Living Out Loud with Darian

Journalist and social commentator Jeff Johnson, host of The Truth with Jeff Johnson on BET and a regular commentator on The Tom Joyner Morning Show took to the airwaves earlier this week to address the pervasive homophobia in the black community.


Johnson used the recent Houston mayoral race between openly lesbian winner Annise Parker and opponent Gene Locke as a backdrop to highlight how homophobia in the black community and unlikely political alliances with white conservatives surface as a result of the intense disdain of LGBT people by some in the black community.


Johnson on black homophobia (loose transcript):


"We as a black community still have not been willing to have an honest conversation about the fact that we're homophobic.That our churches in many cases are running lead on the demonization of homosexuality even when their doctrine speaks to restoration.


So if we're gonna be serious...we wanna lift up this notion that there's a problem with down low brothers who are leading the AIDS epidemic but not recognize we have a community that is unwilling to embrace their own who are gay; we are creating down low brothers. These men and women are our brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers. If we're ever gonna have a real community we've got to have an honest conversation.


Listen to audio of Jeff Johnson's amazing commentary here. The clip is less than six minutes long, but in that time Jeff speaks an awful lot of truth to those that may not always want to hear it.