Black or White Bullshit Vol. I

This blacks vs. gays issue is still lingering in my mind. It's an obviously sensitive subject, and I will preface what I have to say with a humble acknowledgement of the fact that I have no idea what it feels like to be black. I'm really not trying to be offensive; I'm really only trying to be objective.

But at the same time, the blacks who want to turn their collective hardships into a contest with the collective hardships of the queers is, well, coming from a place that lacks compassion and an open mind.

There's one point that I've heard that I want to address in detail:

Black people cannot hide the color of their skin, but gay people can hide their sexual orientation.

Sometimes this is true, and sometimes it's not. And sometimes there are degrees.

There are some gay people who don't seem obviously gay to begin with--the femmy lesbians and the manly fags. Cases in point include Jodie Foster, Portia de Rossi, Richard Chamberlain, and Rupert Everett.

There are other gay people whose natural facial features, demeanors, and voices are particularly masculine or feminine. They could try to appear more straight, but their attempts might be futile. Cases in point include Rosie O'Donnel, Richard Simmons, Rachel Maddow (whose hotness I just recently picked up on), and Randy Harrison.

And some people are ambiguous. That's why developing gaydar is a useful skill.

Furthermore, there are degrees with black people too! There are different shades of skin color. There are different types of features. There are "oreos" who act more "caucasian" by the the way they talk and carry themselves.

These are things that I myself am not really aware of, but I recently read an article by Allison Samuels in Newsweek on Michelle Obama, and she stated how it'll be great to have a First Lady with a darker shade of brown:

Who and what is beautiful has long been a source of pain, anger and frustration in the African-American community. In too many cases, beauty for black women (and even black men) has meant fair skin, "good hair" and dainty facial features. Over the years, African-American icons like Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, Halle Berry and Beyoncé—while beautiful and talented—haven't exactly represented the diversity of complexions and features of most black women in this country.

Oh yeah, and to follow the idea of degrees to its logical conclusion, there's this thing called passing, and it's been acknowledged, discussed, analyzed, and written about for a while now. So, some black people and some queer people can hide their minority identities. It's a spectrum.

Some queers might exploit their ability to pass for straight. Gee, I wonder why they would do that! Hell, even The L Word mostly avoids casting women who are more masculine than Kate Moennig and Daniela Sea as actual characters.

All of these factors are making it difficult for me to negate the fact the discrimination against blacks bears some similarities to discrimination against queers.