Tag Archives: black people

On Black People And “Our” Homophobia

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1. As I listened to Jason Collins and Oprah discuss the extra “stigma” of being gay and Black, I couldn’t help but wonder how true the “Blacks are more homophobic than everyone else” sentiment truly is. I think many of us—myself included—have said it so much that we’ve accepted it to be true, and since we’ve accepted it to be true, we don’t bother challenging or even testing that theory. And, over time, this widely-held theory is repeated as fact.

I’m not here to argue whether it’s true or false (at least not yet), but how do we really know? Sure, we can cite a few rap lyrics or some loosely connected vagaries about Black people and Christianity, but all that might prove is that a certain type of Black person might be more likely to be homophobic. But, once you control for education, class, location, and any other environmental factors, how would we (Black people) fare?

This phenomenon sort of reminds of me of the theory that Black people are the worst tippers. Whether or not the theory might be true is inconsequential (And yes, I believe it to be true). It’s so ingrained into so many people’s minds that they don’t even bother challenging it, they use confirmation bias to strengthen their beliefs, and after enough circular thinking it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

2. I think that when people say that Black people are more homophobic than everyone else, what they’re really saying is that Black men are more homophobic than everyone else. Black women generally get a pass, and I think that pass is undeserved.

Generally speaking, I think straight Black women are more superficially accepting of homosexuals—more likely to have gay male or lesbian friends, more “comfortable” around gays, more likely to participate in the fight for gay rights, etc. But, when it comes to actual beliefs about what constitutes male homosexuality, they’re no different than the typical Black male, as both the typical Black male and the “gay-friendly” Black woman tend to believe that there’s no such thing as a bisexual male. Basically, if a man has ever participated in any type of non-straight activity—a one-time act, a thought, a recurring dream, anything—he’s gay now, and gay forever. This is homophobic.

3. I think quite a few women are going to read those last couple sentences and tell me that I’m wrong, that they and most of the Black women they know don’t have any homophobic bones in their bodies. I think that before they leave any comments today, they should ask themselves two questions: Would you date a man who had one gay experience fifteen years ago? If no, would your answer change if you were 100% certain he wouldn’t do that again? If the answer is still no, I’d like to know why. What is it about that one-time act that would completely eliminate a man from your consideration?

4. I think I’m anxiously waiting for the day some prominent person just stops the denials, double-talk, and mealymouthedness and just comes out and says “Yes, I’m homophobic.” I think I’ll be waiting a while for that to happen. I don’t mind that, though. I’ve been waiting a couple decades now for a public figure to just say “Yes, I’m racist. Can you stop asking me whether or not I’m racist now?” so if anything it proves I’m patient.

5. I think I don’t like it when certain people (and by “certain people” I mean “certain Black Christians”) are asked about their views concerning homosexuality, and are criticized for responding honestly. But, I also think that socially abhorrent views are meant to be criticized. I think my problem isn’t necessarily with the criticism but with the ambush tactics—ask someone a question even though you already know how they’re going to answer just so you can make an example out of them—especially from other “progressive” Black Christians.

6. I think you can ask a million Christians about the Bible and what they take from it and get a million different variations. I mean, we (Christians) all believe that, to paraphrase Bill Maher, there’s a “magic genie in the sky that’ll grant our wishes if we ask really hard,” so is it really that bad when one of us also believes homosexuality is a sin or that you can legitimately pray your gay away?

7. Speaking of progressive people and homosexuality, I think there’s a bit of a disconnect when it comes to what people are willing to admit. To wit, many people (myself included) believe that human sexuality exists on a continuum. Basically, there’s a sexuality scale that we all fit somewhere on. Most of us are gathered either at the gay end or the straight end, but the rest of us are somewhere in the middle.

But, if a scale exists, I think it also stands to reason that a person in the middle can consciously choose to be gay or straight. Yet, I think you’re unlikely to find a liberal/progressive person publicly admit that people who can actually make that type of choice exist because it opens a Pandora’s Box for “less enlightened” people to say “See, I told you that all gay people are only gay because they chose to be.”

8. I know I’m far from the first person to say this, but I think someone needs to invent another word to use to describe someone being uneasy around, unaccepting of, or hateful towards homosexuals. “Homophobic” just doesn’t seem comprehensive enough to capture all of that. Feel free to list any suggestions.

