Same Love

As some of my Faithful Readers may have noticed, I also teach courses in gender and sexuality. So I now paint oppression with a broader brush than I used to. Considering how the Christian church was used during slavery as a lethal mechanism to quiet Black frustration and bribe slaves to obey, I have often been fascinated by how African-Americans in the U.S. have become the most church-focused group in the nation.

Unfortunately, many of those church-goers are now being as brutal against people who are gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered or queer as slave-holders used to be when they came home from church and whipped their darkies bloody, claiming it was necessary and even Godly to do so. Frederick Douglass had some pretty strong things to say about that back when he wrote his autobiography.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, who created the video above, have some things for us to think about today. They aren't alone. Prominent Black clergy have begun to take a stand in support of gay rights and gay marriage. And some have become quite publicly vocal without having their congregations bolt and run. As I recall, Jesus was quoted as saying, "Judge not, lest you be judged." One can only wonder  what some folks think that means.

On Being Black and Gay

Six years ago, when I started this blog, I decided to focus it on the socially-constructed, political notion of "race." Consequently, I have only occasionally broached other issues, even issues I feel fairly strongly about, such as women's reproductive freedom, Palestinian national autonomy, and rights for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgendered, trans-sexual and queer people, including same sex marriage.

Since I've been teaching courses in gender and sexuality from the sociological perspective in recent years, I've been made increasingly conscious of the rabid homophobic panic that many Black folks seem to feel in the face of the fact that there are millions of people in the U.S. who are GLBTTQ and a statistically representative number of them are Black. Once, during the second lecture of a sexuality course, before anyone had as yet gotten comfortable, I mentioned the word "gay" in passing only to have a young Black male student throw up his hand instantly to announce out of nowhere, "I'm not gay!" I was speechless.

How I Feel

Just in case you're unclear about it..