The media are not blameless. Even in this story where an openly gay, black woman beat the odds to become mayor of Chicago, the media has to find bogeymen to shower rain on their own rainbow parade.
I just marvel that they singled out an important voting bloc on their own side to be the bogeymen....Shocked that CNN did this piece!
Lori Lightfoot did something during her victory party last week that once would have been considered obscene.
As Chicago's beaming mayor-elect stood at a podium, she turned toward her wife, Amy Eshleman, and kissed her in full view of a roomful of jubilant supporters while photographers snapped away.
The images of that moment looked like a sneak preview of a New America breaking through -- a black, gay woman kissing her white wife before a mini-rainbow coalition of onlookers. And nobody raised an eyebrow.
But focus on just the black supporters in that room and another image emerges. The black vote -- especially members of black churches who mobilized on her behalf -- was crucial to Lightfoot's victory.
What if Lightfoot had been standing in the pulpit of one of those black churches when she kissed her wife?
"In probably 90% of the black churches, she would be put out or asked to leave," says the Rev. Martha Simmons, a scholar on black preaching and a consultant to an upcoming PBS special on the black church.
There is a cruel irony in Lightfoot's election that few, if any, are talking about. Many of the same black voters who asked her to lead their city wouldn't dare ask her to lead their own churches because she is a gay woman. Women and LGBTQ members are still treated like second-class citizens in many black churches across America.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I just marvel that they singled out an important voting bloc on their own side to be the bogeymen....Shocked that CNN did this piece!
Lori Lightfoot did something during her victory party last week that once would have been considered obscene.
As Chicago's beaming mayor-elect stood at a podium, she turned toward her wife, Amy Eshleman, and kissed her in full view of a roomful of jubilant supporters while photographers snapped away.
The images of that moment looked like a sneak preview of a New America breaking through -- a black, gay woman kissing her white wife before a mini-rainbow coalition of onlookers. And nobody raised an eyebrow.
But focus on just the black supporters in that room and another image emerges. The black vote -- especially members of black churches who mobilized on her behalf -- was crucial to Lightfoot's victory.
What if Lightfoot had been standing in the pulpit of one of those black churches when she kissed her wife?
"In probably 90% of the black churches, she would be put out or asked to leave," says the Rev. Martha Simmons, a scholar on black preaching and a consultant to an upcoming PBS special on the black church.
There is a cruel irony in Lightfoot's election that few, if any, are talking about. Many of the same black voters who asked her to lead their city wouldn't dare ask her to lead their own churches because she is a gay woman. Women and LGBTQ members are still treated like second-class citizens in many black churches across America.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