—Damon Young (aka “The Champ”)

The Scariest Thing About Chris Dorner? Our (Black People’s) Reaction To Him

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Between her hundreds of pairs of shoes, closets full of clothes, and dressers full of jewelry, to call my mom a fashionista would be an understatement. I’ve teased her about this before—she’s like one White House Black Market bangle away from full-blown Hoarder—but it’s one of the things about her I’ve always appreciated. It’s kinda cool having a mom who’s fly.

Although her illness has made it difficult for her to put the same effort into her appearance, she still relishes the rare opportunities she has to get dressed up. Now, these opportunities usually occur when she’s going to the doctor’s office.

She had one of these opportunities last week, and while speaking to her over the weekend about how her tests went, she brought up something that bothered her a little.

“One of the nurses said something about how dressed up I always am when I come in.”

“Oh? Well you do always look nice. What’s the problem?”

“I don’t know. It just rubbed me the wrong way. Sometimes, when White women make those types of statements, they say it with a tone where it feels like they’re just surprised that a Black woman would have nice clothes.”

That the nurse’s statement had a racial undertone is possible. But, as I joked with her, it’s more than likely that my mom was just experiencing a bout of Nigga Neurosis-–my definition for the feeling many of us have when something out of the ordinary (good or bad) happens to us, and we’re not sure whether it only happened because we’re Black.

This (the “Nigga Neurosis”) is one of the more unfortunate byproducts of a lifetime of dealing with America’s neurotic relationship with race. It’s something so ingrained in many of us that we often don’t realize when we’re doing it, and the perpetual mental gymnastics involved in distinguishing between real race-related behavior and perceived can f*ck with a person’s sense of reality.

I was reminded of this yesterday while following the Chris Dorner news and some of our (Black people’s) reactions to it. Not so much the advanced form of Nigga Neurosis displayed by those actually rooting for him, but how messed up things have to be for this to even be possible.

This and other situations like it manages to be both an indictment on America and us at the same time, proving that our experience with race and (real or perceived) racial injustice in this country has left some of us so cynical, so antagonistic, so angry at anything having to to with the “establishment”—police, the government, politics, rich people, etc—that we’ll support any type of comeuppance, regardless of how much evil had to happen for it to occur. This is f*cking scary.

And yes, if the things he’s been accused of are true—and I have no reason to believe that they’re not—Chris Dorner is an evil man. He’s not a hero and he won’t be a martyr. He’s not even a Django. He’s a murderer who killed people in cold blood, a man who might have had a real opportunity to expose the LAPD’s corruption, but instead chose to act on his own selfish need for some type of retribution. At best he’s a movie-of-the-week, a Dateline special, a new Wiki page, a line in a Jadakiss verse. He’s no different than Timothy McVeigh, Ted Kaczynski, and all the other men who targeted and killed innocent people to avenge some “injustice,” and I will shed no tears when he’s captured and/or killed.

But who Dorner is and what he may have done doesn’t matter. At least to those of us who are rooting for him, it doesn’t. As along as he is Black and getting back at something “White,” it’s a cause worth supporting, regardless of any insignificant collateral damage —like, you know, the murder of a man who could have very easily been your brother, cousin, or boyfriend.

Should America take the blame for this? For making some of us so filled with antipathy and antagonism that it has completely skewed both our sense of right and wrong and our perception of reality? Or, are we just using the nigga neurosis as an convenient excuse to “get back,” to finally unleash our inner Dorners or live vicariously through him as he kills all the White people he can before getting caught?

I don’t know the answers to any of these questions. But, I do know that while reading some of the pro-Dormer tweets, comments, and Facebook statuses yesterday, I couldn’t help but think of the first thing Sgt. Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) asks Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) in The Departed.

“So…how f*cked up are you?”

—Damon Young (aka “The Champ”)

10 Things I Think I Think About Django Unchained, Slavery, Nigger/Nigga, Race, And The Reaction To Django Unchained

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***Although the following post is about Django Unchained, I made sure to make it as spoiler-free as I could. If you do choose to leave comments that could be interpreted as spoilers, please leave spoiler tags before you do so***

1. “War is hell, but that’s not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage and discovery and holiness and pity and despair and longing and love. War is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling; war is drudgery. War makes you a man; war makes you dead.”

