Homophobia
Periodically, we have to talk through some important in-house issues. I don’t say this often, but specifically, this post is intended for Black people, albeit I think lots of other readers may find the subject matter interesting as well, and I think many points may apply to people who are not Black… but those aren’t my focus.
If you’re not Black, cool, you’re welcome to stay. Just know I’m not actually talking to you, per se.
There’s much plight that comes with being Black in America. Microaggressions. Discrimination. Profiling. Prejudice. Negative judgements about you for no other reason than simply existing and being who you are.
It’s not a cake walk.
But perhaps one of the biggest outcomes of the legacy of slavery in the United States is the economic deprivation of the Black community. While I’m not so naïve to suggest 240+ years of unpaid labor, in addition to 90 years of institutionalized discrimination in the form of Jim Crow, fully explains why most Black families over the course of the last 60 years make consistently less than their White counterparts, we would be naïve to say there isn’t any relationship, and it’s certainly an important one.
From that though, 2 major considerations are worth noting, and they’re related to our topic. The first is concerning religiosity. In general, across the social sciences, psychologists, sociologists, and even economists have noted the relationship between income and religiosity, with higher income people being less religious (Christianity or otherwise). There’s debate on that, and certainly I’m not suggesting one causes the other, nor am I saying one leads to the other, but there’s some evidence that income and religiosity are related. Even beyond the scope of science, I think most people can see a bit of the intuition. Higher income people have more demanding jobs and less discretionary time. They’re also likely to be more individualistic than their low income counterparts, have an inflated sense of importance, and they’re more likely to feel self-reliant (i.e., “I can solve my own problems”). The opposite seems to be true for lower income people.
We also know about the role religion played in slavery, so I’ll just mention that as an important aside for now. Since Black Americans tend to be lower income, they also tend to be more religious than Americans of some other racial and ethnic groups (like White Americans, for instance). I don’t think that idea is out of the ordinary, per se.
The second major consideration here though is the role of class, or socioeconomic status, in masculinity (as a spoiler, I’ll be talking quite a bit about masculinity today, although I realize this topic is obviously of great relevance to both men and women). To be clear, while gender is viewed as biological and manifesting in the form of certain physiological properties, masculinity (and femininity) is entirely culturally constructed. That is, culture determines what is and is not masculine, and admittedly, we know this is subject to some level of change over time, even in spite of fairly rigid gender roles.
An example may help.
People usually give me the side eye when I say high heeled shoes were originally intended for men, but side eye or not, it’s absolutely true. Circa 15th century eastern Europe, MEN wore high heels to enhance their physical stature and appear more formidable (and prior to that, it was worn for centuries by men across Western Asia). After all, a tall man is probably more intimidating than a shorter one (see social and evolutionary psychology). We also know, based on research, that we make important inferences about people based on physical properties, including their height. So, it should be no surprise that taller people tend to have higher income, receive more promotions, and be perceived as leaders at work. Evolutionary psychology, too, argues more of the same: tall men are viewed as intimidating, formidable, possessing good genes, and deserving of respect. Again, I’m not making a causal argument, I’m simply pointing out that height is associated with particular outcomes, and much of that is influenced based on how people perceive taller vs. shorter men.
In hindsight, it makes perfect sense for men to wear high heels. It wasn’t until the 1600s or so that women began wearing high heels (at least in Europe; not sure about Western Asia). Today, at least by Western standards, high heels are a universal symbol of femininity, not masculinity. But if this were Eastern Europe in the 1400’s, high heels would be considered an iconic symbol of manliness. This underscores my point: masculinity is culturally constructed, as is femininity.
In the case of poor people, Black people included, two important pressures emerge. The first is distinctiveness. Poor men, just like every other class of men, face important pressures to be distinctive from their female counterparts. Men need to act like men… an “anti femininity” if you will. So, they play sports, and drink beer, wrestle with each other… and they shun things like gardening, yoga, and the like. This isn’t exclusive to lower class men: middle and upper class men do something similar. The second pressure that poor men face that’s a bit unique to them as lower-income men is how best to satisfy gender roles. By gender roles, I mean norms for what is expected of you based strictly on your gender. We’ve had such norms for thousands of years.
But this is complicated.
