G2: Textbook Preface

The preface for a hypothetical textbook on the reality and danger of homophobia in the Black community.

Crossing the Tracks

In my whole family, there is only one other queer person. Growing up, I watched how my family treated them and it confused me. Sure, my family never physically harmed them or directly talked down to them, at least not when I was around to see it, but I noticed there was something very off about interactions they had with them. It’s like every time they spoke, someone would huff and puff as if what they had to say was immediately invalid. The hugs my family would give them appeared fake in comparison to everyone else’s. Of course, I didn’t know when I was so young that they were queer but as I got older, everything started adding up. As time went on, I noticed they didn’t come to as many family functions and it made me sad; they were my favorite cousin! At one point, I noticed that whenever they were around their mother, there was this tension that I couldn’t understand. After a while, they moved away to Atlanta. I went down to Atlanta with my mother for her work trip and I decided to visit them on my own. At this time, mind you, I was 17 years old. They introduced me to their girlfriend, we shared a few drinks and many more laughs. That’s when I decided to come out to them. I wasn’t expecting them to be as shocked as they were, but they actually got up out of their seat and gave me a huge hug. They were so excited that they called their girlfriend out to the porch where we were sitting saying “Hey guess what, FaFa just came out to me!” It was hilarious and heartwarming; even now, I’m writing this with a smile on my face. They were the first family member I told about my girlfriend that I have been with for 2 years. I told them how I was so nervous about telling my mom so they told me how it went when they came out. Their mom, my aunt, kicked them out of the house when they were 15 years old. When I heard that, so many emotions coursed through my mind: fear for myself, anger towards my aunt, confusion, wonder, but then a sense of resolve washed over me. I took a step back and realized that they turned out just fine. They said that of course, their mom was angry but it only took some time for her to accept them, and that gave me hope. I say all this to say that it’s real.

Homophobia in the Black community, in Black families, is real and it hurts.

It hurts to think that I was, am, scared to tell my mom about such an important part of my life. It hurts to know that someone so close to me kicked their own child out of their home because of who they are and who they love. Although it should be comforting, it hurts to know I’m not alone.

Homosexuality is, by no stretch of the imagination, a new concept. It has existed in other ancient cultures such as ancient Greece, inscribed in the homo-romantic lyrics of the poet Sappho. It exists around the world, from Native American “Two-Spirits” to African “female husbands” (women who marry women for various reasons) It has been around since before the Bible, knowingly so as it has been documented as a sin, and that’s the whole problem. Homophobia is irrevocably linked to colonialism. The whole world was doing just fine until Europeans started “discovering” places and “fixing” aspects of their culture they deemed immoral, pagan, and ungodly.

Very few people are aware that homophobia is not an inherently Black or African ideal. Those people fail to recognize that before the colonizers and their missionaries came to “do God’s work,” many traditional African cultures were highly accepting of various gender expressions and sexualities. It wasn’t until the colonizers settled, placed themselves in roles of leadership, and changed up legislation that heterosexuality became the norm and the natural. They used Christianity to whitewash African cultures and criminalize their values of intimacy. They demonized LGBT+ individuals and made them into examples by beating and imprisoning them. The colonizers then wanted to redirect the people’s rage off of themselves and on to someone that could keep their attention: each other. By pitting brother against brother, no compromise was ever reached, let alone discussed therefore these homophobic acts, practices, and laws persisted. The new morality ingrained in the people of African cultures made its way to the Americas via the Atlantic Slave Trade. The effects of colonization on homosexuality remain present in every following generation of the children of the African diaspora, resulting in the homophobia ever-present in today’s Black community.

Family, we cannot keep sweeping this under the rug. Hiding behind “religion” and “the Bible” as an excuse to be homophobic is not only unacceptable but truly disgusting. It shows that, after all these years, we have not truly considered what it is that the colonizers force-fed us from the Bible. Not only that, it makes all Black people appear homophobic which is far from the truth.

In her conversation with Jewelle Gomez, “Talking about It: Homophobia in the Black Community,” Barbara Smith quotes a line from Black, lesbian writer Ann Allen Shockley: “Play it, but don’t say it.” Smith analyzes the quote and its relation to how the Black community views homosexuality. It means that a Black person can have as many men or women, whomever, as they want, they just shouldn’t vocalize or politicize it. I agree with Smith when she suggests that this is the outdated concept that the Black community is holding on to for dear life. The issue nowadays is that being out and queer is a movement based upon organizing around our oppression and Black people hate to see it. It makes the older generations so uncomfortable because the homophobic rhetoric they were socialized into is being dismantled and destroyed.

We cannot deny or disregard the role social media is playing in the fight against homophobia, especially in the Black community. Social media provides everyone with access to it a platform to speak their minds about whatever they want, whenever they want. There was a period of time, back when platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, when people would use these spaces to spread negativity and hate. The social climate was different then, but the weather has certainly changed over the past decade. These days, people are coming together to fight oppression on all fronts. The fight for LGBT+ rights has brought out a lot of support from people worldwide. Celebrities take to their platforms to shed light and support on the issue. Many notable Black celebrities, like Ari Lennox, Amandla Stenberg, Rutina Wesley, Whoopie Goldberg, and the list goes on, have voiced their support for the community from their various perspectives. As a Black person, I know the impact that celebrities and musicians can have on our community and how we think, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. By that logic, it’s so important that we have so many well-known people supporting our community. While we should always celebrate the light and positivity that social media has brought to this community, we cannot ignore the fact that there are a few gold-painted stones in the midst.

