Instead of investigating the homicide of an unarmed black man at the hands of a white cop, Currie, decides to raid the offices of Rentboy.com. Rentboy is exactly what it sounds like…a site where men rent other men. The raid was not done by just some local NYC cops or detectives but I.C.E. and the Department of Homeland Security!

I.C.E stands for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They are the ones who investigate someone who is here illegally if a complaint is made. They are also the people at the borders. The Department of Homeland Security was created because of 9/11 by the Bush/Cheney administration. They of course deal with domestic and international terrorist cells.

So what does all this have to do with an escort website you ask? Good question. Rentboy actually is NOT an escort agency, which by the way there are thousands of around the country. They simply provide advertising space for people who wish to promote their escort/massage business or even personal training. I wouldn’t have enough time to list all of the hundreds of websites that do the exact same thing Rentboy.com does. Most of course are “straight” sites where women advertise for men. Rentboy is for men who are seeking men.

Rentboy has been around since 1997, so for 18 years. So with having been around for nearly two decades, and being quite open about what it provides and with the hundreds of other sites (mostly straight) that do exactly the same thing the question that has been burning in my head is..why Rentboy and why now? Now the most obvious non conspiratorial answer is that they were too big and too popular. But the law doesn’t say that if a website gets “too big and too popular” they shall be raided and the site seized by I.C.E and the Dept. of Homeland Security.Of course the conspiratorial part of me says there might be some names the government wants, maybe politicians that have used the website. And actually @BarackObama, the Twitter account that is used by his staffers and that he often tweets on, was listed as a follower of Rentboy.com on Twitter.

The raid of Rentboy.com is sort of a double punch to the gut to those of us who believe the militarization of the police force in this country has gone out of control. On one hand, the excessive force used against Eric Garner is not investigated by Mr. Currie while he uses extreme excess and precious resources in the raid of the Rentboy.com offices. The offices are on 14th st in NYC, the same city, and just a few subway stops away from where the attacks of 9/11 occurred. The only thing that could have made this ridiculous raid any worse would have been if an actual terrorist attack happened in the city while these DHS agents were carrying out those dangerous files and computers which contained the current listings on the site and I’m sure names and phone numbers off all of those dangerous men who were companions to some lonely and or horny people around the world. Yes those optics would have been wonderful.

I’m sure New Yorkers and most Americans are sleeping much easier now knowing these dangerous people can no longer meet. I’m sure we are all sleeping better knowing that the resources of DHS and I.C.E are being used for the purpose of not allowing men to have sex with other men. Because when an actual real terrorist cell develops and the resources are being used for this fucking stupidity and people are actually killed because of it, I would expect Mr. Currie and Ms. Lynch to take full responsibility.

This is what this country has become. But I would have expected this kind of a raid under the Bush administration not the Obama administration, yet Rentboy was thriving during the Bush years (until he ruined the economy) and nothing happened. No witch hunt by that administration. I wonder if President Obama is proud of this. In fact the raid could not have come at a worse time as the website had just begun their campaign to send sex workers to college. That’s right..give people a college education so when they hit that certain age where they can’t do that type of work anymore, or if they choose to do something else, they can. Such a terrible thing…call Homeland Security!

Now you might not have any sympathy for the owners of the site as they were indeed making good money. Of course we don’t seem to care about CEO’s who rake in billions after they rape us, but that’s for another post. However you should have sympathy for the guys who relied on this site to advertise their business and now they can no longer do that. So they can’t pay their rent or in some cases feed their families. Wonderful thing to have happen in an already struggling economy. This time “Thanks Obama” is not so humorous.

Are we living in 1815 or 2015? This raid brings to light another issue. Remember the complaint DOES NOT say anything about the owners of the site not paying taxes. The ENTIRE complaint is strung around sex workers and that act being illegal therefore Rentboy was operating illegally. So that’s it. There you have it. In 2015 the U.S. government is actually prosecuting sex workers and masseurs. That is what they are spending their money on. I swear I feel as though I’m living in an alternate universe. But I’m not, I’m living in the United States in 2015.

There is yet another problem. Why hasn’t the U.S. Government raided the thousands of actual escort agencies and the hundreds of straight escort websites? Why have they gone after a gay site? It’s troubling. If they really want this uniquely American war on sex work they have to raid every single agency and website otherwise I can only see this as cherry picking and blatant discrimination. So that is the gauntlet I’m throwing down. Raid all of them or drop the charges against Rentboy. Discrimination lawsuits need to be brought against Mr. Currie and Ms. Lynch if they do not choose the former.

Of course those of us who are enlightened enough (and I truly believe that is most people, even in the more conservative areas) to know that sex work should be legalized and taxed even BEFORE drugs are, as there is no victim here, we don’t want to see any more of these raids. Has terrorism been wiped out that we can use these divisions that are meant for that SOLE purpose to spend their time and money on websites like Rentboy? Seriously??

With regards to Mr. Currie I see a very troubling pattern. He will not investigate the murder of a black man but he will go after a gay owned and operated website. Seems like he belongs in a southern state not NYC. He needs to be removed from his position immediately. Bigotry should not be tolerated from someone in such a high office. We need fair prosecutors with the guts to go after the real injustices.

Another culprit in this case is NYC top cop Bill Bratton. Here is his inane comment about the raid…“As alleged, Rentboy.com profited from the promotion of prostitution despite their claim that their advertisements were not for sexual services.  Thanks to the detectives, agents, and prosecutors of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District involved in this investigation, these individuals will be held accountable for running this racket,” A “racket”? Seriously Bill? I guess there aren’t enough actual gangsters to prosecute anymore. And while we are at inane comments, here is one from Mr. Currie….“As alleged, Rentboy.com attempted to present a veneer of legality, when in fact this internet brothel made millions of dollars from the promotion of illegal prostitution.” “Internet brothel”? How about the actual brothels, like the ones in Nevada? Talk about cherry picking! I’m sure Mr. Currie or his friends have been to one of those at some point. In fact I’m sure some people in these departments I have mentioned had accounts on Rentboy or some other “Internet brothel”!

But wait there’s more. Mr. Currie went on to thank the DEA! for their help as well. I mean why did they leave out the Navy Seals? Here however is the comment of comments, by some guy who played with too many G.I. Joe dolls when he was a child…HSI Acting Special Agent in Charge Glenn Sorge stated, “The facilitation and promotion of prostitution offenses across state lines and international borders is a federal crime made even more egregious when it’s blatantly advertised by a global criminal enterprise,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Sorge of HSI New York.  “HSI will use its unique authorities to disrupt and dismantle such organizations and seize the millions of dollars in illegal proceeds they generate.” 

“Global criminal enterprise” ? Who the fuck is this guy kidding? I mean this stuff could be coming out of a bad super hero movie. Is this what New Yorkers want their money being spent on? It is what Americans want their tax dollars going towards? Especially when there is real terrorism and real bad guys out there?

But I’m sure we are all at peace now knowing that what goes on between two consenting adults behind closed doors is being “disrupted and dismantled” by people like Mr. Currie, Ms. Lynch, Mr Bratton and Mr. Sorge.

Ultimately though, President Obama has responsibility in this matter. He needs to make a call, a call that makes this national disgrace and nightmare go away.

He needs to do that now! What kind of a country are we living in for Christ’s sake?

Mike.Caccioppoli@yahoo.com

The post In the U.S. Rentboy.com is Equal to a Terrorist Cell appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Once I got a hold of this information, I did what I regularly did: I wrote about it.

Remember this article? Sure you do.

In a decisive paragraph in the beginning, I noted the potential issues that could occur:

Many thought it had to do with birth control. While birth control was one of the bigger issues, it should be noted that many of us missed the bigger picture. This court case was nothing but a singular blow to the wall of societal sanctity through the use of religion. This singular case had the potential to unleash ready havoc on people’s jobs because their “differences” don’t match up with the organization’s “religious values”. In short, this wasn’t about birth control; this decision was about oppression through religious exemption. [2]

This is the man bold enough to be…well, stupid.

Now, that potential has come full circle into fruition thanks to Indiana, Gov. Mike Pence, and SB 101:

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed into law on Thursday a measure that allows businesses to turn away gay and lesbian customers in the name of “religious freedom.”

