TIME OUT ARTICLES III

TALKING BLACK

After this article was published, Time Out received three letters of complaint (which I will post later when I've dug them out). Soon after, a friend of mine noticed in the Evening Standard that ex-MP Linda Bellos has reported me to the Press Complaints Commission, claiming that the article was racist. This complaint was rejected outright. Ms Mason-John then contacted the Lesbian Avengers (a durect action group that I was a member of) and asked them to zap Time Out's London office, calling for a retraction of the article and my head on a platter. I was called by a member of LA and told about this, so, with two friends, I attended the meeting where they discussed the proposed action. After a fractous meeting which was not vibe-watched, I left the room, angry and upset. The LA then zapped Time Out, some two months after the article appeared, but only 6 women turned up. They were invited in to see the Editor, Dominic Wells (now at AOL!), who said, as he had done all along, that he stood by the article. Below is the article as it was orignally submitted. It was subsequently edited for length and given a new title, Talking Black

 

 

SUCKIN' TEETH

by Megan Radclyffe

I think I might get into trouble for this. I have been "stimulated, stirred, aroused and ignited" by Valerie Mason-John's new anthology "Talking Black: Lesbians of African and Asian Descent Speak Out" (publ. Cassell). The difference is that I'll probably be labelled as a racist for what I'm about to write. I'm not a racist - I'm a realist.

I don't believe that race isn't an issue because I'm not Black. The issue of colour is a matter of concern principally because the Black community deems it so. The debating arena is locked against white opinion, and is only opened by Blacks, authorised to speak by virtue of their history. "Talking Black" is a strand of this dictate that only aids to widen the rift.

I read my way through the book (as I did with Mason-John's "Making Black Waves") with an increasing sense of anger and indignation. The contributors here (all delegated voices of the Black lesbian community, no doubt) constantly and stridently demanded respect. Most would cry "Racist!" the moment anyone challenges their inalienable right to that unconditional respect while clamorously declaring that whites have to "earn" equal veneration. There is a persistent implication that Black lesbians have more respect for a homophobic, heterosexual Black male than for white lesbians who are not racist. As the T-shirt says, "You wouldn't understand... it's a Black thing" - but it is exactly that, and it is a continual thread that runs through not only "Talking Black" but Black society: don't bother talking to the white folks.

Mason-John asserts that "white lesbians push us into the butch/femme trap", assuming that they "have the same racist stereotypes of Black women as the rest of the white population". The solution "for Black lesbians remains in Black groups". She backs this with an insistence that "Black lesbian separatism should be recommended for all Black lesbians". You can imagine the reaction a call for white separatism would receive... If you re-published this book having inserted "white" every time the word "Black" appeared, you would be prosecuted under the Race Relations Act (1976). Mason-John and her contributors have neatly side-step such judicial and moral wrath simply because they are Black: regardless of anything else, they are Triply Oppressed. Whites are deigned to be nothing more than apologetic, obsequious and culpable.

I am "automatically privileged" and "xenophobic" because I was born white. I am "tarred by the same brush". I didn't appreciate being blasted for something I had no choice over. I found some of the assumptions quite odious: that I wear "fascist regalia" because I identify as an SM dyke; that I can be called a "tampon"; that I equate Black with bad and white with good; that I have absolutely no understanding because I was not born into a Black culture... because I don't have Black skin. Even if I "attempt" to understand, I would be (and have been) dismissed as patronising.

I am heartily sick of hearing Black people sucking teeth as I walk past. You should see their faces when I suck my teeth right back at them: white people aren't supposed to do that. Why not? I'm pissed off with being dissed for displaying an attitude I don't even have because my skin is white. I'm fed up with Black dykes who rage that the club scene is racist, but who stand in a posse and don't mix unless they're at the bar or in the toilets. If they don't like the atmosphere - and my advice is the same to anyone who is intolerant to difference - don't go there.

It's not only down to whites to try and rectify this state of affairs, but the Black community (whether queer or straight) is not willing to meet us anywhere near half way. We are only allowed to feel ashamed. I have no doubt that there are racist dykes and gay men in this world, but why should I - and many others who agree - be "tarred with the same brush"? Whatever we do, it will never be enough.

We're up against the oft-stated accusation that "how can you waste time discussing lesbianism, heterosexism and bisexuality when there are so many more pressing issues?" such as racism. Well, it's understandable then that whites "obviously" believe "the concept of being both Black and lesbian [is] difficult to grasp". We're not allowed the chance to try.

I am weary of this battle. The arguments have raged for years, yet the dissolution of this apartheid has not even begun. If anything, the situation is worsening. I am thoroughly vexed by it all, and saw any chance for dialogue between Black and white dykes disappearing as I turned the pages. The deep resentment that oozes throughout Talking Blackseems designed to drown white lesbians in guilt.

Taken on the surface level of stereotypical attitudes and responses, I echo Rodney King, who - after heavy pressure was exerted for him alone to find a solution - was publicly vilified for stating what a vast majority feel: can't we just get along? Given the content of Mason-John's book, I really doubt it.

© Megan Radclyffe 1995 Publ. Time Out 1995

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