Social media undoubtedly sets trends. It determines what’s acceptable and what isn’t. In recent years, homophobia has been blacklisted as something unacceptable and if a celebrity is caught being homophobic, they are “canceled.” Being canceled is bad for celebrities, especially music artists because people collectively stop supporting them, meaning in most cases, they stop getting paid. To avoid all that, they will either actually open their minds to change their ideas and values, or they’ll more realistically put up a front. Many popular musical figures from the Black community, specifically the Afro-Caribbean community, have been called out for their homophobic lyrics and commentary. Prominent Jamaican dancehall artists Buju Banton, Beenie Man, and Vybz Kartel made their fame in the late 80's and 90's with music that advocated for violence towards gay men. As the 2000's emerged, levels of violent hate-crimes targeting the LGBT+ community in Jamaica rose. They were linked to these homophobic artists as the people who committed these hate-crimes would sing the most violent and hateful of their lyrics afterward. In 2004, the Reggae Compassionate Act (RCA) was drafted, banning the inclusion of hateful and violent lyrics towards marginalized identities, specifically the LGBT+ community. Buju Banton, Beenie Man and other artists signed the RCA in 2007 but later denied signing it, some discrediting it because it was “poorly worded.” This is a prime example of how artists temporarily adopt accepting ideologies to appease their audience and keep their ratings (read profits) up.

This is for my older generation. I understand how y’all were raised given that my grandmother raised me. I understand how y’all view the world, she told me so many stories from her time growing up in the 60's. This book is a bridge between the gaps in our generations. This book was written so that you can hear us, see us, feel us. We are your children. We are your grandchildren. We are the future of the world that you are living in, and there’s no stopping it.

Wouldn’t you rather stand with us instead of against us?

This is also for my generation. I know you, I feel you, I AM you. We just want to be understood, right? Well, first we have to understand ourselves. We have to be equipped with the knowledge to defend ourselves when we are questioned. We cannot waiver. As my mom told me when I was a kid, “it’s okay not to know everything, but it’s not okay to know nothing.” Nobody knows everything about us but it’s never too late to learn. That’s why this is for you. This is your guide to understanding your identity. This book is the feeling you get when you realize you’re not alone and you never were.

Nobody wants to be on “the wrong side of the tracks.” Historically, “the wrong side of the tracks” meant the Black side of town where everything was run down, trashy, and everyone lived in fear, sleeping with one eye open and always looking over their shoulders. “The other side of the tracks” was the white side of town, polished, pristine, lavish and uninviting. I called this book “Crossing the Tracks” for a number of reasons. There was a time where being gay was synonymous with being white. That time is up; crossing the tracks. Being gay and Black is not the same as being gay and white; crossing the tracks. Being gay and Black now is not the same as it was back then; crossing the tracks. A clear understanding of the truth meets ignorance and indifference, creating shared knowledge and new meaning; crossing the tracks. This book is the middle ground between all of our strengths, weaknesses, struggles, and successes. This is how we shall overcome.

I wrote this book in 3 sections titled “Past” “Present” and “Future.” The first section, “Past,” lays out the recorded history of queer people in the Black community as far back as the early 19th century up until the late 90's. I write about the dangers of being queer during different time periods and how our people faced them. It saddens me to say that this is the shortest section of the book due to the previously mentioned erasure of our existence in historical context. I title section two “Present” because it deals with the state of the Black community, homophobia, and the intersection of the two in terms of today’s political and social climate. From the early 2000's to the present, so much has changed in the way we address homophobia in the Black community and this section gives a fairly linear account of its progression. Lastly, “Future” discusses how a combination of both past and present factors of the situation can and will affect how we will come to address homophobia in the future. If we keep up with how we are slowly dismantling homophobic thought, will there still be homophobia in the future? Will being queer even be considered “taboo” anymore? Will the Black community ever rid themselves of their conservative and regressive religious ethics to fully accept their queer brothers and sisters? “Future” is the space where questions such as these are analyzed.

There used to be this old saying that went something like, “if you want to hide something from a Black person, put it in a book.” That stems back through hundreds of years of racism, but this book is about this moment right now. This book is your empowerment. Every chapter breaks down a new barrier and gives you access to a new way of understanding yourself and/or the world around you.

To conclude, I will say this: I am a person. Like you, I hold many identities, marginalized and otherwise. I am a queer, Black girl but I am also cis-gendered, from a middle-class home, and enrolled in higher education. There are some aspects of this topic that I may not be able to speak on due to the nature of my various and conflicting identities, but I am not ignorant. I have lived through my experience, listened to the voices and stories of others, and researched extensively on how homophobia has and is currently affecting the Black community. I try to write as objectively as possible, but when it comes to a topic so close to home, why shouldn’t I be a little subjective? Change won’t come if stories aren’t shared, emotions aren’t felt, and connections aren’t made. At the end of the day, Black people have enough coming at us from the outside. We owe it to each other to be the good, be the change, and be the light of each other’s lives in a world filled will with darkness.