The bill has sparked an uproar among gamers and church groups that hold their conventions in Indianapolis and businesses that are threatening to pull out of the city. [3]

And yes, we have the Hobby Lobby case to thank for it. And yes, it is sad that I predicted all of this foolishness 9 months ago.

SB 101 – What It All Means

For those that don’t understand what the bill is saying legally, then I can give an explanation. In fact, I will let the Indiana General Assembly give their “interpretation” of it:

Religious freedom restoration. Prohibits a governmental entity from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless the governmental entity can demonstrate that the burden: (1) is in furtherance of acompelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering the compelling governmental interest. Provides a procedure for remedying a violation. Specifies that the religious freedom law applies to the implementation or application of a law regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity or official is a party to a proceeding implementing or applying the law. Prohibits an applicant, employee, or former employee from pursuing certain causes of action against a private employer. [4]

In laymen’s terms, this bill allows any business to not deal with any customer/person due to their religious beliefs. The only way there can be legal recourse is if the decision is anti-government. Also, any entity can have rules that the government don’t agree with. Plus, any worker that has an issue with it can professionally “kick rocks”.

So yes, my good people, we have found out that some people want Indiana to go back to the 1950’s.

SB 101 – The Problems Have Arisen

One of the issues that Indiana has to face is the reaction to the SB 101 Bill. For one thing,Gen Con plans on moving their convention if Pence signed the bill. Since he signed the bill, I expect Gen Con to give Indiana their walking papers. Then, there is the issue the NCAAhas with the bill as well. Since the headlining band The Bleachers has a lead singer that is pro-gay marriage, this presents an economic problem for Indiana as a whole.

Another problem is this: by Pence’s ignorance, Indiana is going to be scarred for a while. Their entire reputation has practically taken a major blow. Who would want to visit/live in a state that is working hard to go backwards towards the 1950’s and 1960’s? Do people like Pence want to see a bunch of civil rights marches and demonstrations that we should have been done with those decades past? Are people stupid enough to allow for a bill that legalizes discrimination under the guise of “religious freedom”?

Think about it: people don’t want to worry about not being able to buy a burger because of their race, sexual orientation, or even their belief system.

If Indiana still wants to be stupid enough to allow this, then I have some glaring words to say to them:

Fuck Gov. Mike Pence.

Fuck anybody in Indiana that believes in SB 101 as a bill.

Fuck anybody that agrees with the bill as a whole.

Now, as Indiana struggles with a bill that should not have seen the light of day, I am going to go sip on my tea. That way, when I walk through the aisles of Hobby Lobby (to buy nothing), I can still say “I tried to tell you about this” to all the naysayers from months before.

The post SB 101: How Indiana Turned Back the Clock on the Gays appeared first on Madness & Reality.

I am not sure how everyone else feels. However when I see situations like these, I am taken back to my childhood of being a man. In my upbringing, I can tell you that there was NOTHING associated with being a female. So much of my life was practically male oriented. In turn, I can’t agree with a lot of Black Men’s actions because I just wasn’t raised to participate in such foolishness.

With all those bases covered, I have a special request for so many of our Black men in entertainment. My request is as follows: can these Black male entertainers stop wearing women’s clothes.

There, I said it.

Effeminate Black Men: The Explanation

I understand that there are those that made the effeminate approach into something bigger. Tyler Perry is one of those people. If it wasn’t for his play on Madea, Tyler would probably be still scrambling for change. Instead, he is a multimillion dollar entertainment king. So, there are those that have worn women’s clothes for the sake of “adding character” to characters.

Yet, we all know that Tyler Perry needs to let go of Madea before she popped out of that girdle and rolls herself into the sunset of self-love and loathing.

Effeminate Black Men: The Issue

The rest of you hapless Black men, though? There is no excuse for what you are doing. I don’t care if you call what you do “entertainment”. It comes a time when Black men have to be scolded for not upholding their end of the bargain. Still, doesn’t it become plenty difficult when men and women alike justify such gender confusing facts and situations?

And what type of true example are we setting for our Black future? How are they (“they” being the pronoun for “our children”) supposed to view models of manhood when you have men on Instagram wearing little girl’s clothes with Timberland boots? I find it difficult to understand the mentality behind anybody working to make men-looking-like-women (androgyny of sorts) acceptable. I can accept homosexuality for what it is. In the same breath, I can definitely respect men not wearing a tutu just to express their individuality in fashion.

So no, you barnyard insecure Negroes: Wearing women’s clothing is not an exhibition of being an individual. That is the plainest example of how effeminization functions if there was ever one to truly behold.

Effeminate Black Men: Perspective

If we look closer, we can see that a lot of this has to do with the bigger society (meaning: White People). And no, I am not blaming them for our ills. What I am doing is point out that they have a direct effect on how Black men approach fashion trends. Nowadays, there are how-to articles expressing steps men should take to dress more feminine. Plus, with other articles actually making cross dressing acceptable, it is no wonder we have confused young men in our society.

Or, we can also give a nod to Kanye with his everlasting shitty fashion sense. No wonder you saw him on Sway whining about not being able to crack into fashion like he wants to.

To sum it all up, I would like all of our Black men in entertainment to stop dressing like the opposite sex. Leave the meggings alone. Stop wearing the wigs and make up. Stop trying to find ways to wear more and more feminine outfits. Let the women dress like women. It would be best for our society to let the men dress like men.

The post Stop Effeminate Black Men (Pt. 1) appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Here’s Lord Jamar speaking on homosexuality and hip hop recently:

I do NOT care for Lord Jamar or the above mentioned *false* phenomenon.

Lord Jamar

I have talked about the subject on social media, often getting lost in translation due to the limitation of 140 characters on Twitter, and Facebook just not being the best suited forum to express it; the subject being homosexuality and the ideas that some people have regarding it.

The example cited above is socially regressive for the following reasons:

• Hyper masculine values as equally propagated in media has been the underlying cause of much of the catastrophe of our current society. Last time I checked, as we kill each other off, most of the time it’s men and none of these men are wearing skirts orkilts. At this rate, perhaps maybe wearing a skirt is a sign of sanity?
• Men wearing kilts or skirt-like garments did not start with Scottish bagpipe players. It started in Ancient Egypt. Just Google Ancient Egypt and click on “Images”, those “skirts” will be the first thing you see. Yes, now go back to Kanye in his all leather kilt. At least he had on pants up under it.
• Homosexuality is not something that is determined by the clothes a person wears. Lord Jamar’s ideas regarding homosexuality have been based on this type of illogical reasoning. The world couldn’t possibly contain men who do something like put on women’s undergarments (for example) and actually not be “gay”. It’s like, there is a total disregard for the variety of issues that happen daily, in regards to gender identification, are nonexistent because you haven’t personally experienced it. There are parents who are facing this issue with their children everyday- that did NOT choose it- and because of people who have ideas like Lord Jamar- are being bullied and made to live a life where people just can’t leave well enough alone. The world is bigger than your limited view.
• Homosexuality does not define femininity or masculinity, or vice versa. Femininity and masculinity are defined by more than sexual organs and varies across different cultures, as does gender roles. My question is why is it taking the world so long to recognize this? Why is it taking the world so long to grasp the slippery slope fallacy they hold that if people are homosexual, humans will become extinct, all the while, checking the US Census, the only people beating Blacks at procreating are Asians? Why is it taking the world so long to grasp the fact that sex is only limited by those actually participating in the act and you have absolutely no right to have an opinion about the sexual activity of another unless you are indeed interested in having sex with that person?!
• Homosexuality is not something to agree with. You either participate in sex involving the same sex or you don’t. I’m not for or against homosexuality. I have never participated in homosexual sex, nor do I desire to. I have, however, considered doing so, it’s just not appealing to me, though.
• Lord Jamar is a 5-percenter, of which I’m very familiar with as I consider myself to be a 5-percenter as well. 5-percenters know AND teach the truth. If there is one thing I have learned from traveling with the 5% is critical thinking. Lord Jamar insists that homosexuality is against what the Five-Percent Nation teaches as the basic fundamentals of family ( i.e., man, woman and child). However, the problem with this logic is “man, woman, & child” only dictates procreation. Even a person who is homosexual who wants a child knows that in order to procreate it requires a man and a woman. They will either procreate naturally with the opposite sex, go to the sperm bank, hire a surrogate mother or adopt the children ironically who have been abandoned by heterosexual partners. Family is a dynamic structure and functions efficiently in different circumstances BEYOND “man, woman, and child.” An appeal to nature does not help the case because all nature teaches us is that there are a variety of ways to have a “family”. Why it’s taking the world so long to figure this out, I’d like to know as well.
• “Skirts have no place in hip hop”… Does critical thinking have a place in hip hop? “Homosexuality has no place in hip hop.” But rape culture does?

