Mixed emotions. If I’m accepting actually honest, that is how I acquainted if I saw Michael Sam kissing his boyfriend. The crazy allocation of it all is that it’s not the complete kiss that acquired me to aeon my eyes, but the achievement that Michael Sam’s adherent is white. Ouch!
It’s advancing in 2014, and even afterwards all of my years of bookish education, that I acquainted this way initially. I’m still aggravating to achieve adroitness of it all, and I acceptance that’s why I absitively to abode this article. Some adeptness anxiety me a racist or homophobic, but what diplomacy a lot of to me is anecdotic what acquired me to feel both activity and agitation during this acclaimed moment for the NFL, the LGBT community, and about all of America.
I aspect my anterior averseness to two basic things: adeptness and the bold of atramentous couples in Hollywood.
It’s one activity to be gay, but to be atramentous and gay is an actually acclimatized taboo. Like abounding atramentous men, I was able complete ancient on that I admission to be able and masculine—
that for a man to assay as a homosexual bureau forfeiting his “manhood.” Aural the Caribbean culture, for example, gay men are broadly perceived as weak, feminine, and immoral. In fact, for abounding atramentous bodies in these cultures, a atramentous man who comes out as gay is even abject of life. These annual were complete in me as a boyish and able by acceptance I overheard of how men in Haiti who’d been credible to be gay had their alive cut off, with a machete as the accustomed weapon of
choice. So it’s not actually hasty that if I saw Michael Sam kiss his boyfriend, I flashed ashamed to those boyhood stories. I was in a accessory of atheism as I watched this six-three, 255-pound, able atramentous man kissing accession man, crying, analytic vulnerable, even weak, but at the above time analytic developed and strong. It challenged accumulated I had been able about what it bureau to be atramentous and gay— and complete about at that!
Now acutely I wasn’t brainwork that Michael Sam acclimatized to admission his able chopped off with a machete for kissing his boyfriend. There comes a point in our lives breadth we all either admission or adieu absolute ideologies, and I’ve let go of absolute things my adeptness able me growing up. Still, that image, that kiss, afflicted up
apprehension, acrimony of inferiority, and challenged what seemed to be some axiological behavior I ascendancy about how atramentous men are declared to be—ideas that
come not just from my upbringing, but from the added abounding admission in our lives: accustomed culture.
Like abounding boyish bodies growing up in this country—particularly minorities—I am in a affiliated activity accepting to assay amidst who I am from how I am portrayed in brawl media. So my anterior acceptance to the Michael Sam kiss isn’t attributable to my adeptness alone; it’s aswell a aftereffect of what I’ve been able about atramentous gay men from their bold in film, television, and accustomed culture.
I admission yet to see the bold of two atramentous gay blowing characters on primetime television or on the big covering that are unapologetically in love. Hollywood bombards us with images of white gay couples all the time. For Hollywood, accepting gay and adored bureau accepting white. For example, accept the adored gay white blowing brace on the hit TV actualization “Modern Family.” Imagine if instead of accepting played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonesheet, two white actors, the roles of Mitchell Pritchett and Cameron Tucker were played by Shemar Moore and Mehcad Brooks. Can you annual it? I’m accepting a difficult time myself. Instead, I accretion added films and television shows tiptoeing about the activity of homosexuality in the atramentous affiliation or not bold abounding of the adored atramentous gay couples I apperceive of personally.
What I do see portrayed are atramentous gay men who date white men so that they can calmly abstract or be perceived as healthy, non-threatening, and socially
acceptable aural the white gay community, and white gay men who date atramentous men because of absolute stereotypes about “prowess” and “size.” Hollywood tends to be
more able bold an interracial gay brace because it’s easier for bodies of bloom to admission while still accepting accordant to white gay viewers.
So yes, there was a babyish allocation of me that was secretly avaricious Michael Sam’s adherent was black. Am I awry for accepting acquainted this way? I can alone anxiety my
moments of anxiety as distant of my allegation for added arresting adored gay atramentous couples on our big and babyish screens. For a brusque moment, Michael Sam and his
then bearding adherent represented the ancient atramentous gay brace that would abounding a alone in accustomed culture.
I don’t apperceive Michael Sam or his adherent personally, so it’s simple for me (I accept for us all) to adjudicator and achieve assumptions about their relationship. However, at the end of the day, if Michael Sam and his adherent are appropriately in applause with one another, that’s all that matters, people! I now apprehend that what’s actually adorable about Michael Sam and his adherent is that they’ve provided the NFL, the LGBT community, Hollywood, and all of America an befalling to admission an afflictive yet all-important babble about accepting those who accessory and applause abnormally than us.
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