Wanda Sykes, an African-American, a comedian, a married lesbian with twins, and a proud recipient of a GLAAD 2010 award, takes on Chris Rock and Roland Martin over their support of Tracy Morgan’s anti-gay, hate-filled rant.
Wanda Sykes, the 47-year old African-American, comedian, and lesbian Friday night expressed her views against Tracy Morgan’s anti-gay, violence-laced homophobic rant. When she was done, she then took on fellow African-Americans Chris Rock — also a popular comedian — and Roland Martin, a CNN journalist, both of whom came out in strong support of what they see as Morgan’s right to say what he wants, without criticism.
Sykes said, “I do believe in free speech, but for a youth in TN or any other numerous place, Tracy just yelled, ‘Fire,’ in a crowded theater,” adding, ”Morgan “is just a dumb comic,” but also said she faults Tennessee lawmakers. “They’ve created an anti-gay environment,” and suggested she didn’t “believe Tracy would be so ignorant in LA, because we have a mayor, a city council,and police chief who believes we are all equal.”
Morgan’s stand-up routine June 4 in Nashville, Tennessee included, as his co-star and boss Tina Fey said, “disturbing” and “violent imagery” that included a threat to stab to death his son if he were gay, violent use of the “n” word, false comments that lesbians were faking being gay and were just angry at men, and that homosexuality is a choice that the media teaches kids to make. Morgan apologized Friday, but many have suggested his apology is insufficient.
Once Wanda Sykes made her feelings clear, via Twitter, she then set her sights on fellow comedian Chris Rock, who had said, also via Twitter, “I dont know about you, but I dont want to live in world where Tracy Morgan cant say foul inappropriate shit.”
Chris Rock seemed to be, indirectly, suggesting there were or could be laws against Tract Morgan’s right to free speech, which there aren’t. Morgan had the legal right to say what he did, just as the millions who stand against him, including Sykes, have the right to condemn his speech, and even to classify it as hate speech, which, as the Westboro Baptist Church (aka, “God Hates Fags,”) proved in the supreme Court earlier this year, is still protected by our Constitution.
Wanda Sykes response was simple and elegant, and she opted to not mention Chris Rock by name.
“Ok, piss’d reading, “I don’t want 2 live n a world where Tracy can’t say…” I Do! U Keep the world, just break me off an evolved country,” Sykes tweeted Friday night.
Later in the evening, Sykes turned her attention to CNN reporter Roland Martin, who spent a good part of the day on Twitter and Facebook vigorously debating his followers over Tracy Morgan’s comments, and ultimately wrote a column of his own in support of Tracy Morgan, titled, “WTF? Comic Tracy Morgan Has Offensive Material?”
Martin’s column essentially supports Tracy Morgan’s statements as being acceptable, evidently, because other comedians have made similar or worse comments (all the way back to George Carlin,) and because the audience laughed. Martin’s inability to judge right from wrong, see cause and effect, recognize the fact we now live in a “cult of personality” world fueled by the Internet, and his inability to see the tragic fact that LGBT kids are attempting and completing suicide at drastically higher rates that their heterosexual peers, makes his self-congratulatory 1416 word research paper offensive. (If I were CNN, I’d take away his press pass.)
But Sykes handled Martin with grace and dignity.
“Ro, I love and respect you, so I feel that I can tell you that your column is some bullshit. We can do better.”
Coming back to the issue Saturday morning, Sykes added, “Tracy has the right to say whatever he wants to say, just like we have the right to say, not acceptable.,” and, “WE as a country. We used to picnic to watch public hangings, but WE figured out, that was some sick shit.”
Indeed.
For more, I encourage you to read Roland Martin’s skewed and narrow-minded column, read John Aravosis’ excellent response, and read Keith Boykin’s tweets on the so-called debate. Personally, I think some things are clearly wrong, like Tracy Morgan’s vile rant, Roland Martin’s defense of it, and Chris Rock’s selfish and mistaken tweet.
And then thank Wanda Sykes.
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From Roland Martin's Web Page http://www.rolandsmartin.com/page/news.cfm?Articl…
Faith – not social pressures – must govern church on issue of homosexuality
by Roland S. Martin
February 3, 2006
The Rev. Al Sharpton is a smart man.
Always knowing how the winds are blowing, he has proven to be deft at generating attention – both personally and on issues that he holds near and dear, such as police brutality.
But even the good reverend surely must recognize that his attempt to appeal to the Black church to become more accepting and embracing of homosexuality will fall on deaf ears.