It’s complicated because gender norms for men include expectations to have status and access to economic resources. As you would imagine, higher income men satisfy this expectation easily enough. They attend universities, they secure good jobs, they earn competitive salaries and effortlessly provide for their families. Lower income men, on the other hand, wrestle substantially with these expectations. Indeed, this has been well documented, both in the field of psychology and sociology. Working class men are more likely to endorse ‘traditional’ forms of masculinity, wherein they feel the need to prove they’re a man based on what they DO.
But there’s a challenge.
Working class men aren’t afforded the luxury of demonstrating their masculinity in the form of status and economic provision. Instead, they have a smaller range of behaviors by which they have to show their masculinity. In fact, more recent research in psychology shows that lower class men can feel pressure to compensate for their lack of status, or economic vitality, by overindulging in other forms of masculinity: aggression, substance use (ie. drinking, smoking, etc.), sexual prowess (multiple sexual partners, unprotected sex, etc.), and indeed they do.
In some ways, it functions like a Napoleon Complex: lower income men can perceive a deficiency in their masculinity and seek to overcompensate for it. Man, don’t you just love when science makes sense?
Importantly, none of this is deterministic: Being lower income, or Black, doesn’t mean you’ll succumb to any of these pressures, but there is a lot of research on some of the negative consequences of working-class masculinity, particularly among Black men (and Hispanic men, too, if you’re interested). It can be a vicious and toxic cycle.
Much of this work is predicated on something known as precarious manhood or precarious masculinity. It’s a curious concept, but in essence, the manner in which masculinity is culturally constructed means that men have to prove their manhood, and they can lose their status as a man at any point in time. Importantly, femininity, in general, doesn’t seem to operate that way. And that idea, presumably, accounts for many of the differences in behavior that we periodically observe between men and women. As it pertains to working class men, one potential result of precarious manhood is overindulging in masculine behaviors to make up for coming up a bit short in the bank account.
But income isn’t necessarily the only thing that can emasculate working class Black men. Some new and interesting work in psychology shows that racism leads to push ups. The notion of being judged, excluded, harassed, and/or discriminated against is EMASCULATING for many Black men. The response of Black men who feel that way, in these situations, is with “push ups”… in other words, feeling discriminated against can make Black men feel the need to reassert their masculinity and prove their manhood. Again, we can see class, gender, and discrimination interacting in unusual ways. Maybe this is a perfect place to interject with my point, because I haven’t even gotten to that yet.
Black folks in America have faced many challenges. Day after day, we continue to wrestle to be respected and be treated with dignity. So, I really wrestle with the idea of homophobia within the Black community (particularly towards men). It’s almost like a struggle within a struggle, right? It just strikes me as really curious, problematic, and somewhat hypocritical.
Black America prides itself on wanting to call out privilege and oppression in America.
We take to the streets to protest injustice.
We urge people to acknowledge our humanity.
We plead with people not to reject us, strictly on the basis of who we are.
We remind America that, literally at every single point of its history, we’ve been on the social fringes.
We underscore how, for decades, we were seen as amusement and entertainment for White people, if for no other reason than the fact that we were Black.
How, then, do you turn around and exclude an entire group of people? What, because of who they love? Or who they’re attracted to? Or because of who they want to marry?
So, let’s talk this through, because I’m having difficulty following the logic.
You don’t want to be at the bottom of society, but you don’t have any problem putting another group there, am I getting that right? You don’t want people to use the N word, but you have no problem using homophobic slurs among your friends for your own amusement, is that correct? It was wrong for White people to use their fear, prejudice, and hate to try and keep Black people out of their neighborhoods, and out of their schools, but now, you don’t want any gay people in your neighborhood or school, am I understanding correctly? It was wrong for White people to disown family members because they fell in love with someone Black, but you don’t have any issue disowning, or saying you’ll disown, someone in your family who falls in love with a member of the same sex, is that the situation?
I’ll be honest, I think it’s sad. I think it’s sad because many Black Americans have become the very thing they say they hate, and the worst part is, they can’t even see it. They enact and appeal to the same systems of oppression, prejudice, and discrimination that they say cripple the progress of Black people in this country.
Sure, they masquerade it under the guise of religious beliefs (see Statutes if Liberty, part 1, part 2, and part 3), or hypermasculinity, but ultimately, I think it’s homophobia. Plain and simple.
