Rev. Irene Monroe

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Trump’s ‘Shithole Countries’ Comment Gravely Impacts its LGBTQ Asylum Seekers

President Trump’s proclivity for racist remarks comes as no surprise to me. His now- infamous comment stating a preference for immigrants coming from a Scandinavian country like Norway than from Africa and Haiti which he depicts as “shithole” countries  with nothing to offer the U.S is based solely on his ignorance (Also, Mr. President, Africa is a continent.). As some matter-of-fact, black African immigrants are the most educated demographic group in the U.S., surpassing those of us born here- black or white. According to the Los Angeles Times, they come from five major countries: Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South African.

While Trump’s comment will now make it more difficult for these immigrants to enter the U.S. the challenge, however, will be particularly arduous for its LGBTQ asylum seekers. These people flee their countries to avoid criminalization, torture, violence, public persecution, political scapegoating and moral cleansing.

Many of the governments they flee argue they do not like the world’s interference in their business, especially the U.S. They contend that being LGBTQ are anathemas to African and Afro-Caribbean identities, cultural and family values, and it’s one of the many ills brought over by white Europeans (a similar homo/transphobic polemic still argued among religious and uninformed conservative African Americans).  Sadly, the debate between” authentically “African” and Western colonial remnants always finds some way to dispute the reality of the black LGBTQ existence. Therefore, coming out LGBTQ in many of the African and Caribbean countries is dangerous.

For example, approximately thirty-eight of fifty-four countries in the African continent criminalize same-gender consensual activity.

We all have heard of the human rights abuses of Uganda’s LGBTQ population. The country’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill dubbed “Kill the Gays bill” criminalized same-sex relations. And, depending on which category your sexual behavior was classified as —” aggravated homosexual” or “the offense of homosexuality”—you’d either receive the death penalty or if lucky life imprisonment.

Gay activist David Kato was the father of Uganda’s LGBTQ rights movement. He didn’t live to receive either punishment. Kato, beaten to death with a hammer, was murdered in January 2011.

John “Longjones” Abdallah Wambere, a friend of Kato’s and co-founder of Spectrum, an LGBTQ rights organization, is an activist, too. Fleeing from persecution Wambere was approved asylum in 2014. He now lives in my ‘hood” of Cambridge, MA.

And last summer, at the 2017 DignityUSA conference in Boston Warry Joanita Ssenfuka, director of Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG), spoke on being a Catholic lesbian activist in Uganda, where LGBTQI people have no legal protections, and frequently suffer violence and imprisonment. Ssenfuka is a plaintiff in “Sexual Minorities Uganda v. Scott Lively.”  Lively, a white racist, homophobic Pentecostal pastor of Springfield, Massachusetts, is accused of persecuting LGBTQI people abroad, resulting in the introduction of an Anti-Homosexuality Bill he helped engineer in Uganda, which was prosecuted as  a crime against humanity under international law.

Throughout the African continent, there are stories of homophobic bullying, trans bashing, and every kind of abuse of its LGBTQ population. However, the one country you don’t expect to hear anti- LGBTQ rhetoric and human rights abuses from is South Africa.

South Africa is the first African country to support openly LGBTQ civil rights. But South Africa has a problem with its LGBTQ population, especially its lesbians. South Africa’s method to remedy the problem with lesbians is “corrective rape.”

On any given day in South Africa, lesbians are twice as likely to be sexually molested, raped or gang-raped as heterosexual women. Reported estimates of at least 500 lesbians are victims of “corrective rape” per year. And in Western Cape, a province in the south west of South Africa, a report put out by the Triangle Project in 2008 stated that as many as 86 percent of its lesbian population live in fear of being raped.

And, in Haiti, a country that is predominately Roman Catholic homosexuality is condemned. Among Haiti’s LGBTQ middle and profession classes they find ways to socialize out of the public “gaydar” and with impunity.  However, for the poorer classes of LGBTQ Haitians who live, work and socialize in the densely populated and impoverished capitol city of Port-au-Prince and its countryside, discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender expressions is commonplace.  The 2002 documentary “Des Hommes et Dieux (Of Men and Gods)” by anthropologist Anne Lescot exposed the daily struggles of Haitian transwomen.  Blondine in the film said, “When people insult me because I wear a dress I am not ashamed of how I am. Masisis (gay males) can’t walk down the street in a wig and dress.”

Trump’s administration may very well make it difficult for Africans and Haitians to come to the U.S. But, he cannot stop asylum seekers.

Legally, it is a universal human right to seek asylum, and  the U.S has been offering asylum to LGBTQ people from around the world since 1994. And, morally,  governments  have an obligation  to come to the aid of those fleeing  persecution, a minimum standard any decent government recognizes.

But as much as Trump’s “shithole” comments didn’t surprise me, any effort by his administration to halt LGBTQ asylum seekers from black nations would shock me even less.

