homophobia
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Beware The Straight Agenda (To Oppress The Queer Community)
Is there really a gay agenda? Are queer folks conspiring to present the world with media and propaganda centered around their experiences in order hypnotize us until we forget that we like the opposite sex? Is the LGBTQIA community holding secret meetings with Missy Armitage where she teaches the latest tea cup stirring techniques? Are…
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Giants: A YouTube Series That Tackles Mental Health and Masculinity in the Black Community
Issa Rae’s YouTube channel recently launched Giants, a new series written and directed by James Bland and starring Vanessa Baden, William Catlett and Bland himself. The series is about “three millennials determined to live life on their own terms, no matter the cost, [who] quickly learn that when life starts to kick your ass, you…
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To Be Held by Moonlight
There was no church scene. There were no tambourines or drums, no preachers loudly proclaiming Leviticus 20:13, Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6:9. There were no flamboyant choir directors, teenagers named Arthur or bluesmen named Jimmy; no John or Gabriel Grimes; no Elishas. Yet, this film, Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins, could’ve been James Baldwin’s,…
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Stop Pretending to Be Shocked at Homophobia in the Black Community
Do you remember how shocked white people acted a couple of years ago when a video surfaced of a group of Sigma Alpha Epsilon members at the University of Oklahoma chanting about how they’d never let a “nigger” into their fraternity? Can you recollect how Caucasians publicly caught the vapors when they heard the audio…
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Black LGBT Ministers Speak Out About Kim Burrell, Shirley Caesar
The community is still reeling after a silent churchgoer put Kim Burrell’s violently homophobic sermon on blast for the world to see. Burrell’s tirade—which featured vulgar remarks about gay and lesbian sex and a warning that they would “die in 2017”—led Ellen DeGeneres to cancel the scheduled talk show performance of the gospel singer’s song…
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Unique Views Podcast, Episode 25: Here Comes the Hotepper
Eyes back! Did you miss me? That’s right—the granddaddy of them all, your favorite light-skin’s favorite light-skin, is back, and I don’t have long to be here because surely Patti LaDanielle, aka Mrs. Idris Elba, aka Danielle Young, is going to find another way to try to cancel me out with her Diana Ross-Beyoncé antics.…
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Reclaiming My Body During the Month of My Rapist’s Birth
January is usually a time of celebration. It’s a time when people can revisit goals from the previous year, create new ones, craft vision boards and determine our course for the year, all while anticipating some unexpected hurdles along the way. I, too, can always appreciate how important celebrating the new year is—a time with…
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Churches in Ind., Md. Vandalized With Trump-Inspired Slurs
At least two churches in two separate states were vandalized over the weekend with Donald Trump-inspired slurs, the Indianapolis Star reports. According to the report, St. David’s Episcopal Church in Bean Blossom, Ind., was vandalized sometime Saturday night, with tags on its walls depicting a swastika, an anti-gay slur and the words “Heil Trump,” the site…
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The Half-Woke CliffsNotes to Homophobia and Misogyny
I never used CliffsNotes. Not because I believed in some uncompromising code of ethics that made me reject shortcuts in favor of hard work and discipline. My mother just wouldn’t let me use them. When I was a rising 10th-grader, I tried to get her to purchase a copy of the CliffsNotes for Albert Camus’…
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How Twitter Made Me A Better Man
I first logged on to Twitter in 2009. I was (and still am) a Black man, the first in his family to attend and graduate college. By proxy, my pursuit of post-bachelor education was also a family milestone. This is more or less an elongated way to say whatever privilege people think Black men have,…