Yesterday I wrote about GLAAD’s Digital Media Award nomination that LZ Granderson received for an article he had written for ESPN entitled “McMackin’s Slur Reveals Larger Problem” in the same year that he wrote an Op-Ed piece for CNN called “Gay Is Not The New Black” for CNN.com which he pits African American Rights against LGBT Rights using such skewed rhetoric that we were not persecuted, killed, institutionalized, murdered, beaten, and burnt at the stake BEFORE Stonewall, that military discrimination started with DADT totally forgetting that Lesbians and gays were BANNED from joining the Military before that even if they kept it a secret. LZ in his article also goes on to make the following reverse racist statement:

So while the white mouthpiece of the gay community shakes an angry finger at intolerance and bigotry in their blogs and on television, blacks and other minorities see the dirty laundry. They see the hypocrisy of publicly rallying in the name of unity but then privately living in segregated pockets

Nice huh?

The same man who wrote the above then gets nominated in the same year for a GLAAD Outstanding Digital Media Award for a story of some straight football players calling each other “fag” and GLAAD totally ignores the other article which in which he trashes part of the LGBT community and my opinion was bad enough for GLAAD to issue a condemnation on to start out with.

So I emailed Jarret Barrios, President of GLADD and also to Richard Ferraro, Director of Public Relations and received answers from each.

Richard Ferraro’s email stated:

So basically what he is saying is that LZ Granderson gets a pass because he wrote an article for ESPN that reaches a straight audience about grown men calling each other “fags” but yet he writes another article for CNN which reaches a much larger and diverse audience that pits the African American community against the Caucasian LGBT Community and that matters for nothing in their nomination process. (And in full disclosure LZ Granderson is a past GLAAD Media Award Winner)

Hello Will,

 LZ is not nominated for his body of work but a piece he wrote for ESPN.com entitled “McMackin’s Slur Reveals Larger Problem”. In the piece he calls out football coach Greg McMackin for repeatedly using anti-gay slurs.

Think of the readers of ESPN.com for a moment if you will. Kind of a good audience to be hearing that anti-gay slurs should not be used on the sports field, no? http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=granderson/090731&sportCat=ncf

But it was Jarret Barrios’ email that really got me:

Will,

I am disappointed that, in disagreeing with our decision to nominate mr granderson, you’ve chosen to make ad hominem comments about glaad. We may disagree on this–people always do–but how would you propose addressing this issue you raise? It seems that an exhaustive search of work that is outside the “body” of lgbt-related content just isn’t practical for the hundreds of writers under consideration for nomination. Am I misunderstanding or isn’t that your ultimate judgment on the matter?

Please consider the practicality of what you’ve said. I am very excited about running a fully transparent process, and appreciate your thoughts–and those of many others. I also owe you my frankness as well.

All the best,
Jarrett

Other than the fact that he accuses me of “ad hominem comments” mostly because my comments were true and if they have been said before then perhaps GLAAD should really start taking them to heart and realizing that many people fell the same way.  But what really got me is:  “It seems that an exhaustive search of work that is outside the “body” of lgbt-related content just isn’t practical for the hundreds of writers under consideration for nomination.”

I do admit that before the field is narrowed yes, it wouldn’t be practical. But after it ‘s narrowed a simple Google search would render you the info that you need. But I think what really got me about this statement is that the article “Gay Is not The New Black” wasn’t exactly a “hidden” article. Just HOW CLUELESS is GLAAD?  Granderson’s article ran as an Op-Ed at CNN and a majority of the most well known and widely read LGBT BLOGS picked it up and commented about it. Sites like Pam’s House Blend, Joe My God, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters and even AfterElton.com wrote about it and it’s controversy but no one at GLAAD was aware of it? There is nothing wrong with research and there is especially nothing wrong with an organization like GLAAD following the BLOGS of it’s own community to see whats being said and also reaching out to the Blogs and working with them.. Because GLAAD needs to start thinking about the about the way things look from our point of view of the outside looking in, especially after the Lambert clusterfuck.

To be an organization that deals with anti-defamation and then not know what is truly sensitive to the community you serve is a travesty and something that GLAAD will have to work on especially now if it wants to regain any of it’s former integrity and trust back within the LGBT Community.