Homophobia And The Black Press

Homophobia is alive and well in the black community, particularly among some members of the black press. Within the last two months [of 1992] the Amsterdam News has published two articles whose authors are virulently anti-gay. Why the Amsterdam News, which has a number of gay and lesbian writers contributing to it, allows homophobia like Sylvester Leaks and Yusuf Salaam to vent their hatred of gays without editorial response is a real mystery.

In Leaks's front page story [August 1, 1992] about Mike Tyson's prison life, he enumerates the "horrors" that Tyson has either "observed or was told about" such as drugs, brutal fights among inmates, and homosexuality.

Instead of including the act of gang rape, which Tyson, convicted of rape, ironically fears, as one of the horrors of prison, leaks preferred to throw in the old bugaboo homosexuality which he characterized as "licentious and criminal."

The other Am/News writer Yusuf Salaam, in an article condemning the commercialization of Malcolm X's name and likeness [Sept. 26], ends the piece by saying that Denzel Washington after playing Malcolm X in the upcoming Spike Lee movie will next star as a homosexual, "one of the weakest levels of human existence." It's as though Washington, who after all is an actor, will sully Malcolm's image by accepting such a role. What does one role have to do with another? Doesn't Salaam know that actors frequently play a variety of roles? For the record, I read that Washington's next role is that of a homophobic lawyer [Philadelphia, directed by Jonathan Demme]. I'm sure Salaam will find that a more appropriate follow-up.

Negativity toward gays and lesbians is not limited to the black press. It's present among those active in the fight against AIDS in the black community. For example, during the recent United Against AIDS march in Manhattan, Ray Williams, a black gay activist, felt a tinge of homophobia among those in the Harlem contingent. "The black community is still suffering from the good AIDS, bad AIDS syndrome," says Williams, who has many friends with full-blown AIDS. "The bad AIDS are the gays and the good AIDS are all the others. They're willing to build a coalition with us until the epidemic is over. Then it'll be business as usual." Williams detected a reluctance on the part of the straight s to chant "Fight AIDS, not gays," a chant he created on the spot. "I didn't feel a sense of being welcome. The attitude I got was 'We'll tolerate you because we need you now.'"

Joe Pressley, a former Gay Men of African Descent executive director, sensed the homophobia from the black straights, too. "It's a struggle to be taken seriously by straights who have such stereotypical views of gay men, but we have to educate our communities. Part of fighting AIDS is fighting homophobia."

James Baldwin, in an interview with Village Voice writer and editor Richard Goldstein, observed that "Men have been sleeping with men for thousands of years....It's only this infantile culture which has made such a big deal of it."

Note: The above article was previously published in the October 25, 1992 issue of QW magazine.