So on youtube yesterday this frigtening little clip caught my eye. Please note: NOT SAFE FOR WORK.
(Video summary: A dozen black teens follow a white gay man shouting homophobic comments at him for 2.5 minutes.)
I'm still processing this. It is during Minneapolis Pride, so there are more gay people in more areas than normal. And I know in certain areas homophobia is rampant. But this very strongly brings back all the people telling me after Prop. 8 succeeded that it I was racist to believe that blacks were more homophobic than whites. This video triggers those feelings of betrayal again.
I am writing this here looking for feedback. Ways to deal with the anger this generates in me. Ways to see this as something other than what it appears to be. And ways to move beyond this and find a solution so this doesn't happen again.
NOT SAFE FOR WORK.
(Video summary: A dozen black teens follow a white gay man shouting homophobic comments at him for 2.5 minutes.)
Youtuber tastyjoy writes:
My friend and I were leaving the Gay Pride Festival in Minneapolis, MN (6/27/09) and came across a group of kids who asked my friend if he was gay. When he answered "yes", they proceeded to harass him and me with verbal threats and even throwing rocks at my friend at one point. Sad...
***NOTE*** The Minneapolis Police Department has contacted me to let me know that the two guys in the video who look like police officers are NOT police officers and were in fact private security for the apartment building we were walking next to.
First off, I know that scenes like this were not terribly rare 30 years ago during pride parades, or any other time really. But can anyone think of a similar episode in the past 10 years, where a random group of people just started following a gay man, KNOWING they were being filmed, and spewing such bile.
"I hate gay people"
"FAG"
"Gay is not the way"
"Fuck gay people"
As a percentage, the Oxford Journal claims that blacks and whites are similar in their attitude toward gay rights as a percentage. However, the idea of a white mob forming around a guy walking along and screaming at him like in this video just doesn't seem possible. And in Minneapolis no less!
So I would like to ask:
Is this just a city-thing? I don't think so, because cities are considered "safe homes" for gays. Gays populations per capitia are much higher in cities than the country. There should be more acceptance in the city, not less. Or is this only true in SF, LA, NYC? Or is it only true in the gay ghettos of these cities?
Is this type of attitude expressed by whites as well, and I just haven't traveled in those particular areas where whites are more likely to express such things in a gang-like atmosphere? I'm really trying to figure out how this trips so many triggers, to see a crowd like this going after two individuals like this. I am from the small-town south, and have lived in Salt Lake City, Nashville, and Dallas. The concept of this treatment is completely foreign to me. Is it race-driven?
Is it just that black populations are more likely to publically and vocally express homophobia? I do not think that I am willing to go down this road. To say, "whites are just as homophobic, but they keep it inside, but it's just the same" sounds pretty lame. The idea that you can just follow someone down the road saying these crap...that isn't a racial norm.
These are just children; they will learn as they grow up. Well yeah. But I thought this age group was supposed to be the ones who would guarantee our civil rights in time because they were more accepting of gays than their parents or grandparents. They guys seem to care.
It's not race, it's class. I am more willing to explore this thought. Poorer classes tend to be more homophobic than middle income classes. Perhaps a well-to-do woman walking alone in the same neighborhood would have also attracted a gaggle of cat-callers.
I know I am touching on racists triggers here by daring to suggest that there is indeed more black homophobia than white homophobia. And I acknowledge that this is just an anecdote (a youtube anecdote with tens of thousands of views, but an anecdote nonetheless). However, this is just foreign to my view of how homosexuals are treated in the USA. It appears obvious in the video that there are racists tones here too (or is it classists?).
I used to have this "Beaver Cleaver" notion that the black community would be a strong ally of the homosexual movement: in both cases civil rights are directly at stake; Loving v. Virginia is only a few decades ago; both communities have to fight discrimination despite laws to the contrary. While that ideal is long gone in my mind, this creates a new ideal...one that says that not only is the black community at large not a partner working with us toward civil rights, but an active opponent.
Regardless, how do we combat this mindless hatred of homosexuals? It isn't even hatred really, it's more of a mindless mob chanting a slogan without really understanding what they are doing.
Please forgive my rambling. Please help me see this in a clearer light.
Update x1: The teens in the picture are of Somali extract. It is inferred that they are probably either recent immigrants or children of recent immigrants.
Posters below have stated that many gay sites have addressed this video in particular, and Somaliam homophobia. I have tried searches at Advocate.com and on google; I have been unable to verify this assertion. If anyone below would like to provide a link I would appreciate it.
Again, this diary is to explore my anger at a gay man being treated like this [by anyone], and a video that seems to feed into the beliefs that a segment of the gay community has concering the scope of black homophobia.
I apologize for the clumsiness of my diary. I am sorry that gays think that blacks hold responsibility for Prop. 8. However, my apologies do not change that fact, nor does this video do anything to alleviate that belief. My goal was to engage the black community to try to find answers. Obviously I have failed at that.
It may be that this video doesn't really so a core disconnect between the black and gay communities in the US, maybe instead it shows a total disconnect between the Islamic and gay communities in the US?