During the rant, Marlon stated that Lord Jamar was waiting on the return of positive message rap. Well, I’m waiting on that too. I just know WHO I’m not waiting on to create it. As long as we have these fallacious and selfish ideas about the complexities of humanity, I’m not sure there will be anything too positive to “rap” about.

Question: Is homosexuality destroying the Black community?

The post Marlon Wayans vs. Lord Jamar: Gays Destroying the Black Community? appeared first on Madness & Reality.

What wasn’t quickly understood was the ham-fisted, full blown over-the-top reaction to the episode. According to Uproxx, the group One Million Moms didn’t take to the episode very well:

An upcoming episode in this last season of “Good Luck Charlie” will feature a family with two moms, a first for Disney Channel. Because “Good Luck Charlie” is coming to a close, the characters are only expected to appear in one episode. However, one episode is enough, especially since the network repeatedly airs reruns of all its programs.

 

Conservative families need to urge Disney to avoid controversial topics that children are far too young to comprehend. This is the last place a parent would expect their children to be confronted with topics that are too difficult for them to understand. Mature issues of this nature are being introduced too early and too soon, and it is extremely unnecessary [1].

It seems that the group was not really trying to see a “modern couple” in front of their kids. At least the show made history by being the first Disney series to depict a same sex couple. Still, there were plenty that was not trying to see a same sex couple on TV.

They were especially upset about it being a Disney show.

Disney’s first ever gay couple introduced on Good Luck Charlie

But this isn’t even the worst of this situation. Recent reports have Mia Talerico, the star of Good Luck Charlie, receiving death threats because of aforementioned episode [2]. No one knows for sure who exactly it is. However, the LAPD is taking the situation seriously (according to their police spokesman Andrew Smith) [3]. Thus, having a same sex couple on TV makes it acceptable to disrespect a 5 year old TV star.

Oh. Okay.

Luckily, the show is going to show its final episode on February 16, 2014. But that part, in its own right, is beside the point.

The bigger problem that is at play here is, in essence, how unhealthy peoples’ reactions can be against things they don’t agree with. I am beginning to wonder about the mental health of many of us. At what point does it become acceptable to threaten the life of TV actor/actresses for showing something that is disagreeable? At what point does it become worthwhile to threaten the life/well-being of a five year old? In many respects, people have added acceptance to the appalling and unceremoniously inhumane.

Yet, I see the bigger issue here: some of us work to bully others to resist change. People are so afraid of their “blue skies” being clouded by “grey skies of change” that they are extra resistant. So, what do they do? They go off the deep end of the spectrum of homophobia. Yet, they aren’t homophobic at all. They are just living out an excuse to be the lower denominators of humanity with their holier-than-thou-in-the-name-of-self-preservation bullshit.

Even if Morgan Freeman didn’t say this, it is the truth.

I mean, wouldn’t the easiest thing to do be not watching the show? Why give it attention when you can always avoid it?

At the end of the day, people need to open their eyes and live their own lives. People are going to do what you don’t like/agree with it. Tough break, chumps. They are doing what pleases them. My suggestion: do what makes you feel happy without the desecration of others. Treat life like TV: if you don’t like the episode, you can always change the channel or watch Netflix.

‘Nuff Said and ‘Nuff Respect!!!

[Originally posted at chocolatecoveredlies.com]

The post “Good Luck Charlie” Brings Out the Homophobia in People appeared first on Madness & Reality.

In reflecting on my relationships with Black men, I have had to replay things other people have told me about dating Black men. I remember the phone call, shortly after coming out to my grandmother, when she realized my boyfriend, Jude, was Black. After her all-too-common sigh, she asked, ‘Isn’t it hard enough for you?’ Her question wondered why someone chose an interracial relationship knowing they were already marginalized. This proved to be a testimony to how some people choose partners—to gain clout in society or fit in as opposed to fostering sincere and reciprocal relationships. It also speaks to why some people choose intra-racial relationships. They may be easier for some. In reflection I was reminded of the Black men who told me they weren’t into other Black men. It was just a preference. Once upon a time this was flattering, back before I had a racial consciousness and understood that this was part of the anti-Black racism that America feeds off of. Back before I knew I was a token to these men. Back before I had an understanding of how white supremacy constructs standards of beauty and that my white skin upholds these beauty standards and a host of other privileges based on how I am perceived in society.

Unfortunately, other people’s comments weren’t the only things I had to recover from. I had to enter recovery from the racist ideas I began internalizing from childhood on. Society feeds us messages, through media, family, education and every other facet of our daily lives. Many of these messages assume white superiority. Messages I digested taught me things about what it meant to be Black in America, negative things, of course. These messages also taught me that society favors intra-racial relationships because they represent what we supposedly know, people who may look, think and act like us. Simply put, intra-racial relationships are conveyed as more valid and morally righteous than interracial ones.

These distinctions surface in the language we use to discuss interracial relationships. “Dipping in chocolate,” “getting your swirl on,” “dinge queen” and “jungle bunny” are only a few that come to mind. There isn’t one interracial dating metaphor that humanizes the relationship existing between the people involved and intra-racial relationships don’t need metaphors because they’re seen as natural. Many of these word choices only serve to hypersexualize the connection or make it consumable, which undermines the powerful and transformative journey these people can potentially engage in. I say potential because I recognize that many of these relationships can be unhealthy and dare I say, racist. The recovery from racism requires reflection, counseling and is a lifelong process. Even still, love is never an act that is given much focus when it comes to interracial relationships.

At seventeen, I began a journey that taught me about love and forever altered my life’s course.

Loving Black Men

A Beautiful Liar

Cory was an introverted extrovert. Raised in Ohio, his outgoing, mid-western demeanor complimented his social personality. In private, though, he allowed me access to an intimate side he didn’t share widely. Cory was in his mid twenties when we met. I wasn’t sure what to make of his sexuality. In spite of his very casual flirting, I’d overheard co-workers discussing his girlfriends.

We explored a friendship that cultivated an opportunity for us to talk about our family and experiences growing up. In spite of the differences I had been taught to keenly focus on, we found we had a lot in common. One night, as we stood in the hallway of his apartment complex, I remember being consumed with questions. What was I doing? What would my family say? What would people think if we were walking down the street together holding hands? All centered on what other people had to say. A passionate kiss transformed our friendship into something more, something new.

At no time did I utter the words, “I’ve never dated a Black guy,” but it was certainly the case. The time we spent together was filled with curiosity. Our relationship was the first opportunity that afforded me the space to examine messages I had digested from society about Black folks, Black culture and, more specifically, interracial relationships. Here, I began learning about the negative and coded (read: racist) messages I’d been taught about Black folks and the ethnocentric, white entitlement that I had been indoctrinated into were up for debate. Ideas that because we looked different we had to be different, and we were different, but not in the ways I had been taught.

After I went away to college, our relationship changed and we decided to just be friends. Despite years of building what I thought was a strong relationship, a series of deep-rooted lies eventually ended our friendship. However, I would be lying if I said the role Cory played in helping shape the man I am today was insignificant. In college, I started taking courses in African and Black Diaspora Studies where I had to learn to challenge the notion that Black history wasn’t also part of the history all people should know. Using my initial curiosity and questions that began with me and Cory’s relationship, I began diving deeper into what it meant to be Black not just in America but in a global context. To the surprise of many, including myself, I learned a lot about what it means to be white.

