As gay persons of color, we bring to our interpersonal relationships a dimension that may be foreign to those who do not understand firsthand what it is to be discriminated against because of sexual orientation and skin color. Many of us gay persons of color seek validation because we have grown up feeling inadequate, unequal, and inferior to the dominant white gay communities in which we find ourselves.
Question - As gay persons of color, is race an ever present factor in our interpersonal relationships, or is race something we project into the equation as a function of past victimization?
Monday, March 19, 2007
Race politics and interpersonal relationships
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
17 comments:
Once again I am impressed by your succinct yet profound use of language. You are a wordsmith who brings new light to our old ways of understanding culture, race and sexuality. Many thanks!
We are what we think and we think what we are. You are an eloquent spokesperson for us gay people of color.
I think about this all the time. I am a Canadian of Chinese descent, and I ask myself if white guys see me as equal or if I am in a hierarchy and they look down on me because I appear controllable or submissive. I don't like to admit it, but maybe I have been a victim of "rice queens" who want to see me in a certain "exotic" way. Some have even asked me to teach them Chinese, and I hardly speak Chinese, and they seem disappointed when I tell them that I only speak English and French. On the other hand, I have been phyically attracted to these white guys. So maybe white guys are good to sleep with and that's all. If they want to see me just as some "cute exotic" Chinese guy, I guess I can see them as some "exotic" white guy and ask them how their ancestors felt when they raped and pillaged (i.e. colonized) other cultures. Whoops! Asking them would mean I wasn't the submissive creature they thought I was. Better to keep quiet to get what I want, which is some fine white meat. They can be so "cute." You just have to know how to talk to them to get what you want. Then you can dump them.
Histrionics bring nothing to the cause.
An understanding of our complexities does.
The answer to your question gpoc is...both and sometimes even more.
The relationship can be as complicated or as simple as the questions we ask which in turn lead us to the challenges we face from waking up with someone of another color to just talking to him.
Hard?
Yeah, sometimes it is.
But so what.
It's life
Color in my life isn't something i'm going to let bring me down.
And don't let it happen to you either.
peace
Good question
I think it's something that plays a huge part of the beginning of any relationship.
Now here's the cool thing...if the relationship is going REALLY well...the part race plays becomes smaller and smaller...
If the relationship is stale or diminishing, I think that things like race become targets or vehicles for us to shift blame to.
that make sense?
To "anonymous,"
If your comment was in fact directed at me to some degree, calling it as I see it is hardly "histrionics" as you put it. Being aware of and understanding that many many white guys exoticize many many yellow, brown, and black guys is not a function of race bringing me down, but instead is a state that confronts race from both personal and sociological points of view. Wouldn't you rather be aware of your interpersonal relationship structures than turn away from what really is a form of racism against you? While color SHOULDN'T bring someone down, if you are a gay person of color "anonymous," the reality of life is that your color, whether you like it or not, will be targeted by racists, and to simply say that "Color in my life isn't something i'm going to let bring me down," while laudable, is not as you put it "an understanding of our complexities."
Well said XO,makes perfect sense to me, but wouldnt it be nice if we could acknowledge our differences (or similarities) without scapegoating race?
"Now here's the cool thing...if the relationship is going REALLY well...the part race plays becomes smaller and smaller...
If the relationship is stale or diminishing, I think that things like race become targets or vehicles for us to shift blame to."
xo,
How color blind! Race ALWAYS plays an important part in relationships because racism ALWAYS surrounds us. Maybe the reason you think race issues only come up when a relationship is "stale or diminishing" is because they were suppressed or erased (pardon the pun) in the first place. Sometimes relationships go really well because race has been discussed openly, which bring both partners to greater mutual understanding of how much race has shaped their identities.
Interesting question, and I reckon the boring answer is that it's a matter of keeping perspective.
It would be easy to either deny the whole issue and never deal with problems in a relationship that really would bear dealing with, or to unnecessarily pathologise any relationship with someone of a different race or colour simply because we cannot see beyond the issue ourselves.
I'm mixed race, and I cannot imagine having a relationship with anyone (even another mixed race person) where our race and colour didn't have some kind of role to play in how we interacted with and understood each other. Surely the important question is whether this dimension is problematic or not in a particular relationship?
I think an interesting parallel here is the issue of class, which in many parts of the world relates closely to race. Is class an ever present factor in our interpersonal relationships? Is class something we project into the equation as a function of past victimization based on class?
Class, race, sex, gender...the primiitve part of the human psyche seems to fear (and therefore despise) difference. Celebrating our heritage in some utopic egalitarian society is premised upon the eradication of social hierarchies. Great thread!
I do not measure a person by their race, I measure someone by the love they share with others.
We fear what is different, what we don't understand. Most people rationalize this fear by turning the unknown into something inferior and unworhty so that they don't have to deal with a deviation from their own perspective. I think you shed light on this darkness in most of our hearts and I thank you for your wisdom.
"One Love said...
I do not measure a person by their race, I measure someone by the love they share with others."
One love, it's really too bad "you" are not an entire society. On the other hand, I measure a person by how well they engage a poster's question, rather than how quickly they reframe it to pretend the question is unnecessary.
"On the other hand, I measure a person by how well they engage a poster's question, rather than how quickly they reframe it to pretend the question is unnecessary."
Love it!
What I personally find problematic is forcing to choose between your identities. If you're a queer woman of color like me, you can either be 1. queer, 2. woman, or 3. of color. At least in my experience, you don't find many people in those three identity of communities to be inclusive of your other voiced (by voiced I mean not just an identification, but also advocating and speaking out on issues of that identity) identities. In fact, in the Asian American community, I often hear "that's so gay" or "you're so queer" all that time. And if you are known to be queer in your community of color, sometimes you are automatically not considered in that community. Or you're considered someone who is wierd or "white-washed."
So to answer your question, I think race plays a role in all of our identities, whether it be sexual orientation/gender expressions or gender.
BTW, I really like your blog!
Please feel free to drop me a line at Cynical Anti-Orientalist.
First off thanks for starting such a good thread.
The simple answer to your inquiry is yes.
The more complex statement is that as GWC-gays with color, we are perceived as holding minor power and thus minority status in our own homelands.
So yes our color and our sexuality inform the interpersonal relationships we form.
Western white society has
established the thresholds of what it considers taboo in sex and race, and we feel these margins everyday even if our partners are sympathetic or apologetic.
For example recently had a sexual liaison with a guy I grew up with as a child. We are both 26 , he is white and I am mixed race black. His pillow talk included this statement "That was great,but scary .. you know I don't have problem having gay sex it just that with a black guy you gotta be careful and and everything; I guess you used your mojo on me tho." My thought bubble here was "What the fuck".
Needless to say, I would contend that there is no "projection of past victimization" in reality there is only acknowledgment of what has happened or suppression that reality, which is a symptom of being racialized by white majority culture. Some people think " Maybe if I don't bring up race, my race won't be noticed." In reality it is noticed, and contorted without your input. This is equated with sexuality as well, queerness has a much larger expression than what is found on Queer As Folk, The L Word and Will & Grace. So it's important to let your partner/friends know this less they have faulty expectations.
In all actuality, if you don't bring up sexuality/race, you let others define them for you and that only furthers racist and classist/heterosexualist ideals.
Post a Comment