I think I’ve posted about this before, but it makes me sad that the extent a lot of the gay male introspection on tumblr really starts and stops at dating culture. I think it makes me sad in part because there’s a lot more that we can talk about; i really don’t see people discussing how many of us face a massive amount of pressure to sexualize ourselves to prove our worth. A conversation about why white gays tend to only want to fuck other white gays that look like them can not really begin without addressing homophobia, racism, and racialized homophobia. Stopping at the point where you call white gays racist faggots isn’t particularly productive because it doesn’t really engage why gay men of color even care so much about who white gays want to fuck. To begin, I think that homophobia pressures many gay men to justify their existence through validation from others. I feel that the most common way we justify our existence is through sexualizing ourselves; we tend to measure our own value and that of others by their ability to bring sexual gratification. I strongly believe that our use of labels exists primarily to assign “value” to people so that we can essentially barter ourselves for validation. “Top/Bottom”, “Bear/Cub/Otter/Twink”, and “Masc/Fem” do not become complete, sensible categories unless we also think about the purpose they serve. With these labels, we can basically list off what we have to offer (as far as sexual gratification goes) and seek out others who have what we want. This is why even casual conversations on grindr can sound like market transactions. We are pressured to sell ourselves the best as possible by bombarding people with pictures and stats to prove we are deserving of validation. Next, white supremacy puts a premium on white people and white values. White supremacist logic places white people as humanity’s default (and pinnacle), while people of color are characterized as perpetual “others” or dangerous monstrosities. When operating under white supremacy, white people immediately start with “value” that is afforded to them by their race, while many people of color are pressured to prove themselves “valuable” by appealing to white values. White Gays end up becoming the default gays, and the most “valuable” gays as a result of white supremacy. Consequently, they have more of that bartering power I mentioned earlier which allows them to 1) Be generally desirable (because whiteness is valuable) and 2) maintain a degree of agency while doing it. This leaves gay men of color in the really terrible position of being devalued by both homophobia and racism.  We desire to be validated, but we are extremely devalued by the multiple communities we inhabit, and this leads to us seeking validation from (among other folks) white gays instead of each other. In summary: Homophobia places pressure for gay men to seek validation in others through providing sexual gratification to people we deem “valuable”. White supremacy assigns less social value to people of color, as white people are considered the best and default people. White Gays consequently end up being the most “valuable” gays, the default gays, and the pinnacle of gay identity. The result of this is that many gay men tend to focus on which guys white gays want to fuck instead of focusing on other gay men of color.  We tend to focus on white gays rejecting us rather than uplifting other gay men of color. And we gotta work on that lol. Part of what undoes this whole paradigm is remembering that non of this value is intrinsic to any group of people, it’s assigned through belief and maintained through repetition. People do not come prepackaged with value, systems of oppression create value to benefit particular groups of people.

a great intro to social justice and anti-oppression

such an important and useful distinction.  equity gives space for an anti-oppressive lens that acknowledges the role of the systems of oppression that we live in, and the complexity of their interconnectedness.