Color Coded Queers JANUARY 2015 | Page 4

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When gender and sexuality meets race and religion

In America to be born black, queer, disabled, poor, and/or a woman is to have picked the short straw of life. One of the worst combinations of all those disadvantages is to be both black and queer; being queer in itself is starting the race ten paces back, adding black skin and you might as well not even start running the race.

Even in the households queer black kids have started at a disadvantage. A vast majority of black families have their values deeply rooted in the church and the bible. Christianity has made a profound impact on the lives of black people, either for the better or worse. If the odds are in your favour you might be born into a family who takes away from the bible to love and accept your children no matter what, for they are your children. If you are not as lucky, you might have the misfortunate of being born into a home of fundamentalist Christians which means you will be subjected to either: hyper masculinity or the expectation to bear children and serve the black community

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For example, the boy that started playing dress up in female cousins clothes when he was 7 and by 10 when his mother found him the first time and sat him down and explained a man's role in society- a role he was supposed to play. He is told that a man is not supposed to wear a skirt and parade around in make up, he was a man and men had very important role in society and more importantly black society. To be a man was to be a warrior and a protector and to provide for his family, which was to include a wife and at least two children. To be a man was to be strong and carry the entire world on your shoulders because God made then broad enough to carry the problems of everyone on them. Looking down at his arms the only thing that he could think was, 'God must've messed up on me. I have womanly arms, to hold babies and prepare food and to comb hair.' but knowing better he kept his lips pressed tight and gave two stiff nods. His mother, thinking she had effectively squashed the queer bud in her son, kissed his head and told him to wash up before dinner. His father would be home soon. He'd wondered in the next passing decade if she had ever made conversation with his father about his 'perversion', as he had her calling it one night when she was praying before bed. It was an question he didn't get an answer to until he was 21 and returning home from college in a skirt. It was a question he didn't get an answer to until he was 21 and his father was screaming to get of his house, because no son of his was going to be a faggot.