I Wish I Could Quit You: On Brokeback Mountain

And How Homophobia Is Killing Black Women

saw brokeback mountain last night and, all hollywood hype aside, it was an amazingly touching tragedy about love and the culture of love in the american patriarchy.

a few weeks ago aaron mcgrude, my favorite cartoonist and creator of "the boondocks" comic strip ran a story line that had granddad (the conservative grandfather to huey, the black- nationalist, revolutionary, socialist grade-schooler who is the main character of the strip) craving a masculine, macho, good ol' boy kind of movie. he saw the previews to brokeback mountain and decided that it was about time there was a good old fashioned manly picture he could go see. he invites his neighbor tom, who is also black, to see the film with him and the strip shows the two of them marching to the theatre and preparing themselves to watch a movie that they repeatedly refer to as manly. meanwhile, huey is kind of like, um, are you SURE you want to see this film??

so they go to the movies and of course, the joke is that both granddad and tom are mortified that the picture is really about two cowboys who fall in love with each other. it culminates with grandad screaming at the screen, that's not manly!!!!

when i told my mom that i was going to see it she said, oh! me too! i've been wanting to go, maybe we could go together! and i was more direct than huey was with granddad. i told her that it was about a love story between two men and she was shocked and disgusted and, like, i'm glad you told me! and then something to the effect that she would never go see it and then, america is going to hell with gasoline panties on...

after the movie, i went out with a friend, also a black man, who is one of the most progressive men that i know. i came out of the theatre gushing about how beautiful and sad the movie was and he was visibly uncomfortable even discussing it let alone seeing it.

the night before, in new jeresey, i was out with a group of black folk, among whom was a man who's views about homosexuality, specifically among men, were so primitive as to be dangerous in general, but very specifically, i decided, to black women. to illustrate, during the course of our conversation about homosexuality in the black community, he called homosexuals; fuck'n flowers, doo doo chasers, cream puffs, yodels, ass mongers, bull daggers, carpet munchers, box chower's and, because of my defense of them which included outing myself as bisexual, christa bell's.

although the above sounds very hateful in the telling, his delivery was actually very comedic and everyone at the table, although shaking their heads at his insulting language, also laughed, if reluctantly, with him. several of the women dismissed him as homophobic and refused to engage with him about the matter. i, on the other hand, and perhaps irrationally, blamed him and his attitude as the main reason that black women have the highest new incidence rate of HIV infection in america. the climate of homophobia in the black community has made it such that the "DL" or "Down Low", the phenomenon where black men are sleeping with other men and with their wives and girlfriends at the same time, is so common that among heterosexual black women, there are entire cities and states that are considered absolutely unsafe to meet and have a relationship with a man in. these men do not consider themselves gay, as they do not lead a "gay lifestyle", they are just "men who sleep with men". unfortuanately they are doing it without protection and coming back and infecting black women with disease...and on and on and on...but here's the thing:

how do pro sex black people have zero tolerance for homophobia without isolating the majority of the community. when telling my zero tolerance girlfriend about the above conversation, she immediately shut down emotionally, got extremely judgemental about the man cracking jokes about gay people, called him an asshole and rudely cut our conversation short about the matter saying something to the effect that she didn't want to be traumatized by this mans ignorance...and i guess that's one way for black people who believe themselves progressive, to deal with homophobia. but isn't that just as dangerous as the out and out gay bashing?

am thinking about this today...more later...cbell