For the last two years, right at the beginning of Black History Month, I find myself asking the same questions. Questions like: Have you noticed “mainstream Black America’s” willingness to erase queerness in the discussion of Black activists and leaders? It’s actually almost desperation at this point, isn’t it? Why is it so horrible to acknowledge that great people, leaders, and contributors to society can be young, Black, and gay? How have we continued to allow the celebration of an individual to be conditioned upon their sexual orientation? So, either we celebrate the activist and erase their sexual orientation or we erase the leader in their entirety because of their sexual orientation? Aren’t we doing ourselves a disservice by refusing to acknowledge that so many history-makers, so many historical moments in Black History have happened on the backs of or with the leadership of Black people who happen to identify as LGBTQ?
I have written before about the interesting parallels that exist between how White people treat minorities and how those minorities treat the members of their minority group who identify as LGBTQI. While the Black Community may be the most obvious in this regard, it is not solely the Black Community that finds it necessary to hide the “characteristics” of those that they do not want celebrated, but I digress…
I think what first led me to ask questions about how we treat our prominent Black leaders who do not identify as heterosexual was learning about Bayard Rustin. How had I gone through almost 19 years of life before I ever heard this man’s name? How did he and his contributions to equality and integration magically fall off the face of the earth? And as I think about Bayard, I am reminded of so many others. Angela. James. Audre. Lorraine. Alice. In many of their cases, I have heard their names since my youth, but magically never knew they were members of the LGBTQI Community until I began doing my own research and reading their own descriptions of themselves, as opposed to reading the brief and surface-level descriptions that everyone else had assigned to them.
It is so oddly troublesome that we have continued to allow people’s full selves to be diminished or deleted for our own comfort or to make them an easier “pill to swallow.” We act as if sexual orientation is some sort of impediment, some sort of tarnish on an otherwise perfect, wonderful being. I do not feel that sexuality should be discussed as a disability that was overcome, but I do feel like it should be discussed. I think there is a particular celebration that should come with knowing that someone who identified like me or you did such wonderful things, not only for their racial or ethnic community, but for the country as a whole. Furthermore, isn’t there something to be said about the importance of our space in The Movement and the greater society and the greater Black Community, even, because of our own experiences? Who better to talk to the Black Community about discrimination, prejudicial treatment, and abuse than those not only mistreated by the majority, but also those mistreated by the Black Community? Who better to speak about the hypocrisies in how our people practice their various religions than those so frequently condemned using religious texts and opinions?
So, while we are still early-on in this year’s Black History Month celebration, I ask you to not only remember what you liked about our historical Black leaders, activists, and writers, but also the entirety of who they were and are, what they did and are doing – not solely what we have been told or told to accept – but all of who they were and are. We owe them more than half memories and half-truths. We owe them the celebration fit for the icons that they were and are.
Oh, to be young, Black, gifted, gay, & celebrated!
Happy Black History Month. The Struggle continues.
Learn more about this topic by reading the following:
- 11 Black LGBT Celebrities: Living Legends, Interview with Cast of Pariah and Black Aids Awareness Day: /2015/08/racial-identity-marriage-equality-new-black/
Lorraine Hansberry’s Letters Reveal the Playwright’s Private Struggle: /2015/07/problems-aging-gay/
