Somewhere in America or Young Black Gay Men Need Idols, Too

Credit Sports Illustrated

While I recognize the point that is being made that a number of lesbians who are professional athletes are coming out of the closet, I think something is getting lost in the 'yeah, yeah, Jason Collins but...' chorus and it is this: somewhere in America, right this moment, there is a young black man around the age of 15. Maybe he lives in the suburbs and he knows he's just a little bit different from the other boys. Like a lot of middle class black kids, his parents take him to church and likely he has heard at least one sermon in his life about 'the gays'. It is a near certainty that he has heard negative comments about 'fags' or 'punks' or some other slur. If he plays a sport either in school or an outside league that rises to an absolute certainty. Maybe he lives in a rural Louisiana town. Maybe he lives in Chicago or New York or Oakland or Los Angeles. He could be anywhere. He may not have realized that he could *be* anyone.

Yesterday that young man's life got better. Much better. Suddenly, that young man knows not only that he is not alone but that he can be *anything* and be a strong black man who gets to go home to the man that he loves. He knows it in a way he likely didn't know the day before yesterday. Certainly he's aware that there are gay people. He's very likely aware that there are black gay people. He may even know Bayard Rustin was gay and that Samuel Delaney was bisexual. Maybe. But Bayard Rustin and Samuel Delaney are dead and so occupy the realm of history, a country that we, as Americans, have only the vaguest sense of. Yes, Martina Navratilova did it first. Yes, a number of women did it before them. One of the women who has done so most recently is black, Brittney Griner of the Phoenix Mercury. If I were that 15 year old boy's sister, and I were a lesbian Brittney Griner would be the light of my world right now. I could have used a Brittney Griner 30 years ago.

I know it's silly and it shows my naiveté but I was an adult and only a year away from my coming out myself before I knew that there were black lesbians. I remember listening to Tracy Chapman's first album, hearing her sing "For My Lover" and I knew I wasn't alone. That *I*, too, could become somebody. Black lesbian and all and go home to the woman I hoped to love (and have been lucky enough to find). She meant the world to me but might have meant next to nothing to a young black gay man coming out at the same time. Maybe in a 'good for her' sense but not in a "I could be that one day" sense.

I'm not Tracy Chapman but when I had no place else to turn to look for someone else who loves women who looked something like me, Tracy Chapman was there. Later I found Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich found out that Lorraine Hansberry was bisexual. I learned that I was nowhere near as alone as I thought. But Tracy Chapman and her first two albums, will always hold a special place in my heart because she, in that strange psychological interaction between a star and those who idolize her, made it okay for me to be a lesbian. Somewhere in America, there's a young black man who feels a little less alone. That may not mean a lot to middle-class white lesbians but it means a hell of a lot to some young black gay men. Hell, as a middle class black lesbian it means something to me. Not as much as Brittney Griner would have or Tracy Chapman did. But something special nevertheless. I'd like to think that those of us who had 'that day' when Martina Navratilova came out would let Jason Collins and his fans have theirs.

Maybe it shouldn’t be that way. Maybe it should be that anyone can look up to anyone else and to some degree that is true. My heroes and intellectual ancestors range over time and culture and ethnicity and place. But you know, if Alan Turing had been, say, Alana Turing that would have made his remarkable life all that more meaningful for me. Imagine being able to say, ‘there was this black woman who broke the Germans ENIGMA code and if any one person contributed singularly to the victory of the allies in WW II, it was her. She was a lesbian and…’ I love being able to say that about a white gay man from England. If I’d known about a black, lesbian codebreaker who is considered one of the singular minds of the last century and mother of the modern computer, it would have had a deep and profound impact on her. One of the uber-nerds of the last century a black lesbian? Oh the heaven to read about her in a history book! These things matter in some non-trivial psychological manner. I still look up to Turing. He had a hell of a mind and I’m glad we queer people get to claim him as one of ours.

Yvette Carnell: Low Black Male Graduation Rates Indicate a Failure in Faith, Not Circumstances

This is an eloquent and wonderful statement about lowered expectations within the black community, specifically as it relates to our young men. This was originally posted at Huffington Post.
Who was the first person in your life to introduce you to the concept of failure? Now, who was the first person in your life to teach you that failure was not only possible, but probable?
If you consider yourself successful by any measure of the Western standard, then you were probably never introduced to the Negro narrative of obfuscation, which teaches the inevitability that outward circumstances will methodically undermine any constructive steps you take in the direction of upward mobility.
All varieties of Negro head honchos, from shepherds of churchgoing hallelujah flock, to old timey civil rights activists, preach the defeatist mantra of how "the man" is out to get them and the variety of ways that our system keeps a "brotha" down.
Unfortunately, it now appears that this chorus of pessimism has entrenched itself in the minds of African American young men, teachers, and even parents.
According to a recent study by the Schott Foundation for Public Education, less than 50% of black males graduated from high school during the 2007-2008 school year. Even worse, according to the report, "(M)ore than twice as many black students are classified as 'mentally retarded' in spite of research demonstrating that the percentages of students from all groups are approximately the same at each intelligence level."
It is clear from the data that young black men are throwing in the towel at record numbers. These numbers should be anything but surprising considering how the black community has systematically lowered expectations for black men on every conceivable level.
In education, we feed young black men bleak statistics which forewarn that he will be killed or imprisoned before age 25, making the pursuit of education futile. In love, black women welcome the most pitiful representations of manhood into their hearts (and bedrooms) with open arms. And in our families, it is now widely accepted for black single moms to raise their kids alone and leave the court system to do battle on their behalf for child support - but what of male parental support?
Even the language we use to refer to our beloved black boys bespeaks his littleness and certain demise. The term 'young black male' is cold and devoid of any true emotion.
If we choose to push for a transformation of thought which undoes the damage of the over-empathizers, apologists, and recklessness in our community, then we must teach young black boys that life has meaning under all conditions. To suffer is a small thing, but to suffer without meaning is despair, and that should be avoided at all costs.
We must also implant in them the truest of all human truths; that they alone are responsible for their choices, and that although hustling has been painted as the clear choice for all warrior hearts, it is not. It is, in truth, a coward's exit. His flee from the battlefield.
Famed psychiatrist Viktor Frankl once mused that "If we take man as he is, we make him worse, but if we overestimate, we promote him to what he really can be." What our education system, homes, and churches are missing are idealists. Believe him grand, and he will be that. Believe him held captive by statistics and circumstances, and he will be just that.
You see, we save young black boys not by sharing their opinion of their own lives, but by nourishing a grander dream for them than the one they currently dream for themselves.
Our freedom, their freedom, lies in perception. You can either allow them to believe that their current conditions are building them up, or tearing you down. But in order to succeed, young black men must be taught that their lives are not subject to the whims of societal laws alone. They must be lived to have meaning.
It's time that educators and advocates alike tone down the rhetoric with regard to the circumstances young African-American men face, and turn the conversation in the direction of what they already have - inside. If we lose this generation of young black men, it won't be because of society, or our crumbling education system, but because we stopped believing.

Yvette Carnell: Low Black Male Graduation Rates Indicate a Failure in Faith, Not Circumstances
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yvette-carnell/low-black-male-graduation_b_688342.html