LGTBQ Community: An Analysis

“I am a black feminist… I recognize that my power as well as my primary obsessions come as a result of my blackness as well as my womaness, and therefore my struggles on both of these fronts are inseparable” … As a woman of color, I find that some feminists don’t seem terribly concerned with the issues unique to women of color—the ongoing effects of racism and post-colonialism, the status of women in the Third World, working against the trenchant archetypes black women are forced into (angry black woman, mammy, hottentot, and the like). (Gay 173).

Part II: Core Themes in Black Feminist Thought tackles five themes: 1) a legacy of struggle, 2) treatment of the interlocking nature of race, class, and gender, 3)

The uprising of gay and lesbian entertainment in shows such as “Will & Grace,” Showtime series “Queer As Folk” and “The L Word,” has overthrown the former cookie cutter husband and wife TV series. Gay and lesbian affairs in the media emerged quickly after the coming out of Ellen Degeneres in her hit sitcom, “Ellen.” The comedian now has her own daytime talk show, achieving mainstream popularity for obvious reasons: she’s funny, down-to-earth, and openly gay. In earlier decades homosexuality was previously limited to a closet of taboos, where no one knew about it, and no one admitted to it. Primetime programming would never house a show in which gay men and lesbian women openly discussed their sex lives and sexual preferences, nor a show that based its entire plotline on gay and lesbian couples.

Imagine not being in total control of your own life, having someone else tell you what you can and cannot do. Being a prisoner and constantly being policed everyday and every second in a world that does not want to set you free and allow you to advance into your full potential. Black women have to live in world that does not see them or treat them as equals. They have to work ten times harder than anyone else, and then they only break the surface. It

Love is possible for people who identify as LGBTQ because, at a time in history, it was not possible for them. Same-sex love began as a completely forbidden concept, but as time progressed, it became more accepted. Little by little as more people identified as queer, it became less forbidden, less taboo, and eventually a community formed. This was made possible because of the turbulent past many people did have to endure. In the same way LBGTQ people in the past had to endure many struggles to pave the way for same-sex love today, Paul, Giovanni, David, and Beebo paved the way for Alison. Paul, David, Giovanni, Beebo, and Alison were only able to love under certain context and circumstances. It was impossible for Paul to love because it was

They have had to deal with numerous inequalities throughout time. After slavery they were not given equal rights. There were many rights rallies and according to the statistics, they are still not receiving equal pay. There used to be restaurants that would not serve a person of color and they were even told they could only sit in the back of buses. Though we have overcome most of this we have not overcome hate crimes. Every group has encountered unequal or cruel treatment based on nothing more than a characteristic about them. Though the hate crime rate had dropped in 2007 there was a rise of anti-gay crime. Now with the new election the hate crime rate has risen again. This shows the problem is not diminishing and that we need to find a way to get this under control.

It provides firsthand experience to “Lesbians in Revolt”, “A Black Feminist Statement” and “A Culture of Romance”. Black Feminist is a political statement of intersectionality. Intersectionality is a fairly new focus, even though in all of these work, but especially in “A Black Feminist Statement”, intersectionality is discussed. Kimberlé Crenshaw, the executive director of the African American Policy Forum and a professor of law at Columbia University, said it best in the Washington Post on September 24, 2015. “Intersectionality was a lived reality before it became a term”. One of the women in my group described exactly what all three of these works tried to emphasize. Being in marginalized group is a battle in America, being in apart of many marginalized groups is a constant war. This was a common sentiment. Even a s young adults people are tired of being in a constant fight for their rights, however they will never give up the fight for equality. Thar resilience is exactly what Charlotte bunch is expressing in Lesbians in revolt, lesbianism is a threat to male supremacy. This is true of all intersectionally marginalized people, to the class of people who deny our rights. Brunch highlights that supremacy is expressed through ideological, political, personal, and economics means. All these things make a person and what they struggle to fight. The Combahee river collective expressed that one of the biggest problems of organizing black feminist is trying to fight oppression on a full range of oppression. What we have learned in class has been lived by many of these people. If it hasn’t been lived, they are aware of struggle and any are willing to fight for all of their

In Chad Heap’s reading “Slumming Sexual and Racial Encounters in American Nightlight” they talk about the black and tan cabarets in New York and Chicago and how those spaces created an environment where middle-class whites could normalize their own increasingly public sexual behavior by contrasting it with the spectacle of cross-racial and black sexuality presented in local black and tans (Heap. 191). This happens in modern-time now in how we are viewed as a hypersexual and as objects to do sexual acts, it erases the humanity and the heteronormativity of Black folks. The notion of the black and tan cabarets singers much like Josephine Baker and Bessie Smith who aren't categorized in the heteronormative box. Bessie Smith, who is a Blues singer coming from a low-income family stands tall and intimidating in her career as a singer, in the film we watched we say an encounter of her chasing off the KKK. Fear is shown to be masculine and Bessie has just that she takes no shit from other men

