The title of this post, "It's harder being gay than black", came from a recent comedy routine by Wanda Sykes. Though it is only part of a joke, I wonder how much truth she sees in this statement. And given how controversial I can see this comment becoming, I thought I'd open up the floor to see how much truth you see in it. Here's the full quote:
"It’s harder being gay than being black. There’s some things that I had to do as gay that I didn’t have to do as black. I didn’t have to come out black. I didn’t have to sit my parents down and tell them about my blackness. 'Mom, dad I have to tell ya’ll something…I hope you still love me. Mom- dad, I’m black.'"
This sequence appears in her upcoming HBO special "I'ma Be Me", which also includes jokes about Barack Obama, coming out, motherhood and her interracial relationship.
– Dewitt
To check out a video from the performance, follow the JUMP:
Although some of my African-American friends would disagree, I think she’s right. While gay & lesbian people have the (unappealing) option of hiding their orientation – as unhealthy and repressive as that may be – we also have the problem that (unlike blacks) we can’t count on a supportive family, and we have to wrestle with the very idea of telling the most important people in our lives who we really are.
That said, I don’t think that makes us more entitled to anything. But I think it *ought* to shut up those in the black community who think gays have it easier than African-Americans. At the very least, it’s a draw. And at worst…. while anti-black prejudice and bigotry invariably draws a strong condemnation across the board, and no one is allowed to get away with public bigotry of that sort… gays remain the only group that one can denigrate publicly without besmirching the speaker as a bigot. In fact, those statements are looked on with favor by a (thankfully, ever-shrinking) portion of the country.
I have to agree. yesterday on the bus, the driver was talking to another driver who was along for the ride. Being in the front seat, I couldn’t help but overhear their conversation (not that they were trying to keep their voices down). The driver was telling his buddy how much he hated picking up kids from a gay area because “they flaunt it”. “I don’t have a problem with them, as long as they keep it to themselves”, he said. The other driver nodding agreement the whole while.
“Why do they have to be so… man, I just don’t get it.”
“I don’t care what they do, as long as I don’t know about it.”
Both men were black.
You can imagine the hurt I felt. I wanted to make so many comments. Here’s a few, just to get them off my chest (no, none of the remarks would have had the least bit of racism, just irony):
1. Wow… 50 years ago, you woulnd’t have even been able to RIDE this bus with me, let alone drive it.
2. Yeah, it’s amazing how US fags can just blend on in.
Consider this also, I’m out even at work. Everyone knows. I also work with mostly women. Women who spit out the most vile, foul ugly statements about sexuality (and from the white broads – race. At least when they think the black people can’t hear). I’ve been the recepient of a great many annonymous emails, “homo” written on notices I post, to flat out being called a sissy, etc. And I’m a police dispatcher.
We will NEVER be considered equal. Shit like this will always be around. I can be as open as I want. Try to be as tolerant as I can, but shit like this drags me down to a baser level – and I hate myself for it. Not because I’m gay and feel that that is the root of all this BS, but because I’m giving in to the same crap i hate.
I think the idea of putting two differing forms of oppression up against one another to see which is worse kind of misses the point. It is no harder being gay than it is being black, nor is it harder being a woman than it is being gay. They are all different and each form of oppression grows from a different set of circumstances.
Oppression is oppression is oppression. Putting it in a hierarchy only increases this and separates minorities who should be banding together to stand against it.
Oppression is oppression. With being said however people have a much harder time with my sexual orientation then my race. I live in the South where racism is suppose to run rampant but I have only personally experienced it a handful of times. I deal with homophobia on a weekly if not daily basis. I’m not going to say it’s harder being gay than black because well thought out arguments can be made for both sides. What I will say though is sometimes it feels that way.
I’m a black man. I don’t know about the years back in the 60’s and 70’s, but i KNOW definitely now gays have it harder than blacks. There are people out there who would hate you because you’re gay and don’t care what race you are. Admittedly, I’m not out to my family or friends, because i fear of they may reject me if they knew. But most of my friends are white, and pay little attention to “the color of my skin, but the contents of my character.” The late great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
All minority groups faces oppression in one way or another. From my point of view, to generalize what group faces hardship does not do any justice. The discrimination homosexuals faces everyday is not in the same category in comparison to asians or black. The discimination manifests itself in different ways in regard to sub-culture, location, and social ties.
You can’t just generalize: one’s experience can shift the equllibrium of the equation.