The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

I get a ton of e-mails. Recently I got an e-mail filled with pictures of a Black gay wedding that was filled with comments of folks criticizing the whole thing. Sorta like the comment below.

“I can’t believe this wedding. It’s 2 men. They don’t smile in a lot of pictures and they look like a few brothers I’ve seen in the streets looking STRAGHT. Black women can’t get a break, either our men want another man, a white woman (or other nationality that’s light with straight hair), they are locked up in jail or have a “use to be” fatal disease. I’m beginning to believe Eve was a black woman and we Black women are paying for all the world’s sins through her actions (eating the apple),”

That comment was written by an employee (sorry, former employee of Morehouse College. She was fired for adding her two cents to the chain e-mail. Here is how the President of Morehouse responded to the situation.

“It is my sincere hope that the gay and lesbian community, and most specifically Michael Cole Smith and Jamil Smith Cole—whose wedding photographs became the subject of an unkind and intolerant email sent and forwarded by a Morehouse College employee—will accept my official apology on behalf of the College community.

Morehouse College—the institution where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of our nation’s premier champions of human and civil rights, was nurtured—has a history of promoting tolerance and inclusion for all people. Remarks such as the ones made in the e-mail were counter to Dr. King’s—and the College’s—core values and will not be tolerated from any Morehouse employee or student. Effective September 30, the employee who made the offensive comments is no longer working for the College.

I will continue to emphasize to the Morehouse community the message that was shared during an April town hall meeting: On the matter of diversity, Morehouse is committed to being a respectful campus that balances personal liberty with the responsibility of membership in a moral community. This has been and always will be a community dedicated to promoting respect and tolerance between heterosexuals and homosexuals. We encourage everyone to aspire to high ethical standards and we demand responsible community behavior. Those who cannot embrace the Morehouse code of ethics will be sanctioned accordingly.”

So today, I read the following in the AJC. Apparently Morehouse is trying to crack down on how students have been dressing on campus. Check out the list.

“We expect our young men to be Renaissance men,” said Bynum. “When people go about campus we want them to represent the college in an appropriate manner.”

The policy details 11 expectations of students, including:

* no caps, do-rags and/or hoods in classrooms, the cafeteria, or other indoor venues

* no sun glasses worn in class or at formal programs

* no jeans at major programs, as well as no sagging pants on campus

* no clothing with derogatory or lewd messages either in words or pictures

* no wearing of clothing usually worn by women (dresses, tops, tunics, purses, pumps, etc.) on the Morehouse campus or at college-sponsored events.

The gay student group on campus responded, of course.

“Daniel Edwards, co-president of Safe Space, a gay straight alliance student campus organization said he has heard from students that are for and against the policy, but he believes it is discriminatory.

It is the restriction to women’s clothing that has many students up in arms.”

If the President is accepting of the gay lifestyle (which can and does include the perceived right to wear women’s clothing), why specifically call them out with this new rule?

P.C. will drive you crazy.