This take on the popular “war is hell” cliche is from Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, a semi-autobiographical and metafictional account of the Vietnam War, and one of my three or four favorite books. Basically, something as random, arbitrary, and complicated as being in the middle of a war is too, well, complicated to be reduced down to one adjective.

After reading dozens of historical texts and memoirs, sifting through several documentaries, and watching movies such as Roots and Django Unchanined and Amistad, I think the same type of quote could be made about slavery in the United States. Perhaps different adjectives would be used, but it’s not possible to distill a description of that time down to a single word.

I mean, anyone with a brain and/or a Black grandparent should know that Django is not an exact representation of the antebellum period. But, one historically accurate thing it does show is that the relationships between slaves and slaveowners were complicated as well.

For instance, there’s a 20 minute stretch in the movie where you witness each of the following:

A slave who, with the way she was dressed and with the way she was treated, was clearly (slaveowner) Calvin Candie’s girlfriend.

A slave who, because he attempted to escape, is sentenced to a very brutal death.

A house slave who is clearly the second most powerful person on the entire plantation.

While each were slaves, each character had a completely different relationship with their owner, and each probably had a different personal relationship with the concept of slavery. Shit was just…complicated. While the “girlfriend” and the house slave both had vastly more freedoms than the average slave, neither was actually free. (The situation with the girlfriend was especially bizarre. I mean, yea, she’s his girlfriend—and, from the looks of things, he treated her like a, well, girlfriend—but could she actually say “no?” Isn’t this—sex without consent—rape?)

With that being said, it’s irresponsible to neglect to mention that while certain movies and texts may show that certain slaves may have had a more, for lack of a better term, “benevolent” relationship with their masters, the majority of slaves were not treated with any sort of human kindness or compassion. Maybe it wasn’t “hell,” but for many, it was even worse.

2. I think Django Unchained is quintessential Tarantino. His movies are frequently homages—to spaghetti westerns, blaxploitation flicks, etc,—and mishmashes of different genres, but Django is almost an homage to himself.

Basically, if you like Tarantino movies, you will probably like Django. If you don’t, you probably won’t.

3. I think Django is my fourth-favorite Tarantino movie. (Kill Bill 1 and 2, and Inglorious Basterds would be the others) I didn’t love it—I thought it was a bit too long—but I did like it very much.

4. I think one of the many possible reasons why people who aren’t Tarantino fans aren’t Tarantino fans has to do with the fact that typical Tarantino movies frequently shift tonally in a way that can seem a bit too inappropriate. For instance, if you’re going to see, I don’t know, Precious or something, you go into the movie knowing how to expect to feel. You may laugh at the absurdity of a certain situation, but a scene designed to make you guffaw in a movie like that would just seem out of place.

Tarantino movies don’t follow that same script. And, despite the fact that I am a huge fan of his work, I can see how someone would be put off by a movie that depicts the brutality of slavery in one scene and has a slapstick scene involving the Ku Klux Klan (more on this in a sec) in the same 15 minute span.

5. I didn’t think the Klan scene was that funny. I think you can make a good joke about anything, so me not thinking it was funny had nothing to do with the attempt. It made me chuckle a little, but, I don’t know, it was more The Hangover funny—humor where you’re supposed to laugh at something because it’s supposed to be funny, not because it actually is—than actually funny.

6. I think many (if not most) of the people upset by the ubiquity of nigga and nigger in Django are upset because they feel like they’re supposed to be upset by it, not because the word actually offended them. It reminds me of the conversation surrounding Gywneth Paltrow’s “niggas in Paris” tweet last year. Despite the thousands of articles, blogs, tweets, and status message threads about it—and yes, I was guilty of making a contribution as well—I doubt many of us were actually that mad about it.

It’s almost as if we’re playing “pretend” mad so White people won’t get too comfortable. It’s kind of like how a dad gets pretend mad at a child for peeing in the front yard. He doesn’t want the kid to do again, so he’s appropriately upset and makes sure the kid sees that he is. But, he’s not losing any sleep over it, and probably thinks it’s more funny than anything else.

