BenL
12-12-2007, 11:09 AM
Here's the beginning of an article on being black and being gay in the U.S. It's worth reading the whole thing.
http://www.telegram.com/article/20071212/NEWS/712120588/1008/NEWSREWIND
A minority within a minority
African-American gays report existence is comfortable, somewhat invisible
MODERN LIVING
By Mark Melady TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
Kathy J. Linton grew up in Dorchester believing African-American lesbians did not exist.
“When I did come out my family told me I couldn’t be gay because there was no such thing as a black lesbian,” said Ms. Linton, education and outreach director at the Rape Crisis Center of Central Massachusetts. “I didn’t know I existed practically up until about 10 minutes before I came out.”
Ms. Linton and other gay blacks living in Worcester still experience some degree of the invisibility willed on them by segments of the straight black community, especially the black ministry. But though they are a minority within a minority, they describe their lives here as comfortable, if sedate, and largely free of racial or gender prejudice.
They support gay marriage and codifying anti-discrimination protection based on sexual preference and expanding hate crimes to include gays, but they are hardly monolithic in their views about life, love, racism within the wider gay community and, for that matter, whether marriage and greater straight acceptance puts homosexuals in danger of being “normalized.”
Rodney Glasgow, director of diversity at Worcester Academy, calls gay marriage a human right while acknowledging that the difference between a civil and human right may be semantics. He opposes the notion that gay marriage is good because it will eventually bestow normalcy on homosexuals.
“Gays shouldn’t think ‘We’re just like them’ because we’re not and we shouldn’t try to be normalized,” he said. “It’s a sham to think gay marriage will make us any more acceptable to the straight community. Higher visibility can bring out more anger and hostility.”
http://www.telegram.com/article/20071212/NEWS/712120588/1008/NEWSREWIND
A minority within a minority
African-American gays report existence is comfortable, somewhat invisible
MODERN LIVING
By Mark Melady TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
Kathy J. Linton grew up in Dorchester believing African-American lesbians did not exist.
“When I did come out my family told me I couldn’t be gay because there was no such thing as a black lesbian,” said Ms. Linton, education and outreach director at the Rape Crisis Center of Central Massachusetts. “I didn’t know I existed practically up until about 10 minutes before I came out.”
Ms. Linton and other gay blacks living in Worcester still experience some degree of the invisibility willed on them by segments of the straight black community, especially the black ministry. But though they are a minority within a minority, they describe their lives here as comfortable, if sedate, and largely free of racial or gender prejudice.
They support gay marriage and codifying anti-discrimination protection based on sexual preference and expanding hate crimes to include gays, but they are hardly monolithic in their views about life, love, racism within the wider gay community and, for that matter, whether marriage and greater straight acceptance puts homosexuals in danger of being “normalized.”
Rodney Glasgow, director of diversity at Worcester Academy, calls gay marriage a human right while acknowledging that the difference between a civil and human right may be semantics. He opposes the notion that gay marriage is good because it will eventually bestow normalcy on homosexuals.
“Gays shouldn’t think ‘We’re just like them’ because we’re not and we shouldn’t try to be normalized,” he said. “It’s a sham to think gay marriage will make us any more acceptable to the straight community. Higher visibility can bring out more anger and hostility.”