I watched VH1's, "LHH: Out in Hip Hop" Monday night. The special TV segment was moderated by ABC News' T.J. Homes. Watch it here: "LHH: Out in Hip Hop."
It was an eye-opening program; one I feel is worth the watch. I’m a heterosexual black female, and I won’t pretend to understand the LGBT community fully. But there’s a difference between understanding and accepting. You can accept something without fully understanding and vice versa. Also, understanding and acceptance can be in union or discord.
I am the daughter of Jamaican immigrants who came to the United States in the late seventies (father) and late eighties (mother). Jamaican culture and values are an intrinsic part of who I am. Raised in a relatively religious household, I believed being gay was a sin. As a child gays weren't celebrated. I didn’t understand what it meant to be gay until the 7th grade when some of my peers started having same-sex relationships. Even then I was confused.
While attending college I accumulated a number of friends who are gay. This challenged many of my beliefs. It saddened me; some couldn’t share aspects of their lives with their families in fear of shame and disownment. I won’t debate whether a person is born gay or chooses to be gay. I don’t know. Yet, I see gay tendencies in a lot of young children. Although, I would never want to place labels on a child. We are who we are as people. I can’t be condemned for being black. I can’t do anything about my blackness. I was born this way. I agree with Zora Neale Hurston:
“But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all but about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more of less. No, I do not weep at the world--I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.”
Let's apply the same ideology to the LGBT community. It is no great travesty to be you. I can’t fathom what it must feel like to have such a conflict with self and question my sexual identity and sexual orientation.
Anti-gay hatred is a self-fulfilling prophecy. People may begin to hate themselves and thereby become vulnerable to different circumstances and diseases. I think of it like this, if people hate me and I don’t have the highest esteem I might start to hate myself. Therefore, I won’t care what happens to me. I will have unprotected sex because who cares? Why should I protect the body that contains my spirit? I am now at risk to contracting a series of different STDs.
We shouldn't marginalize a person for whom they love, especially those in the black community. There is enough oppression. Let's not further segregate the black community based on sexual preference. Judgment is any should be contingent on the content of character.
I am proud because I witness change. It may not be profound but it's a start. Conversations with my parents have changed. They like me have called into question their theologies. You can teach old dog new tricks if they are still willing to learn.