In an attempt to define Black Feminism, Collins clarifies that it must “avoid the idealist position that ideas can be evaluated in isolation from the groups that create them (Collins 385).” This clarification forms her basis for why Black Feminism is necessary, and who it serves. Thinking about feminism historically, the concerns of black women were pushed aside in favor of fighting sexism; a notable example occurs within the Suffrage movement, where votes for white women were prioritized over women of color in order to push such legislation through. And even when feminism began looking at other social injustices, such as racism and class issues, often only prominent feminists were invited to the discussion. What resulted was, and often continues to be, a problem of white women speaking for oppressed people. It’s impossible, Collins argues, to have Black Feminist thought without examining the experiences and positions of African American women. Therefore, Black Feminism must be a movement that “encompasses theoretical interpretations of Black women’s reality by those who live in it (Collins 386).” However, such a definition brings about many questions:

The region, structure and geological history of black women’s sexuality. Is there any other different from any other race White, Asian, or Hispanic etc... Patricia Hill Collins has written about the impact of issues of rap, AIDS, forced sterilization and homophobia on black women. Well we all can surely agree that black women are not the only race dealing with the topic at hand. No matter if it was in the 1700’s, 1800’s, 1900’s or now we are all the same with the same problems same discrimination or whatever that keeps women at the bottom of the social ladder. Signaling out one race just to justify or to keep other out of the spot light does not help other women who may have endured the same problems/issues. It’s not about race it is about

We look at the generation before us and seem to forget how much ideas have changed. Radical concepts are constantly developing, and my generation has a peculiar open-mindedness to this. Lately, there has been a lot of controversy about the LBGT community due to marital legislation that was in the process of getting passed. Growing up when this is much more accepted, I hardly blink an eye at the mention of it. My parents grew up in a time where this kind of thing was an uncomfortable/unaccepted topic, and it happened to come up at dinner one night. Although choice of sexual freedom is exemplified in the case of the LGBT marriages; it transcends further than that. It epitomizes allowing people to live their lives in a manner that makes them happy

The piece I have created artistically represents different ways one should respond to a member of the LGBTQ community. Using watercolours, I abstractly painted a rainbow flag in the background because it is a common symbol of LGBTQ pride. Within the flag, in the center of the page, I drew the silhouettes of a gay and lesbian couple using ink pens and in between them, using acrylics, I painted a heart. My reasoning for using acrylics to do this one image is because I wanted it to be the first thing that catches the viewers eyes and spreads the message that above everything, being LGTBQ is about love and acceptance. Surrounding the image in the center, using ink pens, I drew hands reaching out to reflect how we should reach out and welcome them

“I think there is a fear that if we present an idea that, ‘Hey, maybe [Black women] have it a little bit harder in this country’ — because we do; Black women and trans women do — if we’re having it a little bit harder, it doesn’t invalidate your experience. I really am begging you to not take it personally.” – Jessica Williams

As African-American women address social issues that are important to their life experiences, such as class and race, instead to acknowledge “common oppression” of gender inequality, they are often criticized by “white bourgeois feminists” (hooks, 2000). Their ability to gain any form of equality within society is tarnished by such groups as they develop a “fear of encountering racism” from simply joining this movement (hooks, 2000). As white men, black men, and white women oppress them, their issues are often ignored due to reoccurring stereotypes and myths that claim black women are strong, independent, and “superhuman” (hooks, 2000). It becomes extremely difficult to seek liberation and equity within a “racist, sexist, and classist” society, as their gender and race causes them to be at the “bottom of the occupational ladder” and “social status” (hooks, 2000, pg. 16). As black women are perceived to demonstrate strength and dynamic qualities as white women perpetrate the image of being

To conclude, Black feminist are constantly striving to overcome sexism, class oppression, and racism. They have also argued that black women are positioned within structures of power in fundamentally different ways than white women (Collins). Black feminist organizations had to overcome three different challenges that no other feminist organization had to face. The first challenge these women faced was to prove to other black women that feminism was not only for white women (Burns). They also had to demand that white women share power with them and affirm diversity, and fight the misogynist tendencies of Black organizations (Burns). Black feminism argues that sexism, class oppression, and racism are inextricably bound together (Collins). All three aspects are related to one another through intersectionality, which is the study of intersections between different disqualified groups or groups of minorities; specifically, the study of the