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| Trying to find the balance: Yolo Akili |
Author, poet, and performance artist Yolo Akili has created a challenging and illuminating micro-documentary/poem hybrid entitled Are We the Kind of Boys We Want?
The short explores, through the use of poetry and reflective interviews, the ways in which patriarchal masculinity, homophobia, and effemiphobia (all of which are predicated on misogyny) collide to produce a pathology of self-loathing (as well as intra-community hostility) in gay men of color. Akili, along with a number of his friends and supporters, including friend to Son of Baldwin, Darian Aaron of Living Out Loud with Darian, creatively approaches age-old questions: Why is masculinity invested with so much value and why do we diminish femininity?
Akili looks at this phenomenon as it relates to same-sex attraction, examining the mythology and appeal of American masculinity. In other words: Why do so many gay men seek out masculine men and ridicule and shun feminine men? Instead of answering those questions, however, he simply turns the tables and asks individuals to reflect on whether or not they, themselves, meet the criteria that they have outlined for their potential love interests.
Akili's analysis, of course, raises many uncomfortable questions: What does it mean to be a man? Does it have anything on Earth to do with patriarchal notions of masculinity? Is masculinity, as we understand it, simply a performance? Should one's genitalia dictate one's performance? What is so terrifying about the feminine male--so terrifying, in fact, that we have been compelled to become gender police officers?
Son of Baldwin grappled with some of these questions in the past. Watch as Akili and friends address them in another form: