In many ways, The New Black was the result of my inability to square with the notion of civil rights as a zero-sum game proposition and my refusal to see marriage equality and African American civil rights as competing struggles.
I started thinking about the film in November 2008, on the night of the presidential election. The months leading up to that night were intensely emotional for many Americans, especially African Americans. The idea of a black president was one many of us had routinely dismissed as something that would not happen in our lifetimes. At the same time, marriage equality was on the ballot in California in the form of Proposition 8. As the night progressed it became clear that the right for same-sex couples to marry – which had recently been granted by the California courts – was going to be taken away.
The euphoria that many felt about Barack Obama’s election was countered by dismay and anger over the loss of marriage equality. Almost immediately, an erroneous CNN exit poll laid the blame for the passage of Proposition 8 squarely at the feet of California’s black voters, and by extrapolation, the African American community in general. Despite studies finding the reported polling numbers were grossly exaggerated and the fact that black Californians – who made up just 7 percent of the state’s voting population – simply lacked the numbers to affect the bill’s outcome, the stereotype of black homophobia quickly became a key talking point in the national narrative.
In the days following the vote, I heard some “mainstream” gay commentators and activists declare that the black community was notoriously homophobic and now that civil rights had been achieved for us, we wanted to take away other people’s rights. There were also reports of racist epithets being hurled at black participants in gay rights rallies that took place after the election. On the other side, some African Americans dismissed or ignored homophobia that was indeed real in our community, while others took offense at attempts to equate the black civil rights movement and the gay rights movement.
As a member of both the gay and African American communities, it was a disturbing and disheartening turn of events – a low point in the struggle for civil rights for all. I decided to make a documentary about why these two freedom struggles were continually coming into conflict. For more than three years, I talked to African Americans on both sides of the marriage equality divide to learn how the issue was being debated and understood in the community. It quickly became clear that the historic role of the black church as a safe haven from racism and oppression could not be underestimated, and that understanding and acknowledging the role of right-wing Christian organizations – who were cynically exploiting homophobia in the black church by funneling money into antigay campaigns – was also key.
But perhaps most importantly, I realized, the issue of gay rights in the black community is in many ways a fight over the African American family, which has been a contested space since the time of slavery. Marriage is not just about marriage for black people – it’s also about how blacks have become accepted as legitimate participants in American society. The gay marriage question – which in the African American community is closely tied to traditions around faith and family – has instigated a conversation in our churches, our houses, our neighborhoods, and at the ballot box.
At its heart, The New Black is a film about getting beyond scapegoating and stereotyping. We’re at a historic moment in which LGBT issues are at the forefront of the national debate. On the heels of the Supreme Court’s 2013 decisions to defang both the primary hindrance to national recognition of gay marriage, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), and the greatest gain of the African American civil rights movement of the 1960s, the Voting Rights Act, the need for a national conversation around the intersection between gay rights and racial justice is more urgent than ever. I hope that The New Black will bring many new audiences to the issue of achieving civil rights for all, give much-needed visibility to African American LGBT people, and drive conversation and build bridges across diverse audiences and communities – from the black, to the gay, to the faith-based, and the general public as well.
– Yoruba Richen, Director of The New Black