I learned about Irish and Italian immigrants, my ancestors, coming to the United States and how they were cast into a social class with Black folks. In order to transition towards whiteness, they started, or continued, practicing anti-Black racism. As Scot Nakagawa argues, “Anti-Black racism is the fulcrum of white supremacy.” Anti-Black racism is what prevents marginalized communities from standing in solidarity with Black folks instead of distancing themselves. It is precisely how the system is designed to function and maintained. Within my conversations with Cory, I realized there was an existing historical and cultural relationship between Italian, Irish and Black folks. In this learning process, paired with honest, transparent dialogue, I found an intimate connection with a Black man that felt genuine and sincere even in spite of its baggage. We didn’t consume our relationship with what others told us our relationship was. We defined it. In many ways, Cory marked the beginning of my journey.

Crash

The first time I saw Jude, my friends caught me tripping up the stairs of a Wicker Park clothing store. It wasn’t only his physical beauty that captivated me. Jude’s spirit was lively and jovial as he rushed around the store helping customers. His strong, teethy smile remains one of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.

Despite being in his mid-thirties, his youthful presence and eclectic style seized my attention for longer than most men could. Yet, outsiders quickly attempted to infiltrate our relationship with their opinions. My closest friend at the time, Hyder, attempted to control the dynamics of our relationship from the beginning. Eventually Hyder and I had a yearlong falling out over my relationship with Jude. Hyder argued that we spent too much time together. Despite his also being a Black man, he told me I shouldn’t date Black men because they would run up my credit. He didn’t approve of Jude’s career since Jude wasn’t as financially established as he was. Hyder apparently wasn’t the only one who disapproved.

One night I bumped into an Irish guy I’d had a crush on for a very long time. I remembered him pulling me away from Jude and aggressively asking me why I was dating a man who worked retail. His comments ignored any structural inequalities that designate service jobs to many Black men as well as Jude’s life experiences. We never spoke again after that night. When I saw him working at Banana Republic a few years later, I grinned to myself in bittersweet satisfaction. I feel confident it was comments like these that bred the insecurities Jude suffered from. I remember countless conversations about how people’s comments impacted the way he felt about his career. I didn’t have a problem with where Jude worked so much as he loved what he did. He had wanted to go to nursing school but never had the opportunity. I tried to be encouraging by reminding him it wasn’t too late. Years after we had broken up, Jude called me to tell me he was in nursing school. I’m still so proud of him for having the courage to pursue his dreams.

Jude was instrumental in teaching me important life lessons; particularly how there is more than one way to do something. He reminded me to smile as he brought much joy to our relationship and me but, looking back, I was far too young to be in a serious relationship with him. Jude was my growing up. While he allowed me the space to make mistakes, we fought frequently about the pettiest things. We broke up once or twice only to get back together and eventually started fighting again. Until one morning, it all came crashing down.

The night before we’d walked around Chicago making snow angels and laughing. When we awoke, snuggling quickly turned into fighting about something that certainly wasn’t worth what it ended up costing. After a verbal disagreement, Jude tried to close our line of communication and was ready to leave the apartment. He was headed to console a friend who’d just lost their child. As I stood in front of the door demanding we discuss it then and there, I became blinded from anything else happening besides wanting to get my way. He grabbed me from the doorway and told me to move. After going back and forth, I asked him to stop grabbing me since he was clearly stronger than I was. Screaming at the top of our lungs, I’d eventually threaten to hit him if he didn’t take his hands off me. In the heat of the moment, it happened. I backhanded him across the face and he flew across the bathroom into the tub. The look on his face, the look of pure shock that mirrored what my face felt like, remains imprinted in my memory.

After begging and pleading for us to work it out, Jude told me he needed time to think things through. In disbelief that I’d allowed my rage to get the best of me, I cried for over a week before he finally called. We met at the Art Institute of Chicago during lunch. Upon telling me how much I meant to him and that he wanted to make things work between us, Jude broke up with me. This behavior wasn’t something he could forget. I took pictures of my bruises to try convincing him I’d been hurt too. Really I was trying to convince myself I hadn’t been an abusive partner. I left more than a few tears in a museum that day. I left a piece of my heart I thought I’d never get back.

For months I walked around the city like a zombie. I barely talked to anyone. Instead, I spent each day replaying what felt like every moment we’d ever had. I tried to understand things from his perspective. The morning of our fight he’d threatened to call the police but didn’t. To this day, I still wonder what stopped him. Was it because he could foresee something I was too young or too blind to pick up on? Would they have made me the victim because I was white? Possibly. Would the police have chalked this up to men being men as they do with other queer men? Probably. I can only imagine what went through his head after our fight. I needed to reflect on how my behavior participates in the physical assault Black men experience(d) at the hands of white men.

All it took was the blink of an eye, the execution of a swing, and I lost the only thing that mattered to me then: the first man I attempted to love, with few of love’s tools.

Love Drunk

If there was a beautiful disaster I ever met, Bernard was it. It was Fourth of July weekend, which also happened to be Black Gay Pride in Chicago. He was dorky but with an edge to him. Whether I was naïve or he was a smooth-talker, I wasn’t sure but he caught my eye.

After chatting, sharing a few drinks and eventually realizing he’d been there with someone the entire evening, I felt horrible since I hadn’t been trying to flirt with someone else’s guy. His “date” assured me it wasn’t anything serious since he was moving out-of-state soon so I continued flirting with Bernard until we found ourselves at a small Mexican restaurant. As we waited for our food to come up, he drunkenly gazed into my eyes and bowed as he said, “You’re too beautiful for me.” There should have been enough red flags from our first night together to prevent this unhealthy relationship from going any further but I ignored them.

During a summer festival, Bernard invited me over to a friend’s place for a party. Despite his social demeanor that had him circulating the room, Bernard decided to break-up with me after I briefly left the party for a few minutes with one of his friend’s to check out the festival. It made sense his favorite musical artist was Janet Jackson because with him, it was all about control and he had lots of it.

After weeks of back and forth, he invited me to a press release for Entertainment Weekly where his friend was hosting. In the cab, Bernard grabbed my hand and apologized for the emotional tug of war he’d engaged over the past few weeks. He claimed he was grateful for my patience. I believed him. We walked into the event holding hands and were affectionate for most of the evening. One glass of champagne led to another until I found the palm of Bernard’s hands rested upon the hip of another. Attempting to be gracious, I casually moved alongside Bernard to introduce myself and his hand fell from the man’s hip. However, once I walked away, I found it wasn’t the last of this behavior and I wasn’t the only one to notice. A group of white women looked over as Bernard continued to flirt and get touchy-feely. I remembered the first night I met him. This is how his date must have felt as I was childishly soaking up Bernard’s attention. The women looked at me as my feelings became apparent and said, “You’re so strong. I would have been over there already making a scene.” Strong? No, I was young and stupid, caring too much about what other people would think if I made a scene. Fortunately, I stopped caring much about scenes once the cab showed up. I gave him a piece of my mind all the way home, where he then broke up with me again; this time for being too assertive about my feelings.

Months of emotional abuse, conversations about my concerns that Bernard might have a drinking problem and several desperate attempts to reconcile our relationship, left me emotionally exhausted. I’d tried to prove to Bernard, and myself, that I was capable of loving a man so clearly broken, but I couldn’t. His constant drinking led to constant flirting and I was fed up. I think I let it go on as long as it did because I felt I had to pay for the mistakes I’d made with Jude. So I met Hyder for lunch to let him know I wanted to break-up with Bernard but needed guidance. I was finally ready.

I called Bernard and we began fighting about something unrelated, per usual. When I finally had a chance to let him know things weren’t working for me, the conversations whirl-winded onto several tangents. Bernard knew I was breaking up with him so he tried deflecting, as was par for the course with him. After he realized I wasn’t budging, he dug deep to find a place where he could re-claim power. He brought up an incident where I had supposedly intimidated him. However, as he retold the story, this time he argued my being bigger than him was unattractive as I wasn’t only bigger in one region of my body but everywhere. I had to pause and collect my thoughts before I scowled back, “Are you calling me fat?” He responded, “Yes.”

After the intimate conversations I’d had with Bernard about my relationship to my body, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I hung up the phone and it was the last time we ever spoke.

