I'm From Driftwood is a 501(c)(3) non-profit forum for true lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) stories. The first full week in February, to commemorate Black History Month, every story will be from a member of the black LGBTQ community. These stories will reinforce the fact that there are black people in the LGBTQ people, and that there are also LGBTQ people in the black community.
Stephen Winter is from Chicago, Ill. When I asked Stephen to share a story about being a black gay man, he needed to spend a good amount of time mulling over his answer:
It was a journey within myself that I went through this week, when I was trying to figure out, as someone who is perceived as gay and perceived as black... without pissing myself off, because I don't want to be the black guy. On a regular week, I'm Stephen Winter, art guy, film person. This week, I was Stephen-Winter-does-not-want-to-be-a-black-gay-guy first. Still, one that has relations with men and dudes, still wants to proudly operate under a society where cops think I'm black, but [I] did not want to respond in a way that would help perpetuate what I think is a status quo that we really need to move beyond.
Stephen's father was from Hungary, a Jew-turned-Catholic who fled the country to escape the Nazis. His mother was from Jamaica. Both of them went to Chicago in the '40s, where they met.
What they did say to me, very clearly, was, "Your mother is considered black, and your father is considered white. But we're not. I'm Jamaican, I'm Czechoslovakian. You're our child. You're American, and you are wonderful. And so you shall be."
Out in the world, however, Stephen experienced a different reality:
It soon became clear that race is a construct, but what you are is what cops think you are. The blacker you are, the blacker you shall be treated, and the whiter you look, the whiter you shall be treated. My parents made it clear that out in the world, I would be treated like what I was considered, but inside, I shall be me. First, an American, first generation. The pride and joy of two worlds of families both escaping things, and bringing something else to bear.
He grew up in Chicago, for the most part, and pretty early on identified as queer. When he left his teenage world and became an adult, it became clear to him that he was gay. He emphatically critiqued what the state of this world seemed to be to him:
In that context, "gay" meant "white," and everybody else was kind of visiting. If it was a sitcom, the opening would be like, "Welcome to the Gay World! Here are your main characters, and the special guests! The black guy! The Asian person! The drag queen!
In his view, the "G" part of LGBT was insistent on continuing this tradition into the century, which caused problems for Stephen. When trying to enter a gay bar for the first time in Chicago, with three other men of equal underage status (all of European descent), he faced blatant racism:
They were let into the club, and I was asked for three forms of picture ID.
Even if Stephen hadn't been underage, asking black people for more forms of ID was commonplace in Chicago at the time:
They just didn't want black people in that club. And even if you had three forms of ID, there was always something else going on. Folks protested against this. But that was my first experience at the gay bar, at age 17.
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Movies, such as Brokeback Mountain, Jeffrey, Mambo Italiano. Show's like Will & Grace, Modern Family, The L Word, Queer as Folk.
The only movie I can remember identifying with as a black gay person was called Punks, which many years later was made into a very shortlived cable program called Noah's Arc (unfortunately canceled way to soon).
In fact I just googled gay movies and under the top 50 gay movies I only 1 where the cast was black (Noah's Arc Jumping the Broom.... which was made after the cable show by that name was cancelled).
I do have white gay friends and have gone for drinks with them at the white clubs/bars, however they would never stop to have a drink with me at a black club/bar.
One time I went for a drink with a gay white co-worker and a straight white female co-worker at a bar in NY called the Duplex. My gay co-worker had friends there and introduced me and our white female co-worker to them. Well they embraced the straight white female as if she was an old friend while ignoring me totally. This happened a 2nd time when I stopped with him at another bar in Chelsea. Though this time instead of ignoring me, I felt they were downright rude and when I mentioned this to my friend he just made excuses for their bad behavior.
Needless to say, I no longer stop for drinks in the white gay bars.
Anyway, the thing with the three picture ids also happened in Los Angeles, CA during the late 70s/80s with big gay nightclubs like Studio One and Rage.
Speaking for myself - I am insulted, and frankly sick and tired of our community being slandered like this.
The black community does NOT hate gay people. Ubber religious people hate gay people. Should we take a history lesson on how Black people got so UBBER religious?
