Sweet tea
Subtitle: Black gay men of the South
By: E. Patrick Johnson.
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Chapel Hill
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 570
ISBN-13: 9780807832097
Subjects: African American gay men -- Southern States -- Social conditions; Southern States -- Social conditions
Description: "Giving voice to a population rarely acknowledged in southern history, Sweet Tea collects life stories from black gay men who were born, raised, and continue to live in the southern United States. E. Patrick Johnson challenges stereotypes of the South as 'backward' or 'repressive, ' suggesting that these men draw upon the performance of 'southernness'--politeness, coded speech, and religiosity, for example--to legitimate themselves as members of both southern and black cultures. At the same time, Johnson argues, they deploy those same codes to establish and build friendship networks and find sexual partners and life partners. Traveling to every southern state, Johnson conducted interviews with more than seventy black gay men between the ages of 19 and 93--lawyers, hairdressers, ministers, artists, doctors, architects, students, professors, and corporate executives, as well as the retired and unemployed. Sweet Tea is arranged according to themes echoed in their narratives. Chapters explore unique experiences as well as shared ones, from coming out stories and church life to homosex and love relationships. The voices collected here dispute the idea that gay subcultures flourish primarily in northern, secular, urban areas. In addition to filling in a gap in the sexual history of the South, Sweet Tea offers a window into the ways that black gay men negotiate their sexual and racial identities with their southern cultural and religious identities. The interviews also reveal how they build and maintain community in many spaces and activities, some of which may appear to be antigay. Through Johnson's use of critical performance ethnography, Sweet Tea validates the lives of these black gay men and reinforces the role of storytelling in both African American and southern cultures"--Publisher description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Some bitter and some sweet : growing up Black and gay in the South; title: Coming out and turning the closet inside out; title: Church sissies : gayness and the Black church; title: Do you get down? : homosex in the South; title: Trannies, transvestites, and drag queens, oh my! : transitioning the South; title: Sweet magnolias : love and relationships; title: Of legends and young'uns : Black gay men across generations; title: Epilogue: Why this story now?