The Way We Were

I met Dwayne on one of my first trips to New York City. His swag was laidback and masculine yet innocent and sweet. We met as I struggled to compartmentalize my emotions from my break-up with Jude, right before I started dating Bernard. I was a mess and Dwayne bore the burden of my detached attitude. I was certain we couldn’t make something long distance work. After all, I’d tried it with Jude when he moved back to Little Rock once his mom was diagnosed with cancer. It was challenging. Yet Dwayne was adamant about our dating; still I wasn’t ready. I would have years of healing to do.

Hours on the phone together led us to reveal secrets about our aspirations for our lives. I remember every answer aligning and feeling an infatuation for this man I had so much to learn about. I’d make several trips to Manhattan and he’d made a trip or two to Chicago but the majority of our relationship was spent on the phone and Skype.

His sweet side was often mistaken for weakness and in a disagreement, I told him I wished he would get a backbone so people wouldn’t walk all over him. One of the many times my aggressive personality failed to account for how I was making people feel. During a visit, we had a very intimate chat in Central Park where his “I-don’t-cry” persona shattered and I pressed his head to my should as he cried, “You really hurt my feelings when you said that.” My heart sunk seeing how I’d hurt another person I loved.

For so long, he was the man who knew my secrets and idiosyncrasies yet loved me in spite of them. Outside of my best friend, he was the only other man to share that he loved my ability to embrace my feminine side. Dwayne got to a place where he was predicting my next move; he knew what I was thinking even when I wasn’t speaking. He was the first man to love me for me.

But hurt people hurt people and that’s what I did to Dwayne in hiding from him for so long, in not accepting his love. Eventually, I grew into the person who was ready to embrace his love but Dwayne had done some growing of his own. He wanted to be friends only I couldn’t pretend to be friends with a man I’d grown to love so deeply. We were headed in different directions. No longer could we pretend to be in each other’s life the way we were, when late night conversations turned into early morning wake-up calls.

He taught me to aspire for a higher, richer love, the kind people deserve.

That’s What Friends Are For

In college, I remember making eye contact with a tall, dark-skinned nerd every so often. There was something about him that wouldn’t allow me to turn away.

A year later, Hyder wanted to introduce me to someone he was dating, this man, William. It was then that I knew nothing romantic would ever happen between William and I. So I did what I do whenever I like someone but want to keep distance, I gave attitude. At several house parties, I harassed William to make sure he never got too close to my inner circle of friends.

As Hyder and I would go out places, he occasionally brought William with. We eventually warmed up to one another despite our fiery personalities. In the many debates the three of us would get into, I found William and I had a number of political views in common, more so than Hyder and I. Those we didn’t have in common intrigued me. So when he and Hyder broke up, I reminded him that it was okay if we remain friends. It took some additional badgering but we eventually wound up hanging out one-on-one.

William and I talked politics, dating, careers and had no problem making memories (or fools of ourselves) in the party scene. Our friendship became a unit, wherever you found one of us on a Friday night you would probably find the other. This confused some folks.

Our friendship began to impact our dating lives, as people we dated as well as strangers assumed William and I were sleeping together. Some men were able to curtail their assumptions, others couldn’t. There was one night where I remember William getting bothered and blurting out, “Just because we’re gay doesn’t mean we have to have sex with one another.” My subtle response was that it was deeper; that we’re doubly hypersexualized in being Black and white.

Like Dwayne, William was my confidante. I’d share with him my happiest moments and my darkest secrets. Neither one of us had very many friends though he had become my best friend. So close was he that when I prepared to make my first move across the country to New York, I began to have anxiety about leaving him. Not my grandma. Not my brother. William. Amidst all the chaos and transition, William was my constant. He was my rock. Despite his all-to-common lack of emotion, the card he wrote me as I made my departure to New York let me know that he was proud of me and he wasn’t going anywhere.

My friendship with William taught me how to build intimacy with friends, not just lovers. Despite the many experiences I’ve had where trust has been sabotaged or broken, William taught me what it meant to feel safe again. He taught me what friends are for.

Untying Tongues, Releasing the Curse

In his 1989 documentary, Tongues Untied, Marlon Riggs proclaimed, “Black men loving Black men [as] the revolutionary act.” Riggs is considered one of the quintessential filmmakers of our time and a pioneer of documenting Black gay life and love with his honest and provocative approach to storytelling. Black men loving Black men is certainly a radical concept in a nation that would rather see young Black men murder instead of love one another, in a nation where continual attempts are made to contaminate the beauty of Blackness. To me, Riggs’ provocative statement calls for self-love as well as a doting brotherhood across the spectrum of Black male sexuality.

His quote has resonated with me since I was first introduced to Riggs by a Black lesbian professor in her African-American LGBTQ course in 2007, almost twenty years after Riggs’ public announcement. In acknowledging the impact his quote had on me, it has taken years to realize how I, a white gay man, could make meaning out of such a pointed and potent declaration. I needed to try to understand what it meant to love Black men the only way I know how to, as a white gay man.

Riggs loved Blackness. His proclamation is not only about sexual desire as he fought for a healing space where Black men could love one another—a space where the day’s order is homophilic, focused on love instead of just sex. Feminist scholar, bell hooks, reminds us, “This nation can only heal from the wounds of racism if we all begin to love blackness. And by that I don’t mean that we love only that which is best within us, but that we’re also able to love that which is faltering, which is wounded, which is contradictory, incomplete.” While hooks and Riggs are united in their attempts to uproot internalized racism in Black communities, hooks’ quote has implications for people white like me. In asking what it means to love Blackness, as a white gay men, I am eventually led to questions about how to love Black men and celebrate Black gay love. As I grapple to understand the complexity and courage of Black men loving Black men, I have to ask what it means for white men to love Black men.

Where has the space been created to explore the questions and contradictions that arise? Where have we created opportunities to explore what role we play in each other’s lives outside of sex? Where are we properly addressing our maintenance and benefits from a racist system to position our relationship with people of color properly? I believe the creation of these spaces is paramount to the process of healing from white supremacy.

In one scene of Tongues Untied, the audio segues to Roberta Flack’s, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” as the visual shifts to a school yearbook photo of a young white man. The image zooms in while Riggs narrates the role this young man played in his life. In school, this man became his friend, and although they were not lovers, Riggs claims it was a blessing to feel such passion but a curse that a white boy was the source. This curse is ripe with the legacy of racism; a curse that never allows this Black and white boy to connect without shame.

Some white men try to counter this curse that attempts to stop Black and white men from connection by claiming love is intangible; that there isn’t a rhyme or reason to whom I choose to love. I love whom I love and it’s as simple as that is their logic. Only it’s not logic. Choice is always predicated by a decision, even when we’re unsure of how that decision came to be. Love is political. Therefore, a white man loving a Black man is not simply about love but also about power, especially in an anti-Black environment.

Malkia Cyril, Executive Director of the Center for Media Justice, once said dating is always about negotiating power. We constantly gravitate towards or choose to submit to power. Whom we love, then, is not simply a choice. In my attempts to love Black men, power negotiations were always part of these relationships. There was power when I only wanted things to go my way without accounting for what the other men wanted. Power was reinforced when I asserted my hand onto my lover’s body. Power was omnipresent and wasn’t inherently a bad thing. However, it becomes a dangerous tool when it isn’t acknowledged and left unchallenged.

With each of these Black men, I needed to learn how to release control and love them. Sometimes I was unsuccessful yet these relationships still left imprints on my soul. Some were as hypersexualized as outsiders hoped them to be. There is another euphemism people like to throw around to fuel the hyper-sexualization of Black men and women. They’ll say, “Once you go Black, you never go back,” or they’ll shorten it leaving it allusive as to what happens once you, “go Black.” However, what I’ve found is that even when a white man finds himself in community with Black folks, there is no “going back.” This was illustrated for me when the white men I’ve dated began coming up to me asking why I hung around so many Black folks. Apparently more than one Black friend is a lot for white gay men. I was a marked man. This marking mirrors the stamp Marlon Riggs calls out when he mentions the white boy who stood by him on the playground as he was being bullied. I’m still curious to hear how the white boy made sense of this curse, if at all.

