Why the fuck are black people, mainly black Americans, so fucking homophobic?!
This is a rhetorical question.
I'm not looking for answers; that would only give credence to the bullshit.
I saw a stupid video today on BET by a woman who looks like an ugly drag queen , who calls her self just Marsha. Her video was, I guess, supposed to be about “Down Low Brothers”. I find that term disgusting, it refers to black men who lie about who they are--, because they are so afraid of the hate in "the community", but really, what fucking community?!
These DLBs live a lie and pretend to be 100% het, but really they are either secretly gay or maybe bi, and, cheat on their female partners with men. This hate which leads to subterfuge is why AIDS is still on the rise. In fact, "To date, over 230,000 African Americans have died of AIDS. The estimated lifetime risk of becoming infected with HIV is 1 in 16 for black males, " (http://www.avert.org/hiv-african-americans.htm)
If dialogue was encouraged about issues of sexual identity, in "the community" , chiefly within the black church, and even in other hate-faith communities, perhaps these "brothers" could be who they are: proud queer men. I don't advocate lying or cheating, nor do I think maintaining walls of hate fuelled by idiotic "scripture" is in any way ok.
Telling people, ( one's "flock") shit about an energy/ or being, sometimes referred to as god, who hates, and specifically hates queer people, is fucked up.
Add to that, you knowing, fully, that you are gay/queer while listening to the hate-filled rhetoric of church shit. The church shit tells you that god loves all..all except you, (and Jewish people, even though Jesus was Jewish, and. the long list of other "undesirables" continues...) The hate tells you that you are totally hated by this thing called god who is supposed to love all. That much crap has no positive outcomes.
Then, the queer, in this case, black church-goer now feels fear, shame, hate, and mountains of terror, at being who she/he is.
Fear is what pushes heaps of men, in the case of the DLBs, black men, and certainly women as well, so far into the closet they would prefer to live in total denial rather than face the wrath of their 'community' because they are too petrified to truly live out loud and proud. All because of hate, which is just fear.
At any rate, Marsha’s video, much like her “ look”, her song and voice are total garbage.
I assume her video is considered “enlightened” I guess, in that it, omg, had images of two gay men, holding hands, and trying, I think, to find each other, through all of the hate and bigotry around them.
Ok, so no nasty words are used out-right to refer to queer people, or queer, black men, but naturally one of the pair had to get jumped by a gang of angry black, hard-core bible-fuckers. I bet Marsha's thinking for the attack scene, was that it's real, and it's important to keep shit real. We know the mob are religious nuts because they are homophobes, and in the ghetto.
We assume the man who was walking with his boyfriend is murdered, by the mob, and the next scene we see is of his partner commit suicide.
Marsha must be one of those bible- fucking types who wants to make some kind of highly convoluted point about queer men, I guess, and maybe what their queerness, and keeping it on the down low, while playing het, is doing to "the community"!!
Whatever her point was, or wasn’t, I’d like to know what the hell she and the director were thinking when they decided on the scene I mentioned above where the two men; the couple, who may have just come out and are newly dating each other, walk hand-in-hand in the flipping ghetto?! The ghetto, a place rife with ideals of what hyper-masculinity and femininity are supposed to be. That made no fucking sense. Presumably the two men were from the same ghetto, so they would have known how things work in ghetto culture regarding gayness and being open in a homophobic, macho, religious community.
So much pisses me off about this video. To start with:
Why didn’t the singer have a scene with police investigating the murder/gang attack? This would have shown us that violence towards queer people is not ok, or tolerated, especially by the singer herself.
Why could we not hear/make sense of any of the lyrics?
Why didn’t she have a scene where people were grieving/mourning the murdered man?
Why were there no scenes of acceptance of the male couple by their friends/family?
At the end, Marsha had an open letter to the viewers up on the screen, talking about “accepting alternative lifestyles”
I hate the term alternative lifestyle with reference to being and living a queer existence.
It’s such a demeaning, stupid ignorant word. Being queer doesn’t mean you live in a circus, with a bearded lady with a meth addiction.
I thought the term died a long time ago, but, apparently not in the homophobic black communities.
If Marsha truly wanted to pass on a message of acceptance, she would have made a totally different video. Cristina’s Aguilera’s
“I am beautiful” video comes to mind. We see male couples having a smooch, among other images of love.
Hip-hop, and RnB that promote the hateful refrain of pin-headed, “religious teachings” encouraged by black homophobes create a vacuum of isolation and backwardness within their so-called community.
In order to combat homophobic hate, we must keep shining our light, and keep creating change, and speaking up against hate.
There are currently 12 countries that have legalized queer marriage, they are :
1. Holland
2. Belgium
3. Spain
4. Canada
5. South Africa ( The only country on that continent that supports queer rights in its constitution!)
6. Norway
7. Sweden
8. Portugal
9. Iceland
10. Argentina
11. Denmark
12. Mexico, though it's legal federally, only 2 states perform marriages
There is another group of countries, about 20, that have granted queer couples civil-union status, not exactly the same as marriage, with respect to certain rights, including adoption etc., but a good start. Of those countries The United States grants civil unions to queer couples in 6 states, and Australia in only 2 states.
Sure, it's still flawed, yes, but, momentum is gathering.
What surprises me, is that Latin America; a region known for being dominated by backwards religious fools, is much more progressive regarding queer partnerships, than Australia, which was the first country in the world to give women the right to vote.
In the next 5-ten years, more formerly backwards countries will join the growing list of countries that are starting to realize that LGBTQ rights and issues are human rights issues, and therefore they concern everybody.
Countries that have given their queer citizens the option to legally marry, have not only raised the bar for human rights issues, they have raised their own social profiles on the world stage.
Homophobia, like any kind of hate, is taught behavior. Therefore, we can unlearn hate and learn to love.