7. I think I’ve reached a point where hearing “n-word” bothers me more than “nigger” does. (I think Sam Jackson agrees with me)

8. I think one of the most jarring things about Django was seeing slavery in “color.” As I mentioned earlier, whether through Roots or some other movies and/documentaries, most of us have seen that time period on screen in some fashion. But, while Roots (and Amistad) definitely was graphic, there’s a difference between the relatively grainy film used in something made in the 70s (and the documentary-esque feel of Amistad) and the type of picture you get with the high definition cameras used today. Django is, in many ways, the most colorful depiction of slavery any of us have ever seen.

9. I think the movie was a bit tamer than I expected it to be. Rapes and castrations are implied instead of shown, and for all I heard and read about the violence and the brutality, the violence actually seen on screen was so over the top that it bordered on camp.

Now, I’m sure some of those who have seen the movie may disagree about the campyness of the violence, specifically in regards to a scene involving dogs and another scene involving two Mandingos fighting to the death. But, both of those scenes were edited in a way that even though you definitely knew what was happening, you couldn’t really see it. (I wonder if Tarantino intended to do that or if he was instructed to by Miramax.)

Still, there were a few scenes that were particularly hard to watch, and each involved Kerry Washington’s character. Without giving away too much, she’s put through a gauntlet of dignity-erasing horrors that make you want to cringe, cry, and, well, kill.

10. I think a conversation I had a couple weeks ago shows why, despite its flaws and despite the fact that it’s not a completely accurate account of the antebellum period, a movie like Django is necessary. (Well, at least more necessary than unnecessary)

Once a week for the past four or five years, I play basketball at a local high school. It’s a regular group of 20 to 30 guys who vary in age and skill level, and many weeks I’m the only Black guy.

This particular pick up game has been going on for decades, and one of the traditions is that the guys who come gather in the coaches’ office afterwards to kick back and drink beers. (The person who’s supposed to buy the beers revolves every week. And, if you’ve gone too long without bringing a case, you will get clowned and eventually uninvited)

Anyway, Django happened to be one of the topics of conversation during one of these kick back sessions. It stayed superficial for a couple minutes—most of the discussion was just about who had seen the movie and whether they liked it—before seguing into a conversation about Tarantino movies in general.

Admittedly, I was happy that we’d left that subject. As much as I enjoy talking about the type of topics a Django conversation might touch on, I don’t want to have those conversations everywhere and with everyone. And, honestly, part of the reason why I wasn’t looking forward to a deeper Django discussion is that I generally like and enjoy being around those guys, and I didn’t want someone to express an opinion or viewpoint that would make me start to think differently about them. Perhaps that’s “wrong” in some way, but I just didn’t and still don’t see the need in introducing that dynamic there. When it comes to reliably fun pick-up basketball, ignorance is bliss.

A few minutes later, though, Django was brought up again. A guy sitting right next to me on the couch had a few questions about the movie—things he wasn’t particularly sure about—and, well, when else are you going to have the opportunity to ask a very smart Black guy about some of these things?

Now, for a moment I considered doing the “I can’t answer for all Black people” thing with perhaps a little “I’m offended that you’d even ask me that” mixed in. But, his questions (more on that in a sec) let me know he was both genuinely curious and genuinely ignorant, and with that realization came another one:

There are people—millions of people (millions of Americans!)—who literally know nothing about slavery other than it was kind of bad and it ended some time ago. And, while Django isn’t Roots, a movie created by a person as culturally relevant as Tarantino will at least spark conversations that some people would have never had.

One of the questions had to do with Sam Jackson’s character. Basically, he assumed that Jackson’s character wasn’t a slave. I corrected him. And, since he had no concept of the difference between house slaves and field slaves, I gave him a quick explanation.

Now, is it every Black person’s duty to go around educating White people about slavery and race? No. I have many hats but “African-American History Tour Guide” isn’t one of them. At the same time, as frustrating as it is that an educated man would know so little about American history that he’d even conjure that question, asking the question is better than the subject never even crossing his mind.

And, you can never go wrong when educating and/or reminding people that while some of the shit in Django didn’t happen, some—the hot boxes, the branding, the whippings, the rapes, the murders, the sell and purchase of humans, the intentional splittings of families, etc—did.

