> Philip Pilkington wrote:
>
>
> ``I don't even understand why there was uncertainty surrounding this
> issue...I mean I'm not saying that every black guy is a homophobe, but
> it does seem to permeate the culture...''
>
> [...]
>
>
>
> C Grimes replied:
>
>
> This is an example of what I don't get about some special extra
> something about black homophobia.
>
> It sounds exactly like what went on everywhere I ever went to school
> starting about fifth grade with queer this and queer that. It took me
> awhile to figure beyond, sissy or chicken. (LA 50s).
>
> But, it was the same in the mostly white schools later on in the
> Valley. It was annoying. We had queer's day, which was Thursday, which
> meant you were supposed to slug somebody you knew in the arm, aiming
> for where the bone is, so it really hurt. In fact it was so all
> pervasive, I started to wonder what's with these guys? It was what I
> would call now a morbid fascination.
>
> I mean this is exactly why there is a gay and lesbian civil rights issue.
>
>
> So, if we are going to discuss this, we really need a tighter
> breakdown on age, gender, income, education, etc, before we get to an
> extra black thang. Cultural impressions don't work too well. The way I
> read whatever I would label white, all I see is a profound homophobia.
> It's mostly a more coded form is all.
>
> [...]
>
>
> ...
>
>
>
>
>
> Which is precisely what Dennis Claxton, Shag and yours truly have been
> trying to bring to the discussion from the start.
>
>
>
> Shag even went so far as to find and post texts investigating the
> relevant history and sociology. You know, to provide context within
> the overall American scene. But it's all been routinely ignored in
> favor of flimflammery (Mr. Pilkington offers hiphop lyrics and a dusty
> tv show as evidence of some special black fixation on homophobic ideas
> and themes -- as if the rest of the culture is a rainbow flag waving
> 'Green zone').
Well this is completely unfair... A while ago I posted claiming that this *very particular* strain of homophobia could probably be traced to to both black people's lower socio-economic and their attempt to form an identity out of the wreckage of some 300 years of enslavement, be it physical or moral.
The reason I didn't bother saying anything of the sort this time is because I realised something: namely, that you'd have to be sorely, or perhaps more precisely, willfully, ignorant to deny that certain groups in society feel less comfortable with certain other groups. In my country (Ireland), for example, at the moment homophobia seems to be far more pronounced among the new lower-class Polish immigrants (who, of course, are themselves often discriminated against). You don't have to be a sociologist, an historian or a psychologist to recognise this (but it probably helps), all you have to do is get a goddamn part-time and pay attention to whats going on around you.
I also never commented on any other group in society or paint them as PC-angels... we were talking about black people so I didn't veer off topic. I didn't feel the need to make qualifications to my statements such as: "Well, sure black people can be more homophobic, but so can christians, the elderly etc etc.". The reason I didn't do this is because, unlike some people around here, I don't believe that being in an oppressed minority group gives you a get-out-of-jail free card on these issues.
Many around here want to bring prejudice down to its socio-psychological-economic "base", and while this is interesting if, say, you're trying to formulate political tactics - again, in a discussion similar to this I said that activists would probably be better off appealing to the apathy of the black population to get this through - it is absolute nonsense when it comes to moral judgements on these issues. People are responsible for their own fucking actions, at a certain point you really have to take that reassuring microscope off people and say: well is what they're doing/saying right or wrong?
This, for me, is not just about black culture, its about a nasty tendency for "progressives" to try and externalise the blame for certain actions by minority groups onto the "bigger picture" - a bit like some liberals/conservatives try to do to justify Israeli actions in Palestine through historical reference - and as I said, while sometimes this can be interesting or useful sometimes it comes across as simply being a repugnant manifestation of ressentiment.
Anytime I encountet this I'm always reminded of a quote by Adorno which he wrote while in exile from Hitler's Germany:
"It would be poor psychology to assume that exclusion arouses only hate and resentment; it arouses too a possessive, intolerant kind of love, and those whom repressive culture has held at a distance can easily enough become its diehard defenders"