When I found myself dating Black men, it wasn’t my Black brothers who questioned, ridiculed or shamed me for my choices. It was overwhelmingly my white and Latino brothers. I became isolated from a communal sense of belonging with those men. Even in fictive kinship, there is a sense of support that accompanies love. So when I started being introduced by white and Latino men as, “John (he likes chocolate)” to strangers, I felt vulnerable to attack and started to see how pervasive anti-Black racism is. It was Black gay men who supported me emotionally as “friends” marked me for choices that didn’t involve them. Only within the last year was I able to realize how trauma had severed my relationships with white men and was preventing me from building the relationships I knew I needed to be cultivating with them. If I love Black men the way I’m claiming to, I should be challenging privilege and racism in white gay communities by maintaining relationships with white gay men, not remaining comfortable in my relationships with Black men.

As William and I began holding workshops on gay men’s dating “preferences,” particularly as it relates to white privilege. We had frank conversations about how race informs the way we understand ourselves as gay men. As a Black gay man, he shared how white gay men approach him and how it makes him feel. This offered me an opportunity to confront my own dating practices and how racism has shaped my own thinking and interactions. Eventually, we laughed at the ways people we barely know try to tell us who we are because we have dated outside of our race. Though neither of our dating histories are exclusively linked to one particular race, people felt our patterns were obvious indicators that his dating white men was anti-Black as my dating Black men was anti-white. Only things are more complicated than that. I had to constantly remind others, and myself, that being pro-Black does not make you anti-white.

Some people have accused me of wanting to be Black once they find me in community with Black folks, which is certainly not the case. Not because there is anything wrong with being Black, but because it denies who I am and my experiences in the world. I don’t want to be a Black man who loves Black men, not because it isn’t beautiful, but because it doesn’t allow me to be a white man who loves Black men. It doesn’t allow me to carry my culture with me. In the same way I embrace love in my life, I am also able to embrace the contradictions of being white and loving Black men. However, I learned that part of accountability requires my love to extend beyond these men. My love has to be extended to the Black and multi-racial families and communities these men came from; communities that helped to build up these beautiful men.

I will hold myself accountable to the historical contradictions of being a white gay man in America. I will push for the relationships of Black women and men loving other Black men and women to be given more visibility in the mainstream gay community than only the couples where at least one person is white. Regardless of what ethnic background the men I date in the future are, I will encourage them to eradicate the anti-Black racism that exists in their minds as I encourage myself to remain conscious of it. I will question my white gay brothers who claim not to be attracted to Black men (but ‘have Black friends’) as I also challenge others trying to equate Black men not being attracted to white men as reverse racism. In the spirit of Marlon Riggs, Black men choosing to partner with other Black men can be an act of resistance. Most importantly, I will pay attention to my own actions first and foremost. These are my own attempts to support an environment where Blackness, Black women and men, can be celebrated and loved beyond my feeble offering.

A Black man whom I love yet never met as he died on my first birthday, James Baldwin, said, “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” He went on to further discuss love by saying, “[It] does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.” I began wondering what masks Bayard Rustin and Walter Naegle or Marlon Riggs and Jack Vincent helped each other take off. I wondered how James Baldwin and Lucien Happersberger helped one another grow up. There are the white and Black couples that dared to love one another; Black gay historical leaders and their white partners.

It was only a few months ago I found out that my grandfather had a brother, a white gay brother, a white gay brother who died of AIDS. Shortly after, I found out that my great uncle, Anthony Finelli’s partner was a Black man without a name. Certainly he has a name but that piece of history is now long lost for me as they and the many people who knew them have passed. One of the masks all of these men have taught me to no longer live inside is the mask of silence. For Riggs, silence was suicide. However, silence is more. Silence is murder when you choose to leave the lives and names of men who lived openly and proudly, invisible. Silence is homicidal when Black and white men who dare to try loving one another are reduced to single stories, fetishes, sex and shame.

I can untie my tongue. I can help unleash our curse.

To the Black men who I have attempted to love, thank you for helping me take off my masks, teaching me to be vocal and grow into the white gay man I have become. Thank you for being a gladiator and enduring our own war zones. You inspire me to be better every day. For me, Black and white men’s loving one another is a deeply personal and revolutionary act.

Johnathan Fields is a twenty-something, queer Italian-American writer living in New York City. Born and raised in Chicago, he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and African & Black Diaspora Studies from DePaul University. Johnathan has explored race, dating, and love in his writings, “Chasing Chocolate: A White Man’s Tale of the Interracial Sexual Politics of Gay Men” and “Back to Black: Revisiting An Interracial Sexual Politic” as well as in his presentation, “It’s Just A Preference: Gay Men and White Privilege.” He has written for the Windy City Times, Huffington Post and the Intersection of Madness and Reality. Follow him at @JohnnyGolightly.

The post On Loving Black Men: Unleashing the Curse appeared first on Madness & Reality.

I was met with the typical response from some commenters that sexual ambiguity is a deal breaker and how can one be sure they shared similar values if the other person is ‘like that’. People are hilarious sometimes, especially when I think of the amount of people who are married to what has recently been identified to me as a ‘beard’.

“Beard is a slang term describing a person who is used, knowingly or unknowingly, as a date, romantic partner (Boyfriend or Girlfriend), or spouse either to conceal infidelity or to conceal one’s sexual orientation.”

Now I don’t mean to be mean or anything, but I do find it peculiar that I am personally aware of waaaay more marriages where one partner is perceived as ‘‘questionable’, than I know of married couples where one spouse openly identified as homosexual, though married to a heterosexual.

I’m not saying that couples have to openly affirm their sexual orientation to society, but its not like people aren’t confused when these relationships are vigorously presented as simply a case of ‘boy meets girl’ when the boy in question has never, ever, ever been interested in girl until he decided to marry —->her.

Dating and marrying a thirty year old virgin doesn’t make a man special. Though some would love to think their un-tampered with unicorn’s lack of interest in mating with men before them, just meant they were waiting for ‘the one’ and he thinks she’s that “one”.

I’m not talking about the sexually conservative, or strict religious followers, I’m just talking about what I consider average peculiar behavior.

Arranged marriages and marriages of convenience are nothing new, but since we’re out here promoting marriage as a willing union and not as a business deal what is to be said about those using marriage as a front to hide their sexual orientation?

Everyone asks questions regarding the sexual orientation of one partner or the other; teachers and other family associates inquire as to the gender identity of the parent and at some point in time everyone begins to wonder what the REAL deal is.

While I have no problem with any couple (gay, straight or mixed) that marries for the sake of wanting to be together to take on life as a team what I do have a problem with are people who feel that it’s okay to front for the sake of saving face.

One partner marries someone whom they know could never love them the way they want but they are still willing to take a fraud of a relationship in order to feel special. One partner may sit idly by while the other partner continues to maintain their REAL romantic relationship with a same sex partner who they call their ‘best friend’. Yes, the bills are paid, the family piles into the car to attend church on Sundays and the portraits do look amazing but is this how you saw your marriage?

Surely this satisfies the requirement for some people’s definition of marriage but pardon me if I want more. Using a person as a front is selfish and cruel; allowing yourself to be used as a front shows desperation. Unfortunately, your willingness to be a tool won’t barter you the love you seek.

I’m not a witch doctor hunting down the mythical DL brothers because that facet of life is merely a half truth at best. But just as much as a man or woman has to be willing to lie and deceive others regarding his/her sexuality he/she must also have a partner who is willing to eat those lies and lick the bowl clean. If the wedding ring is more important than being able to look yourself and your spouse in the eye then the marriage isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

You may say these unions are no one business but their own…I disagree.

I do know White couples, Asian couples and some Middle Eastern couples who are married to a homosexual partner in spite of the variation of sexual orientation. They have chosen to live their lives this way for their own reasons, but what I do see is that they care about each other and their relationship is authentic, as it should be.

With the shortage of Black male dating prospects out here I’m sure there are plenty of women who would be willing to look the other way and forgive past transgressions for a man who was willing to ‘get saved’ and change his body language, social circle and friends in order to give a respectable “go” of the marriage.

But how many of them would marry a plain old bi/gay male who was willing to do the same thing but for change his orientation and sexual identity……not many I bet.

When little potential future homosexual children seek examples of who they will be when they grow up it saddens me to know the amount of people out there who are willing to lie and let lie rather than those willing to accept their authentic selves and each other.

