From: heath@athena.cs.uga.edu (Terrance Heath)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Yeah, here I go again....
Date: 27 Jul 92 17:18:28 GMT
Article-I.D.: athena.1992Jul27.171828.25536
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens



*NOTE : The following is an excerpt from an article originaly printed
in the Atlanta Journal/Consitution. I meant to post it earlier, but
didn't get around to it until now.  




Gay and Bisexual in Atlanta
	by Keith Thomas,


	
	He should have seen the hatred coming.  He usually does. On
this day he, Atlanta author E. Lynn Harris, was sitting in a
Washington D.C. airport getting his shoes shined.  A proud, muscular
black gay man walked by.
	An African-American woman standing nearby noticed the young
man too. Like a sanctimonious street preacher perched atop a soapbox,
she lashed out, "that's a damn shame!". She screeched to noone in
particular, but everyone within earshot. "A handsome guy like that,
wanting to be woman. What a waste. Damn shame."
	Mr. Harris looked at the woman and shook his head in dismay.
"You know," he said politely, "You should watch what you say.  You
never know who you might be talking to."
	You never know.  In this case, hse was talking to the author
of an insightful and somehwat controversial book on a growing minority
within a minority, gay and bisexual black men, _Invisible_Life_
(Consortium Press, $12.95).
	Though the exact figures are hard to come by, its estimated
that more than 7.5 million people in the U.S., 3 to 5 percent of the
population, are homosexuals, according to information from the Kinsey
Insitute.  Based on Kinsey Insitute data, 4 percent of the white male
population in the U.S. is exclusively homosexual; 13 percent
predominantly gay, while another 13 percent has expressed erotic
feelings for males but not acted on them.  While most of the
information collected focuses on whites, researchers say the same
percentages can be applied to the Black population.
	What the numbers don't reflect are the social, religious and
emotional barriers, the hatred and homophobia, gay black men must
contend with daily.  "Most of the hatred I've experienced has come
from my own people," says Duncan Teague, a local activist and co-chair
of the African-American Lesbian Gay Alliance (AALGA). "That's what
really hurts, to feel like an outcast among one's own people."
	Though Atlanta has an active social and political homosexual
community, many gay black men prefer to mingle in small secure
circles.  "I think its even worse for bisexual black men," says Frank,
a fortysomething bisexual bussinessman who has been married for 15
years.  He and his wife have two children. HE didn't want his name
used for fear of retribution.  "I've come to grips with my dual
sexuality, but most people I know haven't," he says,"they just
wouldn't fully understand."
	Historically, black communities, from the churches to
crusading civil rights organizations, have shied away from championing
gay causes or openly embracing gay individuals, especially black
males. "Black males already feel stigmatized," says Dr. Alvin
Poussaint, an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard and former
script consultant to 'The Cosby Show'.  "Being gay is just another
stigma they have to live with. Not only do black men face
discrimination in general, but they're doubly discriminated against
for being gay."
	If change or understanding is to take place, it may take more
insightful insights like "Invisible Life" and "Tongues Untied",
filmaker Marlon Rigg's stunning, in-your-face-docmentary on gay Black
men.  "It really runs deeper than questions of sexuality or who
someone sleeps with," Mr. Riggs says by phone from New York. "For us
to begin to reverse this notion of Black men being an endagered
species, inevitably, we have to deal with the issue of sexuality."
"Part of what's killing us, is our silence about our sexual identity,"
he says.  "And by this I don't mean simply what we do when we're in
bed with somebody, but how we see ourselves in terms of our full
multidimensional identity which includes sexuality.  How we see
ourselves in intimate relationships with others, the same sex as well
as the opposite sex...Many of us lead a kind of silent existance."


*NOTE: My own research of Kinsey data leads to a standard 10% of the
population being gay/lesbian.

-- 
"Black men loving black men is THE revolutionary act!"
			-Joseph Beam_
Terrance Heath 
heath@athena.cs.uga.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american