When I met Carlene Cheatham, I considered her then, as I do now, a dynamic black woman. A year later, I learned she was a lesbian.
Other African Americans made that disclosure, using coded language common when heterosexuals discuss homosexuals.
“I was never inside. I’ve always been able to be just who I am,” Cheatham said during a recent telephone conversation as we discussed the D.C. Council’s 12 to 1 vote last week requiring the District to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. Cheatham is helping to organize a meeting Saturday where Democrats in the predominantly African-American Ward 8 will debate a resolution to support the “marriage equality” movement.
“I have four older brothers. They never came home and told who they were sleeping with. And when I decided I preferred women, I never felt I had to announce that. I just moved on,” she added.
Black Washington is a “don’t ask, don’t tell” world. If people know, there’s a “don’t-rub-it-in-the-face” attitude. Homosexuals and heterosexuals exist in parallel universes; their relationship is complex and complicated. There is an unofficial covenant that seeks to prevent an intersection or damage the core conservative, Christian-based, African-American culture.
Some people believe homophobia is central to the black community’s “silence” doctrine. Certainly, I have met African Americans who are repulsed by homosexuality; a few have even disowned relatives. But, as I have traveled around the city, talking with heterosexuals and gays, I found that most often they tolerate and respect each other.
All that is changing. The increasingly intense debate — advanced mostly by white gays — over same-sex marriages threatens the carefully crafted covenant between the black gay and straight communities. People are being forced to talk about things they’d rather not discuss. Resentment and anxiety permeates the air.
“Nobody is trying to alienate, ostracize or brutalize gay people. This can’t be forced down people’s throat,” said a black Ward 1 resident — one of many people who requested anonymity, fearing
an attack.
“I am offended that they are calling this a civil rights issue and equating it with interracial marriages. Besides, those marriages were between men and women,” says a Ward 5 African-American resident. “We may love our gay friends, neighbors and family. But don’t want to see them enter holy matrimony.”
I appreciate that sentiment. Like President Barack Obama, I support civil unions. I cling to cultural mores and teachings that are anchored in a religion that, truth told, I don’t practice with regularity but which nonetheless guides many of my decisions.
“I understand our history. I understand how people were brought up,” said Cheatham. “What I am saying to different people is there has to be an education. We have to open ourselves up to what already exists. There isn’t anywhere you go where we aren’t already in the house.
“There isn’t going to be a cultural change,” Cheatham added
Many black heterosexuals aren’t convinced. History offers a different story.
Jonetta Rose Barras, host of WPFW-FM’s “D.C. Politics with Jonetta,” can be reached at [email protected].
