James, I don’t know if you read it, but some time back a Black Medium writer penned a piece about Anna Wintour and Leon Talley. Your comment reminds me of Talley’s treatment by his beloved fashion industry, likely the most self-absorbed and selfish of all, which treats its young as comestibles. While I most certainly do not know you, your words bring up some of the same pain, in that we respond to our yearnings sometimes at great cost. It seems, given that being Black if hard enough then male, then gay on top of that, well. I wonder at times if the Black community’s deep discomfiture with homosexuality has some of its roots in the vicious practice of White rape of male slaves by plantation masters. It would certainly follow, to my mind. Nowhere near enough has been written on the topic which is of course deeply painful.

But then, James, given most topics racial in this country (and plenty of others), what isn’t painful?