No Pride in Cannibalism
Preliminary thoughts on inclusive identities, sexual orientation and violence in the Cannibal Nation.
During the month of June, many Americans will celebrate Pride. While it is great that gay people from various groups are able to participate in marriage, and other social norms that they once were not able to, let’s not forget the role that those particular norms have played in maintaining white power. What has recently been termed homosexuality has long been a part of human life and, therefore, a part of colonialism, chattel slavery, and the system of white supremacy as well.
Sexual identity is not inherently revolutionary; it is just another characteristic of modernity and the human condition in general. It is because of generations of cultural, religious, and otherwise, stigmatization that we have all been conditioned to understand those termed as homosexual as soley being oppressed. However, we must push forward with a better understanding of how sexual practice and identity is deeply connected to white cultural and national cannibalism.
In order to better shape our perspective on these topics, I use a framework of cannibalism. Literal and metaphorical examples of human consumption have been documented in slave narratives and other historical records. White sexuality and sexual violence have often been tied very closely to these acts of human consumption as well as other forms of emotional, social, and psychological cannibalism and starvation experienced by African Americans (Woodward 2014). The history of slavery within the United States shaped how white people have sex and how we engage sexually with Black people, in our country and around the world.
White America acts as a cannibal nation; All white people are a part of the oppressor race, and our sexual orientation does not change that racial dynamic. Therefore, identity politics and other forms of deceptive representational theatrics under late-stage liberalism will not overturn what is known as ‘white supremacy.’ White supremacy is built on literal and symbolic forms of cannibalism, and anti-Black sexual violence is one of many forms of this culture of consumption.
Sexual orientation is typically portrayed as an “intersection” of oppressions, but I argue that we need a more critical perspective about this. Feminist and activist, Aph Ko (2019), explains that “intersectionality isn’t a resistance to or relief from colonized categorical thinking, but reaffirms it.” She says that “[a]lthough activists are accustomed to taking ‘race,’ ‘gender’ and ‘class’ and making them intersect, most people don’t question how they have been trained to understand what ‘race,’ ‘gender,’ and ‘class’ are to begin with.” LGBTQ+ struggle has been strategically placed at the forefront of mainstream oppression and liberation politics, but not for the reasons we’ve been led to believe. Amongst other things, it is an easy — and not so clever — way to avoid the oppressions and the federal claims of the descendants of US chattel slavery for the reparations owed to them. This is, in part, why gay rights have been championed, especially by the Democratic Party — the anti-Black, pro-slavery minstrel party since 1828.
“Intersectionality is more like one highway crossing over another highway. From an aerial view, this could look like two roads intersecting, but they are actually two separate and distinct roads with two different heights, and in between them is a gap — a void. It’s an illusion of an intersection at a distance, however. When you close the distance and start to approach this supposed intersection, you immediately see the roads are not even touching. This is in part why we struggle with making Black women visible within intersectional spaces (where we merge the ‘race’ and the ‘gender’ road)…they live within the gaps…For true liberation, I do not encourage intersectional or interdisciplinary thinking…” (Ko 2019:13).
Many of the political actors who are said to belong to the Democratic Party have played their part in institutionalizing the rights of gays, trans people, Muslims, Latinos, women, and other lesser oppressed groups in the United States in the context of African Americans — the lineage of Freedmen who descend from US chattel slavery. However, we should not see these general groups as inherent leaders of liberation or revolutionary politics purely by the mere fact of their designated societal index, not least under ‘late-stage liberalism’ (Povinelli 2011). What should be made clear is that throughout history individuals from every one of those groups have brought forth the revolutionary and transformational theory and resistance to colonialism, imperialism, sexism, bigotry, and white supremacy that many of us work from today. Nevertheless, the problem of theatrical politics further obscures our reality within this milieu of spectacles (Debord 1967) and simulations (Baudrillard 1981); cultural productions necessary to keep white systems of cannibalism running by way of symbols which portray one message while having been wholly devoured of substance or transformative power.
While all of the aforementioned groups have experienced violence and hate, the rights and lives of the individuals within them have received, and are still in the process of receiving, swift support and institutional protections from the government; all while descendants of US chattel slavery have not. It is true that great revolutionary leadership and struggle notoriously emerges from the most racialized and marginalized places. Due to this fact, we have become accustomed to understanding people forcibly placed in those social, economic, and political conditions in general as inherently revolutionary. However, we must continue to be vigilant and critical in thought and practice under the hyper-liberal stage of what is referred to as white supremacy.