I’ll talk about how Black men perpetrate this and then I’ll get to women, too.
Honestly, I think a lot of Black men perpetrate this in the form of complicity. Maybe you didn’t make that homophobic joke, but you laughed at it. You didn’t make the joke, but you didn’t say it was wrong. Again, for working class men, I think this just comes as so natural. Even as Black people transcend various levels of socioeconomic status, that cultural conception of masculinity can be so deeply rooted, maybe we can’t get away from it… It’s the way our parents think. It’s reflected in conversations with siblings and/or friends. Even as your understanding of masculinity begins to change, it’s still difficult to unpack all of the negative elements that have been internalized, both past and present. It’s easy to have a good laugh with the guys at the expense of further stigmatizing an entire social group of people… as funny as I’m sure you think it is, I’m sure White people found Black face really funny in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, too. Some of them still think it’s funny.
Benign intentions have very little to do with whether or not jokes or comments are appropriate. And for a lot of Black men, we have little reservations about doing this because it’s both common and accepted.
But it has to stop.
Now, a word for the Black women…
Say what you will, but these ideas came from somewhere… let me paint this picture another way. There are many, many things I think women feel the need to do because they think it makes men more interested in them. The opposite is true as well… there are many, many things that Black men feel they need to do, because it’ll make women more interested in them. Here’s the kicker… I think most Black women will acknowledge that these beliefs about what women are interested in or attracted to are HIGHLY EXAGERATED, but that’s actually part of my point: these beliefs Black men have about what women are attracted to aren’t entirely wrong… the beliefs are just exaggerated.
Even as a guy, I’ve personally been in situations where Black women deride Black men for being “sensitive”, or “soft”, or not meeting their definition of masculinity, and that’s usually because the man in question is perceived as feminine. I mean, I’ve said this repeatedly, but I’ll say it again here just to drive my point home: As a heterosexual male, by Western standards, I’m not even a particularly masculine guy, and that’s something I already know and I’m completely okay with.
Masculinity is NOT the opposite of femininity (that’s a WHOLE different conversation).
I think a lot of Black women have to be honest about contributing to a broader pattern of homophobia within the Black community. Just like Black men might believe Black women want somebody who’s financially stable (probably true), and Black men might believe Black women want someone with sexual prowess (this one, perhaps, varies from woman to woman), Black men might also believe that Black women want this macho man, and you’ve contributed to that idea every time you didn’t create an environment where Black men are allowed to demonstrate ‘feminine’ qualities (care, concern, support, sympathy, emotions, etc.) without being emasculated.
That’s a really big deal.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time in a city in the US where there are, allegedly, a lot of Black men on the “down low”. In essence, that means they’re gay but passing for straight. It, of course, creates a lot of drama becomes sometimes women end up dating or marrying a Black man, only to find out that their boyfriend or husband has secretly been gay all along. What I think gets left out of that conversation a lot is… as much as we might hate to admit it, there are some elements of that ‘down low’ phenomenon that are somewhat distinctive to Black culture. These men are doing that, presumably, because they anticipate such an intense ridicule, scrutiny, and rejection from their friends, family, loved ones, etc. They would, literally, pretend to be straight, marry a woman, and have kids than potentially face the people they love and tell them, “I’ve actually become that thing that we used to crack all those jokes about.”
As a Black woman, I think you’re kidding yourself if you think, on some level, that felt pressure only comes from men. Black women play an important role in perpetuating and reinforcing homophobia.
None of us were born being able to see all of these connections. None of us were born attuned to the plight of every single group in society. But we listen. And we learn. And we do better, right?
And as a community, we need to do waaaaay better in this area.
I’m not here to drag anybody. This isn’t a hot take (i.e., I haven’t watched the Closer, or anything else by Dave Chapelle, really; I don’t really follow comedians, so it’s not particular to him). I also realize my commentary focused mostly on men, in part because that’s a lived experience that I can speak to and also because I’m more familiar with research that relates to the topic (i.e., working class masculinity, hyper masculinity, precarious manhood, etc.). I realize this topic has really important implications for women as well. The bottom line is I just want to see people treated with dignity and respect. That’s the bare minimum, and I think everyone deserves that.
Some random thoughts,
Nnamdi