Hey yall, I’ve been meaning to post this for a while but never got around to it. Had a break in the day so I took the chance to post this since I can post from the school’s laptop lol. Yall know I like to read but I recently finished a book “Hiding In Hip Hop” by Terrance Dean. It was an ok read…nuttin to scream about and recommend. I thought it was gonna be better than what it actually was. Anyway there was a section in the book that I wanted to share:
Things were different for me. He was white and I was black. His community was more accepting of his sexuality. It’s hard as hell to be an educated, smart, and attractive gay black man in the black community.
We don’t discuss sex and sexuality in our community. It’s taboo. Try to bring up the topic of sexuality and you will get shot down. No one wants to talk about it. If someone is gay in our family we whisper about them. Even though everyone knows, our families don’t want to know the details. We don’t openly discuss it nor do we tell everyone.
I’ve often heard people in white families say that they have a gay child and strongly support him or her. Or that they have a brother or sister who’s gay. “We love them no matter what,” they say.
You’ll rarely hear people in a black family say anything about their gay child or sibling. Many of us are disowned by our families. Sure, it happens in the white community, but in the black community it’s a sin before God for a man to be attracted to other men. The black churches and ministers preach emphatically on the despicable lifestyle of a gay man. As a young man growing up in the church there wasn’t a Sunday where the minister didn’t say something negative or derogatory about gay men and women.
Many nights I cried, praying to God, asking and pleading with him to take away my sinful homosexual thoughts. Man, I wanted to be straight. I wanted to live my life as a heterosexual man with a wife and kids, but I couldn’t shake my urges for men. I knew this would be my burden for life.
I had met many gay men who had been shunned by their families. They were put on the streets at an early age, their mothers and fathers refusing to speak to them. They had become outcasts. Some had suffered severe abuse from their parents who tried to beat the homosexuality out of them. Others, forced into therapy, were told it was a phase they were going through. They needed to have their heads examined, and maybe the psychiatrist could find the reason and cure. I just learned to keep my mouth shut and for good reason.
What do yall think about this? Any opinions?
7 comments:
In my family it is not that it is not talked about (afterall in my immediate family there are two of us), but it is just not an issue. We've always been accepted as well as our partners or significant others. It is really a non-issue in my family, but I realize it isn't like most black families.
That said, I have never heard my mother refer to me as her GAY son or my sister as her LESBIAN daughter. I don't think it's out of shame or fear, but just that we are her children just like our straight siblings ... period.
I have the whispering type of family. I wish it wasn't like that but it is. So like many others you just have to deal with it.
I would say that I would agree with what was said. I can't agrue a bit of that excerpt. It was all true. I could actually apply most of it to me!
How do we break this cycle? can we break this trend of behavior?
My family has been very open with including the gay members of our family. Yeah, I have a few cousins where it's never been said (more assumed), but it seems they prefer to keep it that way.
I agree with him. White folks cultivate a relationship of discussion in their families. They don't care if you're straight, gay dating a black person. There are exceptions to every rule, but, for the most part, you could be the unibomber and white families will still love you.
Black families, on the other hand, sweep everything under the rug.
I have a cousin thats gay but not openly gay. Like everybody knows/speculates about it but hes been kinda feminine his whole life so when he comes around its not a suprise and the day he decides to come out the closet fully. They gone be like I already knew lol.
I'd be pissed if my parents refered to me their gay son. I will be a closet case to the day I die lol. Its somthing that makes being the oldest harder to come out. Not that I want to come out but how do you tell your parents I like both sexes and your dad and mom can both physically whoop yo ass lol?
Good post Jerzee
Review: I picked this up out of curiosity from the title, I knew nothing about the "hype" and what not of this book as I don't really keep up, but I've been reading this book on and off for the past two months and am STILL not finished. The writer's style is very amateur and lacks cohesiveness, which has not held my interest as I struggle to finish; it's just quite boring to me.
I could care less about the topic he chooses to tackle, it's the delivery I'm most at ends about. I've heard that it's being billed as this tell all, but what intelligent adult reader is today still blind to the fact that this gay/bisexual culture is built within the entertainment industry?
My advice to the reader: don't get your hopes up if you're looking for name dropping, etc. To the author: I'm pretty sure you'll never work again in your profession after this anyways; you just should've went for the gusto and put it all out there, names and all.
Post a Comment