Raz B Rockin' Black Gay Pride ...

... And ain’t got sense enough to be ‘shamed.

Everyone’s heard by now. I’ll tell you again though, exactly why I believe this gig is good for him … for us … and for everybody. When I first heard that Raz-B was slated to perform at Oakland’s Black Gay Pride, my first thought was … I knew it, I knew it, I KNEW IT! But I quickly calmed down, because my rational mind knows that performing for a gay audience in no way makes the boy gay, and I didn’t relish being like so many others quick to paint with the fag brush. But damn, I couldn’t help wondering, what if he is? What if Raz-B {who, along with his B2K cohorts, tapped into my inner perv the moment I saw their little jailbait asses gyrating on MTV} ... really was down? What if he came out openly and said, “Yeah I’m gay … so fuckin' what?” So what? I’ll tell you so what. Because of the pressure on African-American males {coming mostly from within our community} to be the best, the strongest, the fastest, the straightest … to identity as homosexual is to identity with all that is opposite of what a man allegedly is … and against everything their mamas raised them to be. I was listening to a CD just the other day by ADODI Muse: A Gay Negro Ensemble. Titled: Ain’t Got Sense Enuf to be ‘Shamed ... that line rang in my head bringing back memories of my grandmother saying the very same thing. She wasn’t talking to me personally, and I was too young at the time to really grasp what she was saying, and doing. She was referring to my aunt’s effeminate boyfriend. I couldn’t figure out why my grandmother hated him with such passion, nor why she called him “that he-she thing”. But sadly, she did call him that, and she did say that phrase every time he left the house. “Lord hav’ mercy,” she’d shake her head and say, “And he ain’t got sense enough to be ‘shamed.” Yeah, he should’ve been ashamed. How dare he be the person he was born to be? There was also a time (I’m sure my grandmother would remember) when black people couldn’t look a white person directly in the eyes, we had to cower, humble ourselves … in other words, we had to be just a little bit ashamed … for breathing the same air, for simply existing on the planet. Even my grandmother, may she rest in peace, must have known how dehumanizing that was, and that everyone has a right to walk the streets, to hold their heads up, and to unashamedly just BE. This post started out as a nod to a hot little shorty with the balls to buck convention, an excuse for me to pepper my BLOG with imagery of his sexy little ass. But as my fingers moved they dug through old wounds, stirred up shit about my people, black people, which pisses me off to no end, and forced my lascivious nature, temporarily, into the backseat. Descendents of slaves should know better than to discriminate. But we don’t. It seems like we are just as ignorant as when we spent our days in the sun picking cotton for free, mumbling to a higher power busy doing other things. Descendents of slaves should have sense enough to not look down their noses at any other man.

And yet …

when I Googled the subject of Raz B being gay, I found the most backward, ignorant, bigoted statements from descendents of slaves, whose ancestors hung from trees, bloated and twisted, all because they didn’t have sense enough to be appropriately ashamed of themselves ... just for being born. Okay. I’m gonna climb down from my pulpit and get back to the point. Whether Raz-B is gay or not is so irrelevant. If he does not buckle to the pressure that he must be under and go through with this performance … AND … if he responds to personal questions the way Luther Vandross did, with a simple, ‘That’s none of your business’, then he will gain so much more than he ever had before. Yeah, he’ll lose some fans. But they were never really in his corner to begin with. However, the new fan base will consist of, first ... Same-Gender-Loving men who, unfortunately, are starved for an SGL luminary and itching to throw some of their disposable income in his direction, and second ... younger fans, even younger than him, emboldened by his unprecedented and ballsy move back into the spotlight. Even if he is straight … but proves to be strong enough, straight enough, to deal with being painted with that fag brush the Hip-Hop media and his peers love to brandish as if it’s a weapon, we will support him in droves with a loyalty, an homage that his former fickle teeny-bopper fans never could have bestowed. I’d personally bow down and anoint his feet with oil. Okay … I’m drifting toward nasty now … but after all, that was my original intent. I just hope that Raz goes through with this and lets all the gay innuendo slide right off his back {ooh … there I go again}, because it may energize and awaken SGL artists who are currently on the charts, bribing and conniving to keep their secrets. Seeing one little man take on the homophobic monster that the industry has become, may inspire them to stand up and be counted ... finally.

Will the Hip Hop media rip little Raz a new one for daring to align himself with fags? Or is this the beginning of a new revolution in the music biz, one that sees that a black man can be gay, or in league with gays, and still be marketable? A new renaissance of sorts, where black gay and male, actually fit for the bean counters? It's all supposition. Is he, isn't he? Will he, won't he? Will other's in the biz support him? Will we?

That's a lot of pressure on his cute little shoulders, I know, attempting to start a revolution with a questionable outcome.

Time will tell. But one fact is certain. You can't possibly have a real renaissance, or revolution … without a bunch of fags in the mix.