Years ago, at least five as I recall, a Bay View friend of mine set off for a holiday party in Story Hill. His sense of direction has never been particularly acute but, in the darkness and perhaps more than a bit buzzed, he found himself driving around the veterans’ cemetery off Highway 94 and couldn’t find his way out. A police car happened to be parked in the vicinity, so my friend asked its occupant for directions out of the cemetery maze. The officer led him out and my friend, now well beyond his usual state of anxiety, simply drove home. In recounting the tale at the time, he concluded by saying “I’m lucky I’m not Black.”
Then, last Friday, while texting with a friend who is Black, I asked him if he had any plans for the weekend. “To stay alive lol”, he replied.
My Black friend’s remark was just one of a cascade of comments, all variations on the theme, I’ve recently heard from people of color or read on their social media pages. I may be emotionally shaken by the current state of the nation, but they have several additional layers of anxiety to cope with that I don’t. Beyond living in the nation’s most segregated city, there’s the litany of stress-inducing conditions like the COVID-19 pandemic, police brutality, the daily barrage of workplace and social micro-aggressions, and the regime’s enabling of unfettered white supremacy in the daily discourse. All of these stressors are external. But another, homophobia, is internal. Unfortunately, it pervades even in social justice organizations like Black Lives Matter.
To be fair, the BLM movement founders included some who identified as LGBTQ. Its website proclaims solidarity with LGBTQ people and specifically of trans individuals. Yet, like any larger and all-encompassing group, not all of its adherents share that same perspective. In the ensuing online response to Milwaukee BLM leader Frank Nitty’s use of “faggot,” defenders repeated long debunked tropes like “being gay is a choice.” There were also various references to the Bible to attack the very existence of LGBTQ people. Ironic as it is to qualify animus towards LGBTQ people based on a vestige of colonialism (that was used to rationalize slavery), it remains a handy go-to resource to justify homophobia.
Proper Lives Matter?
During the latest episode of Richard Buda Brasfield’s GetUAPiece Podcast, guest Montell Ross, organizer of the Pride March for BLM, explained that an attempt to have a virtual town hall discussion about the “faggot” issue failed when Nitty declined to participate. “I was walking through the desert and he was the mirage I needed to see at the time. Now my eyes are clear; I see him for who he is. I don’t knock him what he’s doing. We need a symbol,” Ross said. Brasfield expressed less tolerance, saying “His intentions may be good but for straight people.” To which Ross adds, “proper, masculine straight people.”
Therein lies problem: Black LGBTQs are living in a perpetual state of psychological terror of systemic racism on the one hand, while being shunned and threatened by one’s own community. And, if that weren’t enough, even within our greater LGBTQ family homophobia is still rampant. Recent outbursts of racist behavior forced the resignation of certain members of the Castaways MC of Wisconsin. To its credit, the Castaways leadership publicly reiterated its policy of inclusivity. Sadly, Milwaukee Pride, too, found itself in a similar position of having to defend its solidarity with the BLM People’s Movement when some Pride followers criticized its sharing of BLM updates on social media.
To paraphrase the Castaways’ statement, the sooner we recognize our mutual worth and dignity, the better. We really can’t go on like this.
To read more My LGBTQ POV columns by Paul Masterson, click here.
