Abomb-baby said:
And I would be willing to bet good money that most gays living in urban areas are probably on the upper level on the socio-economic scale. Again, the MAN has not been keeping you down!! Please quit making these similarities, because its pissing me and my black friends off!! Your struggle isn't the same. It's not even close!!
maybe i should let this die, but re-reading some stuff, i cannot let this go by.
the reason why gay men, as a group, seem to be overwhelmingly white, successful, privileged, educated, money-making overachievers is because you pretty much need all of these things in order to safely come out. it is vastly more difficult to come out if you're not white, not wealthy, not in a major urban center, and don't have a future of financial prosperity. homosexuality cuts across all class, race, and ethnic lines, and believe me, there are many, many working class men who simply cannot come out for a variety of reasons.
it also saddens me, in particular, at how hostile the African-American community, in general, is to homosexuality. there are a variety of reasons for this, due to the huge influence of black churches as well as a crisis of black masculinity that homosexuality is seen to attack, but trust me when i say that perhaps our single most vulnerable population in the United States are gay black men. they are doubly ostricized, by both white society and straight society, and sometimes even by gay society -- i wish you and your "black friends" would reach out to gay black men, who are black as well, and thus any African-American struggle must also be considered a gay struggle as well, and both are simply human rights struggles.
and it also doesn't change the fact that even among white, wealthy, educated gay men there is huge disfunction -- often drug abuse and alcoholism -- that is directly attributable to feelings of self-loathing and worthlessness that comes from a society that tells you, in so many different ways, that you are somehow less worthy, less worthwhile, and less of a human being than heterosexuals. there's a huge amount of over-compensation that then goes along with being gay, as i know i'm guilty of this. i feel as if i need to prove my worth and to justify my existence -- i don't feel any sense of unconditional love and worth, silly as that sounds and as much as i know that i am unconditionally loved and unconditionally worthy. we all have feelings of internalized self-hate to work through, and it's only the lucky ones who make it through unscarred.