Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South (Caravan Book) Review
Johnson, E. Patrick. "Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South", University of North Carolina Press A Caravan Book, 2008.
Hearing What Is Not Usually Heard
Amos Lassen
If there is any group in the GLBT community that we know little of, it is the Southern Black Gay male. I have never understood why this is so but I must congratulate E. Patrick Johnson for helping to fill that void. Incidentally he is now on tour with his one man show based on this book and bringing awareness to the matter.
"Sweet Tea" (what a great title) is a detailed oral history of the subcultures of Black gay men in the South and it covers all milieus. Johnson interviewed sixty-three men to give us a picture of what it is like to be gay and Black. He uses a set slate of questions for all he interviewed and this is one of the two faults of the book in that there is little variety especially in the matter of faith issues. The other problem that I see it that Johnson did not follow up on some of the answers that he received that showed a new insight into Black gay life.
I did like the way that the book is arranged by categories such as love and relationships, coming out, etc. It is extremely difficult for a Black man to claim both Southern and Black cultures as we read here and we are all well aware that racism is not dead. It is indeed difficult to find acceptance in rural areas of the Bible belt south and in many cases identities must be redefined.
Those interviewed are indeed a cross section, Johnson interviewed men between the ages of 19 and 93 and we learn that there is a Black gay subculture in the South and we learn how this community is maintained, Here in Little Rock, for example, we were able to have a Pride celebration in 2008 because of a lack of volunteers. I was very surprised when I learned that there was a very successful Black Gay Pride festival especially since I knew nothing about the local Black gay community. I do not go out much in Little Rock and I do not recall seeing Black gay men when I did.
The book reads wonderfully, almost as if it is a collection of stories instead of honest testimonies and thereby proves that in the South we know how to tell a tale.
Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South (Caravan Book) Feature
- ISBN13: 9780807832097
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South (Caravan Book) Overview
Giving voice to a population rarely acknowledged in writings about the South, Sweet Tea collects life stories from black gay men who were born, raised, and continue to live in the southern United States. E. Patrick Johnson challenges stereotypes of the South as "backward" or "repressive," suggesting that these men draw upon the performance of "southernness"—politeness, coded speech, and religiosity, for example—to legitimate themselves as members of both southern and black cultures. At the same time, Johnson argues, they deploy those same codes to establish and build friendship networks and to find sexual partners and life partners.
Traveling to every southern state, Johnson conducted interviews with more than seventy black gay men between the ages of 19 and 93. The voices collected here dispute the idea that gay subcultures flourish primarily in northern, secular, urban areas. In addition to filling a gap in the sexual history of the South, Sweet Tea offers a window into the ways that black gay men negotiate their sexual and racial identities with their southern cultural and religious identities. The narratives also reveal how they build and maintain community in many spaces and activities, some of which may appear to be antigay. Ultimately, Sweet Tea validates the lives of these black gay men and reinforces the role of storytelling in both African American and southern cultures.
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