Blacklash?

There have been two major vocal incidents of homophobia in the last 30 days. Both were instigated by individuals of African-American ethnicity: Isaiah Washington of the network TV program "Grey's Anatomy" and former National Basketball Association player, Tim Hardaway.

These were two attacks in which the individuals offered multiple apologies, more from economic reasons than any change of heart or philosophical re-thinking. What they have unwittingly made clear is that homophobia is still a very potent force of American society.

Elsewhere in this journal is a "Reprint of an article, Blacklash?, from the May 18, 1993, Issue of "The New Yorker" by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., literary critic, educator, scholar, writer, editor, and public intellectual." Dr. Gates happens to be African-American. At the time, he was addressing "The 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian Gay and Bisexual Rights and Liberation," held on April 25, 1993.

It is an article of brilliant insight and an incredible sense of perceptiveness. Following are some selected quotes:

["All prejudices are not equal. But that doesn't mean there's no comparison between the predicaments of gays and blacks."

"Prejudices, of course, don't exist in the abstract; they all come with distinctive and distinguishing historical peculiarities. In short, they have content as well as form. Underplaying the differences blinds us to the signature traits of other forms of social hatred. Indeed, in judging other prejudices by the one you know best you may fail to recognize those other prejudices *as* prejudices."

" Much of the ongoing debate over gay rights has fixated, and foundered, on the vexed distinction between "status" and "behavior." The paradox here can be formulated as follows: Most people think of racial identity as a matter of (racial) status, but they respond to it as behavior. Most people think of sexual identity as a matter of (sexual) behavior, but they respond to it as status. Accordingly, people who fear and dislike blacks are typically preoccupied with the threat that they think blacks' aggressive behavior poses to them. Hence they're inclined to make exceptions for the kindly, "civilized" blacks: that's why "The Cosby Show" could be so popular among white South Africans. By contrast, the repugnance that many people feel toward gays concerns, in the first instance, the status ascribed to them. Disapproval of a sexual practice is transmuted into the demonization of a sexual species."

"Much of black suffering stems from historical racism; most gay suffering stems from contemporary hatred."

"...in many ways contemporary homophobia is more virulent than contemporary racism. According to one monitoring group, one in four gay men has been physically assaulted as a result of his perceived sexual orientation; about fifty percent have been threatened with violence."

"And in this immediate context one particular black gay man comes to mind. Actually it's curious that those who feel that the example of the 1963 march on Washington has been misappropriated seem to have forgotten about him, since it was he, after all, who organized that heroic march. His name, of course, was Bayard Rustin, and it's quite likely that if he had been alive he would have attended the march on Washington thirty years later."

"By a poignant historical irony, it was in no small part because of his homosexuality -- and the fear that it would be used to discredit the mobilization -- that Rustin was prevented from being named director of the 1963 march; the title went to A. Philip Randolph, and he accepted it only on the condition that he could then deputize Rustin to do the arduous work of co-ordinating the mass protest. Rustin accepted the terms readily. In 1963, it was necessary to choose which of two unreasoning prejudices to resist, and Rustin chose without bitterness or recrimination. Thirty years later, people marched so his successors wouldn't have to make that costly choice."