Here's a little lesson about how subtle White Privilege is, and how unconscious it is. It's one I learned early, and it's going to involve me invoking names of things you young ones might not even know. And I'm sharing it with you because I couldn't remember the name of a film/play.
The play (and later film) is called "Norman... Is That You?" and it's a comedy (really!) father and son and what happens to their relationship when the father discovers his son is gay. I saw the play before it became a movie, when I was quite young, because my cousin played one of the leads back in his acting days. At least I think he played one of the leads - I don't remember that night very well (to tell the truth and the one acting performance of my cousin's that always stands out in my mind was in Barefoot in the Park). Anyway, I wanted to remember the name of the movie or the play it is based upon so I looked it up and of course found it. Thanks imdb.
To give you an idea of the type of comedy it is, the tagline of the movie is "There's a Sexual Revolution Going On... And All the Leaders Are in My Family!". But what caught my attention was the Synopsis on the same page: "A black man is distraught when he discovers his son is gay and is determined to set him right."
Suddenly, I'm 11 years old again. I remember hearing about the movie and thinking how funny it was that Redd Foxx, the star of Sanford and Son and a brilliant stand-up comedian, was going to play the dad. Not funny is in the fact the Redd Foxx was a genuinely hilarious performer, but... in my 11 year-old brain... that "black people aren't gay". Understand that by that point in my life I knew what homosexuality was, and that I had met a few gay people, but a black gay person? That just didn't compute, so it must be part of the funny.
The movie is worth seeing. It also stars Pearl Bailey (as the mom), Michael Warren as Norman (who would go on to his own great TV career as part of the cast of Hill Street Blues), and character actor Dennis Dugan as his boyfriend. Look him up on imdb, you've seen him - he's been in just about everything. Accomplished character actress Vernee Watson is in it. Mad Magazine artist Sergio Aragones has a bit part as a desk clerk. My cousin, alas, wasn't in it.
But why a black man?
You see, one thing we white people are egregiously guilty of is not thinking about the fact that we DON'T HAVE TO THINK ABOUT our skin tone in this country. Every part of the spectrum can be found amongst us and as a result we simply don't think about the rest. We never consider that EVERY SINGLE OTHER SKIN TONE is reminded about it second by second, for every moment of their lives. We've never experienced it ourselves so we have no common framework in which to express what people of color have known all along - that's it's the white people who are allowed to live comfortably in their skins. Because of this people of color are constantly aware that they aren't allowed to do the same. Not in a world that is predominantly White.
If you’re white and are reading this now, you most likely weren’t thinking about it until you started reading. People of color already knew.
This is awful, but it's a reality.
11 year-old me didn't grasp that. He wanted to. He loved the movie because he loved Redd Foxx. He loved Bill Cosby (boy, what a let-down 11 year-old me was in for). He loved Flip Wilson (and to this day can still quote large parts of his "cream chip beef" routine from memory). 11 year-old me just wanted to laugh.
But adult me knows gay people of color. And adult me knows how good he's got it, and it's in the front of my brain today.
Why? Because I saw a young man this morning carrying a protest sign that read "Gays come in many colors".
And at that moment, I remembered a Redd Foxx movie, and couldn't remember the title, even though my own cousin had been in the play.