LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Hear Me Out: Don't Ignore the Chance to Hear Black Gay Voices |
by Mubarak Dahir |
Every gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered person probably knows what it feels like to be silenced by neglect. To have your voice stifled simply because no one seemed to care about your opinion. We all know what it's like to feel invisible because others deemed we don't matter. As a community, however, we're used to casting the larger heterosexual population in the insensitive, I-could-care-less role, while assuming the role of the neglected outsider. Unfortunately, however, many minority groups within our own community often feel a sense of abandonment several times over: once from the general population at large, once from their straight peers in their own minority group, and, alas, yet another time from the larger gay and lesbian community. It's no secret that Black gays and lesbians have often felt a terrible sense of isolation from the larger gay and lesbian community. Besides dealing with homophobia and racism at large, they've had to feel their way through homophobia in the Black community and racism in the gay and lesbian community. The gay and lesbian civil rights movement has been predominantly perceived and presented as a "white thing." In more recent times, as the gay and lesbian movement has matured, activists and leaders of many gay and lesbian organizations have started to become more sensitive to the exclusion of Blacks (and other minorities) in our ranks, and many have made some honest strides to be more inclusive. But, as most Black gays and lesbians will testify, not nearly enough inroads have been made, and there's still a lot to do. That's why a new survey by the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force on Black gay and lesbian Americans is such a welcome addition to our community's landscape. Hopefully, it will be a pragmatic tool for helping to shrink the great divide that continues to separate Black gays and lesbians from the larger gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community. The study, titled after the famous battle cry of legendary singer James Brown, "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud," is the largest ever survey of the attitudes and opinions of Black gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Americans. A total of 2,645 people in nine different cities around the country were polled about everything from police brutality to job discrimination. The study thus gives us the best snapshot to date of the issues and urgencies of Black gays and lesbians. "The mere fact that someone took the time and effort to do the survey at all is important," says Mandy Carter, a North Carolina activist and a founding board member of the International Federation of Black Prides. "Before this, no one was even bothering to ask." The answers may not seem all that surprising. In many cases, the priorities of Black gays and lesbians parallel those of concern to the larger community. For example, most of us, regardless of our race, can identify with the top three issues of importance to Black gays and lesbians: HIV/AIDS, hate violence and recognition of same-sex relationships. However, says Juan Battle, a co-author of the report and an associate professor of sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, those same issues can end up affecting Black gay and lesbian people in dramatically different ways than they affect the majority-white gay and lesbian population. It's important to study and understand those differences because they can have major policy implications for the gay and lesbian community. The issue of HIV and AIDS is a classic example. It is generally well known that, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black gay men are infected at a much higher rate than are white gay men. What's less well understood however, is that the modes of transmission for the virus differ greatly as well. Approximately 75 percent of HIV-positive gay white men became infected through sex. But HIV infection through gay sex accounts for only 40 percent of the cases among black gay men. That means any HIV prevention organization hoping to get heard by Black gay men will have to fine-tune its message in ways that differ substantially from the outreach historically done for an audience of white gay men. Hate crimes can also affect Black gays differently from whites. "Separating whether a hate crime is race-motivated or for sexual orientation reasons is not so clear cut" for Blacks as it is for white gays and lesbians, says Battle. Furthermore, while white-led gay and lesbian organizations almost always endorse stiffer jail time for perpetrators of hate crimes, "there's a very complicated debate about that in communities of color, given the Black community's history with the criminal justice system," says Colin Robinson, executive director of the New York State Black Gay Network. Instead of tacking on years of prison time to a jail sentence, he says, many Black gays and lesbians prefer requiring those convicted of hate crimes to undergo mandatory diversity education and community service. The 80-page report is full of other examples of how the same issues of concern may affect Black gays in a starkly different way than white gays. Of course, the report isn't perfect. No such study ever is, or ever can be. In some places, the report teeters on rhetoric, and in others on cheerleading. Some of its recommendations-both for combating homophobia in the Black community and for fighting racism in the gay and lesbian community-are somewhat over-arching and vague. And no single study should ever be taken as The Gospel for an entire community. Nor should the report be seen as the end-all and be-all of how to improve life for Black gays and lesbians. Nothing can take the place of real people talking to each other locally, regionally and nationally about the problems and issues that face the Black members of the gay and lesbian community. Still, the survey offers a wealth of insight on a segment of the community that has too long been overlooked and ignored. Any gay and lesbian organization that aspires to serve members of the Black gay community would do well to get a copy of the survey and study it closely. Mubarak Dahir receives e-mail at MubarakDah@aol.com. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 12, No. 06, May 31, 2002 |