Farewell General Powell
After President Clinton’s 1993 Inauguration, I was approached, by the National Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum, to leave my job at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and represent the Black Gay and Lesbian military community for the Campaign for Military Service (CMS). As a Navy service member, I was honored and excited to showcase the skills I learned working with one of the 20th century’s leading ministers and social justice thinkers, Dr. Joseph E. Lowery.
As the Campaign for Military Service (CMS) was ramping up, and just five days into the Clinton administration, General Powell and President Clinton met to discuss Clinton's promise to repeal the ban and moratorium on Gays in the Military. Powell declared that “the comparison with Blacks was “off-base” because race is one of several “benign characteristics,” while “sexuality is diff[erent].” It was this comparison and General Powell’s views and public statements that made the campaign’s battle feel like I was running a vertical hundred-yard dash. Impossible. I had been here before. The social justice community had experienced the same political undermining years earlier with the Clarence Thomas nomination to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall. Just as Republican leaders had gotten ahead of the civil rights community on the Thomas nomination, Powell had gotten ahead of the President and made the possible impossible. Secretly, i believed the Clinton Administration Public position was lip service, that they used General Powell, and that the administration never really intended to go all the way on this issue.
I felt the same way, watching Individuals I worked side by side with during the 1993 campaign celebrate the repeal at the Whitehouse during the Obama Administration, without me. Again, a pawn is used for someones else greater goal. I also believe; General Powell was used a second time by a presidential administration. This time the Bush Administration and the infamous weapons of mass destruction cover speech at the United Nations. An American Presidential administration had once again used the most famous and credible U.S. Black military man. of the 20th Century. Powell’s speech provided political cover to invade Iraq and kill Saddam Hussein. It worked. Did we ever locate the weapons? While I was hurt and disappointed in the General’s statements on Gays in the Military and the Iraq mission, I knew it was just politics and politicians using gays and black folks as pawns.
General Powell is an American hero. Full stop. In contrast, those two decisions will forever be a part of General Powel’s history and legacy. Those decisions helped shape three decades of U.S. Culture wars. His history will also include his global work of developing 21st Century leaders through the Colin Powell School For Civic And Global Leadership and his calculated presidential endorsement of then-candidate Obama. His endorsement was a seismic game-changer.
Farewell, General Powell, you should have been our First Black President.
