Raynard Jackson gets it Wrong about Roland Martin and the LGBT community

I just read Raynard Jackson's interesting article in Black Enterprise. It's called “Did Black America Turn Its Back on Roland Martin?" In his piece, Raynard said Black leaders were silent as GLAAD dragged Roland through the mud.

Raynard wrote that Black leaders should have come to Roland’s rescue and defend his "innocent words".

 But most disturbing is the loud silence from within the Black community, I know first hand that many of the so-called Black “leadership” were quick to call Roland to get on his TV show or to get him to write a supportive newspaper column about one of their causes. But, now that he is in trouble not one voice is to be heard supporting him. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Ben Jealous, Marc Morial, the Congressional Black Caucus—your silence is so loud!

No Raynard; their silence confirmed that Roland was wrong. Roland’s tweet was very insensitive and his responses were worse. Why would any Black leader defend him or those statements? In fact, why would anyone claim that Roland was in the right?

Black leaders did the right thing by standing aside. Roland is a big boy. He got himself into the mire; and he can get himself out. If anything, Black leaders should have called him out on his tweets and held him accountable for his foolishness.

But that's not all to this article; near the end of this piece, Raynard wrote:

Gays don’t deserve special protection because of their sexual preference, but they do deserve equal protection because of their humanity.

This statement proves he has no idea about LGBT people, or the struggles we endure. It only seems that Raynard wanted to make this issue a race issue, but that was a failed plan. There were many Black LGBT folks who were pissed and called Roland to the carpet.  I guess Raynard didn't bother to notice that.

Now, I do agree that calling for Roland's termination was a bit much. But after seeing that tweet and Roland's ridiculous comments; GLAAD's initial response was appropriate. I'm highly disappointed in Raynard's approach to this article. It was very telling of his views about Black Leadership and the LGBT community. Maybe if Raynard would get off his soapbox, he will see that holding Roland accountable was an act of leadership.