Rev. Irene Monroe, who is an ordained minister and motivational speaker, does a weekly Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on WGBH (89.7 FM), on Boston Public Radio and a weekly Friday television segment on  New England Channel NEWS (NECN’) “The Take,” covering the latest pop culture headlines. She’s a Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist. Her columns appear in cities across the country and in the U.K, and Canada. Also she writes a  column in the Boston home LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows and Cambridge Chronicle.

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King’s Dream of ‘the Beloved Community’ Extends to Your Community, Too

This year is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. It’s a painful and necessary anniversary to remember considering where the country is today. Americans on the margins have the most to lose in a nation now eroding if not dismantling decades-long civil rights gains that allowed full protections and participation in an evolving multicultural democracy.

While I am nervous where we are in 2018 after an Obama presidency, I am also reminded, however, of MLK and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. My looking back at that era gives me hope to look forward beyond this moment.

In the inimitable rhetorical style of the African-American jeremiad tradition, King’s voice is most remembered from his “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963. The now deceased newscaster Mike Wallace expressed my feelings of missing King when I read one day in the Boston Globe these words by him. “I miss the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. I miss the sound of his voice, the things he said with that voice, and the choir that resounded within him with that voice.”

Martin Luther King articulated his dream of wanting every town and city throughout the world “Building the Beloved Community.” The King Center explains the concept:

“In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger, and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood.”

During the time of King’s dream of “Building the Beloved Community” Southern states had long systematized a peculiar brand of justice with its “separate but equal” laws that allowed for separate drinking fountains, restrooms, restaurants, hotels, to name a few. The South during the civil rights movement was a place where the entire country could watch African Americans being subdued by blazing-water hoses or being charged by aggressive German shepherds on national television. And at night, when no one was watching, the Ku Klux Klan rode through black neighborhoods to burn their property and/or them, brandishing fire and terror as symbols of white supremacy.

However, racism did not just situate itself unabashedly in the South, it also tainted life in the North for African Americans, albeit differently and less visible. And, although segregationist practices directly violated the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the federal government exerted little to no effort to enforce these amendments — in either North or South.

Our job in keeping King’s dream alive is to be part of a participatory government- local and national- that is feverishly working to dismantle all existing discriminatory laws and practices that truncate full participation of its citizens in the fight to advance democracy.

Cambridge is my community but it falls short of King’s dream.

Cambridge, proudly dubbed as “The People’s Republic of Cambridge,” is ranked as one of the most liberal cities in America. And with two of the country’s premier institutions of higher learning — Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology — that draw students and scholars from around the world, Cambridge’s showcase of diversity and multiculturalism rivals that of the UN.

Cambridge is no doubt a progressive city. However, when you scratch below Cambridge’s surface, there is also liberal racism that is as intolerant as Southern racism. Just like Southern racism that keeps blacks in their place, liberal racism does, too. For example, Cambridge’s liberal ruling class maintains its racial boundaries not by designated “colored” water fountains, toilets or restaurants, but rather by its zip codes; major street intersections known as squares, like the renowned Harvard Square; and residential border areas that are designated numbers, like Area 4 (now known as the Port) -which was a predominantly black poor and working-class enclave – that is now gentrified by the biotechnology and pharmaceutical boom. Cambridge’s liberal ruling elite exploit these tensions by their claims to not see race, until of course, an unknown black man appears in their neighborhood.

Segregation in this city is not only along racial lines but class, too. With Cambridge’s tony enclaves sprinkling with homes at starting prices over a half million dollars Cambridge has become a city that is predominately white and upper class. Poor working-class whites and white immigrants do not experience the fullness their white skin privilege would abundantly afford them if they too were part of Cambridge’s professional and/or monied class.

If King were among us today, he would say that it is not enough to just look outside ourselves and communities to see the places where society is broken. King would want us to examine institutions, workplaces, and universities that separate people from one another based on race, religion, gender, class, and sexual orientation, to name a few by looking at ourselves and communities made up of people like you and me.

The top three concerns for Cambridge’s marginalized communities are access to quality public education, racial profiling by police and other community members, and affordable housing.

Cambridge is a world city. It now must work at building the beloved community

Where does your community measure up to King’s dream?

Rev. Irene Monroe, who is an ordained minister and motivational speaker, does a weekly Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on WGBH (89.7 FM), on Boston Public Radio and a weekly Friday television segment on  New England Channel NEWS (NECN’) “The Take,” covering the latest pop culture headlines. She’s a Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist. Her columns appear in cities across the country and in the U.K, and Canada. Also she writes a  column in the Boston home LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows and Cambridge Chronicle.

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The New Jim Crow Targets LGBTQ Americans, Too

Dave Mullins and Charlie Craig protest Masterpiece Cakeshop in 2012.
Courtesy of Dave Mullins

Last week the U. S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments for the case “Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.”  The case – which has many of us LGBTQ Americans on pins and needles – will litigate a baker’s rights to refuse to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple-Dave Mullins and Charlie Craig-  on the grounds of religious freedom enshrined in the First Amendment.