At a conference on Jan. 21 in Atlanta, Sharpton gave the keynote address at a gathering of 200 ministers, who met to discuss the need for Black churches to confront the issue of homosexuality. An outgrowth of the meeting is the Black Church Social Justice Community Action, a coalition between ministers and the National Black Justice Coalition, the nation's largest gay civil rights organization, that seeks to create a faith movement among gay, transgender, lesbian and bisexual African Americans.
What leaders of this effort must come to understand is that the fundamental issue is that gays and lesbians want to be accepted and embraced by the church, and not acknowledge that they are engaged, in the eyes of the church, in sinful behavior. This, regardless of what Sharpton or anyone else has to say, is the reason there will never be a happy medium on this issue.
Share your thoughts on the RolandSMartin.com message board
As individuals, gays and lesbians – those claiming to be born this way and others who say they have evolved to live a homosexual lifestyle – are naturally going to want to live their life as they see fit. And yes, the last thing they want to do is sit in a church and listen to someone from the pulpit castigate their way of life. I get that. But someone who is living with a member of the opposite sex while not married also doesn't want to hear that being preached. And surely the man or woman cheating on their spouse prefers not to hear their behavior cast as being sinful and unGodly.
But for Christians, going to church is not supposed to be a feel good exercise. We are expected to be convicted, and encouraged to walk away from sin and live a more Christ-like life. In my church, this goes for the woman who is an alcoholic, the child who continues to be disobedient to his parents, the young lady who is hell-bent on stealing, and the person who is gay.
Yet what churches must do is make it clear that their doors are not closed to anyone, even if you homosexual.
My wife, an ordained Baptist minister for 20 years, has counseled many men and women to walk away from the gay lifestyle, and to live a chaste life. She has asked heterosexual men and women to abstain from sex until marriage. For her, the obligation is to her calling as a minister of the Word, rather than bowing to societal pressures. She loves gay and lesbian church members dearly, and prays with them, talks to them, and breaks bread with them. But what she cannot do is compromise the integrity of the teachings of Christ.
It would be nonsense for the body of Christ to launch a gay and lesbian ministry that is not focused on teaching God's Word – including those that address homosexuality. Preaching about the dangers of becoming drunkard – which Paul wrote about in the Bible – must be taught alongside of Jesus' admonition in Matthew 19 that God has only called a man and woman to marry.
If a gay or lesbian individual is not willing to belong to a church that preaches this, then they should join whatever house of worship to their liking. But if someone expects to join a church that is rooted in the Bible, then they should be prepared to hear a sermon that might, in the words of the Rev. Frederick D. Haynes III of Dallas' Friendship-West Baptist Church, "bowl down your alley or sit in your pew."
The church is called to love our fellow man, preach the good news and set the captives free – free from a life of sin.
That isn't being homophobic. It's being a Christian. And no one should have to apologize for that.
How can anyone believe what your are saying? 'Believeing in the BIBLE' does not excuse you from thinking and acting as an adult. Those who 'believe' in the Bible must perforce follow all of its precepts such as the 10 Commandments. Thus there cannot be any US Serviceman or woman who does because one of the Commandments is THOU SHALT NOT KILL. Your attempt at condoning your own bigotry by hiding behind this pseudo-religious front is no longer acceptable! Those who belong to FAITH IN AMERICA condemn you for being so immature as to not accept that God made all of us in his image as he wishes us to be. Gay, straight, black, white…
PS If you do not know why I condemn you as immature please read. Erikson's stages of psychosocial development – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://bit.ly/mek3Q0
So Mr. Martin (or you are) is saying that his (your?) wife loves GBLT people, but then asks them to "step away from the lifestyle."
I would question Mr. Martin on how someone can walk away from something they can be born into.
I agree with LOrion in that I say how can anyone believe in what your saying.
"When she was done, she then took on fellow African-Americans Chris Rock — also a popular comedian — and Roland Martin, a CNN journalist, both of whom came out in strong support of what they see as Morgan’s right to say what he wants, without criticism."
If I understand this correctly, according to both Mr. Rock's and Mr. Martin's logic, any comedian, or person in general, regardless of his race, should be free to use the word "nigger" in the context of "free speech", as his "right to say what he wants, without criticism." Thank you, Mr. Rock and Mr. Martin, for your most enlightening viewpoint and for "educating" the rest of us on what would be deemed as appropriate language; you have done us all a great service by clarifying what up until now, was considered a "hotbutton issue"!
