Race and Sexuality: A Follow-Up

A special thanks to FB of J6 & FB: Hot & Fresh (Almost) Daily for his essay here last week on Latinos (gay and otherwise) citizens/residents of the United States. And a special thanks to JaySix, as well, for loaning FB to me. No, Jay, your blog is a duo. It wouldn't be the same as a solo act. Think Captain without Tennill, Peaches without Herb, Cher without Sonny. OK, forget that last one.

After reading FB's post several times, I was struck more by our collective commonality rather than our differences as gay men -- regardless of our skin pigment. My black friends do seem to take on more of the white culture, although I know that has more to do with what's available over wanting to change races (a point FB makes many times). Outside of possibly Atlanta and Memphis, I have not experienced large, segregated black gay culture. There are black-centric gay bars elsewhere, but they are not rigid in race in terms of attendance. Latinos here in the South -- except in the larger cities, south Texas and central to southern Florida -- typically blend into whatever gay culture is available. Hence my interest in how it works for FB in such a largely Mexican culture in Los Angeles.

The commonality is: We all felt like outsiders.

For me, a white kid growing up in the Deep South -- and I'm sure the same could be said for rural areas in other parts of the country -- I was almost always the smartest kid in the class. Certainly the smartest boy. I made the best grades, was decent at sports and was called "cute and bright" on too many occasions. Yet, there was always something "different" about me. No one could quite put a finger on it. My mother liked to say I was "13 going on 30." I would listen to stories from older relatives for hours while the other kids played Cops and Robbers in the back yard. I preferred mature company -- and I always loved a good story.

Looking back, perhaps I was hoping to skip those awkward teen years and leap into adulthood. High school wasn't not a terror for me. I was senior class president, participated in several extracurricular clubs and activities and was generally popular among all the cliques. There were those moments -- being called a faggot by one particular upperclassman, not because he knew in any way that I was gay but because I had a brain in my head and he had a box of rocks in his. (Somewhere today, I know he's enjoying his beer gut, trailer and third wife. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

No, for me, it was the confinement. Goddamn these walls, this small community, this place! To give you an idea, within a five-mile square radius of my childhood home, I can count at least 35 relatives. My high school graduating class had 60 people in it -- and less than 50 of them actually earned a diploma. It was just so, so smothering. Not only did we (I say "we" because I know of at least one other gay guy) not have gay role models, we rarely had role models of any sort. Life consisted of breakfast, manual labor, lunch, manual labor, dinner, manual labor and bedtime. There wasn't much time for "nurturing" the different kids.

I knew that life wasn't for me. Fortunately, I had parents who didn't want that life for me, either. My father was a hard-working man who had a hard life. I doubt he ever made more than $600 a week to house, clothe and feed a family of five. And as Ron White once said, "My daddy was a good man. He never made much money, but that doesn't make you better than him." He sent three children to college and left us mostly without student loan debt. He insisted we work, too, and I spent summers and holiday breaks performing a variety of menial tasks for minimum wage. He could be distant, but quick-witted.

My mother has always been sort of a nutcase, heavily influenced by fundamentalist religion and her own f*cked-up, backwoods family. (Examples: Although I never heard my mother ever, ever, ever use a racial slur, we couldn't watch "The Jeffersons" because Lenny Kravitz's mom was doing an old, fat, white man. And we didn't celebrate Halloween, as it was satanic.) But despite her violatile emotional state -- today, she would no doubt be diagnosed as bipolar -- she cooked, cleaned, sewed, chaffeured and all other "eds" you can think of. Her twisted, arthritic fingers today are her evidence. Yet, she always wanted more, which is why I think she was so miserable during my childhood.

I am a precise combination of my parents. My drive and ambition come from my mother. My personality and willingness to practically kill myself on a project come from my father. (Now that the shrink portion of the post is over, back to the "outsiders" comment.)

It is our common thread. Only the details in the story change. Especially those of us from the small towns of America, regardless of race, who have so much in common. I'm not sure those raised or living in the larger cities quite understand the difference. We could not hop on a bus or subway and be in the "gay" part of town in 30 minutes. There was no bus. There was no "gay" part of town. Sometimes there wasn't even a town!

We kinda had to make our own way. Me? I never really felt comfortable in who I was until I was 30, even though careerwise I was considered successful by my late 20s. I suppose my mother was right. At 13, I was already 30. I just had to wait for the rest of me to catch up.