Today, I heard a caller on a radio show say that Dave Chappelle was simply saying that the life of a black person should mean as much as one in the LGBTQ community. The fact that she ignored the existence of LGBTQ black people is the problem here and I don't think it is being stated enough.
The majority of attention seems to be the ugly things which Chappelle said about transgender people, but I think that the erasure or minimization of LGBTQ people in his mind is the root of the problem. Chappelle implies a belief which is prevalent in the black heterosexual community.
This is not to say that the majority in the black community are homophobic or transphobic, but truth be told, there seems to be an "either/or" mentality with some heterosexual black folks. Either you are LGBTQ or black. To these folks, you can't be both. Your identities can't overlap. When they talk about system racism or violence against black people in general, they refuse to acknowledge that LGBTQ people of color have particular problems with those injustices. And when talking about the black family, the black church, black survival in general, we are overlooked.
While Chappelle and his followers claim that LGBTQ lives mean more than black lives in America, there is an epidemic of violence affecting the black trans community. In 2020,
44 trans women were murdered and the majority of them were black. I doubt that hardly any of these folks clinging to Chappelle as if he is Jesus on the cross and they are the Virgin Mary would even care if they were aware of this.
Apparently in spite of what many of them say about "Black Lives Matter," ours don't.
Meanwhile, LGBTQ people of color are either erased or worse - whitewashed.
There are already some who are attempting to cast the narrative of Dave Chappelle vs. the white LGBTQ community. Many LGBTQ people of color have spoken out against Chappelle, but we remain unseen and unheard. It's not as if black heterosexuals can't see or hear us.
It's that they don't want to see or hear us.
Well I guess I will simply have to be louder.
This isn't any damn racial issue. This is not an issue of the survival of black people vs. the feelings of white LGBTQ people.
This issue is about a trifling ass black comedian who is running away from accountability for smearing a lot of people, especially his own people. It is also about black heterosexuals yet again stifling the voices of LGBTQ people of color, erasing us, and almost literally whitewashing us because they will not acknowledge that they do not own the black experience.
I'm not asking for marches, just a little respect and acknowledgement and not just myself. It's for the millions of LGBTQ people of color who have been shunted and disrespected by members of their own race. We have ownership of the black experience. We aren't asking or acceptance or tolerance.
We just want what belongs to us. If our lives matter to black heterosexuals, they would do well to stop attempting to defend Chappelle and pay attention to what we are saying about how he is hurting us.
Related post - Dave Chappelle can kiss my black gay ass
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