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It’s Hard To Love Gay Black Men
In a society that teaches Black people they aren’t loved, those insecurities often spill over into relationships.
Let me put it simply, I love Black people. And I have exclusively dated Black men since my early 20’s. As I got to dating more Black men, I started to see just how hard it was to love them. This isn’t isolated to the Black gay community. In fact, Black love has faced unique challenges from the time of slavery.
It all starts with Black women not being loved by Black men. As these women choose to remain single to avoid the hassle that comes with dating Black men, the gay Black boys that they raise grow up having a mistrust of Black men. Add into the mix homophobia, hyper-masculinity, and internalized racism, and you watch as gay Black men like myself struggle to attain meaningful relationships with each other.
A similar pattern began to emerge as I dated gay Black men, they would entertain the idea for a while until they walked away from the situation with little to no explanation. Although I had experienced this with other gay men, there was something different about the experience with Black people. Discussions of the future were often left out of the discussion. It was as if they couldn’t fathom the idea of a future with another Black man. Far from…
