Not that I have never contemplated the relationship I have had with black people and culture, or that I am so ignorant or unaware that this population has never crossed my mind, it’s just that I care a lot more now.
Sebastian excites me the most so I’ll talk about him first. I have been seeing Sebastian for a little over a week now and we have gone on several dates and found ourselves in a couple different situations. Something that surprised me the most about our interaction is the way we express conventional masculinity to one another. I have thought of black culture as tending to be somewhat homophobic, highly genderized (men are very manly and women are very womanly), active, passionate, physical and socially dominant. The case is similar with Sebastian but expressed in a different way (possibly because of his gay performativity). Sebastian is a ‘top’ with a low voice absent of effeminate or socially gay vocalisms. He is muscular with broad shoulders and wide feet. Like a big manly man, he seems to consider himself the default payer when we go out and is surprised when I insist on splitting the bill.
(This isn't Sebastian and I. It's another gay interracial couple with a clear black social top and white social bottom)
The way he expresses physical affection to me is a study in itself: when we hug, his hands are on my hips; he walks away from me and wiggles his fingers behind is back, affectionately beckoning me to follow; his hand is behind my head when we kiss. Sebastian is very much a man, a handsome black gay man.
Considering all of these conventional masculinities, Sebastian also comes off as having effeminate characteristics. He is very concerned with how he dresses and smells; he is outspoken and somewhat loud; and he is shorter than I am. Because of our height difference, his more masculine expressions seem smaller and it is hard for me not to physically dominate him. He brings up this difference often in conversation and seems acutely aware and somewhat disappointed in his height. I am thinking that this idea of himself is influenced more by conventions of masculinity in black culture than in general American culture or even gay culture. I say that because I am unfamiliar with his brand of gender insecurity.
After seeing The Help, I could not help but think about how close I am to the characters of that movie and about how near to us in time the events of that film took place. It was in my mother’s lifetime that black people were dehumanized to the point where they were thought of as getting “different diseases.” That in and of itself is worth discussion and reflection, but I want to discuss both my reaction to the movie and the correlation the events and affect of the Help has with gay culture.
(a trailer for The Help)
I was so aware of my own discomfort at seeing the exclusion of black people on the screen while sitting next to by friend who is black. I was so aware of my reactions, I felt ridiculous. I simultaneously felt pity, shame and triumph – knowing it had happened, that it had happened to my friend’s family, that my family had a part in making it happen to her family, and that we as an American culture had made that institutionalized exclusion seem a sad absurdity. White guilt at its best. It made me thing about the institutionalized exclusion of gay culture in our school system or the tedious war over equal marriage that Americans fight every day. I am embarrassed that in my time people think the gay experience shouldn’t be taught in public school, that gays get different diseases than non-gays, and that gays are seen as so different from straight people that the same legal treatment for gay straight people is not warranted.
In The Help, Skeeter is a white college grad who returns to her hometown and writes about the experience of the black women who serve her cohorts. There is a scene where Skeeter and two black women verbalize their fear of being discovered talking in a black woman’s home – their belief is that casual interaction between races is likely to result in violence. This hurts. It echoes my own feelings holding my lover’s hand walking from my apartment to the coffee shop. It reminds me that these beliefs are in me both in relation to my new relationship with Mat as a gay man and as a black man. This is ridiculous and wrong and, just like in the Help, the only thing I can do to change these beliefs is to do what I want and screw the consequences – to stand up to that tall shadow in the corner that leers at me when I express myself genuinely. The black servants fearing violence show the same indignant resignation as they meet to confess their stories to Skeeter for her to report their experience to the world.
For my family book club, I chose to read I know why the caged bird sings, by Maya Angelou (the more I learn about her, the more she becomes my hero). The book is about Maya growing up in the early 20th century in a racially segregated climate. She deals with a lot of issues, among them are her relationship with her body her gender and intimacy (she is sexually assaulted), and her identity as a black person. She talks about white people in a really distant almost mythical way. This is a little like how I have seen black culture, not individuals but the culture is so alien to me. We get a sense of her identity as a black person through her discussion of the black people in her life. She describes the man that sexually assaulted her as being ugly, ignorant, fat, and black. She describes her mother (a seemingly good woman) as ephemeral, beautiful, and white-looking. The dichotomy here seems to be that bad = black and good = white (or at least less black). This is a heart breaking correlation – that the more she is part of her racial identity, the worse she is.
A similar thing happens in gay culture where “straight acting” is a desirable epithet and “gay acting” is an insult. This relationship of straight = desirable and gay = undesirable is so destructive to a person’s psyche – the more they are themselves the less they are valued. This CAN’T BE TRUE. I reject this, and so does Maya when she meets Mrs. Flowers, beautiful, well-established, and educated black woman who takes an interest in Maya and makes her “proud to be a Negro, just by being herself.”
(Maya Angelou on Sesame Street)
I guess American culture is lacking those sorts of images – publically displayed gay black men who are simultaneously part of black culture, part of gay culture and have dignity and beauty. I could be wrong or unaware. That would be great! I want to know more about gay men and black people and that relationship. It’s exciting and complimentary. Yay different people!
