"it's not you, it's your color"

2 year old article from the Advocate by Terrance Dean that talks about gay men dating (or not dating) outside of their race.

http://www.advocate.com/printArticle.aspx?id=98878

The things I find on Craigslist...

Well, as it turns out people (in this case a white lesbian) post things like "Nubian Queen Wanted"... Before I get started, the body of the posting says nothing about wanting the woman to come from Egypt or the Sudan or being royalty, therefore I will safely assume, that "Nubian Queen" is a reference to black women. First of all where did they get this from? Is this a message from the late 80s/early 90s? Last time I checked, we don't use that term anymore. (well maybe the pornos do. I wouldn't know. I do know that they like to say "Ebony" a lot though, so I wouldn't be surprised).

Let's move on... why use Nubian Queen instead of black woman? Well one could say its a sign of respect. A sense of pride and respect for self and one another is where it came from when black men and women began to refer to one another as Nubian Kings and Queens, but it turned into a pick up line, and I'm hoping that people also realized that everyone can't be a king/queen (and definitely not everyone acts like one), and that if you're a descendent of enslaved Africans that were apart of the Atlantic slave trade, its unlikely that your ancestors came from Northern Africa. Either way, your kinda corny for saying it.

But anyway, white woman, with the iffy historical relationship btwn white women and black women (i.e. black women doing white women's domestic work and their own, while being unappreciated and treated like shit... oh wait that still goes on today, but throw in brown women and more immigrants), your wanting to pamper and serve (or in your words, "spoil"), seems more like a fetish than anything else. And that is creepy. Fetishes are more about the fetishist than the fetish object, i.e. its more about wanting to be with a black woman for what she represents in the fetishists desires, than for who she is.

Now I say all this to point out that even if you, white lesbian, turn out to be the best girlfriend in the world, and actually do love your black girlfriend to pieces... you calling her queen does not erase the history/the memories, and in fact it calls attention to it. This is not to say that you won't find a black girl who thinks nothing of it, or who fetishizes you, but let's recognize that there's a little more to the phrase Nubian Queen than another term for black woman.

Randomness in Baltimore

Black queer folks in New York tend to think they have a monopoly on "the scene" North of Atlanta on the East Coast. And there is lots of fun to be had in NYC for a Black gay man. Secrets, Splash, G, etc. etc. But NYC isn't the only place on the East Coast that has fun shit to offer in the way of drinking, revelry, and perhaps debauchery. On a recent trip to the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia), a group of friends and I were running late. We were trying to make it to a spot in DC but it definitely wasn't going to happen by 2 am. We decided, instead, to stop off in Baltimore. After misleading instructions directed us to a 18+ Straight club with NO ALCOHOL, the night started to look like a bust. We decided to look up some other places and, at the stroke of midnight, happened upon Baltimore's gay section. 

The two clubs we went to that night were a vastly different experience from NYC. People weren't as scandalous, but perhaps they were a bit queer-er. What do I mean when I say that? Well, gay men in NYC have convinced themselves that scandal equals freedom. In Baltimore, below the Mason-Dixon line, I felt much more comfortable in a mixed male/female, Black/white/Latino environment than I could ever possibly feel in NYC. See, NYC is plagued by what I like to term gay apartheid. Chelsea and the Village might appear safe spaces for all queer bodies, but I guarantee you after being followed in sex shops, given funny looks on the sidewalks, mistreated by bartenders, etc. it is no environment that readily welcomes non-white, non-male gay bodies. Baltimore's scene is, I'm sure, no paradise. But from my short time there, the people, the bartenders, and the bouncers recognized that they were all marginal simply by having their bodies in the "gay" part of the city. 

Baltimore may not be the best GAY city, but it beats NYC in QUEERNESS. 

Questioning Queer

Queer is a great term.

I don't think it means shit to half the people who use it.

It's become another letter in the litany of strung together appellations.

It is blunted. 

Queer's utility definitely stops short of my black ass.

 I can be Queer all day, 

but I'm still goina be a nigger in SOHO, Chelsea, and the Village

, as easily as I'm a faggot in Harlem. 

Queer, as it stands, just won't do. 

We need something new. It needs a new set of teeth. 

What if we retooled it and meant questioning when we said queer?

If Blackness stresses the lines and Queerness questions the lines, what are the politics of our Black Queer nation?

It sure as hell ain't to get married (that shit has been fucked!) and fight in the military (equal opportunity to murder and pillage other poor people of color?)!

FEM GAY VS MASCULINE GAY (original title)

harlem outpost