A panel featuring several distinguished members discussed race and sexuality in the Student Center on Tuesday.
Included in the panel were Dr. Dwight McBride, the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and professor of African American studies and gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Also on the panel were Dr. Tim Dyer, an Eastern Michigan University alumnus, Emeritus EMU regent and former Ypsilanti mayor; Charles Pugh who is currently Detroit’s City Council president; Dyann Logwood, an EMU instructor at the department of women’s and gender studies; and Jay Kaplan of ACLU of Michigan and a LGBT Project staff attorney.
The discussion started out with each of the panelists introducing themselves and giving a brief insight into their past.
Pugh told the story about what it was like growing up with a grandfather who supported him being gay and with his many homosexual and lesbian family members.
“This (homosexuality) is not something that we talk about in out families,” Pugh said. “We just ignore it.”
Logwood shared her experience teaching a class and mentioning she was the daughter of a Pentecostal preacher. Logwood said that after she mentioned her heritage, a certain girl in the class refused to speak to her.
They met eight weeks later and Logwood asked the girl why she never wanted to speak. The girl replied she thought Logwood would not be comfortable around her because she was a lesbian. After finding out she was wrong about Logwood’s feelings, they became friends and still keep in touch to this day.
Jay Kaplan spent some time speaking about how the management of the LGBT community is predominantly composed of white males and how there is a lack of minorities and the allies who support them.
He also spoke about the lack of connection the LGBT community makes with others and how connections need to be developed. He used the incident where many people related the struggle for LGBT rights to the Civil Rights Movement.
Kaplan said there was a difference in the struggles, and many people were affected negatively when they heard this.
Kaplan said there needs to be more of a consideration in making points and arguments in order to make ties and form relationships with friends.
McBride told the crowd about his life growing up in a Christian home as a black, gay man.
He described the pressure to be straight and how he asked God to make him straight. McBride said he questioned why he was going through that tribulation.
It was not until graduate school that McBride found a place he was comfortable with his sexuality because many of the people within the school were gay.
He mentioned people are becoming more accepting, and him being a dean is proof of that.
After the panel shared experiences, there was a discussion between panel members and the audience.
“To me discrimination is illogical; I have too many other things to worry about,” Kevin Lambert said. “Why do we keep bringing it up if race doesn’t matter?”
Pugh said, “People’s differences matter to them. It has to be addressed… acting like it doesn’t exist won’t help because it does exist.”
Though the discussion was emotional at times, the night can be summed up with the words of Pugh.
