Recently there were two letters written to News24. The first was an experience of a white guy taking a foreign black guy to hospital due to his injury and how they were badly treated due to the injured man’s citizenship. The injured man is from another part of Africa. The letter was written to show the alleged xenophobic attitude of blacks. While xenophobia exists in this country, what irks me is that the author is OK with the generalisation of blacks but not OK with the generalisation of racism among the white population. If you don’t want generalization, then don’t it either.
Then there was another letter written by a man who wrote about how it was too late to come out to his father. First of all, let me say that his father would have been happy to see his son happy. That’s what most parents want. I also think this author shared something deeply personal with us. Good on him.
However, that letter resulted in some homophobic response by some straight people. There was also some shocking response by a gay man to that letter. One of the responses to the first letter was a gay guy who came out to say how racist blacks are against foreign blacks and whites are not racist like the blacks are xenophobic. This same guy in response to the second letter (written by the gay guy) uses words like “queen”, “p..sy”, etc. I think this itself shows homophobic behaviour from this gay man. Why use these types of words? Are some men less of a man because they tend to be effeminate by your personal standards?
When I was talking about these two letters to a gay friend of mine (who happens to be white), he mentioned that racism and homophobic behaviour among gay men is astounding. He explained further. Gay men often rank themselves in order of effeminate behaviour and the ones who are perceived to be more masculine will often scorn the more effeminate ones. Apparently on gay dating sites, there will be explicit statements about “no queens must contact them” or they will list which races may contact them. Very often these statements are written in a demeaning, insulting manner.
So I appeal to those racist in the gay community (whether white, black or all shades in-between), fix your house. Because without you stopping your discrimination against the gay population, it is hard to convince others not to discriminate you. Stop the demeaning behaviour that you show to effeminate gays and gays of other race groups. If you do not prefer to date someone of another race group, there is no reason to write it in a demeaning manner or to treat a gay of another race group in a bad manner.
There has been a spate of suicide by gay teenagers in the US. The last thing I would want is that to arrive on our shores because these young people can’t even turn to other gays for support. Sorry about the rant, but homophobic behavior must stop even if it comes from gays.
Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyNews24 have been independently written by members of News24's community. The views of users published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24. News24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.
