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But it’d be so tastefully decorated!

piny

Okay, so Kevin wrote a post on the Washington Post’s series on “Being a Black Man.” And I want to comment at length, but first I have to highlight this bit, because bwah ha ha ha ha ha!

Here’s a story: A Black man who was in all other respects a good person, when finding out that I lived with a gay man, could only respond, “how can you live in an apartment that smells like ass all the time?”

Really? I thought fags were all anal-retentive neat freaks.

Anyway, Kevin goes on to write about the Washington Post’s description of black male culture, which I’ll just re-quote here:

On the streets, strangers frequently give each other an uptick of the head when their eyes meet, a nod of black male acknowledgment. Black men have invented so many special handshakes that a recent McDonald’s commercial turns on this fact. Their commonality is often defined by their style, their walk, their slang and even how they refer to each other (”Slim,” “Shorty,” “Dawg,” “Mo,” “Brother”). Wherever black men congregate, there is often a comfort level that crosses class and generational lines. There is even a universally acknowledged black men’s club, the barbershop, where no subject is off limits.

(Q: What do two trannyboys do in bed together?

A: They take off their shirts.)

It can be such a thin line between celebrating commonality and parroting stereotypes, particularly when outsiders are doing it. The head-tic thing–which I’ve actually gotten from men, period, which is odd–is also something that queers of various stripes do. Ragdoll over at Television Without Pity called it, “The Look of Mutual Homosexual Acknowledgement.” I’ve also heard, “The Nod of Lesbian Solidarity.” A quick non-verbal “hey” to the only other one in the room could well be a more general thing.

Which kind of makes me wonder how the Washington Post is going to deal with commonality as a function of racism and segregation, or as a historical firebrake against racism, and whether–as Kevin points out–it’ll make much of an effort to separate reality from pop-culture stereotype.

13 thoughts on But it’d be so tastefully decorated!

  1. When I was a kid growing up to be the proud queerblackgrrl i am, I was down right frightened by the “head-nod”. I was situated in a small all white cali coastal town (stats: 98% white), so you didn’t actually see black people every day…and i’d be walking down the street and have some guy waving at me from down the block; just to say hi. As I got older I got used to black women coming up to me off the street to ask me where they could buy hair or makeup product.

    I began to see the nod as more than a hello, it was actually an acknowledgement between two strangers in whiteman land.

    So it makes sense to me that any non-majority folk would find ways to communicate that we need not live in bubbles of self community…

  2. People in wheelchairs who aren’t too self-consious or ashamed to be acknowledging their gimpiness share the head nod too.

    But then I’ve gotten a slightly different head nod from men, which I take to be their non-sexual way of acknowledging a woman in a wheelchair. Not rude, but not an encouraging smile either.

  3. People in wheelchairs who aren’t too self-consious or ashamed to be acknowledging their gimpiness share the head nod too.

    That’s interesting. I know, too, that some transpeople prefer _not_ to be acknowledged; it means that they aren’t passing. Or they might consider themselves post-transsexual or “people with a transsexual history,” and might be uncomfortable to be casually included.

    But then I’ve gotten a slightly different head nod from men, which I take to be their non-sexual way of acknowledging a woman in a wheelchair. Not rude, but not an encouraging smile either.

    Wow. So much entitlement in a little jerk of the head.

  4. So it makes sense to me that any non-majority folk would find ways to communicate that we need not live in bubbles of self community…

    …I don’t want to elide every kind of minority status, but this is why I’m a little leery of the WaPo’s series. I’m worried that they’ll write a sort of fetishistic, context-free account of all of this stuff, like, “Black Men Do the Darndest Things!” I’m not sure if I know how to describe it. It’s sort of like when writers romanticize tranny bars, which transpeople gather in because they’d get the shit kicked out of them–or worse–anywhere else. It’s not some special “thing;” it’s a rational response to an obvious circumstance.

