Crossing the Gay Color Lines

[big_mama_]

I realize it's been ages since I've posted anything here. Just hadn't felt compelled to talk about anything. Until today. I recently came across an article discussing racial issues among the gay community. I know a lot of you out there probably don't want to think about such things, but after reading this piece (from AfterElton), I felt like

Comments

[bear_left]

Great article, am glad you posted this!

I think there's a lot of terrific points throughout the article. I find it all but impossible to stomach the racism in the white gay community, and some of those men interviewed for this article are absolutely right to call white gay men on their racial privilege, & their unwillingness to recognize what that even means. Whites, including gay white men, need to own up to the basic fact that this country was founded on a pair of genocidal campaigns - the one that enslaved Africans & brought them across the Atlantic by the millions, & the one that cleared the land of the indigenous civilizations already here. It took another two centuries & a civil war to destroy slavery, & another century before its replacement, the American Apartheid called Jim Crow, was dismantled. And that's before we discuss the informal segregation of the north, the lynching of Asian immigrants, the WWII internments... obviously I could keep going.

At the same time, I don’t think that the Oppression Olympics (“my oppression is worse than yours!”) are productive or even valid (although the parade of nations at the opening ceremonies is ffffabulous!). Being Jewish, I’ve run into this with those Jews who are reluctant to acknowledge that other groups suffering horrifically in the Holocaust, or alternatively, that because six million of us died in the concentration camps, Israel can do no wrong. There is something profoundly different about discrimination based on skin color (although I think the interviewees miss the fact that plenty of effeminate guys & butch women *can’t* hide their difference), & there’s also something truly different about growing up gay in straight families & straight schools & straight churches that’s different from how black parents raise black children and also different from how mothers raise daughters in a sexist world.

The classism of the people interview ed in the article is a bit much - there seems to be the assumption that all gay men are living like Will & Jack (or indeed that all white people have economic privilege) - which is as screwed up as assuming that all black people are either the Cosbys or on welfare. But that perhaps is to be expected from a publication focused on the mainstream media & pop culture?

Oh, & did I read the article too quickly, & miss any references to lesbian & bi women? Or was this all about men?

[big_mama_]

They primarily focused on the men. I agree that the assumption that all of a certain people live a certain way. My take from the piece is that people tend to make a lot of judgements toward others based on what they see in the media. And gay media, for the most part, but not always, tends to push the image of the so called "Aberzombies" as an ideal. Much like mainstream media pushes (moreso in the past, than now) the blond-blue-eyed "All American". And if you don't fit into that mode, and that's all you see, it can give you a very distorted view of the world and perhaps even yourself. That can result in a bit of resentment. I truly believe media representation (both mainstream and gay) are doing a better job at diversity, but there is still much room for improvement.