Morgan has publicly expressed his mea culpas to the Gay & Lesbian
Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the nation’s lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) media advocacy and
anti-defamation organization, and he has now - as part
and parcel of his forgiveness tour - spoken out in support
of LGBTQ equality. But Morgan, like many of us who have
grown up in communities of African descent, here and abroad,
cannot escape the cultural, personal, interpersonal, and
institutional indoctrinations in which homophobia is constructed
in our very makeup of being defined as black.
The community's expression of its intolerance of LGBTQ people is
easily seen along gender lines. For example, sisters mouth
off about us while brothers get both - verbally and physically
- violent with us. My son "better talk to me like
a man and not in a gay voice or I'll pull out a knife
and stab that little n-gger to death," Morgan told
his audience at the Ryman Auditorium.
(Just
as the LGBTQ community got on Morgan for his homophobic
rant, the community should have also called him out on
his use of the n-word. Let's not forget about the racist
rant in 2006 by Michael Richards, who played the lovable
and goofy character Kramer on the T.V. sit-com “Seinfeld.”
Many of us believe his repetitive use of the n- word in
the context of supposed humor cost him his career.)
CNN’s Don Lemon, who just recently came out, gives a window
into the male perspective on homosexuality. "It’s
quite different for an African-American male," Lemon
told Joy Behar on her HLN show. "It’s about the worst
thing you can be in black culture. You’re taught you have
to be a man; you have to be masculine.
Black GBTQ sexualities within African American culture are
perceived to further threaten not only black male heterosexuality,
but also the ontology of blackness itself, which is built
on the most misogynistic and homophobic strains of Black
Nationalism and afrocentricism that were and still are
birth, nurtured, and propagated in black churches and
communities. The belief that exposure to LGBTQ people
and anti-homophobia workplaces, classrooms, workshops
and trainings lessens, if not eradicates, the prejudice
is true. But for African American males that is not always
the case.
For example, life imitated art for Isaiah Washington, but
he, like Morgan, went on his black male homophobic rant
nonetheless. In 2007, Washington’s public apology to the
LGBTQ community for the derogatory comments he deliberately
and repeatedly made about his costar T. R. Knight’s sexuality
was a disingenuous statement to deflect attention away
from his desperate effort to save his job.
Washington knows of both the psychological damage and the
physical harm the word "faggot" engenders. And
he knows it not only from empathizing as an African American
where the n-word has been hurled at him, but he also knows
of the harm the word "faggot" engenders from
being called one. Washington plays the handsome Dr. Preston
Burke on the hit drama, "Grey's Anatomy," but
he has taken on many other roles. His most challenging
and rewarding role was that of an African-American gay
male in the context of the most dangerous environment
one can be in - the company of homophobic black men.
In Spike Lee's 1996 film, "Get on the Bus," Washington
and Harry J. Lennix play a black gay couple (Kyle and
Randall, respectively) in the midst of a breakup that
gets played out in high homophobic drama in the cramped
quarters of a group of African-American men taking a cross-country
bus trip from Los Angeles to our nation's capital in order
to participate in Minister Louis Farrakhan's historic
Million Man March - a march that explicitly forbade women
and gay men to attend. Playing the role of a black gay
Republican Gulf War veteran, Washington imparts to the
group the violent acts of homophobia and racism he incurred
on an ongoing basis from his fellow comrades, like being
purposely shot at by his own platoon because of both his
sexual orientation and race.
In October 2006, Washington got into fisticuffs with "Grey's
Anatomy" costar, Patrick Dempsey, by grabbing him
by the throat and outing Knight, saying, "I'm not
your little faggot like [T.R. Knight]." Washington
plays a similar scene as Kyle in "Get On the Bus."
Morgan’s homophobic rant is not about LGBTQ people, but rather, it’s
about the tightly constructed hyper-masculinity of black
manhood.
In my brothers’ cultivating “images of strong black men” can the
brotherhood also include the diversity of their sexual
orientations?
BlackCommentator.com
Editorial Board member, the Rev. Irene Monroe, is a religion
columnist, theologian, and public speaker. She is the Coordinator of
the African-American Roundtable of the Center for Lesbian and
Gay Studies in Religion and Ministry (CLGS) at the Pacific
School of Religion. A native of Brooklyn, Rev. Monroe is a
graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological
Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor
at an African-American church before coming to Harvard
Divinity School for her doctorate as a Ford Fellow. She
was recently named to MSNBC’s list of 10 Black Women You Should Know. Reverend Monroe is the author
of Let Your Light Shine Like a Rainbow Always: Meditations on Bible
Prayers for Not’So’Everyday Moments. As an African-American
feminist theologian, she speaks for a sector of society
that is frequently invisible. Her website
is
irenemonroe.com.
Click here
to contact the Rev. Monroe.