—Damon Young (aka “The Champ”)

The Most Racist Thing I’ve Ever Done

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There’s a belief among some educated Black (and White) people that Blacks—well, American Blacks—cannot be racist. Racism, to them, is more about power and possessing the ability to oppress than any beliefs or feelings held about other races. And, since Black Americans don’t wield enough political or financial power to oppress, we’re unable to be racist.

While I guess I see where they’re coming from, this theory is, well, bullshit. Anyone can possess any trait—positive or negative—even if that particular trait isn’t usually associated with them. We (Blacks) can be racists. Women can be misogynists. Laker fans can have integrity. Ray Lewis is a murderer, and no one seems to give a damn. The list goes on.

Anyway, I’m bringing this up because I did some racist-ass shit the other day. Super racist. Undeniably racist. Hilariously racist. So racist that it made the full transition from “racist” to “ridiculous,” causing me to even say “Damn. That was some racist-ass shit” right after it happened. And, although the story makes me laugh every time I think about it, calling it anything other than racist-ass shit would be disingenuous.

As I’m sure all of you are aware of, there are certain parts in certain cities where attempting to find food at night becomes an exercise in futility. And, by “there are certain parts in certain cities where attempting to find food at night becomes an exercise in futility” I mean “if you live in a predominately Black neighborhood, there’s a good chance that within the last year or so, a delivery boy has been robbed, shot, or stabbed within a two block radius of where you currently are.”

Restaurants located in these areas close a little earlier than those in other neighborhoods, and, most notably, you have a better chance of finding a virgin at a Delta convention than finding a place that might actually deliver food after 8pm.

A friend of mine lives in one of these areas. Admittedly, she lives in the “nice” part of the neighborhood, but lets just say that the neighborhood’s reputation precedes itself. Once, while sitting on her couch next to her while she was attempting to order a pizza, I was able to hear the person on the other end of the phone literally laugh aloud when she told them where she lives. It wasn’t a chuckle, either. This motherf*cker guffawed.

A few weeks ago, though, we had a breakthrough. We both happened to be on her porch when a small car sped to a awkward stop a few feet in front of her place. An Asian-looking man jumped out, carrying a couple pizzas and a bag of pop, walking very briskly, and dressed inappropriately (it was maybe 35 degrees and he was wearing a windbreaker, some sweats, and a hat). Basically, everything about this man—his awkward and abrupt parking, his demeanor, his attire, the way he was carrying the food, and, most importantly, his Asian-ness—screamed “delivery boy.”

Elated that we finally found a place that delivered to the neighborhood, we called out to the guy as he walked past.

Us: “Hey, where are you from?”

Him: “Huh?”

Us: “What place do you work for? We thought no one delivered to this block.”

Him: “Um, I’m not a delivery boy. I live right there. This is my food. I’m going home.”

Us: “Sorry bout that.”

Him (in his head): “F*ck you”

Him (to his Facebook page later that night): “I love the RZA, but I hate Black people”

In summary, we racially profiled the f*ck out of this guy. Admittedly, if he was White or Black and was dressed/acted the same way, we might have asked the same question. But, his Asian-ness—and us assuming that “small Asian man dressed like one of the Mario Bros” couldn’t possibly equal anything other than “delivery boy”—made our query so damn confident. Like, there was no doubt in our minds that he wasn’t delivering food. No hesitation, no nothing.

Ironically, the people being racially profiled—us for living in that area—ended up racially profiling ourselves. The circle of life and shit.

Anyway, people of VSB, I just shared the most racist thing I’ve ever done in the last year. What would be yours?

—Damon Young (aka “The Champ”)

Why Rob Parker Was 100% Right And 100% Wrong To Question RG3′s “Blackness”

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When people say things like “I’m in love with…” it’s generally understood that, unless they’re specifically referring to a person they have/had/wish to have a romantic interaction with, it’s always hyperbole. You are not actually in love with chocolate cake, Brooklyn, H&M’s fall line, or Kendrick Lamar, but you like/adore/admire these things so much that “in love” is used as an exaggerated substitute for a legitimate feeling you’re unable or unwilling to fully describe.

That being said, since first learning five years ago that he was going to run for President, I’ve been “in love” with Barack Obama as much as a person could be “in love” with a politician. While I don’t believe he’s perfect and I’m also aware this “love” could be more about the idea of Obama than Obama himself, as the unexpectedly primal scream I let out when seeing that he won Ohio last month indicated, I am an unabashed fan.

