This is the 3rd of a multi-part series, where I highlight how this system often works against men/boys who live in the intersection of Blackness and Queerness. In the first part, I discussed the murder of Giovanni Melton, a 14 year-old boy killed by his own father. The second part goes over the case of Gemmel Moore, murdered by an affluent white Gay man. Here, I’ll be discussing the overall theme, of how the general disregard for Black LGBTQ people enabled both of these tragedies.
I decided to focus on the murders of Giovanni and Gemmel because I felt like both cases, together, highlight conflict that all Black Gay men (and Black LGBTQ folks, overall) face. There’s risk of discrimination, erasure and violence in most any space that we’re in. There’s anti-Blackness in many LGBTQ spaces, and anti-Queerness in many Black spaces.
Black LGBTQ folks are constantly put in a position of having to choose between race and sexual/gender identity. Worse, not only are we expected to “pick a side,” but it never is to benefit us. WhiteGayze™ expect us to fight for Gay/LGBTQ causes through a white-centered lens, with no regards to race. Black people (primarily cisgender & heterosexual) expect us to fight for Black causes, but through the lens of cishet men (i.e. “Race first”**), with no regards to sexual/gender identity. And any time we try to fully affirm ourselves, we’re labeled a “distraction.”
Truth of the matter is, the goal isn’t to advance true liberation by subverting white supremacist, colonial systems. The real goal of many people is to see Black cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied men and/or WhiteGayze™ sit in the position that white, cishet, able-bodied men currently hold. And they want us to happily and quietly take every bit of their abuse in the process. [Read more…]