A non alliance

I've noticed some voices in the African American community talking about how the gay community failed in its outreach to get prop 8 voted down.

I think thats true. I think the liberals in california wanted to believe that their state was really more liberal than it is and generally went with tone deaf arguments towards the people they were supposedly trying to convince. I don't try to convince conservatives because I have the same tendency.

But I think its missing the point. This isn't a failed alliance. This is open hostility more than any other racial group. African Americans just aren't a natural fit to ally with gay people. There will always be supporters who swim against the current such as Barack Obama, but they are the outliers. African American's have a strong church community and thats like trying to ally with mormons or catholics. Its trying to convince the hardliners rather than the moderates.

Probably a better solution from a racial perspective would be to outreach to asian people in my opinion as while they are traditionally conservative on the issue of sexuality and gender identity they are much more tolerant as they do not come from the western background and have a different view of conservatism.

Really though considering the slim margin probably enough old people will die and young people will become of voting age to pass it in two years so I don't think it should be too hard. I think the campaign was just poorly run and had no oxygen as electing Obama was just much more important. He is for national civil unions. That would help people outside of California.

I think the main thing to take away is that oppression does not breed sympathy for the other oppressed. Being an outsider in a group is what does that.