More evidence from John Aravosis that Roland Martin only thinks like a 12 year old! It's the DNA? That's one of CNN's top talking head's explanation as to why it's okay for comedians to talk about killing gay people: Because being offensive is in their DNA?
Okay, let's pretend we're not 12 years old for a second. Let's pretend that both of us, Martin and me both, have the privilege to go on CNN (he more often than I). So let's drop the "it's in their DNA" crap and think about this like adults. Comedians like to be provocative, but that fact doesn't not suggest, or prove, that all provocation is acceptable. Is CNN's Martin really suggesting that a white comedian with a history of belittling blacks in his stand up, could get on stage, start demeaning black women, suggest that black kids are all pussies, and then say that if he ever found out that his kid was biracial he'd put a bullet through the kid's head? That's seriously your argument, Roland?
Thanks for that post about Roland Martin and the church, now I understand what's behind his defense of Morgan. He doesn't really believe it's hate speech. I've posting my article here for those who are interested. Please feel free to pass it on, I've included an excerpt here with a link:
Can't You Take A Joke?: On Tracy Morgan, and Free Speech vs. Hate Speech
by Max Gordon
This article is dedicated to my sister, who I watched get beaten with a belt for not finishing a plate of food when I was four and she was two.
I don’t want to talk about Tracy Morgan. I’ve found him funny sometimes, but I haven’t paid much attention to his career, and I don’t watch his show. But I have to write about him, because he’s in the news for saying in his stand-up routine that if his son came home “acting” gay, he would “stab that little nigger to death.”
In this media-driven world we live in, we say things we shouldn’t, we get into trouble, we send apologies that don’t sound anything like us through hired publicists and lawyers, and hope the trouble goes away – or that someone else says or does something they shouldn’t and everyone will forget what we did. (Anthony Weiner should send Tracy Morgan flowers.)
If the trouble is deep enough, a career may end. Or if we refuse to go away, immune to universal contempt (Elliot Spitzer), or make someone enough money, all may be forgiven. So by the time you finish this article, or perhaps when you start it, Tracy Morgan’s words will probably be old news.
But what happened on that stage in Nashville on June 3 is bigger than Tracy Morgan. And I have to talk about it, because frankly, I’m exhausted and outraged that this shit happens again and again. And as a black gay man, I need to deconstruct this, because Chris Rock and Roland Martin of CNN clearly refuse to, defending Morgan’s right to say what he did, without exploring why he said it. I’m not surprised by Rock, but I’m disappointed with Martin, who I once respected, and who usually seems to care about civil rights. And I have a little rage left over for the woman who twittered, in response to Martin’s, “WTF….Comic Tracey Morgan Has Offensive Material” that Martin was “on point.” On another site, someone wrote, “It’s comedy, remember,” and “Can’t gay people take a joke?”
In 2004, I wrote an article entitled Jesusland about hate crimes towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in America. I argued that the former president’s attempts to legislate against gay marriage directly led to violence against our community. But I failed to acknowledge that it isn’t only presidents who have the power to influence. It’s actors, it’s comics, it’s neighbors, teachers, pastors, rabbis, your father, your best friend, it’s anyone with any power, and people who have no power. It’s the guy sitting next to you at the bar who says, “What’s that faggot across the room looking at?” because he’s drunk and decides he wants to fight a stranger. It’s all of us, all the time, in a constant moral conversation about which people deserve to be hated, and therefore destroyed.
Last week, I read in the paper that a group is planning a Gay Pride celebration in Harlem this year. A local black pastor responded by saying that he felt all children should be kept indoors on that day. He said to expose children to the Pride events would be the same as telling them that pedophiles were also okay, or people who have sex with animals.
I think black people who hate are often let off the hook; we’re not usually the haters, we’re the hated. But there’s condescension in giving us this free pass – either we’re not refined enough to know better, or we’re so damaged ourselves, we can’t help but hate back. When a straight black man hates homosexuals, the assumption is that what he really hates is white men, and the white culture where homosexuality “originates”. Morgan has been quoted as saying that being gay is a choice that comes from the media and programming, which is code for “white people”. A black son who comes home “acting” gay should be killed not only because of his behavior, but because he’s a traitor – choosing the white gay world over the straight black one. I’ve heard this argument before, although stated less violently: when I came out to my mother, she mourned my going to the University of Michigan where I came out of the closet, and wished she’d sent me to Morehouse instead. (No homosexuals there, of course.)
continued at http://www.morgansjoke.blogspot.com
sorry, thought of this one later and wanted to share
'niggers are just faking being black because they hate jobs'
that flies too right?
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