“How does it feel to be a problem?” This was the question that W.E.B. Du Bois suggested that white Americans in post-Reconstruction America wanted to ask of blacks. To answer this unasked question he put forth his remarkable theory of double consciousness—a twoness which allows one to see oneself through the eyes of the other, to enable one to identify in two (or more) worlds—the striving to merge both worlds without adulterating either. Du Bois biographer David Levering Lewis reasoned that Du Bois’ solution to the strange feeling of being a problem was not assimilation or separatism, as proposed by some of his contemporaries, but, rather a “proud, enduring hyphenation.”
In the same text (The Souls of Black Folks), Du Bois proclaimed that the color line would be the problem of the twentieth century. And though I am not as prophetic as Du Bois, I believe that the twenty-first century added to the color line a sexuality line which holds LGBT persons behind a veil striving to be LGBT while at the same time a man or a woman, at the same time Christian (for some), and at the same time American.
Like the sin of skin for blacks, LGBT persons are marked because of their same-sex activities or their sexual ambiguities. In similar manner that blacks were oppressed by the state and society, LGBT persons face policies that prohibit their freedoms, agency, and are denied access to the legal benefits of marriage. Though many African-Americans abhor any type of comparison between the Black Freedom Struggle and LGBT movements, I find it difficult for the critical and conscious mind to deny the similarities between the discourses, vitriol, and policies directed toward each group which have and continue to marginalize both. (See Harris-Perry: ‘I hope same-sex marriage changes marriage itself’ for the better. See Marriage Equality : Byron Rushing and the Fight for Fairness. See Rev Dr. Otis Moss III speak about Marriage Equality.
Rather than a purely biological or evolutionary episteme, what we know about gender and sexuality, like race, is socially constructed. This social construction of gender and sexuality has a dark history of objectification, specifically all gender representations and sexual orientations that did not fit puritanical, Victorian, or Industrial Revolution goals of reproduction were othered and relegated as freaks of nature (See Michele Foucault’s book The History of Sexuality). Not only did this discourse open LGBT persons to emotional and physical assault, but this discourse was soon medicalized, religious-ized, institutionalized, and politicized. This could help one understand the matrix of arguments against legalizing the benefits of marriage for LGBT persons.
Although Americans on the whole are now more accepting of LGBT persons, these citizens still find themselves loudly singing “I too,” am a man or woman-Christian-American. That is, they strive to be seen and treated as fully human regardless of their sexual choices or sexual ambiguities.
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| Wyatt O’Brian Evans |
This was the aim of African-American writer and advocate, Wyatt O’Brian Evans, who recently authored and published his book NothingCan Tear Us Apart-Uncensored (2012). In Nothing, Evans humanizes the LGBT life by providing readers nuanced and colorful view of two same genderloving (SGL) men of color, Wesley and Antonio (one African-American and one Latino). Wesley and Antonio are professional, upwardly mobile, focused, and masculine men who fall in love with each other and share life in a monogamous SGL relationship.
In an interview, Evans recalled that he
“wanted to write the book to redress some of the negative media depictions of people of color and also LGBT people of color. I wanted to show that you can have two men, two masculine men of color, who can be profoundly and deeply in a loving, monogamous relationship. I wanted to show two men of color that have this extraordinarily physical and emotional connection like heterosexual people. That is why I believe the novel has universal appeal, because everyone can relate to the stories of Wesley and Antonio, because everyone loves, and love is love no matter who you love, that’s just the way it is.”
Evans, a masculine gay African-American male, is a baby-boomer who grew up in a single parent household in Washington D.C. His father died when he was young, leaving his mother to raise four girls and a boy. After graduating high school in Washington D.C., Evans attended George Washington University where he graduated with two degrees—one in Journalism and one in Political Science.
Contrary to the popular mythos, Evans was not sexually molested as a young man nor was he in anyway socialized to “be gay.” Yet, he knew he was a gay at a very early age, though it took a while for him to come to terms with identifying himself as gay. He was always attracted to women, but as he became older his attraction to men became stronger. Evans claims that he dated women, had sex with women and enjoyed it, and that he still finds women attractive, but in his early twenties he stopped fighting it: “I began to prefer the emotional and physical attraction towards a man and of a man,” noted Evans.
Coming out was a tiered process—self, then others.
He remembered that it “took a while [to come out] because unfortunately in the African-American community being gay is stigmatized more so than the white community. Men had to be strong, and had to be perceived as strong because of the ways in which we were emasculated during slavery. Just because you are gay that does not make you a wimp. There are hip-hop artists, football players, bodybuilders, and baseball players who are gay. In the African-American community that tends to be looked at as being weak. In order to be my authentic self, I had to come to terms that there was nothing wrong with me, that my sexual orientation was just one part of who I am, and that is just how God made me.”
As part of his “coming to himself” experience, Evans sought mental health therapy to fully understand himself. He realized that his desires for a mate were against the social norm. He also read medical and scientific data which led him to a firm belief that a person’s sexual orientation “is in their DNA, something that you are born with.”
“If you are straight that is just how you are. Your sexual orientation is not a light switch that you can turn on and off. Just like God made you (referring to me) straight, God made me who I am,” Evans remarked.
Most of his peers and family assumed that he was dating women; therefore, his coming out was a huge surprise and much unplanned. He stayed at home while he attended college. One night he did not come home, because he spent the night with a guy, yet he forgot to call his mother to let her know of his whereabouts. She was frantic, so she called Evans’ sisters over to help find him. They began to call people from his little black book, through this process they noticed that most of the persons they called were men. When Evans finally made it home, they quickly began to question him. It was then that he told them that he was gay. They were not happy. His mother did not take it well; she thought it was something that she did. She later went to therapy, to get a better understanding.
Though he came out, he had one sister who insisted on introducing him to eligible women. He had to assertively tell her to stop, and if she wanted to play matchmaker then she should introduce him to eligible men.
He then began his hyphenated life which combined being a journalist, advocate, Christian, African-American man, an American, and a man who has romantic relationships with men. Much like most of us, he navigated through different worlds, none of which singularly defined him. Yet, it is his sexual orientation that most often does define him. As a heterosexual male, I get to define myself by vocation, familial role, or in any other way that I want to, but LGBT or intersex persons are relegated to identities related to their sexuality (kind of like Hester Prynne in The ScarletLetter).
This is why Evans decided to write Nothing Can Tear Us Apart-Uncensored, so that he could show the hyphenated identity of two SGL men and show that LGBT persons are not freaks of nature. He found other fiction works in the LGBT genre fitting the status quo, that is presenting LGBT persons as hypersexual and dysfunctional. Within Nothing readers are drawn into a love story of two people working against the odds to preserve their love. They battle the everyday pressures of life and they also battle the racial tensions of their relationship. Additionally, they have to work through intimate partner abuse. Nothing does have some erotic scenes, but the sexual activity of the characters is not the central focus. He felt it necessary to include erotica in the story to give readers a full view of the lives of his gay characters. Evans noted that he wanted “to tell a love story that highlighted the ways in which people express love–emotionally, spiritually, physically, and erotically.”
When asked what he hopes that readers take away from his book, he answered:
“That, LGBT people love just like straight people, LGBT people have the same problems as straight people, LGBT people can be upwardly mobile, LGBT people live positive lives, LGBT people work, LGBT people are passionate about things and life, LGBT believe in God and practice faith, and LGBT people are human.”
Maybe it is here where we can begin to rip through the veil and eliminate our lines—color and sexual. We should learn the truth about each other. Maybe the others are just like us and want the same things that we want. Maybe the others are human too.