Black, Gay and Twentysomething: The Antoine Dodson Conundrum

Black, Gay and Twentysomething is a biweekly column dealing with dating, race, media, and politics and anything else that comes to my queer negro mind.

I have a confession to make: the Antoine Dodson business of the past few weeks has made me retch in a way that few “internet sensations” have this year or any other year.

In case you somehow missed the story, Dodson (pictured right) is the Huntsville, Alabama man who saved his sister from being raped when a man broke into her bedroom during the middle of the night. 

But it wasn't Dodson's bravery that has made him a sensation. It was an interview he gave to a local news station showing an emotional Dodson recounting what nearly happened to his sister.

Call me solemn, but I simply couldn’t muster up enough smugness to laugh at a poor, black, widely assumed to be gay man being interviewed outside of a housing project; a man who was filled with genuine anger over the fact his sister was attacked in her own home, but who ends up turned into an object of mockery because of his “stereotypical” mannerisms by pretty much every group under the sun if for different reasons.

White and black middle-class straight folks could mock how “ghetto” he is, gay folks could mock how “queeny” he is, and we could all have a good laugh and feel a bit superior while we forwarded the email with the YouTube video or posted a comment on one of the many blogs laughing at him.

When I saw the video, I didn’t laugh. I cringed. As a black gay man there was something about it that made me deeply uncomfortable.

I hate that Antoine Dodson is the most prominent black gay image to hit our mainstream media culture in quite some time. A man featured in a two minute local news story is now more high profile than any recent black gay character in a movie, a TV show or pretty much anywhere else.

And that makes me sad.

While white gays have the luxury of being portrayed as professors, doctors, and lawyers in addition to drag queens and circuit boys, us po’ black folk are stuck in the same ghetto of sassy-talking spitfire. And what was already passe a few years back is getting downright tired now.

I won’t even bother with scripted programming on broadcast television where there hasn’t been any really decent representation since … Carter Heywood on Spin City which ended back in 2002. And barely there gay characters cooking for white folks on the thankfully short-lived Privileged do not count.

Michael Boatman on Spin City, Joanna Garcia and Allan Louis on Privileged

Of course I could never omit True Blood’s sexy, androgynous, ass-kicking, one-of-a-kind Lafayette, but even he is not too far from the kind of stereotyping I speak of. While the outrageous clothing and sistagirl posturing is balanced by a tough as nails attitude and hints of depths below the surface, his is a character that can easily fall into this cliché and be dismissed by viewers and other characters alike.

Did anyone catch Eric’s recent played-for-laughs reference to Lafayette as “RuPaul” a few episodes back? Exactly.