If the case is decided in favor of the baker, Jack Phillips, it will be a colossal blow to civil rights gains and state nondiscrimination laws, legalizing denying services to LGBTQ Americans based on business owners’s religious belief. Trump’s solicitor general, Noel Francisco, suggested these businesses should hang anti-LGBTQ placards like “No Gays Allowed” warning us to stay away. When Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked to clarify the president’s position on the matter at a White House Press Conference, she responded: “The president certainly supports religious liberty…I believe that would include that.”

As a black lesbian in this Trump administration, I now feel like I am moving into a new Jim Crow era reestablishing discriminatory laws targeting LGBTQ Americans. I grew up knowing about racist placards that said “Colored Water Fountain,” “Waiting Room For Colored Only,”We Serve Whites Only, and “No N-word Allowed, to name a few.

Since Trump has taken office there has been an erosion of LGBTQ civil rights under the guise of religious liberty. For example, transgender Americans being denied access to public lavatories is eerily reminiscent of the country’s last century Jim Crow era denying African Americans access to lunch counters, water fountains, and, libraries, gas stations, theaters, and restrooms, to name a few. Signs that read “whites only” prohibited entry.

In Jim Crow America restrooms were a hot-button issue, as today, and a battleground for equal treatment. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination based on national origin, race, hue, gender, and religion. The law mandated desegregation of all public accommodations, including bathrooms. The Obama administration expanded the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to protect LGBTQ Americans. However, in February Trump’s  administration revoked federal guidelines permitting transgender students from using “gender-appropriate facilities ” which aligned with their gender identity.

This June Trump paid tribute to the 49 LGBTQ victims of last year’s Pulse Nightclub massacre, but failed to issue a proclamation for Pride Month.

And, in July, LGBTQ Americans received a one-two punch from the Trump administration. The first punch was President Trump’s ban on transgender service members, eerily reminiscent of when the military did not want to integrate its ranks racially. In his inimitable style of communicating to the American public, the order came in the form of a tweet. Ironically, Trump’s tweet came on the 69th anniversary of President Harry Truman’s executive order desegregating the U. S. military in 1948.

The second punch occurred on the same day of Trump’s ban. The Justice Department filed court papers citing Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination in the workplace but it does NOT bar discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

While Trump’s ban caught the Pentagon and Capitol Hill off guard, the announcement was enthusiastically applauded by numerous anti-LGBTQ hate groups across the country who have long advocated for it, promulgating the fear that healthcare services to our transgender troops would gravely hurt defense spending. In an ad by the Family Research Council, for example, Chelsea Manning was pictured next to a military jet with the question “Which one do you want our military to be spending your tax dollars on – transgender surgeries or equipment?”

On December 11, a federal judge denied request of the Trump administration to delay enlistment deadline for transgender Americans into the military. They can enlist as early as January 1, 2018.

I am immensely thankful as a married lesbian that I reside in Massachusetts, especially if Trump tries to overturn “Obergefell v. Hodges,” the historic U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage in all 50 states.

However, that may not be the case for many LGBTQ married couples outside of my state. For example, in a Trumped-up Supreme Court there is talk among Christian evangelicals of walking “Obergefell v. Hodges” back without disrupting other precedents on marriage,” Rebecca Buckwaler-Poza wrote in the article “The End of Gay Rights” in the June issue of Pacific Standard Magazine.

“The Supreme Court can significantly undermine LGBT rights even without reversing a single case,” Buckwaler-Poza wrote.  “Right now, the federal prohibition against sex discrimination doesn’t bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity; the Equal Protection Clause affords no specific protections for LGBT people, as it does for members of groups defined by race or nationality. The Court can strip the rights to intimacy and marriage of their meaning, carving away gradually and masking the magnitude of changes by phrasing them in arcane legal terms.”

A movement for some time now has been afoot in state legislatures across the country to disenfranchise LGBTQ Americans. These bills are called “Religious Freedom Restoration Acts” (RFRA), and are a backlash to the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage and the growing fear of when the Supreme Court legalize it nationwide. Since lawmakers used them to codify LGBTQ discrimination to justify denying us services on state and local levels, and Trump is in lock-step with these discriminatory practices, Jim Crow is already here.

Rev. Irene Monroe, who is an ordained minister and motivational speaker, does a weekly Monday segment, “All Revved Up!” on WGBH (89.7 FM), on Boston Public Radio and a weekly Friday television segment on  New England Channel NEWS (NECN’) “The Take,” covering the latest pop culture headlines. She’s a Huffington Post blogger and a syndicated religion columnist. Her columns appear in cities across the country and in the U.K, and Canada. Also she writes a  column in the Boston home LGBTQ newspaper Baywindows and Cambridge Chronicle.