This is another very requested topic that y’all wanted me to talk about and that I personally feel is a very important one. Homophobia in the Black community.

The suffix (ending) “phobia” means fear. But homophobia isn’t a fear. It is the dislike/hatred and prejudice against homosexual (gay) people. To call it a “fear” is not the full or true embodiment of the term and it should not be justified as such.

Something important to note about homosexuality is that it’s not a choice, but is something people are born with. You can’t “agree” or “disagree” with being gay and you simply can not disapprove with someone’s existence. This is commonly used to justify homophobia.

Honestly you’re better off being straight forward and saying that you don’t support/ don’t like homosexuality .

Now let’s talk about why homophobia is especially problematic in the black community. As black people, we are already highly discriminated against by people of other races. We face racism and prejudice that effects us systematically and emotionally.

While dealing with discrimination from other groups, imagine facing discrimination from your OWN community on top of the discrimination you already face while just being black. This takes an extreme toll on black people who are gay.

For some ignorant reason, homosexuality is referred to by some black people as “The white man’s disease” which is ridiculous on so many levels that people think that gayness is exclusive to one race and treating it like it’s some kind of sickness that you need to be cured from.

Not to mention that many black gay people also face racism from the lgbtq+ community, another community that they’re supposed to be accepted in. It’s like they get rejected no matter where they go which is very unsettling to me.

Let’s also talk about how hypocritical it is for a group who faces discrimination to enforce discrimination. You would think that we wouldn’t want to be the ones contributing to prejudice when we know how terrible it feels. It just doesn’t make any sense.

The last thing I want to touch on is solidarity. In my last thread, I talked about solidarity between poc which, for understandable reasons, is not feasible goal. But what about solidarity within our own community? Things like colorism and homophobia keep us from having this.

While I used the term “gay” which usually refers to homosexual males, I used gay in this thread to refer to homosexual men and women as well as bisexual men and women.