Higher Education And Black Gay Men

There's always talk about college enrollment among black men being outpaced by black women. No one breaks it down further by comparing black gay men to their black straight counterparts. I suspect that black gay men, being overachievers, account for the majority of black male enrollment and graduation. Most of my black gay friends and acquaintances are college grads. Am I off track on this or not?

A New Black Gay Literary Voice

Yesterday (May 12), I heard a very interesting interview on National Public Radio's Fresh Air with Terry Gross (heard in the New York area on WNYC AM and FM). The interview was with a young African-American writer named Michael Arceneaux (pronounced Ar-sin-noh), who in 2018 published a best selling collection of personal essays, I Can't Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I've Put My Faith in Beyonce.

Arceneaux, who is openly gay, has published a new collection of essays called I Don't Want to Die Poor, which he discussed for nearly an hour on Fresh Air.

A 2007 graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C., and now residing in West Harlem, Arceneaux's latest book is about his uphill battle to pay off his student loan of $100,000.

These two books by a new literary voice are ones I plan to look for.

The Career Student

There are three radio commercials for the job website bigapplehelpwanted.com. My favorite is the one in which a mother encourages her son, who has spent 16 years acquiring various college degrees, to look for a job. Some of the degrees, he tells her, "are B.S." She browses through the website and finds, to his dismay, an extremely esoteric job that fits one of his degrees. She rejoices by singing "Happy days are here again!" A very funny commercial.