An Invitation. Clean
Your Own Damn House.
I just came back from
my best friend’s house where I enjoyed another episode of Greys Anatomy. That
show, with that cast of beautiful people just tickles my fancy. I like them all
and I definitely want the cast to remain the way it is, including Isaiah
Washington, the newly crowned Scion of Satan.
Surely
he must be source of all evil because anywhere you go on the net you see the
gays branding him a violent, bigoted, hateful, and wicked, idiot, asshole. This
shit is totally out of control. Am I losing my mind, or did this start as a loud
and contentious disagreement between co-workers? Because, in the real world
where I live, people say very mean hateful things to each other in the heat of
an argument, only to have to recant them, after it’s over. Even the valiantly
put-upon gay community can turn their tongues into switchblades in the heat of
battle. But instead of being a little story about an on the set rigmarole,
it’s been turned into this myth-sized tale where Peter Cottontail was wounded
by the snarling vicious, wicked, bigot-dragon (Washington) for no reason at all.
That’s just what bigot-dragons do. Patrick Dempsey, the other actor in the
fight has been rendered impotent and invisible. It seems he said nothing, did
nothing, except offer up his throat for a now legendary choking, and then walked
away mute and testicle-free. How kind we’ve been to dear Patrick. 
How did we get to this
place where the black bigot-dragon savaged the white knight and the “lamb of
Grey’s”, prompting the villagers to come forth with the torches and
pitchforks to save kith and kin? And how did the white queen in the pretty form
of Katherine Heigl come to be elevated to the status of heroine du jour? One
need only pull back the wizard’s curtain to see the agitation of a scandal
hungry media, and well, the racially distorted nature of America herself. After
all, is it so unusual to see actions taken by black men demonized or actions
taken by whites lionized?
As a black gay man I
used to shun having white friends. This is because it takes many hours
of painful conversation to genuinely excavate and build an even ground on which
friendship can actually happen. Difficult frank conversation is need to pierce
layer after layer of denial and guilt, only then to have to struggle to root out
the racist indoctrination that we all have to undo. I’ve spent years rooting
out my own internalized versions. Then, as things go, I’ve been sent a large
group of white friends who have several sexual orientations. So I have been a
veil remover for the past 8 years. I have found that no group is more hardheaded
and recalcitrant than white gay males when it comes to dealing with race. In the
rush to be down with the oppressed status, I have frequently found that they
utterly refuse to examine their own racist assumptions, and are quite annoyed
when I point them out. This is often difficult for me because it is hard to deal
with neighbors who try and clean your house but won’t move their own mess.
All over the gay
blogosphere, there has been this very angry response to a really minor incident,
as if Washington proposed a constitutional amendment against gay marriage or
something. In the comments on gay blogs, you see gay men playing the role of the
villagers in a Frankenstein movie, viciously attacking Washington, and extending
their wrath to Shonda Rhimes, the creator of Grey’s Anatomy for not acting in
what’s been deemed a timely fashion to condemn the utterance of the word. Give
me a break. Predictably, these same gay men cannot see the racist undertones in
their behavior, getting quite offended if it’s brought up. BUT, if one asks
where they’ve been, oh say on protests against ultra-offensive drag performer
Shirley Q Liquor (who performs in demeaning stereotypes in black face to mostly
white gay audiences across the country, see JasmyneCannick.com
if you care to know more) or what they know about an episode of the Real World
Denver that aired December 6, 2006, where a white gay man, referred to one of
his cast mates as a nigger, during a drunken call to his lover after a difficult
argument. While I know the Real World doesn’t have the same real world,
earth-shattering importance of sudsy entertainment like Greys Anatomy, it still
fascinates me that the angry villagers never even stop to question why they
don’t know that it happened. What’s that about? If part of the gay
blogosphere’s function is to police relationships between blacks and gays, how
could a story about the white gay man calling the black man a nigger escape the
notice of so many prying eyes? Could the fact that the participants in the ugly
incident sat down and talked the next day and realized it was a mistake fueled
by anger and alcohol and decided to forgive and forget? C’mon now, it made
such a good story because 2 episodes later, the same nigga put himself in harms
way to defend his gay housemate from 2 white homophobes looking to beat him up.
What a great story, that went unnoticed and mostly unreported, on blogs like
Defamer, Perez Hilton and Towleroad.
Here’s something I
know. Like the men in the bar who wanted to beat up Davis, in that Real World episode, a true homophobe is usually
unrepentant. They think they have the right to feel the way they feel, and do
what they do. Washington isn’t one. I know this because I met the man, when he
starred in a play written by a black gay man. He may be a hothead with anger
issues, but I am not taking your word for it; that he’s a homophobe. Thanks to
your overreaction, I am not sure that “the community” knows what one looks
like. I think he lied about what he said, because he never intended to hurt
Knight during that argument, and he regretted it then. I also know I shudder
whenever I see a picture of a black person on a gay blog, before I read the
headline. I know the economic gap between white gays and black gays is enormous
and we live, work and play in separate, segregated communities, and I don’t
see very much outrage coming from my white gay brethren. Seems they are too busy
trying to burn the black dragon.
If you are interested
in reading a story about the Real World Denver incident, read that last few
paragraphs of the article here:
or here:
If you are interested
in reading a story about what how the Real World incident reflects some white
gay bias, you can go here:
If you want to listen
to an interesting discussion about slurs on NPR, go here:
Are all slurs created equal?
If you want to learn
about an ongoing protest against Shirley Q. Liquor and why she is so offensive,
go here:
Dragon Image
copyright of artist, Bob Eggleton
2 comments:
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I found my way to your blog from a link on TWOP and am so glad to find there are still people out there who see all this bullshit as the old fashioned lynch mob it really is. On that same website someone mentioned that an actor from The Sopranos stated (at the SAG awards) that homophobic comments were common on the show's set. Did the same people who have been foaming at the mouth, demanding that a fork be shoved up not only Isaih's ass but Shondra's as well have a word to say about this. HELL NO! I lived in San Francisco for years and if I ever wanted a Mammy cookie jar, or a greeting card with a demeaning picture of a black woman, I knew to head straight to the Castro. Bigotry of any kind is a terrible thing and I fight with it practically everyday. Like, how do I keep from hating ALL white people when shit like this goes done every damn day. But, if all of these holier than thou folks want Isaih Washington to take the splinter out of his eye, then they had better take the motherfunkin' beam out of their own.
Thank you again for a voice of reason in the wilderness of nonsense.
I too came from TWOP. Thank you for writing this article and illuminating the anger, hypocrisy and bigotry being directed at Isaiah Washington. This anger only fuels anger. What we need is to develop our wisdom and that is precisely what your article will help us do.
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