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The Black Cunt caused a stir.
And not everyone was pleased with my analysis. One consistent criticism was that the essay leads to conversations where white people can use homophobia in the black community as a tool to excuse their own bigotry, both racism and homophobia.Let us examine the complaint.
The criticism, I believe, is a double-edged sword.
On the one hand, it is true: Whites and other races might read "Fear of a Black Cunt" and conclude that their own bigotry is justified or, worse, immaterial given what queer people have to endure at the hands of the global black community. I suppose they might feel this way: "Well, shit. I don't have to feel so bad about my racist feelings because look at how blacks regard homosexuals!"
On the other hand, the critical analysis does not go far enough.
1. It neglects to consider that whites (and others who would take the position that worries my critics) wouldn't have a single, solitary leg to stand on if homophobic black people weren't so demonstrably, viciously, righteously, murderously homophobic. If people of color in houses of worship in every corner of the globe did not so gleefully join hands in solidarity against homosexuality, especially black homosexuality (and, in my estimation, the worst thing that has ever happened to black people was Christianity, for it turned them, as designed, into their oppressors), they would, at the very least, have the moral authority denied to whites by virtue of their racism.
But they do. So they do not.
Any authority gained through suffering is lost by enforcing the suffering of others. This applies equally to the racist and the homoantagonist.
The lesson here seems incredibly clear, at least to me: If we are so preoccupied with what oppressors might be able to justify or deny because of our own hateful behavior, then perhaps we should immediately divest ourselves of our hateful behavior. Any other solution would be not only naïve and flawed, but suspicious and hypocritical.
I should also add that, generally speaking, impoverished whites, Latinos and Middle Eastern cultures are just as vigorous about their homophobia as blacks—which should tell you a great deal about the promotion and purpose of homophobia. I do not believe it can be disputed that homophobia, like racism before it, is a white invention and has succeeded primarily due to white ingenuity. But neither can black complicity be discarded or undervalued, particularly when it looms so incredibly large.
2. Blacks are not exempt from bigoted excuse-making. Some of us like to believe that our own statuses as victims in society places us above reproach. It is true: Some white gays do not appreciate being called on their racism. And some blacks do not abide being taken to task on our homophobia. In other words: "You can't criticize me about my homophobia because I’m a victim of racism. Don't talk to me about ending homophobia until you've ended racism."
The argument seems to indicate that freedom is a privilege, not an inherent right. And because it is a privilege, blacks feel entitled to first dibs because we have been in line longer. Implicit in the defense is the notion that because we are victims of systematic and systemic racism, the eternal victims, as it were, it is impossible for us to be bigoted in any way whatsoever—or, at least, not in any way that is actually meaningful or significantly harmful since we are not power brokers (anyone who has ever been a victim of the black church instantly recognizes the untruth of that position). Thus, so-called "black homophobia" becomes enshrined in a kind of sarcophagus—completely unassailable and utterly sacred. Any attempt at discussion of the subject is co-opted by the "You're calling me a homophobe because you're a racist!" meme.
Conversation over. Ignorance free to breed. Danger remains unevaluated.
Apologists seek to mince words or provide excuses for this behavior, coddling black homophobes like children, or like the mentally challenged family member by whom you are embarrassed. In the meantime, as sympathizers deal with life in the abstract, black homosexuals are being assaulted...are suffering...are dying. Sympathy and understanding did not gain enslaved Africans their freedom from a white system of brutality, nor will it free homosexuals from the abject oppression of homophobia. There is no sympathy to be had for the bigot, regardless of skin color. There is nothing to be understood except this: Remove your foot from my neck or I will remove it for you. Take that as you will.
3. We fail to recognize and understand how all of these oppressive mechanisms are part of the same machine; a machine with one—and only one—operator and beneficiary: the white, wealthy, heterosexual man. And that we fail is not indictment of the machine, but an indictment of the people who are more than anxious to be run over by it. Racism is not separate from misogyny is not separate from homophobia is not separate from class warfare is not separate from xenophobia. Divide and conquer only works on fools. And apparently, fools are not in short supply.
This is what I know: For decades, I have had to fight family, friends, neighbors, teachers, classmates, strangers, clergy of all cloths and nonsensical nobodaddy sky deities—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—not for some egregious right to join this country's insane and deadly march into other territories or to partake in the historically misogynist sham that is marriage, but simply for the right to be.
All of those forces (except, revealingly, the nobodaddies) were black.
I speak to that experience. I have a responsibility to that truth. If a few egos are crushed in the process, I consider them casualties of war.
And please do not misunderstand, even for a moment: This is war.