It has been just over a month since Jerrod Carmichael launched his groundbreaking series, the Jerrod Carmichael Reality Show. Unlike his 2015 scripted show, featured on NBC, this new series was packaged as an authentic and transparent view of Carmichael’s (who is Black and gay) world.
It is no surprise or secret that X (formerly known as Twitter) is an archive for critical cultural commentary. In fact, since the start of the new year, Black Twitter has been the center of multiple conversations relevant to the Black queer experience.
At the start of 2024, like every year, resolutions and bold proclamations are being sprinkled throughout daily conversations. From desires to maintain physical fitness to claims dedicated to creating and implementing boundaries, the start of a new year often allows time for reflection, resolution, and growth.
The rise of social media has inevitably altered our access to information, how we share knowledge, and where narratives may circulate. This is especially true for political news. A recent Statista report revealed that social media is now one of the main ways the average person seeks political information and knowledge.
The haunting news of a Black gay man's murder in Brooklyn sent shockwaves across the nation. Simultaneously, the digital realms of Black Twitter and TikTok erupted with fury over Carlee Russel, a Black woman who faked her kidnapping.
At the beginning of this year, law enforcement in Atlanta fired 57 bullets, taking Miguel “Tortuguita” Teran from Indigenous queer environmental activist to unwilling martyr. On January 18, 2023, 26-year-old Tortuguita was shot and killed by Georgia state troopers in Atlanta during a protest against a proposed police training facility called “Cop City.”
On this Dr. Martin Luther King Day, GMHC celebrates all Dr. King did for racial equality in America. We also honor one of the civil rights movement's unsung heroes, the openly gay architect of the March on Washington, Bayard Rustin. Here is a snapshot of American history that isn't taught in schools.
Why are Black queer men still deeply invested in casual sex and hooking up?
Black queer sex may be more accessible, but it doesn't absolve us of hang-ups and preferences resulting in internal conflicts similar to other groups. It can be easier to go for what we desire in sexual situations involving two men, knowing how we are sexually wired. As a Black queer person, I've easily cultivated a consensual and fulfilling sex life. I started dating men at age eighteen and came out of my glass closet a year later.
I fear the years without the right to marry or love publicly and safely have indirectly caused some Black queer men to be blind to the value of commitment. How we navigated sex before the dawn of the internet, in dimly lit public spaces, backrooms, and parks, has permeated queer culture, often at the expense of our physical safety and freedom. This reality, compounded with the HIV epidemic and the loss of thousands of lives, has changed how we view sex. The degrees of compartmentalization we navigate still haunt us to this day.
I tested positive for HIV in the spring of 1987. I had less than 200 T-Cells, which meant I met the threshold for an AIDS diagnosis. The counselor gave me six months or so to live. There were no treatments for AIDS yet. He suggested I go home and put my affairs in order. I was 30 years old. I didn't have any "affairs" to put in order. In actuality, I probably had been living with HIV for seven years by then. My husband, Chris Brownlie, who I met in 1980, already had AIDS and was experiencing opportunistic infections. Chris died in November 1989. Last month, after celebrating 66 years and four months of life (the required age to receive full social security benefits), I received my first social security check.
I've started writing my memoir. I've had thirty-six years and four months since that AIDS diagnosis to put my "affairs" in order. I've been thinking a lot about what it means to come of age, live through, and grow old in the age of HIV/AIDS. And more importantly, what we've learned, if anything, over the last 41 years that might be of importance to young Black gay men coming of age today in the middle of three pandemics—HIV/AIDS, Covid-19, and now, Monkeypox. André Gide said, "Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” Monkeypox has become the new Black Plague. Black and Brown gay, men who have sex with men, and/or same gender loving men represent over 50% of the current cases of monkeypox in the United States.
The sexual currency and experiences associated with Black men are rarely discussed at length or with nuance. While that lack of nuance does not absolve men of their privilege, the topic does require perspective and compassion. Let us examine how the objectification of Black male bodies shows up not only in porn but also in history and our romantic experiences.
The objectification of Black men is not a recent phenomenon but extends back to chattel slavery. In a popular YouTube video, anti-racism educator Jane Elliot injects her blue eye/brown eye experiment onto a predominantly white college campus. By doing so, Elliott triggers a young white female student who temporarily derails the experiment by abruptly exiting.
“You just exercised freedom that none of these people of color have. When these people of color get tired of racism, they just can’t walk out, because there is no place in this country where they aren’t going to be exposed to racism. They can’t even stay in their homes and not be exposed to racism if they turn on the television,” said Elliott.
One of the more comical realms of social media is the DL mystique — whether it’s guys trying to enhance their desirability to other men by insisting how non-gay they are, or ridiculous captions on freak videos that read like millennial updates of ‘70s porn scripts: My Uber driver was on his way to play basketball and his wife is eight months pregnant with their third child. His shorts started to rise when he talked about missing sex, and since I didn’t have any money for a tip, I gave him this instead!
