This young man's poem and recitation is heartbreaking, moving and motivating. I challenge anyone to listen to it without shedding a tear. Youth like this are the hope and future of gay awareness in the African-American community and churches. I'll bet when Rev. Wilson and Jesse Jackson claim that gay rights are not like Black civil rights they didn't ask gay African-Americans like the author of this rap.

http://current.tv/studio/media/1191792

Wow, that's really powerful. This kid is dope!

The message on the video was amazing. Thank you so much for posting it here. I will forward it to my friends.

Thanks for posting this link. I was very moved by the story of the young suicide, even though the simplistic rhymes of this kind of spoken-word poetry drive me up the wall.

But I don't understand why you've chosen this thread to slam Jesse Jackson Sr. He is a supporter of gay rights, isn't he? Like Al Sharpton, another person frequently attacked by white gay conservatives, he's repeatedly on record supporting equality for gays of all races, isn't he? Wasn't Sharpton one of the first two Democratic candidates (along with Carole Moseley Braun) to support gay rights in the last presidential election? Lumping Jackson with the extremely homophobic, anti-gay Rev. Willie Wilson is really problematic.

NO ONE has been a bigger Jesse Jackson fan that this Mississippi cracker. I did not attack Jesse Jackson or question his record of supporting the gay community. What I did do was question his statement, which he made at Harvard about a year and a half ago, that the fight for gay civil rights could not be compared to the fight for African-American civil rights. I stand by my question, "Did he ask any out, gay African-Americans if there were legitimate comparisons?" Of course there are differences. There are hardships that African Americans suffered that gays have not but there are also hardships that homosexuals have suffered that African-Americans have not. It's true that gays were never denied voting rights but it is also true that it was never against the law to BE black. It's true that African-Americans couldn't hide their minority status but it's also true that the ability of homosexuals to hide their orientation, their relative invisibility, has been the greatest hindrance to achieving gay civil rights. Civil rights struggles should not come down to tit for tat quibbles. African-Americans, Native Americans, Jews, Gays/Lesbians, Women and other minorities should not cloud civil rights struggles with arguments over who's had it worse but should work together as a coalition for the common good. Discrimination against anyone is discrimination against everyone. When Mr. Jackson questions the validity of gays fighting for marriage rights and questions if it's a civil rights issue, I take exception to that. By definition civil marriage is a civil right and therefor if gays are denied that right it is a gay civil rights issue and should be a civil rights issue for everyone. A person can disagree over the issue of the religious RITE of marriage, but civil rights are not religious rites. The government can neither give nor deny religious rites and the Church cannot give nor deny civil rights.

I still respect Jesse immensely but that doesn't mean I have to agree with every word he says. Please realize the difference between challenging a statement made by a person and "slamming" a person.

[ December 26, 2005, 05:31 PM: Message edited by: UMRebel/Bucfan ]