Say it loud: I'm black, gay and proud!
OPINION - I can’t imagine where I would be without their love and support, and thankfully I don’t have to worry, but I did worry about the tens of thousands of LGBT people across the country who didn’t have the same built-in family safety net I did...
“You’re already black and a woman … what more do you want against you?”
That was the first thing my mother said over a decade ago when I told her I was a lesbian.
Like most parents who are on the receiving end of their child’s declarations — which at times run contrary to their own — she wept.
She wept for the life she thought I wouldn’t be able to have. A life filled with love, happiness and gainful employment.
In that moment, I tried desperately to reassure her that my life would be exactly as she had hoped with a minor tweak to the vision. I was 22, incredibly naïve and obnoxiously hopeful. I didn’t understand at the time that my parents had just cause for concern. Marriage equality hadn’t become a part of our lexicon, and people could be fired from their jobs in almost every state for being gay.
When it came to popular culture, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people were still a punch line. Ellen DeGeneres didn’t have a talk show, and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was considered a liberal policy.
While I was decades removed from the Stonewall riots, which many attribute to the beginning of the modern day LGBT rights movement; I was still over a decade removed from the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act.
So, when I declared to my parents that I was a lesbian and then quickly followed up with “everything will be fine, you’ll see,” I wasn’t just trying to assuage their fears, I was trying to calm my own as well. Unlike the 43% of LGBT youth who are living on the streets because of family rejection, my parents wiped their tears and went right back to supporting me the way they always had.
I can’t imagine where I would be without their love and support, and thankfully I don’t have to worry, but I did worry about the tens of thousands of LGBT people across the country who didn’t have the same built-in family safety net I did.
LGBT people, especially those that live at the intersection of race, gender identity and sexual orientation, face a double bind, and triple if they also happen to be women. Systemic racism, compounded by gender discrimination and anti-gay bias, can result in economic and emotional catastrophe for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of color. Do you understand now why my parents were terrified?
Cornel West once said that “justice is what love looks like in public,” and from my vantage point, my parents were revolutionaries — not just because they too were in a relationship that was once considered taboo — with my mother being Jamaican and my father Italian, but because they love and support me as well as my wife with a sense of ease now that I could have never imagined a decade ago.
Love is revolutionary. When I met and fell in love with my wife, I did so with the support of my parents, whose love allowed me to exist outside of a closet. My wife’s love set off a new career path that built upon the idea that everyone, no matter who they are or who they love, deserves the opportunity to celebrate that love — legally.
While marriage alone isn’t a silver bullet that will magically make the systemic oppression which LGBT people face daily go away — love and compassion just may be the bullet and target we need.
June doesn’t just signify the beginning of summer but also the start of PRIDE month in the LGBT community. PRIDE isn’t just another opportunity to party (although I absolutely will); it’s a celebration of our truth as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and our right to live, love and labor OUT loud.
Loving someone whether family or friend because of their differences instead of in spite of them is a revolutionary act — and we should all strive in every facet of our lives to be revolutionary. Happy PRIDE!
Danielle Moodie-Mills is an Advisor at the Center for American Progress for racial justice and LGBT equality. She is also the creator, writer and co-host of Politini, a politics and pop culture show on Blis.FM. Follow her musings on Twitter @DeeTwoCents and at www.Politini.com.
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