When I woke up this morning Reggie was watching the video of Wanda Sykes from the White House correspondence dinner. Once I fully woke up and gathered my wits about me (a 30 minute process on a good day) I logged on and went to check her out myself. For the record let me say I have been a Wanda Sykes fan for awhile, well before she came out. I watched her short lived sitcom on Fox and she was the only reason I sat thru “Monster in Law” with that damn J-Lo, plus anybody who can get under Dr. Bill Cosby’s self righteous skin is ok in my book.
Anyway after I had finished , she did very well in my book by the way, Reggie asked me if I felt she had not done her due part by including her recently outted lesbianism into her act. I knew his question was academic and not an actual slight, so as with most things I answered with a story. I won’t retell the entire story here I will just give the reader’s digest answer. I was a huge fan of Ellen’s sitcom until after she came out on the show and the whole show became about her coming out. Curious I asked Reggie why that question had come up and he told me before I got my ire up (no difficult job) that nobody had said anything…yet. But he was bracing himself for the backlash from the gay community for her lack of “pride” at the event.
To late I thought, as my ire was clearly up and alert now. As I rolled my eyes and breathed through my nose at the ridiculousness of it all Reggie, clearly the sea of calm in our little family, said I should not get mad at the gay community as being gay is their ethnicity.
Let me take a beat here and explain some gay community stuff. The gay community for all its bluster for wanting to be treated like everyone else is one of the most diverse divided societies in this country. When I usually speak of the gay community I usually mean white people who are gay. Yes gay comes in all flavors and colors, but like the rest of America there are divides and separations. You don’t believe me, the group that fought against Prop 8 in California last year planned and laid out this fight for awhile but it was not until the week before the election when one of the higher up decided, maybe we should get some of our literature out in Spanish, I mean it is California after all. If it is not the exotic boyfriend white gays usually don’t include browns in their community.
So when Reggie said their gay is their ethnicity, it gave me pause (and lowered my ire). Could this really be the case? Could all this uproar and constant grinding of teeth I hear from the gay community stem from the fact that they feel that in this country, which for the next 40 years will still cater to whites really believe that their gay struggle puts them on the same par with the struggle of other “ethnic” groups?
Food for thought indeed and questions in need of answers, so I ask you blogosphere. I have a lot of readers from many groups’ black, white, yellow, pink triangles, red black and green power fist. Is gay an ethnic group?
