In my personal opinion, I feel that the African American community is the biggest critic when it comes to homosexuality, especially among men. The idea of the African American male is this Alpha male, head of the household, breadwinner, ultra masculine, never see him cry type figure or in short the complete opposite of what some people believe homosexual males are. I think this hype, of course, stems from the effects of slavery. It’s an ongoing backlash from African-American males having their dignity stripped and pride broken for years with hope nowhere in sight.
Because of this, the African-American community put emphasis on the new found freedom of men, expecting us to be the strong superior males that slavery denied us to be, which consequently creates a view that any man willing to have sex with another man is for lack of better words weak.
I myself find a major flaw with this. As a group, African-Americans should be some of the biggest advocates for the LGBTQ community as not very long being black was the equivalent of being gay today.
Too often the same arguments posed against homosexuals are those that whites used to keep African American’s enslaved for years, even using religion to support their belief that they were our superiors and we were an inadequate species made to serve them. Aside from this, slavery left an everlasting impression on the African American community which leads me to ask the question ‘after years of oppression and injustice why would we subject another group of individuals to the same treatment?’ ‘After years of being persecuted for something as simple as our skin pigmentation, an aspect of ourselves that we didn’t choose, why would we persecute a group for being born a certain way?’ ‘After being lynched, burned, beaten, dragged, and whipped why would we turn around and indulge in the same activities towards others.’
If being gay means being hated and persecuted for the way one is born then it is safe to say that being gay is ironically the new black. Everything about Gay Rights parallels the fight African American’s faced for Civil Rights which is more reason I believe the African American Community should be more sympathetic to the LGBTQ community and their plight. Only time will tell if African American’s will face the reality of the struggle or continue to hinder the struggle.