  5. It’s funny, when I was driving a truck and hauling junk last year–they were dark times with a lot of closeted hilarity–there was this magic underground-network thing that happened any time I got hired by a queer household. There’d be the nod, and then a codeword, and then as soon as confirmation had been surreptitiously made, someone got a discount, or someone got a tip, or at the very least someone was awfully nice to someone else, or dropped some helpful advice where not obliged to, and as we drove away whoever my coworker was would wonder aloud if I’d known that customer before or something.
    It’s something I’ve gotten un-used-to, after college where the queer contingent was strong and visible, this subculture of calling all queer folk Family and giving each other a leg up completely aside from other concerns. I’ve talked to friends about the luxury of being in a town where there are queer people I don’t like–does that make sense? Back home, in rural, dangerously heteronormative country, it didn’t matter whether or not you had anything in common or even were naturally inclined to get along. You were back to back, and you were friends, for survival’s sake, no matter what flavor of queer, and generally no matter what flavor of nonwhite as well. The GSA met in a locked backroom of Planned Parenthood in the middle of the night, and there couldn’t have been ten of us. We had each other’s backs. Here, where both communities are larger, I can relax and actually dislike that gay guy over there ’cause he’s a jerk, or that Filipina because she’s not nice to waiters. It’s not an emergency.
    And now, back in the mainstream working world, I catch myself doing it again. Finding the one other one, sending little signals, and then either being on our way with information noted or sticking together like glue. I can see why some people get so caught up in seeing it as a resistance movement.

  6. Wow. So much entitlement in a little jerk of the head.

    I (white disabled male) do the “hey, you’re one of *us*” head nod, although it tends to be more of a look and a grin: “hey, look at this dumb situation. You know where I’m coming from, eh?” I also do ‘the nod’ with friends, male and female, who aren’t disabled, just as a greeting. Is there really so much entitlement in it? (Note: I’ll acknowledge right now that there definitely could be. But, at the same time, I know from experience that these things are often misinterpreted on both sides. I’ve certainly been overly sensitive at times about my disability.)

  7. Straight, white, cis-gendered males do the nod to each other as well. I’ve never heard before that it’s an in-group minority code.

  8. I began to see the nod as more than a hello, it was actually an acknowledgement between two strangers in whiteman land.

    Not the same vibe, but when I (obviously white woman) lived in Japan I found myself saying hello to and being greeted by everyone else who was obviously foreign regardless of race or language. At one point my Japanese friend asked me if “all Americans know each other.”

    The funny thing is I’m not American and neither were many of the people I spoke too. She was a sweet person but she could never remember that “white” doesn’t necessarily mean “American” and that Americans come in different colours. It was an interesting experience.

  9. I (straight female)never used to get the nod, but now I get it all the time from all kinds of folks. I think this is becuase I started looking everyone in the eyes, whereas when I as younger I was shy and avoided eye contact. Looking people in the eyes engages them and is a signal you are comfortable and not afraid(unlike looking at the ground) I think lots of women learn not to make eye contact and thus miss the nod.

  10. Straight, white, cis-gendered males do the nod to each other as well. I’ve never heard before that it’s an in-group minority code.

    That’s true. I tend to give the nod, and I never really realized what it meant before. But I don’t give it to other straight white cisgendered middle-class males, I tend to give it to people that somehow think might Get It in a way similar to how I do (some of whom are straight white cisgendered males). I suppose I’ve been throwing the “Nod of Lesbian Solidarity” without knowing what it was. Which I guess would explain some of the strange looks I sometimes get……..

  11. I should clarify that it’s very much an in-group solidarity thing, but I never thought of it as an identity-based one. For me it was more Solidarity Against the Man in All His Forms. It may subconsciously be an attempt to convey that I’m, in some way, Hip.

  12. I (white disabled male) do the “hey, you’re one of *us*” head nod, although it tends to be more of a look and a grin: “hey, look at this dumb situation. You know where I’m coming from, eh?” I also do ‘the nod’ with friends, male and female, who aren’t disabled, just as a greeting. Is there really so much entitlement in it? (Note: I’ll acknowledge right now that there definitely could be. But, at the same time, I know from experience that these things are often misinterpreted on both sides. I’ve certainly been overly sensitive at times about my disability.)

    Sorry–I meant in the context of, “Hey there, little lady! I would be hitting on you, but…you know.” Gag me with a phallic symbol.

  13. Piny: then I definitely agree with you. Being hit on can be a rarity … that’s my one major problem with Murderball: disabled guys (and women) do not all look that hot.

    I did a paper on that a while back – the phenomenon of TABs patting themselves on the back for admiring, say, Zupan or (the example I used in the paper) “Allison Lapper Pregnant”, and not realizing that they’re still conforming to traditional standards of beauty. Got an interesting reaction from my classmates (in a positive way – my statements along these lines are not *always* bitter).

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