Being a Closeted Homosexual versus Passing for White.

[crikkett]

In honor of my 1oooth post I would like to pose this question to DU:

Is there any fundamental difference between being a closeted homosexual versus passing for white?

Within my lifetime, it was very detrimental to be either homosexual or black. It was much more advantageous, more socially acceptable, to be straight, or white. So if they could 'pass', then life is easier, at least on the surface.

I was taught that passing is a life of self-hatred, but I can also see it as one of opportunism.

The risk was in being 'called out', or found out. Being outed meant facing the derision (if not outright hatred) of those like you, whom you left behind, and those whom you attempted to join.

So those who remained closeted about their true selves, lived in fear of exposure, shame and humiliation.

Well, today, arguably, it's no longer life-threatening to be either gay or black, but passing is still despised. Blacks feel that it is morally wrong to pass for white. In a moral sense, is it more or less wrong to pass for straight?

Assuming that outing a person no longer endangers their lives, is it morally wrong to out a black person passing for white? Is it more or less wrong to out a homosexual?

Doesn't this dilemma go to the argument that being Gay is just as natural as being Black? If there's nothing life-threatening about being gay or black, what's to hide? For that matter, whose business is it anyway, someone's color or preference? What's the big deal?


Happy Friday!
Crikkett

[texasleo]

1. I wonder if we'll have straight people acting gay in a few years

The heterosexual equivalent of "wiggers."

[Jed Dilligan]

10. Already got em on the coasts.

Surprised they aren't in Texas yet. Metrosexuals?

[Deja Q]

2. It shouldn't be anybody's.

But when you got Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell scapegoating gays for everything, and big floating phalluses in gay pride parades while being laughed at for wanting more out of life and then you see how George Michael is given the spotlight when he drools and spouts "it's my culture to (do it in public) and his ex (Kenny Goss) seemingly ignored by GLBT press, it gets easy to wonder "Just what am I supposed to be supporting again?"

The B's have it best of all. When cretins like Falwell scapegoat, and then our own "community" shining lights and flaunting on everything that's only worsening stereotypes, you're damn right people want out.

And knowing of the stigma black men face (not firsthand, but I have friends who tell me firsthand), I'm not surprised they ignore their gay aspect too.

[lumberjack_jeff]

3. There are two concerns

1) betrayal of self.
2) fitting in.

A person who is more concerned with fitting in, may get away with pretending to be something he's not. IMHO, this usually is not a good long term strategy. I see it all the time in a socioeconomic sense - people on a self-destructive path trying to distance themselves from their history/heritage/upbringing.

Personally, I think each of us is free to be whatever we want. However, I think it's important to acknowledge the personal risk from being ashamed of anything we can't change.

[Karenina]

4. Serendipity!

I was thinking about this today after an intense family drama... :popcorn:

[Rosemary2205]

5. passing for white??

Oh dear God, PLEASE lets not even go back to that whole thing where 1 drop of black blood makes you black.......... Geesus H Racism people can we please just not go there?

"Passing for white" is just so fucking offensive to me.

[crikkett]

6. It is offensive, but they're as real as closeted homosexuals are.

While some people may think that 1 drop of blood makes you black, the concept of 'passing for white' goes beyond that, and I personally am no more concerned with someone's race than I am with someone's sexuality. So I apologize for bumping into one of your buttons. I am posing an intellectual argument here, not an emotional one.

Now, it's commonplace to use the Supreme Court's 1967 ruling in Loving v. Virginia, which overturns anti-Miscegenation laws, as an argument for legalizing Gay Marriage.

So if newspapers can compare race and sexual preference in terms of marriage, why can't I compare race and sexual preference in terms of being closeted?

Passing is something that real people do***, and it's something that real people seem concerned about. Just as real people are concerned about closeted gays. I personally think either concern is just as contrary to my sense of morals, ethics and practicality. Perhaps if enough people think that being closeted is just as silly and antiquated a notion as passing, then we can really achieve social equality in this country, and we won't be run over by the anti-Gay truck every time an election comes around.


*** The author of "The Senator and the Socialite" said in an interview on C-Span's BookTV that when a portrait of the first black senator was hung in the Capitol recently, all living members of his family were invited to attend, but only one showed up because noone else wanted their Black heritage exposed.
A review of this book is at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/thesenatorandthesocialite.htm
and I don't know where to find the BookTV archives.

[Karenina]

11. Having been used

by a closeted gay man, I have nothing but seething contempt for those who hide their orientation from their partners. I am also aware of "high yellow" girls whose heritage was exposed. It's an interesting comparison.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

7. Of course there's a difference!

You never have to tell your mother you're black. :-)

[AspenRose]

9. Al Franken, is that you?

;-)

[davidinalameda]

12. mothers are the first to know if their kid is gay

[mark414]

8. james byrd and matthew shepard

it is still life threatening, and these are two mutually exclusive things so why try to compare?

[davidinalameda]

13. what are mutually exclusive

trying to pretend you're something that you're not?

[Karenina]

14. Identification with the oppressor.

It's deep shit.

[dsc]

15. They are largely the same

but there is one pretty big difference. It is far easier to pass as straight for the typical gay than it is to pass as white for the typical black. Thus it is both more tempting for gays to do so and harder for them not to do so (we have to tell people we are gay or else we are assumed to be straight).

[ecstatic]

16. Pretty sure Clarence Thomas and Ward Connerly would pass if they could

And "calling them out" would be a beautiful thing. I think everyone should be who they are, without fear. If all blacks had the option to pass for white, the current state of civil rights would not be anywhere near where it is today.