unfortunately, it fed into creating a mythology that ill serves African Americans to this day.
Exactly
That has been my point, but instead I get called 'anti- semetic' , homophobic, racist, and sexist for airing issues that should be talked about not swept under the rug like it doesn't exist. Just because a few people walked with the angels should not mean someone say like a David Horowitz should spout racist diatribes against African- Americans and when the gay activist said he didn't want gay blacks in his tradtionally 'gay haven" and then turn around and claim the mantle of those civil rights workers, students and marchers who actually did the yeoman's works. To quote my favorite 9 Y.O. revolutionary Huey Freeman....
I AM SICK AND TIRED OF BLACKS/JEWS/GAYS AFTER THE FACT CLAIMING SHIT ONLY A FEW BLACKS/JEWS/GAYS ACTUALLY DID !!!!!!
David Horowitz
My advice is to ignore David Horowitz. He was a fanatic when he unquestionably supported every anti-social and off-the-phucking wall action and statement committed by the Black Panthers. He is no less a fanatic today when he has exercised the White American perogative of reinventing himself as a reformed left-wing radical dedicated to keeping black folks in line. He was a racist when he was keeping the books for the Panthers and he is a racist today.
Black folks should simply ignore him. Horowitz and hundreds of thousands, if not tens of millions, of folks like him are not qualified to preach to black people about doodley-squat. We should refrain from lowering ourselves to his level.