Experiencing Disappointment w/ "my own" People

Most of my life I have been uncomfortable around Black people for mainly one reason, the fact that they would be able to somehow detect that I'm gay.  This is a large reason why I originally wanted to go to a mostly White college/university in the first place, I assumed that Whites would be more accepting of my sexuality.  The fear of my own people started back in middle school, while I was attending one of the worse schools in Houston, when I got jumped by a group of students in a staircase for walking funny (and obviously being jumped didn't change my walk at all, lol).  Even though at the time I didn't view my walk as an expression of my gayness and definitely wasn't at the point of accepting my sexuality, I knew I was "weird" in a sense just didn't have a label for it.  After being jumped, I automatically assumed that this is forever going to be the reaction from Black people to my "weirdness".  Tell this day the people I am least comfortable around are Black heterosexual men and of course it's not because of this one silly incident that happened in middle school but after experiencing a decade almost of similar acts of hatred towards my sexuality mostly committed by the same identity group it became a socially conditioned prejudice of mine.

But my prejudice is not the point of this blog entrance lol, c'mon now you should know I'm not going to focus on my own flaws lol.  My frustrations mostly lies with the fact that I love Howard, I love my friends here at Howard and most of my friends here are gay black men and a couple of women or "fish" as the gays here call them lol (no offense).  So when I first came to Howard I was definitely surrounded in this bubble of black gay culture that sort of neglects to pay attention to the prejudices that we face by our peers who just happen to be mostly heterosexual black men.  But because I'm coming back to Howard under different circumstances perhaps I feel like I've been looking beyond my own bubble that I was originally engulfed in and some of the things I'm seeing are not pretty at all.  I hate the fact that as a gay black man I'm suppose to practice "discretion" when it comes to my sexuality, especially if the heteros are around.  I hate the fact that we're talked about, judged and laughed at by these hetero blk men.  I hate the fact that these conceptions of gender, masculinity, sexuality and what's right and wrong in regards to these identities have all been defined by these heterosexual men and that we cater to them, we define ourselves based off their perceptions and twisted mentality.

However, what is most frustrating about this is I would think that Black people, out of any race/ethnicity, would understand the effects of prejudice and how wrong it is to view a group of people as unequals.  It's really ironic that the most accepted I have ever felt of my sexuality has been among White people, it trips me out, the race that has arguably spread the most hate and constructed a whole western civilization based off of this hate manages to be so accepting of me being  gay.  However, a group of people that historically and presently experience mental and physical abuse based off of their culture and skin color and has fought to create an understanding and dominate mentality of equality for ALL people manages to be some of the most homophobic individuals I have ever faced.  It's frustrating and I don't understand it.  People argue that it's our religion that has created this prejudice against gays.  I do not believe this is true.  If you look at the ACTIONS of all of our lives you will see that religion is becoming less and less relevant by generation.  It is perfectly okay for a hetero blk male to sleep around with a different girl every weekend but don't let him be gay, WAIT he probably is on the DL though, but anyways if he's gay he's somehow worse?  If he's gay he's abdnormal, correction if he's openly gay.  Apparently it's okay to be DL just don't let anyone find out, especially the women who you're using to convince everyone that you're a hetero. 

My point is prejudice against gays is dumb as hell, even for religious reasons because we all are sinful in nature and no one is perfect so I cannot and try not to judge you because only God can be the judge and I'm not going to be arrogant enough to proclaim myself God so forgive me for expecting you not to.  But prejudice against gays is ESPECIALLY dumb within the Black community because we should know a thing or two about being treated unequally and not accepted as normal or even human.  Our Black men should know how it feels not to be seen or defined as a man but something less then, something even animalistic that should be laughed at and treated like a dog. 

SORRY, lol, now that was the 1st and last rant for this month, I promise lol and I don't know if I was making any sense sort of being rushed out of the computer lab lol... the next post will be about Mrs. Palin and how I'm falling in love with her, I know you can't wait to read it!  :)