The Representations of Homosexuality in Black Gay Men’s Writing

Abstract

In chapters 1 and 2 I explored representative texts in black religious criticism. I addressed the question of when, where, and how black homosexuals enter into black religious criticism. I argued that black queer identity enters into black religious criticism as a “problem people.” The experiences of black queer men are often described only in terms of homophobia and plague. What I find missing in black religious and cultural critics’ accounts of black queer life and experience are the voices of black queer men. To be sure, theologians such as Kelly Brown Douglas, and cultural critics such as Michael Eric Dyson, and bell hooks have spoken extensively against homophobia. However, I am concerned that the limited attention to the ways in which black queer men speak of and for themselves distorts our understandings of, and limits the possibilities for, an appreciation of sexual difference in black life. As I argued in chapter 2, the concerns and interests of black queer men are syndicated into a general concern for protecting black communities from the effects of white supremacy. Continuing interest in explicating resistance to white supremacy precludes a fuller reading of the lives of black queers. Mere tolerance of sexual difference fails to present wider understandings of sexual difference in that tolerance is far less concerned with the lived experiences of black queers and more interested in presenting black heterosexuals as needing to tolerate difference as part of a larger agenda concerned with defeating white supremacy and racism.