- Joined
- Dec 22, 2010
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- 361
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Okay, first I want to suggest that this topic be for any issues that come to mind for anyone - anything in the news that a person may want to discuss, a character they recently read about in a book, personal experiences... anything! 
I really wanted to see this thread made because this is a very important topic for me. Anyone who is politically-minded knows that a person is layered with multiple identities, even if political movements tend to leave different groups out. (i.e.: feminists leave out people of color, black power movement leave out women and queer people, LGBT rights leave out people of color, etc.)
So, I'd like a community to discuss issues that pertain not only to people of color or to queer people but to both. For example, the lack of QPOC in the media. Off the top of my head, I can think of four examples of notable QPOC films/TV shows. (Noah's Arc, Watermellon Woman, Fire, Brother to Brother.) No books. This could be my own ignorance, of course. On the other hand, there are countless queer films and TV shows for people who identify as white, so that to be gay almost also means to be white. In my LGBT class, I learned about Oscar Wilde and The Well of Loneliness - not men and women from the queer Harlem Renaissance, or men and women from the queer Caribbean. I had to do that research on my own. On top of that, "gay" tends to bring men to mind first - wealthy white men, for after all, wealthy men in such an ostracized identity would be the ones able to create their own community using money for their white and male privilege.
I guess the first discussion for this topic is: would you agree? When people think of "gay" today, do they tend to visualize the wealthy white gay man?
(And then there's so much else I'd like to discuss: black communities ostracizing "down-low brothers", the difficulties for queer people of color bringing their identities together, the fact that Oprah recently told Terri McMillan that he seems "gayer"...)
I really wanted to see this thread made because this is a very important topic for me. Anyone who is politically-minded knows that a person is layered with multiple identities, even if political movements tend to leave different groups out. (i.e.: feminists leave out people of color, black power movement leave out women and queer people, LGBT rights leave out people of color, etc.)
So, I'd like a community to discuss issues that pertain not only to people of color or to queer people but to both. For example, the lack of QPOC in the media. Off the top of my head, I can think of four examples of notable QPOC films/TV shows. (Noah's Arc, Watermellon Woman, Fire, Brother to Brother.) No books. This could be my own ignorance, of course. On the other hand, there are countless queer films and TV shows for people who identify as white, so that to be gay almost also means to be white. In my LGBT class, I learned about Oscar Wilde and The Well of Loneliness - not men and women from the queer Harlem Renaissance, or men and women from the queer Caribbean. I had to do that research on my own. On top of that, "gay" tends to bring men to mind first - wealthy white men, for after all, wealthy men in such an ostracized identity would be the ones able to create their own community using money for their white and male privilege.
I guess the first discussion for this topic is: would you agree? When people think of "gay" today, do they tend to visualize the wealthy white gay man?
(And then there's so much else I'd like to discuss: black communities ostracizing "down-low brothers", the difficulties for queer people of color bringing their identities together, the fact that Oprah recently told Terri McMillan that he seems "gayer"...)
