Few of you are likely old enough to remember a time when the Afro was much more than just a hair style and a funky icon of the 1960s. In fact, the Afro was a symbol of rebellion and Black Power. A bold and obvious response to generations of African Americans obsessed with looking white, the Afro became an icon of Black Pride.
The Afro phenomenon began long before MLK and the Civil Rights movement.
Marcus Garvey's newspaper, The Negro World, published throughout the 1920s and into the early 1930s, prided itself on the refusal to advertise items such as skin-whitening and hair straightening compounds, which were seen as race-degrading products.
Hair straightening and skin bleaching ads were as common in early and mid-20th Century America as debt relief ads are today. The Civil Rights movements struggled to end this pathology and instill racial pride in African-Americans. It was a long hard road, but thanks to men like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Bobby Seale, that corner was turned and the notion of a black men trying to pass for white or look more white went the way of the dinosaur--except for Michael Jackson, of course.
As I listened to a spokesperson for Exodus International the other day on a morning talk show, I kept flashing on hair straighteners and skin bleaches.
The current gap between the black community and the gay community couldn't be more tragic. The syndrome that drove sales of hair straighteners and skin bleaches is the very same syndrome that drives reparative and ex-gay "therapy."
Rather than advocate homophobia and reparative therapy through Jesus, Black churches should simply look to a bottle of skin bleach and easily recognize a very bad thing.
Gay Americans live in society that daily hammers away at their self-esteem. Virtually every mainstream authority from Washington to almost every major Christian Church officially and openly challenges our right to self-fulfillment labeling us as sinners, abominations, perverts, unnatural, anti-family, subversive and sick. It takes a strong man to stand up to this daily assault and conduct himself with pride and courage. It takes a strong gay man to sport an "Afro."
Alternatively, overwhelmed by pain, self-loathing, chronic depression, anguish and fear, too many of us succumb to a life of repression and self-delusion; grasping for the false joy of being something we are not, a heterosexual, but caught up in the delusion and supported by other gay men and women crushed by the same fears and heterosexuals who believe themselves to be some sort of master race,
Much to my horror, Exodus International is claiming a 59 percent increase in its
member agencies, growing from 117 in 2003 to more than 200 in 2008. EI also claims that in 2007, more than half of the attendees at the ministry's annual conference were first-timers. In 2006, the ministry launched the Exodus Church Network, a coalition of 70 churches that provides local support to those seeking freedom from homosexuality
I can't help but to look at the stats on crime, poverty and broken families in the Black community--certainly improving since the 60s and 70s, but far from fixed. Our society has done a nasty job on the Black psyche as it has done on the gay psyche.
Exodus President Alan Chambers said he believes the growth is part of a counter-cultural revolution.
“People are hungry for a hopeful message about homosexuality that encompasses God's truth, as well as His compassionate heart,” Chambers said. “We are thrilled to be a small part of what God is doing to reach a new generation with His liberating truth.”
Every word that oozes out of Chamber's mouth is disgusting, as disgusting as a bottle of skin bleach.
Melissa Fryrear, director of the gender issues department at Focus on the Family and a speaker at Love Won Out conferences, said the growth at Exodus is a sign of the times.
“Similar to Exodus' experience, in our Love Won Out ministry we are also hearing from so many men and women who no longer want to live a gay or lesbian identity,” she said. “They are discontented living homosexually, convinced of God's truth about sexuality and desirous for God to radically transform their lives.
"Even as gay-affirming as the culture is today, that doesn't seem to matter to them. They want something different; they want what God has for them instead.”
Marcus Grarvey was surely a controversial figure but gay America would be well served by a queer incarnation of this angry activist.
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