Rainbow Medley

James Baldwin vs Yale professor, Paul Weiss on discrimination

View of soprano Leontyne Price in Puccini's opera, "Tosca." Stamped on back: "NBC photo." Handwritten on back: "Miss Price in Act II."

'I think white gay people feel cheated because they were born, in principle, in a society in which they were supposed to be safe. The anomaly because of their sexuality puts them in danger, unexpectedly. Their reaction seems to me in direct proportion to their sense of feeling cheated of the advantages which accrue to white people in a white society. There's an element, it has always seemed to me, a bewilderment and complaint. Now that may sound very harsh, but the gay world as such is no more prepared to accept black people than anywhere else in society.’