These three cultural realms all say that black is straight and that black is male. We need the courage to say that this teaching is wrong, factually and ethically. Black is gay, young, poor and female, too, and as such, deserves the understanding and action of blacks for blacks. To negotiate this new reality, we need what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as a revolution of values. That revolution must challenge the secular, the sacred and the political domains of black life.
Street culture is most often a male macho domain.
To be a man in the streets means that one is neither female nor gay. The streets cultivate and perfect the image of a mindless monster, the tough guy, the Lone Ranger in the ghetto. The code of the streets defines manhood in ways that desensitize young men to their own humanity and that of their people. On the other hand, the church rejects the code of the streets - at least on the surface it does. The position of the black church is complicated because it has been socially marginalized, segregated, relegated to a socio-economically unequal status in society.