Deon Johnson, a Gay Black Immigrant, Elected Bishop of Missouri

Contents:

• DEON JOHNSON, A GAY BLACK IMMIGRANT, ELECTED BISHOP OF MISSOURI
• BLACK, GAY AND LOSG FAH
• KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

DEON JOHNSON, A GAY BLACK IMMIGRANT, ELECTED BISHOP OF MISSOURI

Openly gay Epispal bishops have served the dc of New Hampshire, Los Angel, New York and Mae, and have been elected Michigan and, on November 23, Missouri. Y, Bible-belt Missouri, a slave-holdg borr state durg the Civil War, has elected a gay, black immigrant to serve as the XI Bishop of Missouri.

At the same time, Ni, bee of his homosexualy, embodi this particular illogic: His gayns is no particular tragedy the ey of his peers, but an absolute betrayal of God’s plan the ey of his is the central nflict Iweala’s slenr book, one the thor handl wh admirable ol. Released om class bee of a snowstorm, he seeks refuge at the nearby home of his art iend, Meredh, where her attempt to sce him leads to the nfsn of his homosexualy. The ensug nontatn wh his father is vlent and heartbreakg: “Are you really tellg me the tth, that you are gog out and gallivantg wh the gays, the homosexuals?

BLACK, GAY AND LOSG FAH

”Not long ago, his lumn for New York magaze, Andrew Sullivan wrote that “the radilizatn of the movement’s iology and rhetoric” is to blame for “a retrenchment fort wh gay equaly.

KEV MAXEN BE FIRST MALE ACH A US MEN’S PROFSNAL SPORTS LEAGUE TO PUBLICLY E OUT AS GAY

” Iweala giv the lie to this claim elegantly; some people jt hate homosexualy, no matter how much they love their ’s mother is a smopolan dghter of privilege, now a physician; his father is a “te village boy” who climbed his way to rporate succs and Amerin fort. ” It’s not Ni who is closeted any longer; ’s his parents’ ’s homosexualy is very much the book’s subject, and the text is terted duali — Amerins and Ains, whe and black, gay and straight, vout and skeptic, the black immigrant and the black Amerin (a role filled by Damien, a llege stunt wh whom our hero has a sweet, chaste flg) — while always returng to the qutn of what his gayns says about who Ni wr wh such ease about adolcents and adolcence that “Speak No Evil” uld well be a young adult novel. At the same time he toys wh other well-fed forms: the immigrant novel, the gay g-of-age novel, the novel of beg black Ameri.

Eventually rears — and wrers are of urse rears themselv — unrstand that stori about immigrants functn a certa way, that stori about gayns require a moral reckong, that stori about blackns require the sacrifice of the black body.

For all the tert among rears creatg a lerature that reflects s rearship, so-lled “diverse books, ” there are tim that “diverse book” seems self a genre, bound by nventn and largely a matter of the inty of a wrer who is different om the thoand or so wrers we believe to be the his smart exploratn of generatnal nflict, of what is to be a gay man, of the crisis of existence as a black man, Iweala is very much a realist. ”A versn of this article appears prt on, Page 8 of the Sunday Book Review wh the headle: Black, Gay and Losg Fah.