Who are the relationship role models for same gender loving
people of color; more specific lesbians of color?
We know of individuals; people such as Alice Walker, Angela
Davis, Audre Lorde, Barbara Jordan, Bessie Smith, Lorraine Hansberry. We hold them up and extol them for their
historical purpose and cultural content but what about their lives? What about
the lives of their partners? How did they interact in the day to day? Were
their partners people of color?
We never get the full content as we search to develop our
own relationships. The majority of our couplings are based in hetero examples
and we are forced to add our own personal twists to fit the need. Who or what
can we emulate? I ask this question because the only couple that we regularly
see is Ellen DeGeneres and Portia. We know that there are other same gender
loving folks out and about but Ellen seems to be the only person who has the
forum and the “stones” to be out there with her relationship. Gay men have Jussie
Smollett..who really didn’t have a formal coming out statement he just merely
stated that he never hid who he was…which in other words like many, many, many gay and lesbian African Americans , he chose
to let people speculate.
I’m posing these questions as a way to encourage African
American to stop hiding…be out and be proud! There is no shame in embracing
your authentic self! Disregard the people who attempt to heap shame upon you…there’s
a level of unhappiness in anyone who attempts to make someone else unhappy
about being genuine.
It took me some years to embrace who I am because of church
constructs and constrictions…I have since come to realize that love is love is
love is love and no one has the power or the ability to stifle a gift from God.
1 Corinthians 13: 13
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of
these is love.
Embrace who you are…..all of who you are!
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