Yet, as I watched him on TV yesterday, addressing the Newtown school shooting, I’m reminded this “love” wasn’t unconditional. In fact, one of the main details allowing me to get to this place of “love” had nothing to do with his status as a politician and everything to do with a decision he made twenty years before I first knew he existed.

He married a Black woman. 

Now, would I have supported Obama any less if I learned he was married to a White woman. I’m not sure, but I doubt it. I doubt it would have had that much of an effect on who he was as a person and politician to make me do a complete 180 on how I currently feel about him.

There are two things I am sure of, though.

1. I’m not the only Black person who “loves” and supports President Obama the way I do

2. I’m not the only Black person whose “love” and support for Obama was helped by the fact that he has an authentically Black wife

And yes, while technically there’s no such thing as “authentically” Black—being Black is all the authenticity you should need—it matters that his wife wasn’t just Black, but a dark brown-skinned big-bootied chick from Chicago whose last name was Robinson. We still would have supported and voted for him, but I’m certain we wouldn’t have “loved” him as much. (I even have doubts he would have received the same unconditional “love” and support from the Black community if his wife was light-skinned.)

None of this should matter. But it does. And, because it does, I have to call bullshit on the tidal wave of post-racial self-righteousness coming down on ESPN commentator Rob Parker for questioning the blackness of Washington Redskins star quarterback Robert Griffin III (RG3). Was Parker wrong for his comments? Yes. (More of that later.) Should he have been suspended? Definitely. But, was his opinion—and the line of thinking behind the opinion—any different than the thoughts many of us of had about prominent Black men? No!

What he said about RG3 is said in many of our heads about every Black male politician, actor, athlete, co-worker, supervisor, neighbor, friend, and family member we know. Shit, as much as you all “love” VSB, I have no doubt our support would dwindle if one of us married a White woman. Sure, it wouldn’t change who we were as people or writers, but for many of our readers, we’d be a tad less “authentic,” and I can’t chide Parker too much for using the same means to calibrate Blackness that many of us also use.

It’s ironic that Parker mentioned “talking to some people in D.C.”—a clear allusion to the type of “barbershop” convos Black people have with each other—before going in on RG3 because that’s exactly why he was still wrong for saying what he said. These discussions about authenticity and “levels of Blackness” are definitely had…but they’re not meant to be had in mixed company. You do not ever question another Black person’s Blackness if any non-Black people are within earshot. In fact, you don’t even have that conversation if certain type of Black people are around. It’s only for people you trust to be able to fully appreciate and handle its nuance. Shit, doing that repeatedly will get your Black card revoked quicker than dating any White woman would.

Interestingly enough, I don’t even think Parker’s statements are the result of RG3 having a White fiancee. If dating White women was the NFL’s barometer for Blackness, you could have this same conversation about 80% 30% of the league. It’s more due to the fact that RG3 doesn’t act the way a typical young Black athlete acts. It’s not about him speaking proper English or even him not being seen at KIng of Diamonds every other weekend, but just the fact that the way he carries himself is outside of the range of behavior we expect from people like him.

If he was Rob Griffin the IT guy, his Blackness wouldn’t be questioned because his behavior is within the range of behavior we expect from people like that. But, between his behavior, his background, and his hair—yes, the fact that he has plaits in 2012 definitely matters—he’s “different” because he’s not what we expect. And, for too many of us, a “different” Black guy = “a Black guy who’s not really Black” or even “gay Black guy.” The criticisms leveled at him—questions about his Blackness and his sexuality—are no different than the types of criticisms hurled towards Ricky Williams, Chris Bosh, Tim Duncan, Dennis Rodman and other high profile Black athletes who acted in a way outside of what we expected from them.

Ultimately, RG3 is a 20-something quarterback of an NFL team, not a politician whose personal life choices directly influence his policy decisions—policy decisions that can affect the lives of millions of people. Basically, so what if he isn’t authentically Black? He throws a f*cking football for a living. Who gives a damn who he dates?

Well, Rob Parker (obviously) does. And, as long as it’s true that our “love” and support for Black men is influenced by the color of whoever they decide to marry, we do too.

—Damon Young (aka “The Champ”)