Very Few People Say “No Wh”: Gay Men of Color and The Racial Polics of Dire - PMC

Contents:

• VERY FEW PEOPLE SAY “NO WH”: GAY MEN OF COLOR AND THE RACIAL POLICS OF DIRE
• IS THE #GAYMEDIASOWHE? GAY MEN OF COLOR EXPOSED RACISM GAY MEDIA ON TWTER
• WHE GAY MEN ARE HRG OUR PROGRS AS A QUEER COMMUNY

VERY FEW PEOPLE SAY “NO WH”: GAY MEN OF COLOR AND THE RACIAL POLICS OF DIRE

”“Wh all of the black and brown activism that’s worked to addrs racism the Gayborhood over the past year, I thk the new flag is a great step for the cy to show the world that they’re workg toward fully supportg all members of our muny, ” the statement ntued. Bear pri flagThe bear pri flag celebrat a subculture of the LGBTQ muny that refers to gay or bisexual men who have facial and/or body hair and embrace fortably wh masculy and their bodi, acrdg to Montclair State Universy. After the former Mayor of San Francis Dan Whe shot and murred Harvey Milk—who served as one of the first openly gay members of the San Francis Board of Supervisors—Baker set out to rate the Gay Freedom Day Para 1978 wh as many rabow flags as possible to brg attentn to that and several other tragedi.

IS THE #GAYMEDIASOWHE? GAY MEN OF COLOR EXPOSED RACISM GAY MEDIA ON TWTER

Specifilly for gay men, a slim hairls body may provi men who posss those tras wh sexual currency at a “Twk bar, ” but those same tras would have ls currency at a “Leather bar, ” where burlier bodi are nsired more sirable. While a number of different typ of sexual fields that n be found the gay muny have been discsed the amic lerature as well as the popular prs, there has been ls attentn paid to the ways that erotic words are socially anized (Mart and Gee 2006).

To do so, we brgg together the sexual fields perspective wh the growg lerature on sexual racism, an act of eher sexually excludg non-wh as potential partners or cludg racial mori as sexual partners based only on racial several scholars have noted, ntemporary gay life is marked by high levels of racism directed towards gay men of lor by gay whe men, wh much of the racism maniftg self as negative sexual attus towards, and sexual excln or fetishizatn of, non-whe men (Armstrong 2002; Bébé 2001; Epste 1996; McBri 2005; Tenunis, 2007). In fact, several studi have shown that gay whe men were much more likely to prefer their own race and actively exclu non-wh as potential sexual than gay men of lor (Lundquist and L 2015; Ph and Kfman 2003; Rafalow, Feliciano, and Robt 2017; Smh 2014).

WHE GAY MEN ARE HRG OUR PROGRS AS A QUEER COMMUNY

Dpe gay whe men’s sistence that sexual excln was not racism but rather personal preference, and that the personal preferenc have nothg to do wh racism, Collanr and his lleagu (2015) found that attus toward sexual excln were related to almost every intified factor associated wh racist attus general. Th, sexual racism should be unrstood not as personal preference, but as “problematic ndns that stcture the very formatn of romantic relatnships” that is neher benign nor trivial (Bedi 2015: 998) the ia of sexual racism has been wily discsed the popular prs, and amic studi have also documented the racial hierarchy of sire the gay muny, there have been fewer attempts to systematilly exame how such racialized hierarchi of sire are unrstood by gay men of lor and, more importantly, the impact the racial hierarchi have on them. Wh any sexual field, some dividual e to be seen as more sirable than other dividuals pendg on the tras that they posss that are valued by the specific sexual field which they discsg gay sexual fields, Green (2008; 2011) intifi a number of potential tras that fluence the level of sirabily that any given dividual might posss.

In fact, sire for whens has been noted by a number of scholars examg race and racism the gay muny (Callanr, Holt and Newman 2016; Han 2007; Robson 2015; McBri 2005; Tnis 2007) other characteristics intified by Green, such as clothg or mculary, whens is a central anizg prciple the gay muny (Bébé 2001; Han 2007). In promotg equaly through the normalizatn of (homo)sexualy at the expense of “non-gay” issu, gay anizatns such as The Human Rights Campaign promote a monolhic image of the “gay muny, ” as beg rich, nservative, and whe (Bébé 2001; Phelan 2001; Seidman 2002; Walters 2014). As Peter Jackson (2000: 184) not:When sirabily is lked wh race, and when certa rac are ascribed greater erotic tert than others, then to be a member of an “unsexy” ethnic group is to be equated wh an ferr form of importantly, unlike other markers of sirabily among gay men that Green discs, such as amount of body hair, mculary, cloth, etc., race is an entirely ascribed stat, not an achieved one.