I realized early on being black and gay that both the majority and minority carry around issues regarding being the minority.
I mention this when we talk about how some gays and straights react to the Warren situation. This is not a Warren diary. It's a diary about race and sexual orientation. About how they overlap.
I should say this does not apply to everyone. To whom it applies? What percentage? I can not say. So, if it's not you. Do not assume it's you.
I just know the reality. Being black, I see the internalized issues with race that develops into behavior in some black people. In me, for example.
And being gay, I see the internalized issues with being gay that develops in some gay people. That's too easy. I mean the subtle ways it happens.
I would not see the gay issues quite so clearly if I were not black. The similarities of behaviorial outcomes both amongst the minority group and the majority, despite the differences between what defines the minority and the majority, are stark.
For example, there is a soft bigotry for being gay and black that differ, but also are the same.
Soft bigotry is where people are okay with "gay" or "black" so long as you follow their rules about being a part of the minority. "Black is" or "Gay is" normally defines it according to what are probably majority rules that the minority internalizes and pretends is their rules. This has postive and negative stereotypes.
Not ever black guy is ghetto. Not every gay guy is going to be queeny. But in our minds, we think that this is what we should expect. Not every black guy is straight. Not every gay guy is white. In our minds, that is what we expect.
It comes out in other forms. This has come out in the Warren situation in which you see bigotted progressives say they will not support gay groups going forward due to the position of some gays being angry over Warren.
Now, I agree with the anger. We should be angry. But to chacterize all gays based on it is de ja vue to me. I remember not so long ago that this being the test for many whites when it came to their support on race issues. "I am for you so long as you are the 'magic negro.'" Say or do anything I consider wrong, and that support is gone.
Now, I feel I must say, " I support you so long as you are magic gay." Don't act like Jack on Will and Grace- well then, I got a problem with you. Heaven forbid you are a little militant.
While disappointed with the reaction to Warren, I am not surprised. There are black people who did not think it possible for America to elect a black guy because that's just the way it is. "Why should we even try to change things?" That's what I heard earlier this year. Thus, they shaped their behavior according to this belief. Likewise, you see gays doing this.
There were black people who thought that Martin Luther King was being uppidy to protest. Thus, I can't be surprised. Just disappointed.
Why then should it be a surprise that there are gay people who will accept that we must tolerate people who call us pedophile? Afterall, "that's just the way life is suppose to be, right?" We are setting ourselves up for the fall if we believe otherwise. That's their implicit point whether they know it or not.
The lesson for me as a black guy who is also gay is that we need to question the assumptions of white privilege or heterosexual privilege in that we should be just as outraged as the majorities (whatever defines them) would be if they were really denied their rights under the law, and we viewed them as subhuman. Some don't do this. Instead, we accept the subhuman status as just the way things are.
Instead, we seem to accept our lot. We never say- "We'll talk to you Warren, but on our terms." It's always- let's be the bigger one by talking to them on theirs. Why does Warren not have to meet us half way. Why is Melissa Etheridge trying to defend the indefensible? Shouldn't he reach out to us?
If one goes in thinking, gay is lesser, just like the majority,t hen it's hard to realize that the words are as harsh as they are. It's only when you realize that you carry around this baggage that you liberate yourself enough to be outraged. Think for a second of the words applied to you?
For example, I am writing this story right now. It's about a gay character. But, the story is not protypically a "gay story" as one of my friends who read it said. His point was "why does this have to be a gay character?" My thought process used to be to change the character because it's not a "gay" movie. Why antagonize the audience. That was my own cowardice speaking.
Now, my position is to question why he thinks gay characters are only suppose to appear in a certain way. Why are we creating these cages for ourselves? There are gay Chiristans. There are black ones. There are gays who live in small towns.
We pretend like living in ghettos is our choice. but maybe, it's more representative of accepting the views of the majority as the correct one. That we need to parse ourselves off. Thus making it harder to overcome. I would not know this if I had not already had spent most of my life addressing similar issues as a black guy.