The fact that you call it "YOUR" community is the problem... who makes up the gay community?
My white peers on HP often show up in an effort to rail against heteronormativity but they often stop short in their interest or desire to deconstruct the intersectionality between this construct and the privileges that are associated with being white (and queer).
I hate that I'm often in a position where I'm fending off folk of color who have internalize the dominant discourse which silences queer bodies and communites by recylcing rhetoric that was once used to silence folk of color, but I often find myself calling out blantent privilege from my white peers whose first reaction is denial when the privilege is called for what it is.
So frustrating to watch these issues get dominated by grad-school jargon and career activists; this is why it is difficult to change minds on the ground, because the perpetrators (and independent thinkers) are so turned off by the elitist language and PC-policing that rains down from ivory towers like the pages of a tossed sociology thesis...
Please remember to code-switch when communicating outside your university study group. Your off-putting language only serves to alienate potential allies.
When talking about issues of ostracism based on gender expression or sexual orientation, open a book and educate yourself on hows these constructs are related to the terms that I used. If you've never heard them before, now you have. These are the words that even the most hatefull of groups know and deploy and to not know what they mean or how they operate is problematic.
So rather than assume that I'm going to switch-code and turn it down, you should be switch coding up to figure these things out for yourself...Here's your start...Go...
Thanks again...
However these same people will blame the passage of prop 8 on African Americans without even thinking throught the facts. Strange.
As Marx said the oppressed will become the oppressors.
It does not define who you wish to go to dinner with, have coffee with, discuss politics with etc. It is but one measure and probably the least of all. I have many wonderful people in my life who I will never be sexually attracted to and who will never possess those feelings for me. Maybe you just require more depth in the people you interact with.
May I add Your talking points bore........,me.
who is the "our" in "our community" ? White gays? thanks for proving the point
How we self identify and how others identify us has a great deal to do with geography/location, social construct, personal history, and the timeline of the universe. You can be viewed as an outsider within your own particular racial substrate if you choose to stray too far from the group's expectations. You can be called an "Oreo", "Banana" etc. These words indicate an assumption of inauthenticity and "selling out" propagated by your own racial group.
Our collective history is not without stain or blemish. My own personal history contains a few sad racially charged episodes, but luckily they were few and far between. Society at large and the gay community in general may not be all that we should be, but we are definitely better than we were. This may seem cold comfort to someone who has been slighted, but things are getting better. Our goal must be to continue making diversity and inclusiveness a priority.
I know racism still exists but really the last place I expected it to be, would be amongst other LGBT people.
And we of all people should know better. I am white myself, but the first time I heard a gay man use a racial epithet I felt as if someone had struck me. It was ugly and spiteful. I thought to myself that we couldn't possibly be that way. But the ugly truth is that some of us are that way. And I'm so sorry, because it means some of us are missing out.
I have my own prejudices - we all do. If you claim to be free of prejudice, I'll tell you to your face that you are deceiving yourself. Prejudices are conditioned into us by our upbringing and backgrounds, will we, nil we. They don't have to rule us, though, and we must not allow them to do so. We have conscious minds, we have the capacity to make rational choices to override our irrational aspects.
that said, P-town seems to me, one of the most racist places i've ever been (mind you, Mississippi & Alabama are not places i've been to). not racist in the "you can't come in this restaurant" type of way. it's more of the northeast, wasp sort of quiet bigotry - all based on a superiority complex just the same (like much of Cape Cod ;-). asians, blacks & latinos can be over-sexualized to the point of absurdity, & just as quickly trashed on as the "other" "lesser" meat. mind you, this isn't specific to P-town, or gay people for that matter, but the negative side of it is something that's hard to swallow from the gay community. sort of like when a Jew tells their grandkid they'll disown them for dating that "black". "um, well, considering, gulp..., the history of your people..." :-|
i feel for this man. our community isn't perfect by any means, & finding the perceived "lesser" among us to pick on to make ourselves feel better is nothing short of sad & hypocritical~
And just so you know....this observation is coming from an elder white guy...from the southern USA.
I have witnessed that few can discriminate better or more than those who are discriminated against.