Believe It Or Not: Recent Trends Reflect It’s Still Difficult to be a Bisexual of Color

From Umber.LIFE, Dec. 2018 — Between the controversies involving Kevin Hart, Dwight Howard, and Bohemian Rhapsody, racial and sexual identities struggle to coexist in peace.

Sometimes it seems we forget that more than one thing can be true.

I am African American, and I have publicly identified as bisexual for 6 years. Living while black is not easy. Being openly queer is not easy. Before, during, and after these 6 years, both of those things have remained true. Sure, I haven’t witnessed any lynchings or counted as ⅓ of a human, nor have I been committed to a mental institution during my lifetime. You can say that existing as a black person has improved, and existing as a non-heterosexual has improved. None of these statements cancel out the other.

In the past 6 years, some things have changed for me but many, many things have not. I was, and remain a huge Queen fan. I’ve heard every album — live and studio, watched as many shows that I could find, listen to as many Mercury quotes that are available. “You can be anything you want to be, just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be,” is a gem I personally love. So, as a huge follower, I have learned that the general public doesn’t know many details about Mercury, some minor but many important. With the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, which was in production hell for nearly a decade before being attached to Mr. Robot’s and A Night at the Museum’s Rami Malek and released a month ago, Mercury has seen a resurgence in popularity (not that he was losing much of any); yet, the details are still lost. For example, many don’t know — or choose not to acknowledge — is that Freddie was born in Africa, Zanzibar (modern day Tanzania) to be exact, as a Parsi that became a refugee that drove him to Middlesex, England at age 17. While to the eye, Mercury can appear to be another white person, he is as Indian as any other second-generation descendant. In Bohemian Rhapsody, however, his life is picked up as he is a baggage claim attendant at Heathrow Airport and he is described throughout as an awkward, confused, wannabe star ashamed of both his sexuality and his ancestry. Among other facts blatantly ignored, the film wants the viewer to believe was so unsure of his sexuality that he only became interested in men midway through his career and while committed to partner Mary Austin.

It’s not upsetting to me that they misrepresented the facts — it’s a Hollywood production, with the narrative driven by Mercury’s former bandmates and manager to deliberately misrepresent Mercury’s sexuality in the hopes of making the film successful. That’s something that has happened to other queer figures before; it’s more annoying that it was obvious and glaring to any viewer, even one with minor Mercury knowledge. Mercury called himself “gay as a daffodil”, publicly as early as 1974, and was not believed to be HIV+positive until 1987, long after the Live Aid performance where the film portrays him as already seriously sick. Whether the film would have been produced in 1998, 2010 or 2018, Mercury’s simultaneous homosexual and Parsi identities would have been butchered for the sake of getting the ‘main idea’ across, that he was a legendary icon that led one of history’s greatest groups. Sure, 20 or 8 years ago two men kissing on stage and openly portraying gay hookup culture would have caused much more of an uproar, but Hollywood have not yet progressed from settling for the minimal amount of ‘representation’ rather than reflecting a little more of reality. Being queer was more to Freddie than bathroom hookups and sex parties, just like it is for us.

With the limited representation LGBTQ+ identities receive from the mainstream media, it is not surprising that when one of the limited members in Hollywood representing black men, Kevin Hart, claims ignorance regarding his past tweets joking about a possible gay son. By far, it’s not an excuse — it’s just far from surprising. Kevin Hart, an older black comedian, is homophobic and jokes about an already easy target, in this case queer children of color. That was true in 2010, when he sent those words and I was one of those children, just as much as it is now; people just decided to begin speaking up against those who make those statements. Many of my own skinfolk feel Hart was singled out for criticism for past tweets by a ‘sensitive’ or ‘privileged’ queer community. Without going into depth with these generalizations — so what? Many in the world may be more sensitive than others; there are privileged members of every community, even within LGBTQ+ spectrum; Black men face unequal consequences in comparison to other identities. All three are true, and quite frankly, I don’t believe there’s a time in modern history none of them have been. Kevin Hart is losing out on a great opportunity for ol’ basic ‘representation’ thing again, but if all was fair in the world, he would never have been afforded that opportunity without facing adequate discipline. The fact is, nothing has changed from this event — even if Kevin Hart never repeats these phrases, some of his black comedy counterparts (looking at you, DL Hughley) will and there will be black people standing in solidarity with them; Hart will continue to make a living, even if the Oscars hosting gig never comes around again; Black men will not receive the same punishment for questionable conduct. I will still be ‘represented’ by homophobic or otherwise bigoted men in film and comedy; my identities — as a black man and queer person — will constantly be the subject of jokes and inhumane treatment. The sky was blue today, it was yesterday and it will be tomorrow, for many, many tomorrows.

Someone I know recently telling me I’m the bravest person they know — partly for publicly identifying as bisexual, reminds me that from that time when I came out to now, it is still difficult, in even the most free of societies, to openly live as you are. There’s no amount of representation or equality that will change that, evidenced by now more distant Masin Elijè-Dwight Howard situation. Elijè, a popular social media personality, publicly claims that star basketball athlete Howard was threatening his life for attempting to break up with him. As an event that happened in real time, both the majority of the world and media outlets alike, did not know how to handle this. Most weren’t sure of Elijè’s gender or sexuality, which seemed intentionally or otherwise ambiguous to his followers to that point; Howard had never publicly identified as gay, so that possibility was also a serious revelation. These two points were the only ones that went viral, as most never heard (or willingly ignored) the actual accusations of death threats and domestic violence, nor did any major entity seriously review the claims Elijè presented, which included recordings of phone conversations, text messages and conversations as proof of the alleged relationship and abuse. While Elijè has been accused of attention seeking to boost his social status, Howard has not even acknowledge that accusations as of yet, as both Howard and his current team, the Washington Wizards, have not replied to a single outlet in response to the situation (as Howard is not on the active roster, he has not had to attend a press conference). Meanwhile, many on the internet mocked both Howard’s supposed sexual interests (which Elijè outlined in detail to further ‘authenticate’ his claims) and Elijè’s appearance and identity. The few media writers who dedicated web pages to this did not make the story any better, with Celebrity Insider’s headline, the first Google result when searching Masin Elijè describing him as “Dwight Howard’s Gay Accuser”. Some articles simply regurgitate Elijè’s own tweets or Instagram posts without trying to contact either party. When it boils down to it, Elijè outing a current black male athlete was the juice of the story that was worth focusing on over the alleged abuse, violence, and safety issues raised to begin with. All of this was a week before Hart’s removal as Oscars host, and a weeks after criticism of Bohemian Rhapsody.

Throughout the film’s version of events, Mercury’s father Bomi tries to instill in him to live by the Persian prophet Zoroaster phrase “Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.” Film Freddie doesn’t listen until his life is nearing its demise and he makes a last ditch attempt to do Live Aid; I’m not saying that people will learn only when the end is near, but as a society we don’t change to doing what’s good for us until we absolutely have to. It’s easier being content in the ways of our world than it is to turn it into ‘anything you think you could ever be’, as the real Freddie asked of us. In conclusion, reflecting on not only the past month but the life I’ve openly decided to have, nothing’s changed — except that I’m more tired — and nothing was learned — nothing that I didn’t already know.