I've been waiting, hopefully, for the voices of our "Black leadership" to come out strongly against this brutal killing.

Nothing. This from The Root:

Feb. 26, 2008--Little Lawrence King was queer. Not just in some identity politics way, but literally. Despite the innocence of his round, brown cheeks and puppy dog eyes, the kid was a threatening oddity at his Ventura County junior high school. Either because he was brave or naïve, or because he just couldn't help himself, Lawrence reveled in the fact.

By all accounts, Lawrence delighted in the beauty of defying gender rules. He wore jewelry and lipstick, playfully changing up the colors from day to day; he strutted about in black, high-heel boots. And he had the audacity to admit he was sweet on one of his male classmates. That one act of vulnerability—a banal mainstay of middle schools everywhere—cost 15-year-old Lawrence his life. According to friends and news reports, the object of his affection walked into a computer lab Feb. 12  and shot Lawrence in the head. [ ... ]

Now, while I'm still processing this, it seems to me that our Black community could do with a dose of truth-telling: we hate women and all things feminine. That's the only way I can think of to explain why Black boy after Black man would, first use only women-centered terms to insult each other (bitch, woman, pussy) or could see themselves murdering one another if they felt their manhood was being "slandered" by such an insult (or worse, the insult of being found attractive).

I spoke with a cousin not too long ago. He was 15 and, in that way he has, he'd called me to ask what I thought of something he was experiencing. "Auntie Lita, this fag likes me and I want to punch him." Rather than giving his both barrels, I asked why it bothered him. "It really doesn't," he said "but the other guys at school won't leave it alone." It seemed he was considering hitting the kid in front of his peers to prove he wasn't gay. Stupid. Potentially harmful, but stupid nonetheless. We talked long into the evening he and I (his father, a minister, is staunchly anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-Hispanic, anti-Moslem...) and he figured out that if he had to hit people to prove his manhood he might end up punching people every day. He decided against it. Though barely.

Lalita Amos's blog | login or register to post comments