A queer...okay pretty much African American bull dyke... pal and former schoolmate of mine, embittered over the bobbled opportunity and loss in Cali's Prop. 8 told me: "Ellen Degeneres is our version of Sammy Davis Jr. So eager to fit in as an entertainer that she's become an irrelevancy to a larger movement and a response to a lack of civil rights, like Sammy in the 50s and 60s."
Unfair to Sammy, based on the research. Unfair to Ellen, too. But do you understand her point? My pal applauded Wanda Sykes. But she says other black gays need to step up, stop lying, and put a real, relateable face on things. She wasn't talking about "umasking" dudes on the DL. That stuff re: Tyler Perry, Shemar Moore et al is for another soap opera. Rather, what she's talking about is a wish that familiar names could humanize the yearnings of gays for the full civil blessings they pay for in the their taxes. They'd have the public megaphone of TV. They even, so goes the hope, would be eloquent spokespeople.
Or should they just STFU? Thoughts?