With no space to exist some will feel forced to fit into roles that require them to wear a mask and there will be those heterosexual people right there ready for them when they do.

The post Gay People DO Get Married: The Curious Case of the Beard – When “the Gays” Marry Straight People appeared first on Madness & Reality.

I will never forget the first time my mother called me a faggot. It was Thanksgiving 2004. We had just gotten home from visiting my grandfather in the hospital. My mother and I had gotten into a fight, something that had become quite common since she was diagnosed with several serious mental illnesses in years prior. Driving home I had switched the radio station, which I assume triggered some distant memory as we began to dance a radio tango. She switched the station and I would switch it back.

Mother: “You better start showing me some damn respect. I’m your mother.”

Me: “I’ll show you some respect when you start acting like a mother.”

She went on to slap me across the face as the car was in motion causing my face to hit the driver’s side window. I swerved into oncoming lanes of traffic. Luckily, no cars were coming.

Finally, we made it home and the verbal aggressions continued. My mother looked me dead in the face with her cold, hollow eyes I thought I had become desensitized to. She venomously spewed the words, “Why don’t you suck a dick you faggot?” Suddenly, the tears streamed down my face masking whatever rage was boiling inside of me. How could my own mother say something like that to me?

This was the turbulent memory a climactic scene in Dee Rees’ Pariah brought me back to during a pre-screening of the highly anticipated film a few weeks ago. As 17-year old Alike, played by Adepero Oduye, navigates the blossoming of her sexuality, she also begins defining various parts of her identity in spite of what her mother, Audrey, wishes. Similar to my mother, Audrey, played by Kim Wayans, battles her own issues of love. Their shared issues include insecurity, living their lives based upon very rigid definitions of what it means to be a woman and mother, and perhaps even forgetting to take medication(s). Audrey’s rigid definitions meant she needed to submit to her husband for the sake of imagery, maintain a respectable (read: feminine) appearance and uphold her self against impossibly perfect standards.

Wayans’ performance is riveting, given many of us are familiar with her more comedic roles. Though some will find it hard to sympathetize with her character, Audrey is offered more humanity than I have seen tackled in other films. So often an individual possessing Audrey’s homophobic, narrow beliefs is viewed unsympathetically. We do not want to hear the stories that inform their views or why they are the way they are, despite our disagreement. We simply don’t care to listen. Pariah forces us to bear witness to some of homophobia’s catalysts, if only subliminally.

Throughout the film, I was captivated by Alike’s relationship to her mother. In one scene, I watched as Alike said exactly what she needed to say to her mother in order to begin releasing the demons her mother attempted to plant within Alike. I love you.

As tears flow down Audrey’s face (and my own), audiences capture a glimpse of the inner turmoil Audrey’s rigidity leaves with her. She is miserable. She has spent the majority of her life placing faith in ideas that have only served to isolate her. Audrey would rather remain faithful to those beliefs than begin the process of re-evaluating her relationship to those beliefs and her family.

Living in a culture that teaches us our parents are the people who will teach us about our identity, Alike and I know better. For some of us, our parents exit our lives for various reasons. It becomes our friends and lovers who help shape how we identify and express ourselves in the world. Perhaps our parents re-enter. Perhaps they don’t. As Alike’s relationship with her mother deteriorates, she spends a great deal of time talking with her best friend, Laura, played by Pernell Walker, about being sexual with other women, fantasizing and what it means to be an “AG”—a term some women of color use to identify aggressive lesbians.

Eventually Alike meets Bina, played by Aasha Davis, and their exchange provides insight and plenty of social commentary on what identity means, including a conversation on being gay gay, I do not believe it is their relationship Rees wants us focused on. It is not the obvious intimacy between Alike and Bina or Alike’s relation to Audrey that makes Pariah a love story.

The most fascinating relationship in this film is the one Alike has with her self. Beginning the film, Alike is timid about who she is and curious about what she likes. However, through her experiences with other women, like Laura, Bina and Audrey, we see Alike blossom until she can verbally confirm her parents’ suspicions and come out to her mother and father. It gets messy and scars are left, seen and unseen. Like so many of us, Alike takes her negative experiences and transforms them into a pathway for self-discovery.

Rees takes us on this journey, Alike’s expedition towards self-love and acceptance. In the film’s final scenes, Alike recites a poem written in her journal. The voice over plays as we watch Alike step into the many new beginnings of her life. She reads:

Heartbreak opens onto the sunrise.

For even breaking is opening and I am broken.

I am open.

See the love shine in through my cracks.

See the light shine out through me.

My spirit takes journey.

My spirit takes flight, and I am not running, I am choosing.

I am broken.

I am broken open.

Breaking is freeing.

Broken is freedom.

I am not broken.

I am free.

Alike’s freedom begins when she unleashes the pain her mother inflicts upon her and lovingly releases the hold her pain had. Releasing our pain is a choice. The choice is the difference between being held captive and freedom. But this wound takes time to heal.

As I left the theatre, I wondered if Alike’s path to forgiveness would be as tumultuous and expansive as my own. After all, cinema is constricted; in real time, these processes occur in phases. Forgiving her mother on-screen took less than thirty minutes; forgiving my mother in real life took several years. In relating to the story, I wondered if Alike would eventually face similar difficulties. Was the process of forgiveness over for Alike? Would she relapse? How many attempts would she make to reconcile her relationship with her mother before she deemed it hopeless? Was it hopeless? Would she eradicate the internalized homophobia from her mind? One thing was certain: Alike had the power to look in the mirror and see her beauty, inside and out.

Once You Go Black, discussing the politics of examining Black-queer-intellectual life, Robert Reid-Pharr states, “The real action of both politics and culture always takes place at the surface and in the present. Though our efforts at memorialization and recovery may prove to be incredibly important therapeutic strategies, they nonetheless would be hard-pressed to stop a war.” His sentiment expresses the significance of healing and how recovery is a part of freedom. Rees’ film is not only powerful for its narrative but also given its timing. In a moment where the spotlight has been thrust on queer youth, the political nature of Pariah lies in its ability to shine light in places the mainstream frequently overlooks.

While the film acknowledges the forging of chosen community, it also confronts homophobia in family life and how this impacts adolescence. It covers the displacement of LGBT youth who were kicked out after coming out. Yet, as we racialize and gender these numbers, they only increase. Rees’ decision to place themes of homelessness and sex work was strategic as these issues increasingly affect Black queer youth. The Center for American Progress highlights that homeless gay youth have strong racial divides. Black gay youth make up approximately forty-four percent of homeless youth, while Black transgender youth are a staggering sixty-two percent. 

As a white gay man, I was able to watch and listen to Alike’s story and tackle parallels between our journeys and mothers. But I constantly had to remind myself of the distinctions separating our narratives, the obvious being I am not Black nor am I lesbian. These distinctions left me walking out of the theatre with hypothetical questions. After leaving her family behind, would Alike find community in the imaginary safety of some mythically inclusive gay metropolis or be outcast as a Black lesbian? Would she be told the money of “her kind” was not wanted in a mediocre queer establishment, as was the case in a Chicago gay nightclub in 2010?

I worry how this film will be celebrated within various queer circles, if at all. My hope is that we do not participate in the too-common practice of de-racializing films, as Pariah is clearly Black. One can count the number of white actors in this film on one hand. Then there is the obvious fact this film centers on one Black family and the complexities of their lives together. In my opinion, Pariah was intended to be a conversation film for Black communities, conversations that need to be had from within and do not need to include white folks.

I hope Pariah will not be placed within the larger queer canon of painting Black families as more homophobic than the rest of society, as we see happening in the age of Obama. Oddly enough, the people making these claims rarely offer sources or stress the pervasive reach of anti-Black racism. Some of the film’s themes are certainly universal, as other reviews have highlighted. However, I think it is imperative we continue to address this film for exactly what it is: Black lesbian cinema. As is the case with many “universally-themed” films, certain elements of the feature become less salient as they garner popularity.

One of the most beautifully bittersweet things about Pariah is that Rees does not seem too concerned with these questions. She gives this film the life it was intended to have: one version of Black lesbianism. However, the questions and challenges that surface from Alike’s inspirational narrative offer each of us an opportunity to self-reflect, as individuals working towards a collective end.

