Double struggle: black and gay liberation

I came to Boston in 1975 from longer obtuse in their admission a small Midwestern town to policy, bartenders will attend Boston University. I was eventually get around to serving ari American History major and and us, and some even have Blacks on looked forward with eagerness their staffs, very little has and anticipation to studying and changed. I suspect that the living in this city of history, practices of gay bars have culture, and tradition. changed not because of the The fall of '75 saw violence goodness of someone's little in Boston and the turmoil hearts but because we are now precipitated by court-ordered actively taking legal action busing. As members of some against those bars who white communities were allowed discriminate. And we now follow through with those actions rather than giving up, as I did in 1980 when I and others filed complaints against a bar in

to use their vehement opposition to desegregation as a subterfuge to terrorize the city, I became acutely aware of my identity as a Black man and subsequently as Copley Square. a gay marı.

and

Previous to my arrival here I had notions of Boston being a very liberal and open city. My experiences in Boston general, and in gay bars with white gays in particular, disabused me very quickly of my romantic notions about the liberalism of this city. Those experiences in gay bars also shed light on my belief that white gay men are sensitive to the oppression of others. That too was a myth.

---

While the public practice may have improved, I suspect the attitudes arid perceptions of white gays towards the Black gay community have remairied virtually unchanged. We are the invisible community. When white gay people approach us they see only their surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination indeed anything and everything except us. Ralph Ellison pointed this out in his book INVISIBLE MAN 30 years ago in reference to white people in Gay bars discriminated against general. Sometimes it seems Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and apropos to the gay women, with monolithic audacity. community. The cardinal truth Doormen were daring and bold in about white society in general their arbitrariness about who and white gays in particular is admitted and who were not. that neither of them has ever

were

produce

even more

seen

rouse

While we were being asked to Blacks as anything other "positive than a "race," a "group, as identification" to satisfy the "you people." Often when I am whims of the doorman, whites, on the street I pass whites with regardless of how young they whom I am acquainted. They look appeared, breezed in with the at me but do not see me. When I greatest of ease. For those who them from their were able to get inside, they somnambulism they are thrilled, were often abused by patron and startled and often embarrassed, employee alike and it was made taking great pains to assure no quite obvious to us that we were slight was intended. not welcome. These attitudes see is a Black face, not the were further reflected by individual distinctions that bartenders refusing to "see" us make up the face, that make up and by by harassment from the the personality. Since most management and everi from the whites are afraid of Blacks, police. Yet through all all of they don't bother to look these obstacles, we persisted in beyond and distinguish on Black exercising our right to be face from another "They all there. look alike to me." It is

While the "clubs' are

difficult

What they

to discuss

racism in the gay community without reference to whites in general. White straights and white gays are for the most part cut from the same cloth. What has become quite clear to me is that white gays see themselves as primarily gay only in relation to other white gays, and that many white gays are unable to think independently of their whiteness. The actions of white gays are in direct correlation to their whiteness, not to their gayness. If such were the case, the elimination of racism and discrimination the gay community would not be a task of such mythic proportions, and white gays would be aware of their own oppression. Instead they have chosen to identify with the very society that oppresses them.

Individuals within the white gay community have broken trough this race identification. They are working to end racism, within themselves and within the gay community institutions. As the gay community in general slowly works through its problems, so does the Black gay community and other gay people We have done it with some very vocal and enthusiastic support from community.

of color.

the

white

This is the second in ,a series of of articles written by members of the People of Color Task Force, a component of the Boston Committee for the March on Washington on October 11.

Reprinted from : Community News, Boston, MA.

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