Frankly, My Dear, I Don't Give A Damn

"Well, here goes. I really resent the term, but I use it because it’s recognized and accepted.

I’m gay."

-- James Randi

Y'know, for as long as I've been black, I've been "out". It ain't no "variation of life-style" and there's been no hiding it. I haven't walked the Earth, unmolested, for 81 years as Randi has. A pair of dogs owned by Nazis once attacked me, merely because they saw my black skin, while Randi would've walked by without notice.

Now that he's come out as gay, people are screaming, "welcome to being who you are, in public as well as in private" - something else that doesn't happen to black people when we attempt to live and think as we please. Also - along with no pats on the back for something we had nothing to do with - we get no parades, no "pride" is dispensed, or anything else like that.

I'm sure, now that he's out, Randi wants to be accepted as "normal" - as white people are - as he has always been. I'd like that, too - since I've been "out" my whole life - but even friends won't shut up about race long enough that I can pretend to be as they are. They remind me I'm different at every turn. For my sake, of course.

Randi's now on some kind of "Amazing Gay Jabber Tour" - inviting discussion that will, surely, water down the skeptic message he's worked decades to get out - while I have to deal with whites, arrogantly, "bizarrely", and repeatedly, stupidly shoving race in my face in the name of their liberalism - all the while refusing to seriously deal with any of the issues I (or other post-racial blacks) propose are really important.

Randi's "problem" is on the inside, and how he determined to deal with it was up to him. Mine is on the outside - but my "problem" doesn't always have anything to do with me - and I have no control over ignoramuses, white, black, liberal or otherwise.

There's just no comparison - and, for me, no escape.

Remember that the next time someone defends their sexual orientation by bringing up my race: I got no "out".

BTW, I wish Randi all the best. He's been a hero of mine throughout my entire life. He still is. But, from the bottom of my heart, I sincerely hope this latest episode - whatever it brings him - doesn't last long.

I just don't want to hear it.