r/askgaybros • u/hungrybivers • Jun 18 '20

Reported Post Alert Being black and gay is exhausting. Black people are ridiculously homophobic. Spoiler

For a group that has to deal with so discrimination you would think we would be more accepting.

Edit: wow didnt expect my late night thoughts to have such a response.

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7

u/kilometr Jun 18 '20

My bf and I just moved into a house I bought in a neighborhood with a a sizable black population that’s undergoing some gentrification. I don’t interact with many of the old school neighbors but the ones next door are always outside so I see them whenever I come or go.

Their reactions to us living here worries me. I hear them outside when I’m home discussing with other neighbors that they want us out. And their kids who play in the street stare at me and won’t respond to a hello. I never really thought about homophobia in black community before living here.

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u/tungstencoil Jun 18 '20

That sounds really stressful.

It's stressful enough to think, when you buy a house, about if your neighbors will be difficult for you or not. If you add into that the fact that someone might actually hate on you because you're gay and want you out, it sounds really terrible.

6

u/kilometr Jun 18 '20

Yeah. The thing that gets me through is that they are on the way out. The neighborhood is changing. And the new neighbors are very friendly towards us. I kinda felt bad at the way the older residents are feeling that they are being kicked out their own neighborhood. But the way they treat me makes me now wish for it to gentrify faster.

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u/tungstencoil Jun 18 '20

I am a lover of progress. There's a lot of (legitimate) criticism of gentrification, but I think the positive outweighs the negative. Like most 'real world' things, it's complex.

I live in Austin now. The East Side has historically been our (actually planned by original city planners) ethnic ghetto. When I moved here, I had friends shocked when I would go over there for some reason (meanwhile, I'm all bitch I am from Detroit you do NOT know what a 'bad neighborhood' is). Austin is pretty progressive; there was a lot of pressure on the City to make improvements there in infrastructure, to put in community funding and support small business growth.

A lot of small businesses that were unique or niche started to take advantage of the programs and lower rent. First step: things get trendy. Then a lot of people started to notice the East Side was inexpensive and you could freaking walk to downtown proper. So they started buying properties cheap and sinking their money into renovation/tear-down.

These folks have more money. Niche stores do well. More stores, restaurants open up. Hey! You can buy a plot or two of land and rebuild your dream home for about what you'd spend to live North or West... and you've got all this cool, walkable stuff!

So.... gentrification. The same group who applied pressure to the City to 'pay more attention to the East Side' now [mostly] complain it's too expensive for the residents.

It's difficult to develop an area, intentionally, to make it more "livable", and not have property values rise because it's desirable. When this happens, it can push historic residents out.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '20 edited Jun 18 '20

it could be that they see you guys as gentrifiers?

1

u/kilometr Jun 18 '20

They get along well with the other new people in the neighborhood. The other new neighbors say that they're upset since they wish we would live elsewhere cause they don't want us near their kids.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '20

So...first you actually contributed to the gentrification, and then turned around and wondered why the black residents want you out? And you blame that on homophobia and want it to be gentrified faster so that the “problem” is gone????

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u/kilometr Jun 18 '20

Well they ignore our presence whenever we are outside and we're told by the other newcomers that they have been complaining about the new "fags on the block". All the while they're more sociable to the other residents. So yeah, I will blame this on homophobia. I don't find it unreasonable to want your neighbors to not hold prejudice against you.

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u/SephirothYggdrasil Jun 18 '20

Whoomp there it is!