Note from BW of Brazil: The homosexual relationship is a topic that I have purposely avoided on this blog even though I’ve seen numerous hints that the issue of race also crops up in these relationships, particularly when dealing with same sex couples of different races. Throughout the Brazilian blogs-o-sphere one can access numerous articles detailing with the thoughts of black gay men detailing their perceptions of racism in their dealings with white men. Not surprising. In multi-racial societies, it would be naïve to think that race wouldn’t be issue in whatever the topic may be.
As I’ve tirelessly pointed out, Brazil is dominated by an overbearing ditatura de brancura (dictatorship or whiteness) regardless of the topic/area of which we are discussing. And as white men and white women have been perched atop the racial hierarchy since the first interactions between Europeans, Native and Africans, why would that hierarchy not apply in the homosexual world? The common ground that today’s article has with so many other previous pieces is the discovery of one’s blackness, the recognition of racism and turning to people in one’s own group for understanding when racial stereotypes rear their ugly heads in the so-often desired interracial relationship.
For decades millions of black Brazilians have allowed themselves to being deceived into believing that 1) racism doesn’t exist in Brazil and 2) that they are not in fact black. These are two realizations that cannot be forced upon people. But with the spread and sharing of information, fortunately, more and more Brazilians of African descent are picking up on this.
Interracial relations among LGBT and what a turnoff it is to be replaced by a white man
By Gabriel Sanpêra
Many romanticize on the internet about relações afrocentradas (African-centered relationships), dreams of consumption of many black men and women on social networks. There are also specific groups to for seeking pares pretos (black partners).
I personally had never thinking about how much it was for me to assume a healthy relationship with a person who is also black. It contributed in significant ways to my psychological state, which had been shaken in relações interraciais (interracial relationships).
I respect the expressiveness of love in all corners. In fact, what I expose here has its tail much lower.
In college, participating for the first time in collectives of consciência preta (black consciousness) I realized was black and this was a very important moment for me and from that I realized how racism was present in my relations with homens brancos (white men).
From a little comment with enormous consequences such as:
“Aren’t you going cut that hair? It’s too high, don’t you think?”
I remember my last relationship where my ex-boyfriend, well I don’t know if I can consider this a dating.
But continuing. I remember the way that we met and if I had breathed and calmly analyzed the whole conversation if a ” thing” with him wouldn’t have happened.
We met on the famous apps menu, where we place our name, age and sexual preference for a boatload of men desperate for sex and maybe a relationship that lasts two weeks to expose happiness in their temporary flings. He was wondering how many inches I had, and it bothered me even having no consciousness in the beginning and he continued interrogating me about my sexual performance.
“… Impossible…Um negão como você não aguentar mais de trinta minutos de sexo. Com uma pica dessas (a black man like you can’t take more thirty minutes of sex. With a co*k like this)..”
The white man continued with his injected racism in a hidden manner on the application. Asking if I was effeminate, since ‘such a black man’, as he had said, could not be effeminate. We don’t even have the right to perform our truths, after all. He continued and suggested with his deduction loaded with hyper-sexualism…
“.. Okay, you can even be the active one, but you won’t hurt me too much, ok….”
Suggesting again with his racist and closed vision that I was an ”negão agressivo e rasgador de corpos” (aggressive black guy that rips bodies apart)
The relationship continued, and everything was useless. We couldn’t be together and all the locations and parties loaded with racist people were the worst. Friends asking who the man or woman was in the relationship. Friends asking for me to (dance a) samba in social events and even play a tambourine (laughs)
My appearance was always an extension of my consciousness as a pessoa preta (black person). And he implied with my use of hats and my clothes that I was too ethnic and, according to him, looked like clown clothes. My músicas de favela e sons de preto (favela music and black sounds). For him, the funk songs were aggressive and always the obligation that I like Beyoncé because I am black and blah, blah, blah.
This posting would be enormous if I put here the numerous situations in which I experienced racism within an interracial relationship. Today I am dating and very fulfilled (with) my black boyfriend because it ends up that many things aren’t questionable because he is also a black person and we end up following certain points automatically.
For whoever opts for these relationships, I recommend dialog so that both understand their place and all the oppressions that cover the body of a black LGBT.
I am not speaking here of past situations in other acronyms for simple questions …”I have no place to talk”
Source: Medium.com/@gabrielsanpera
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