Kaleb Blake says the myth of all “good Black men” being gay is toxic and assumes masculinity can only be expressed via hetero-normative metrics.
*Guest Post* – by Kaleb Blake
Yesterday morning hip-hop rapper Khia, queen of the “My Neck, My Back” anthem, tweeted (and I will add punctuation for the sake of legibility): “Hats off to Frank Ocean. At least he finally told the truth. Now all the women he fooled can final know the truth!!”
Khia continued to tweet that “bitches will ignore all the signs to keep a man!!” and that “not one” but all “successful black men [are] gay.”
Oh, girl.
Granted Khia has been known for being outspoken—I mean, have you heard her lyrics?—which in and of itself can be appreciated. But albeit ignorant, there is something extremely valuable and telling regarding gender and sexuality in the Black community through these tweets.
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First, through Frank Ocean’s letter explaining a same-sex love affair, America has seen an all-time high support for a hip-hop artist’s homosexuality. A glimpse at any hip-hop music blog will show countless comments supporting Frank Ocean’s bravery. I would like to quickly add that I am not labeling Frank Ocean as gay, he has only admitted to having a relationship with another man.
That being said, and this brings me to my second point, there are still people who vocally express their disdain for Frank Ocean’s bravery. A number of comments will show men expressing sentiments along the lines of “I respect Frank Ocean, but I can’t relate to his music knowing that he’s singing to men therefore I will not support his career.” Unfortunate, but candid.
Others, like Khia, feel as though they (Black women) are losing “successful black men” to homosexuality, in turn reprimanding black men like Frank Ocean for “fooling” women from knowing the truth.
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Here’s the thing: I have extremely strong feelings from anyone placing blame for not coming out on those who refuse to come out. It’s hard being in the closet—especially when you’ve been in it for two decades (I would know). We live in a society that tells men that the only physical contact we can have with other men is on the playing field or on a wrestling mat. We live in a society where the we “prove” our masculinity through dominance, success, and often times misogyny.
Black men face an even starker masculinity. Media shows us that if we are lucky enough to not be in prison, than we can find success in either sports or rap. That’s it—sports or rap. We can capitalize our physical prowess in the NBA or NFL, or we can capitalize our street prowess in rap. Either way, each institution fails to leave us room to explore our sexuality.
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I candidly ask myself what right do women have to blame us for “fooling” them while we are still in the closet (I also note my use of “us” and “them”—how helpful is that?). I ask myself as a member of an extremely marginalized racial community what good this pointing the finger at gay Black men is: really, are all the successful Black men reserving themselves for other successful Black men? I also wonder what makes people so sure that even if Black men aren’t gay, that they would be open to courting someone as blatantly ignorant as Khia.
What gay men need is for women to understand our pain and struggle, to relate to us, and to not make it about them. With the Black community tied heavily in hip-hop (at the very least, stereotypically), we should be proud of the outpour of support for Frank Ocean. Though I would hesitate to consider him an activist, he is most certainly paving the way for a new era of hip-hop. I would, however, keep a keen eye on sentiments such as Khia’s in this “We’re losing all our good men to men!” fallacy.
Thoughts?
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R.I.P. SKH
Many cultural attitudes are afraid of his true feelings hidden, censored for fear of what they think friends, family members, cousins, community religious denominations, and european,oriental, African, creeds.In Europe and South America, it is very normal to express homosexual feelings.But there are many black and Muslim people in africa who are afraid of expressing their true homosexual feelings of attraction to other men. White,brown, yellow,pink black feelings will learn to love homosexuality, freedom for diversity
As a single black female I get Khia. In the same way I got Jill Scott when she talked about the wince. It is what it is. Now I cannot hate on any man for finding love or fulfillment so I won’t. But I think your article ignores the real statistics that black women are less likely to marry and that they are virtually considered last ditch on the attractiveness scale. For black women, Frank Ocean’s coming out is another indication that it will never be about them. I know he said he is bisexual and I respect that but… Read more »
@Stephanie Your point that black women often support black gay me really resignates with me (I can relate to part of that sentence). I think it’d be really interesting to hear that perspective in a lot more detail because Khia’s comment (which could have been put in less offensive terms, I think) obviously touch on a reality that some women face. I can’t speak to that from a personal standpoint–only Frank Ocean’s side as a out black man. Say we brought in statistics that reflect that black women are considered least like to marry–is Khia’s statement that Frank Ocean has… Read more »
The biggest part of this story seems to be that the fellow ninjad out instead of simply coming out – now no one knows who he is or where he is at… I’ve heard that meme many a time: “…too bad he is gay” from female friends and acquaintances; it’s not a black community thing, it’s the I want a girlfriend that is a man thing – Men have a similar script for certain women that know how to hang well with men. I don’t put a lot of stock in these types of mumblings as they are more like… Read more »
I admire athletes like Lebron James (yep you heard me!!!) more than Obama, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill T. Jones combined. Lebron James is a god….Obama is just a man.