Alike’s story is told with nuance and integrity in a way many films lack today. Rees’ work does not mimic reality, it captures it. Pariah reminds us that regardless of what we have been told in life or how we have been made to feel, we are beautiful and deserving. We can, and must, heal. We are worthy of love from others but, most importantly, from ourselves.

Pariah is in select theatres January 21, 2012.

2011 Trailer

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One complication there is that Black folks are still physically and brutally terrorized in this country, it’s just that no one wants to talk about it. But perhaps it is the marriage debate that connects Black and gay communities; for just as slaves were prohibited and then encouraged to marry (eventually leading to “jumping the broom” ceremonies), and then laws prohibiting interracial marriage, gay and lesbian couples are eager to  jump in on the privileges of marriage (at least in some states). Or maybe it is the code-switching that some Black folks engage in that mirrors the code-switching of our gender performance, mysteriously hiding or revealing what some see as a marker of our sexuality. After all, isn’t that what sexuality is all about—what  I’m wearing and how I’m walking?

Despite the many parallels between Black history and culture to LGBTQ history and culture, it would appear the strongest link to these communities, in my humble opinion, are the Black, LGBTQ-identified persons. That’s right! Imagine that: someone being gay and Black. It is mindboggling, isn’t it (read: sarcasm)? As a supposedly progressive society, how can we even ride out on the idea that gay is the new Black when we have folks who occupy both of these identities?

The only way I can see gay being the new black, is through the eyes of a fashionista. Black is the ever-popular staple in the fashion world. There is always a way to make it fresh and current. But unfortunately, that is rarely what this metaphor aims to do. This metaphor is aimed at nullifying the impact, experiences, history and power of Black history, culture and oppression to pour its energy into the gay rights movement. To say, look: we experience oppression like “the Blacks” too. Though, isn’t it ironic that in a white supremacist nation where it’s socially unacceptable to be Black, so many people want to be Black? Hmph.

Imagine for one minute that you are gay and Black. Someone asks you: is gay the new Black? Wouldn’t a question like that have the potential to force you into feeling you have to choose—being gay versus being Black? Why are we talking about the “gay Harlem Renaissance” as if it is something separate from the Harlem Renaissance? And why aren’t we talking loudly about rumors that the founders of Spelman College were queer Black women? The relationship between Black and LGBTQ communities is intertwined. We shouldn’t have to separate them to acknowledge the dissimilarities.

Oddly enough, I have yet to hear a single supporter of “gay is the new black” reach back into the time capsule of Black and queer history to find a very useful quote from Bayard Rustin. In 1986, one of the primary organizers for the 1963 March on Washington, this openly gay man stated in his essay, “The New Niggers Are The Gays”:

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While I respect and appreciate Brother Rustin’s perspective, I cannot adopt this victimological perspective that seems to run rampant in a significant amount of gay rights activism. It is imperative to understand that Bayard Rustin was an openly gay man fighting for racial equality during a time where homosexuality was still taboo to discuss in public. Without getting into too many details, his sexuality was exploited by other leaders. Not only did he face the brunt of racism but also homophobia. To me, it makes sense that he would write gays are the most vulnerable group. Those may have been his experiences and no one can take them from him. *cues Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong*

This type of divisive rhetoric, pitting gay versus Black, further divides communities that should be working together; communities that are tied not only in a common quest for liberation, but also tied by the insightful individuals who experience more than one side of things. It not only refuses access to an acknowledgement of lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered folks but also of other people of color plagued by white supremacy. It ignores the work of folks like James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Bayard Rustin, Audre Lorde, Barbara Jordan and many others fighting on behalf of human rights (Note: human should not disregard or ignore difference).

So yes, Rustin may be correct in alluding to queer activism needing more Black allies. But I believe he would be extremely disappointed by the lack of “queer activists” who are not challenging white supremacy. Again, let’s imagine a world where the work of anti-racism was intertwined with a LGBTQ rights movement. Just imagine.

In the era of media sound bites that suggest “Black people are more homophobic” than everyone else, where are the people holding queer communities accountable for the racism they spew so venomously? If gay really is the new Black, why is white supremacy running rampant throughout queer spaces? Where are the public stories and experiences of queer people of color who have been tormented by racism at the hands of other queers? If we’re going to ask if gay is the new Black, perhaps we should also ask if Black is the new gay.

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By: Johnathan Fields

Yesterday, the New York Times published an article about CNN newsanchor Don Lemon’s memoir Transparent in which he publicly declares his sexuality. As many on Twitter–and various social media sites–went wild, blasting Diana Ross’ “I’m Coming Out,” I couldn’t help but feel unease at some of the responses to Lemon’s bold move.

Judging by some of the commentary you can see on these sites, we, yet again, have a case of the tragic gay hero. By no means do I want to suggest that Brother Lemon’s coming out does not mean anything significant for queers. I think his point about the visibility for questioning and queer youth is powerful in and of itself. He states, “I think if I had seen more people like me who are out and proud, it wouldn’t have taken me 45 years to say it…to walk in the truth.” I think many of us can agree this is something to be said about seeing a leader who we see pieces of ourselves reflected in.

However, there are some questions I have: why is it always the responsibility of queers to come out and acknowledge their sexuality? It would seem this is done to reinforce the comfort and normativity of heterosexuals. I do not hear any heterosexual celebrities stepping out with their lovers. It is assumed they are heterosexual until they can otherwise be dubbed “other.” Expecting gay men to come out does nothing to challenge heterosexism. If we want to keep our sexual partners private, why can’t we?

Many of the comments on Twitter expressed great sadness that Don Lemon was, in fact, gay. These comments were primarily made by women who, I assume, find Lemon to be attractive. When a man, woman, or trans-person, “comes out”, there is absolutely nothing to be sad about. You should not be sad because you “don’t have a chance now”, because you’ll “never have grandkids,” or whatever other pity party you choose to throw upon the situation to make it about you and your motives.

Forgive me for not being more compassionate in my response to your tragic view of homosexuality. As a gay man who has spent years battling my own internalized homophobia due to many of the reactions I received from family, friends, and outsiders who reinforced my sexuality as some disease that I now live with, I don’t show much compassion for those who don’t challenge their own homophobic rhetoric when someone “comes out.” People who do not “embrace” heterosexuality are not tragic. We are not dispensable. It is not acceptable for you to find a man attractive until you realize he’s gay then move along to the next news anchor whose sexuality is still up for grabs. If you’re that damn thirsty, get a Gatorade.

People seem to think it’s all peachy now that Lemon, and other celebrities, are “out.” What this logic fails to address is that he is still just as likely as the rest of us to be brutally attacked walking down the street, holding the hands of his lovers. While his celebrity protects him a little more than the rest of us, he still runs the risk of being called a “faggot” or being hit with a pipe walking down a dimly lit street. So until we challenge the heterosexism and homophobia of American structures, including masculinity, “coming out” does little outside of making heterosexuals a little more comfortable with the fact gay people continue to exist.

Now, I am not so naive as to misunderstand the power of coming out–particularly as Lemon identifies as an African-American gay man. The “DL” (down-low) phenomena has swept the nation by storm. Lemon’s comments begin to address the nuances of that conversation. But I hope Lemon will also address the importance of anti-racism work in queer activism. As a Black gay man, it will be equally as important for him to acknowledge the ways in which racism and/or white supremacy have influenced his life just as heterosexism has. If the purpose for his coming out was to protect our youth, he will hopefully recognize that as queers are more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers, people of color are more likely than their white counterparts to attempt. As a queer person of color, I hope he finds merit in the fact that queer activism is racialized.

So just because Lemon has not been assaulted or publicly declared ever contemplating suicide at any point in his life, that does not make room for ignorant humor regardless of how it may be intended. Life has given us Lemon, now it is important for us to make an anti-racist, anti-homophobic, anti-sexist lemonade for American culture to enjoy. Afterall, summer is upon us.

Johnathan Fields is a DePaul University alum with a B.A. in African & Black Diaspora Studies and Philosophy. His areas of interest include: media representations of race, gender, and sexuality in popular culture, Black feminist theory, Diasporic literature and critical race theory. He is also the latest addition to this site’s family of contributors. For more information, visit www.adventuresofaboxcutter.com

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