I'm convinced now that going to the beauty shop is akin to looking through the peephole of life and getting a glimpse on what people think about thangs. At least a certain group of folks. I've talked about the conversations I've heard at my beauty shop. Some of them are pretty funny, some just kind of interesting. And some are...

How did I, a woman who wouldn't label herself as a Christian, end up in such a well...Christian-oriented beauty shop? I'm not saying that Bible study goes on while folks are sitting under the dryer, I'm just saying it's pretty evident that most of the stylists as well as most of the clients, subscribe to, at least, some of the tenets of Christianity.

Inevitably, the conversation last week turns to homosexuality. That MTV show, Date My Mom, was on and the mother's son was gay. I feel the little warning bells go on, and I sit back silently to see how both my new hairstyle and this conversation will turn out. My hairdresser and the peanut gallery did not disappoint.

The peanut gallery was appalled that this young man's mother was so OK with him being gay that she would actually come on this nationally-televised show and not only tolerate his sexual orientation, but also facilitate him - *le gasp* - getting a date with another man. For shame!

Why, she should be trying to convert him (straight from the peanut gallery, that one). The age-old "none of these guys look gay" came up, to which someone else said, "Have you seen that black guy on the Real World? I was so surprised that he was gay. And that's so sad, because he is so fine."

As the TV show continued, one woman got so agitated that she just burst out, "I can't listen to this anymore! I cannot listen to this!"

This amused me, and suddenly I was torn. Here we were, my girlfriend and I (we share the same stylist and had made appointments on the same day, and were there at the same time that day), and these Good Christian Women were talking about gay folks like we are switches that can be flicked/converted - on, off, on, off.

I felt that I should say something. As for what, I wasn't sure. But silence is complicity, right? My silence says that these ridiculous notions that you folks are carrying around are OK. When they're not. It's a weird feeling. You're sitting among your people, and things like this come up, and it feels like you have to choose. How far out in the margin am I going to be today? You have to decide if this is even the right place and time to speak up (should you always speak up, being the fundamental question), and if it is, what you will say. продвиженин сайта: продвигать сайты, на снимке и было тут дёшево, труЪ креатифф

I admit, I feel a little perverse sense of...what? laughter? Internal laughter because here I am, sitting there, listening to them talk like they have the final-say on what is normal and appropriate. I am sitting right here in the middle of them, about as heterosexual as an extended Madonna house remix. And I laugh to myself, thinking, "Man, y'all mofos don't know anything."

But still I am torn. Because, if there is no speaking up, how else are people - Black people - going to get over this shit about "conversion," these overdramatized moments of "I just can't listen to this!" - to which I wanted to ask, "Why? Why can't you listen to it? What is so difficult about listening to something that frankly, has nothing to do with you?"

Religion...is a rough thing. It's nearly impossible to really and truly argue with someone about their religious beliefs, and God forbid (no pun intended), if you try to persuade someone who is firmly entrenched in their views that another valid view of the divine exists. I understand that, for me, sexuality is not an element on the conversion table and cannot magically be transformed from inches to feet, apples to oranges, etc. I understand, for me, in the end it doesn't really matter (or shouldn't matter) if someone was born loving someone of the same sex or if they loved someone of the same sex late in the game. I understand that dictating who someone should be boinking or loving, or believing that I have the power or the privilege to dictate or even try to, is not part of my spirituality.

But I also totally get that other folks may feel that doing the abovementioned is all completely relevant to their understanding of God and right and wrong and the rules of the universe, etc.

Seriously, though, I wanted to ask these women...is this what y'all are really here for, to sit around the beauty shop and condemn, no doubt from houses that have some sort of glass paneling somewhere? Is this really your understanding and manifestation of God?

If so, damn. More power to ya, but damn.

Sometimes, when I'm sitting in beauty shops, listening to conversations like the one I heard that day, I feel like being gay and black is never gonna work out in the minds of my people. It's just never gonna gel. We are just going to continue to shut it down and deny and hurt and isolate and marginalize in some sort of obstinate refusal to accept that not only do black gay folks exist and thrive *second le gasp*, but that it's not for any one group of us to decide what blackness gets to be.

I could be wrong - and I have moments where I feel that my own silence contributes to this not-gelling - but I left that beauty shop feeling...discouraged.

This a great post!

I have also sit amongst the ranks of such people in the beauty shop. And like you, I wanted to say something, but didn't. Mainly because the couple of women that were around seemed to have an argumentative type attitude. And arguing isn't part of me. So I just let things be as they are. In the end, I have the same feeling as you about not having spoken up. I just feel I don't have to and shouldn't have to give a reason for my being. Being who I am.

I feel ya. I really, really, do. Sometimes I wonder how many there are like me, who have severed most ties to any black community, just to not have to dea with that kind of bullshit.

Is it me, or is it even more painful to hear that stuff from one's own people, than it is to hear it from ignorant folks who happen to be white?

I'm not gay, but I am black and argumentative. I've been in situations like that in the past and I jump right in as "Devil's Advocate" where the Devil is not the Devil at all but just another human being struggling along in this difficult thing called life. Life, which is difficult enough without special interests groups from the big (Executive Branch of current United States administration) to the small (Hair Salon Peanut Gallery) trying to deride/discredit their existence everywhere you go. I attack the glass paneling in their houses aggressively. I like attacking people with their own weapons. It's guerilla warfare for me....

