This city is changing so these color statistics will not always be relavent.

I found it easier to vote for Gray than I originally thought. What iced it for me was the utter failure of Chief Lanier’s plan to extend effective LGBT sensitivity to policing in MPD’s Fifth District (5D) in N.E. Washington (Michigan Park and Brookland S. through Trinidad and Langston/Carver).

5D’s Citizens’ Advisory Council (5DCAC) Chairman Robert Brannum and 5D Commander Lamar Greene are presiding over an organization which practices de facto homophobic discrimination against 5D LGBT residents.

In mid-August, after a high-ranking 5DCAC board member made homophobic remarks– remarks which Chief Lanier disavowed publicly on the MPD-SLU listserv– 5D’s Greene and Brannum both promised to have GLLU give a full presentation at this months 5DCAC monthly meeting.

Brannum and Greene also promised cooperation and communication with 5D’s LGBT community listserv so as to provide plenty of advanced notice and promotion for the GLLU presentation– to demonstrate how hospitable and welcoming MPD-5D is to LGBT residents.

However, Brannum and Greene broke their assurances– abruptly and without consultation, changing the GLLU presentation to a greatly abbreviated, watered-down SLU overview speech by Captain Delgado. Brannum and Greene also stiff-armed the LGBT community– failing to answer email inquiries of basic meeting time and place details– until reminder copies of those emails were also sent to Chief Lanier and Ward 5 CM Harry Thomas.

What’s worse, Robert Brannum used short-notice, no-notice meeting manipulation tactics– even publishing meeting date MISINFORMATION to suppress likely attendance by a substantial LGBT concentration in the Brookland area. Roughly HALF of 5D’s listserv audience received meeting date misinformation or no notice at all (Ward5 listserv) by Robert Brannum. The Ward5 listserv also has an active LGBT membership.

But during this same time, Robert Brannum found time to conduct a one-man, apparently unlawful demonstration (disorderly conduct)– his second one of the summer– against the Washington Post on 15th Street (Sep. 2nd). The You-Tube video shows two MPD patrol cars pulling away from Brannum’s car, while Brannum continues his loudspeaker tirade. Did Brannum get special treatment by MPD due to his close association with MPD– and as an advisor to Chief Lanier?

In any event, MPD-5D has become a very unfriendly and unwelcoming police district for 5D’s LGBT residents during Chief Lanier’s and Commander Greene’s tenure.

Our LGBT residents need a strong, fully-staffed central GLLU office they can trust.

LGBT VOTE SPLITS ALONG RACIAL LINES IN D.C. MAYORAL PRIMARY

As Chibbaro makes clear in his story, the LGBT vote split, with white LGBTs voting overwhelmingly for incumbent mayor Adrian Femnty and black LGBTs voting solidly for the eventual primary winner, Vincent Gray.

It certainly not necessary to be reminded that Washington, D.C. is a predominantly black city, where African-Americans make up more than 70 percent of its residents. But it bears reminding Blade readers that many, if not most, black LGBTs in the nation’s capital identify with the African-American community first and the LGBT community second. Fenty lost primarily because many in the African-American community felt that he had lost touch with them, especially over the direction of the city’s schools.

This was an election in which the interests of the LGBT and African-American communities were not in synch with one another. And when that happens in the nation’s capital, the African-American community’s interests are always going to prevail in municipal elections. That’s a lesson white D.C. LGBTs should have learned a long time ago.