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crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters
In 1991, writer-director John Singleton came out with the landmark motion picture Boyz N The Hood which analyzed the plight of inner city African-Americans, particularly young black males.
I remember the scene in which one of the characters asked about why there were so many gun shops and drugs in the black community when African-Americans didn't own these gun shops or the poppy fields that produced the drugs.
His implication was that outside forces were exploiting poverty in the black community for profit while not caring about the effects of their exploitation.
It was a good point and I think it can be made when one assesses how the religious right exploits the black community's inability to have a decent conversation about homosexuality.
I know I am not saying anything unfamiliar when I say that the black community avoids conversations about this subject as if even mentioning the word “gay” would conjure up the devil in a puff of sulphur.
Those of us in the black community know that lgbts of color exist and their needs aren't being met because of the wall of invisibility created by this fear.
The religious right also knows this. In fact, they count on it. That's why it's so easy for conservative talking heads such as Mike Huckabee, Maggie Gallagher, Matt Barber, and Harry Jackson to take an aura of phony concern when they accuse the lgbt community at large for supposedly piggybacking on the African-American civil rights movement.
They can play gays against blacks in a “divide and conquer” strategy because the black community is afraid to admit that it and the lgbt community are more alike than they are different, especially with the existence of lgbts of color.
But I want to ask a question similar to the one asked by the Boyz N The Hood character.
How much ownership and access does the black community have with religious right groups? Where are these pro-family groups and their state affiliates when it comes to actually tackling the issues of the inner city? What is their stance on racial inequality in education or employment?
Or how about the sadly high rate of HIV/AIDS in the black community?
That is my point exactly. These phony pro-family groups, these supposed defenders of the black community are nowhere to be seen.
And why should they? They've gotten what they wanted.
Why should the owner of the gun shops mentioned in Boyz N The Hood care that his wares are leading to death and destruction? He has made his money.
Why should the owner of the poppy fields care that the drugs produced from these fields will put more addicts on the streets looking to steal, sell their bodies, or do anything else for their next fix? After all, he has made his money also.
By that same token, why should the religious right care if the rhetoric in their game of “divide and conquer” leads to more lgbt of color invisibility or black gay men being susceptible to fears of coming out, low self esteem, or worse – bad behaviors which lead to diseases such as HIV/AIDS. They've gotten what they wanted – more influence, more power, more credibility and the black and gay communities at each other's throats.
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7 Comments
You can find a decent conversation about the gay black communityHERE!
Much of the black community IS the Religious Right.I hate the idea that outsiders are manipulating blacks, as though black people do whatever white people tell them. Black people who vote for Prop 8 and listen to angry anti-gay sermons are just as bigoted and just as morally accountable as white people who do the same. The only people being exploited here are gay people; the oppressors include lots of white people, and also lots of black people.
I wonder what kevinchi would have to say …
You know, I’ve been wondering the exact same thing.
Word African Americans are not sheep and should be accountable for their views. I was raised in a very racially backward environment, but I don’t blame other parties for what I think and believe.
Both of you miss the pointMuch of the black community is the religious right? Way to go with the hasty judgements.
The religious right does have an unfair stake in the black community. And why is that? Because they exploit the inability of the black community to look at lgbt issues as black issues. And then gay folks (and I should have touched on this point better) get angry at this and further the notion that the lgbt and black experience are different by expressing inaccurate notions like you two just did rather than emphasize the fact the two groups have at least one thing in common – lgbts of color.
That’s what I mean by a divide and conquer strategy. And really in the long run, it’s lgbts of color who suffer the most.
No, YOU miss the point, loudly and repeatedly.
Apparently it wasn’t so hasty if you agree.
They’re not black issues — they’re gay issues. This tendency to say that every problem in the world belongs equally to everyone in the world is ridiculous. Yes, some gay people happen to be black… but some gay people also happen to be redheads, and yet that doesn’t make lgbt issues into redhead issues.
And then other gay folks express racist notions like you just did — namely, the racist idea that black people are not responsible for their actions in the same way as anyone else. It’s white people’s fault that black people tend to be disproportionately homophobic, your basic argument goes, because how are black people supposed to know what to think if white people don’t tell them? If black people believe in bigotry, it seems you are arguing, it’s really white people’s fault for not explaining the problem with their beliefs to them in ways that their simple brains can comprehend.
Well I think that’s both stupid and offensive. Black bigots are just as personally accountable for their bigotry as white bigots, and arguing that they’re somehow less accountable is the same reasoning by which women were once not allowed to vote.