"How could his mother accept the fact that he's gay" Would turn quickly to "Did your mother accept the fact that you had scores of premarital sex partners and two children out of wedlock before you were eighteen?" The Christian referrence manual you are quoting speaks on that just as tough as you claim it does on homosexuality(as does the Koran and Torah). If a mother can accept her son and still love hime and defend him when she knows he has committed murder, why can't she accept him if he happens to love a man? Would she not accept him as her son if he was married to a woman who beat his wife every time the wind blew funny? Because I'm so argumentative and passionate about what I'm passionate about I get those looks that I think you may be scared of recieving. That "He must be gay" "Wonder what the fuck is wrong with him" looks. I'm not sure if it's my arrogant nature (I'm trying to tap into that to see what that's all about) or my just don't give a fuck attitude coupled with my comfort level of being in the skin I'm in, but I just don't care. Even when it's my own parents. Right is Right and just because you're part of a Majority does not make you Morally right.

It's painful to hear it from your own people- the same people that cheer everytime you come in can decide to condemn your very essence, and you're right - I could see how that's very distressing.

The thing that I'm proud of in the South is having told people that "I think we have enough problems just being black. Let's work that out before we try to work on someone else's 'problems'. Ain't that right?"

Feedback has been positive, but sometimes it scares me to death to think about the backlash I'll get for that- it's something I always ponder.

No you didn't! Babygirl, now you know if you ever want to hear the most "ignant" conversations then all you need to do is go get your head "did" in the hood. Chris Rock did a spoof about it on one of his shows.

It's even worse at an all-male, black barbershop. They don't discuss it at ALL (especially now with the "resurgence" of DL in the media). All I get to hear about is sports and pussy.

Now, if only sexuality could be magically be transformed from inches to feet... Wouldn' that be the butter?

Hehe.

George referenced an interesting article at negrophile today from Proud Parenting's LGBT community - here>

Really great post. Makes you wonder why people feel so much safer doing their condemning in groups, and subjecting the rest of us to their singular lunacy.

I'm just trying to figure out how you ended up in a hair salon that doesn't have at least *one* BGM on staff.... ;-)

And I'd like to see the new 'do. Photos, please!

I'm not gay, but I'm black, and the STUPIDITY that gets discussed in a typical beauty salon is the main reason I stopped going to them a LONG time ago! (That and being forced to watch the stupid CRAP usually blaring from the TV, Jerry Springer, etc.).
Get a copy of Lonnice Brittnum Bonner's book "Good Hair", and leave the beauty shop B.S. behind.

Happened upon this site from this post being linked from Negrophile. I'm not black but a queer person of color, and have faced this situation of wildly prejudiced views being spouted in the salon. I've struggled, as you have, with the pulling forces of wanting to say something or at least question the ethnocentric, racist, homophobic folks who spout stuff all the time, and wanting to just get my hair do and leave.

Though i've mostly done the latter, I'm hoping to start taking the chance of starting a discussion. And i think one of the most important pieces of that move is the exposure. Once my hairdresser and her clients see that I'm a normal respectable *gasp* gay/bi person, they can start challenging their own biases.

Thanks for this post, it's good to know i'm not the only one confronted with this situation.

amazing. or not so amazing.

in this day and age, to still have to listen to that crap. i know that conflicted feeling though. that "is today a good day to do battle" kind of feeling. i think -- seriously -- that's part of the reason i stopped getting my hair cut. i couldn't work myself up for that barbershop ordeal any more.

thanks for this post.

Nothing turn me off to christianity more that the last presidential election. I don't even come close to sharing the ideas that they want to project upon the members of their congregation.

I hear ya tho, i my damn self started going to Great Clips (can you believe that?), found a black girl their that can cut. i just can't deal with the conversation or the, quiet frankly, drug deals.

Anyway, I do wish I could just waive a wand and people would get it once and for all. It dont matter what you believe or what you eat or who you love, let alone your skin color or religious belief. Spending all that time bitchin about folk that done fit what you think a wo/man should be, when you could striaght up be experiencing something or someone.

What I've always wondered about this whole topic is how in the world a people that have been persistently separated from the rest of society and fought diligently to break that trend can still find newer and better ways to isolate themselves from EACH OTHER. It makes no sense to me that people can condemn others in the name of God (is that sentence not a contradiction?)

I can understand your belief that your silence implies complicity and non gelling, but oftentimes even attempting to enlighten people on the smallest of levels regarding religion and sexuality strengthens their ignorance tenfold. I could continue on this, but I think that what the other commenters have said just about sums up how I feel as well. Great site by the way.

What I've always wondered about this whole topic is how in the world a people that have been persistently separated from the rest of society and fought diligently to break that trend can still find newer and better ways to isolate themselves from EACH OTHER. It makes no sense to me that people can condemn others in the name of God (is that sentence not a contradiction?)

WORD.

great post and great blog. i was directed to your post thru black feminist.
oddly enough, i've had a similar experience in the beauty shop, altho i wasn't with my girlfriend, but my mom, who got a lot more outwardly upset than i did.
however, i stayed quiet too, mainly because i knew it would only serve to make things worse, rather than enlighten her to her hypocrisy.

I am a straight black woman who agrees with a lot that has been said.But i must be honest; i might at first be uncomfortable but i will never be mean nor courteies. Listen, do not feel bad for not speaking up!! This are people who are strongly set in their ways. By you speaking out is a waste of your energy and time. Let them live in angry over something that is not a issue, and in no way hurting them. Go about your peaceful life.

I'm a Christian. At least, I consider myself as such -- I haven't really been to church (save a Unitarian one that supported gay marraige and probably isn't the norm) in years. But I'm very, very tired of people who act like being Christian means hating certain people. I mean, fine, I'm not devout by any means, but haven't they even read the New Testament? I mean, practically the whole thing is about acceptance and love and stuff! That's a lot more important than anything else, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, I could rant for hours about this, but I just wanted to say, "Good post!"