And just like Obama, LeBron can’t go to his left worth a damn.
PREACH!
Kaleb, my point was that Obama’s election refuted the premise of an overarching, one-dimensional media portrayal of black men’s career options. De Grasse Tyson was included to reinforce that. In both of them you have black men who are hardly athletes or entertainers, although both are, to some extent, media creations, but not as figures of racial projections (a bit less true for Obama, but still). I took exception to what sounded to me like passivity in your claim. I also thought it was simply inaccurate and under-researched. I also don’t give much credence to your contention that the black… Read more »
@john hall Honestly, now that you’ve elaborated more I completely see what your saying. You say “our young people probably have no idea who Bill T. Jones” and I completely agree with you–these people, like Bill T. Jones–aren’t as readily accessible in media like Frank Ocean and (dare I admit) Khia. And I think that that in and of itself IS the problem. I completely agree with you: Obama and De Grasse Tyson do serve as masculinities that of nothing to do with the Masculinity that I am talking about–but I am talking about hegemony here. You’re completely right in… Read more »
I think the canard that goes: “the media shows us that if we are lucky enough to not be in prison [then] we can [find] success in either sports or rap. That’s it” passed its expiration date on Jan. 20, 2008. I notice also that Neil de Grasse Tyson’s name appears more frequently in the New York Times than it does in Ebony magazine. So, please, Mr. Blake, no more phony woe about the media’s blinders until you can see past your own. I hope that somewhere over the horizon an incisive and unsparing meditation on black masculinity is incubating.… Read more »
2008 should have been 2009, the date of Obama’s inauguration.
Thank you for your feedback, Mike. The point of this article is actually to examine the ways in which in our own, Black (from my standpoint), community holds this idea that for every man that announces a same-sex romantic relationship, there are women who blame these men for “taking up all of the good men” for women. Simply saying: “You’re using media as a crutch to play your phony woe to evaluate the state of Black America” (if I’m understanding you correctly) is actually counter productive. Using two Black Americans–Obama and Tyson–to exemplify the state of “negritude” actually disregards the… Read more »
I don’t know if humans will ever stop needing to attach social identity labels to people. It’s something that all cultures do in one way or another. We require mental short-hands to help us understand the world around us and the different types of people in it. What I do think we need to do is change the way we think of social labels. At the minute we tend to think of them as these strict categories that people either do (or don’t) fall into…and in the west we tend to create binaries out of social labels (man and woman,… Read more »
I think the fact that he didn’t label his sexuality is extremely important to acknowledge too. On so many sites I’ve seen “Gay Rapper Frank Ocean”–it’s almost counter productive. It’s so little about gay vs. straight that even the most well-meaning allies are surfacing over the importance of sexual fluidity. People need room to experience, plain and simple.
Jay Smooth’s got a pretty awesome video talking about the importance of acknowledging that Ocean never used the label “gay” or “bisexual.” And I think it is really important…because Ocean didn’t come out as a label, he came out as someone who had lived a certain experience. And that’s a powerful thing to do.
http://poploser.org/2012/07/09/jay-smooth-on-frank-ocean/
Thank you for sharing that, Heather! I think it’s SO extremely important (obviously I can’t emphasize that enough) that he did not come out as a label, and that members of the LGBT community as well as its allies acknowledge, respect, and be mindful not to misrepresent that.