Gay is not the new black

When the cover of the national gay magazine The Advocate declared in November that “Gay is the New Black,” countless people of color – many of them GLBT – decried the statement as offensive, if not downright racist. It was nearly impossible, as a politically engaged GLBT person, to miss the outrage expressed on blogs and in media across the country.

So it’s ironic that, in an article about the importance of considering how public statements affect our community members, a member of IU’s Bloomington Faculty Council reintroduced this very same hurtful phrase (“BFC slated to vote on Peter Pace resolution today,” Feb. 17).

As a white GLBT person, I think it’s important to say gay is not the new black. This simplistic equation has cast gay rights as the “final frontier,” communicating to many people of color that their struggle is “over.” Many black GLBT people say the phrase simultaneously erases their existence and perpetuates a white-privileged vision of gay equality.

“If you are African-American and gay and fighting alongside your white brothers and sisters for queer civil rights, the notion that ‘gay is the new black’ is not only absurdly arrogant, it is also dangerously divisive,” wrote Huffington Post columnist Irene Monroe on Dec. 16.

The same week that The Advocate announced that racism is nothing compared to homophobia, gay protesters in California were shouting the N-word at black passersby on the street while IU announced our intramural center would remain named after avowed segregationist Ora L. Wildermuth (who was “racist” and “wrong,” according to IU officials, but among like minds). Time and again in our predominately white gay media messaging, we demean other populations that struggle for equality, then are surprised that more potential allies aren’t sympathetic to the real struggles we do face.

The Bloomington Faculty Council deserves praise for recognizing how troubling it was that Gen. Pace’s homophobic public statements raised no red flags in a university that claims to celebrate diversity. But giving an uncritical platform to ideas that angered members of a minority community is exactly what the Pace resolution is opposing, no?

Zakary Szymanski
IU Adjunct Lecturer