Why I have opened the window!

Amerykah has turned a corner and we should all turn with it. I have thoughts ideas and suggestions but I also have patience and desire for us to be whole and one. I have been speaking a lot lately of the human condition and the generations of Black Americans. i will entertain any and all conversation as long as we can be respectful and grown up. Let the healing begin......

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

A different slant on DADT and Dan Choi




For the record…it is wrong for laws like Don’t Ask Don’t tell to exist. Anyone who wants to serve should have the right to do so. Hell discrimination on any level is clearly wrong. Having said that here are some things about being gay.

Unlike when they would not allow Negroes to serve in the military, you usually can’t tell gay people by looking at them, we don’t wear scarlet letters or have pink triangles etched onto the side of our faces. So unless you’re caught live or on film in a “situation” people generally will not know you’re a homosexual.

Lt. Dan Choi has a very impressive military resume’.


Lt. Dan Choi, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and an Iraq War veteran, is a capable soldier and leader who can continue to play a vital role in this time of war.

As a member of the military who is fluent in Arabic, Lt. Choi's skills are especially needed at this critical time
in our nation's history. America's national security is dependent on the service of soldiers like Lt. Choi, who is ready to deploy again if his country calls on him.”

Today a military board ruled that Dan should be dismissed from the service because he came out of the closet. Let me repeat that….He came out of the closet!! On his own of his own accord, without any prompting from anyone else. Now look at his resume’ again, he went to West Point so these rules are not new to him. He decided however to break those rules on national television.

I have received many emails asking me to sign the petition to keep him in the service and a couple of times I thought about it, but at the end of the day Dan is on a road that he put himself on. I am all for him being a spokesman for repealing DADT, I am all for him being branded a trailblazer. But at the end of the day he did break the rules. He had spent many years in the service and he knew what would happen to him when he went on Rachel Maddow. Unpopular true but also very accurate.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

THIS SHIT NEEDS TO STOP!!!

D.J. said...

I agree it needs to stop...but I agree he knew what he was doing when he came out...

Wonder Man said...

the point is he did break the law. It's still a policy until changed

Anonymous said...

Yeah, Rosa Parks broke the law too by not giving up her seat. Would you have followed that law too? Injustices must be challenged by someone.

D.J. said...

Dear Anonymous,

Rosa also got locked up for breaking the law. As I said in the piece the law is clearly a bad one just like making folks sit at the back of the bus, the diofference in your scenario is choice. Rosa was never going tobe anything other than black Dan would have eventually left the service.