On June 24th, 1973 Silvia Rivera spoke before a sea of gay New Yorkers in Washington Square Park. This powerful Trans, Puerto Rican activist was there to call out the lack of support for her fellow, mostly Black and Latino, brothers and sisters who had been abused and jailed by the criminal and anti-Black police force of New York City; brothers and sisters who were largely being ignored by the rest of the gay community in the city. Even before she started to speak she was booed and cursed at. What Silvia was trying to make clear was that the gay rights movement and gay culture was becoming white-centric, capitalist, and bourgeois.
Of course, she was right.
As Silvia was ridiculed by the gays she had come to properly confront, the very issue that Silvia was there to bring attention to had solidified before her en masse. Today we see the full manifestation of what brave and revolutionary Silvia Rivera was warning about. It is because of powerful individuals like Martha P. Johnson and Silvia Rivera that gays of all groups are able to experience the rights and freedoms they enjoy today. But whiteness plays it’s own part in institutionalizing those rights.
White America was founded on the stolen wealth and land of Indigenous people and African Americans. Because that wealth has sat in many white people’s bank accounts and nourished our lives, whites — especially those with wealth, power, and influence — could no longer exclude gay children from the ability to capture, retain and pass on white family wealth through the institution of marriage. As gay Americans continue to enjoy more and more rights and inclusion into the violent, racial, and parasitic system of U.S. culture, African Americans — those who are descendants of US chattel slavery, whose ancestors are responsible for the creation of the wealth generated by the nation — are still being killed every single day, strategically locked out of the economy and, therefore, rights to life or self-determination.
Sexuality is complicated, especially within the context of modernity and ‘whiteness.’ Homosexual desire and behavior is not uncommon in “straight” white American male culture, particularly when it comes to violence. From slaveowners to military and local police, heterosexual white male violence has often been homoerotic. Slaveowners and other men in power — before and after 1776 — who were ‘homosexual’ were still able to participate in the slave economy and the process of nation-building; which complicates the force-fed mainstream understanding of sexuality as solely a category of oppression. Given that white American’s sadistic sex fetishes originated in Europe — one only has to read works such as the Marquis de Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom for confirmation — and were refined within U.S. chattel slave culture, it is no surprise how morbidly racial many of those practices and behaviors are. Sexualized violence is so much a part of who we are as Americans and it is constantly reinforced through our films, music, social media, and especially pornography; the forms of media our senses are most frequently assaulted by.
When Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg announced his run for the 2020 Presidency, the liberals went crazy. What could be more fitting to add to the ridiculous performance politics of the pro-slavery Democratic Party than a white homosexual candidate?
Luckily there were more politically savvy people paying attention to completely destroy his campaign. When it fell apart, some Americans actually thought it was a loss; they felt that Buttigieg was a meaningful representation for gay youths. But these were often the same people who said struggling politically for reparations was a ‘privileged’ form of ‘idealistic voting’; the same ones who voted for a worse candidate than Trump and demanded no meaningful exchange for propagandized votes. Buttigieg’s campaign for president came at the exact moment that reparations was getting mainstream attention. While the rest of the pro-slavery Democrats were conspicuously ignoring activists, professionals, and scholars who had legitimate, factual data proving why Reparations are owed and needed— including a clear and detailed agenda like the one laid out by Yvette Carnell and Antonio Moore, co-founders of #ADOS — Buttigieg, like his running mates, knew that there was no way they could orchestrate their campaigns without mentioning “Black agenda” or “Reparations”.
So in April of 2019, Buttigieg released “his agenda” for Black Americans: “I believe an agenda for [B]lack Americans needs to include five things that all of us care about: homeownership, entrepreneurship, education, health and justice.” Unfortunately for him — and I’m sure he was fully aware — his “agenda” consisted of recycled, antiquated, and already invalidated concessions proven to be insufficient to change without first giving reparations to the direct descendants of US chattel slavery; a federal claim which includes full cash payments to those descendants, along with a list of other mandatory policies and protections that their group determines will make them whole and self-determined, by closing the racial wealth gap that has continually destroyed their lives generation after generation. But Buttigieg’s useless plans are no surprise given that he descends from a slave-owning family.
Clearly, and as always, politicians will talk the talk that their voter bases wants to hear. After they have won an election, things go a different way, unless of course those talking points were about maintaining white supremacy in all of its forms.
Buttigieg’s campaign was meant to appeal to working class Americans and to pull at the emotional strings of LGBTQ+ youth and community, who wanted to see themselves represented. In reality he was just another white gay who had no plans to do anything of substance for African Americans. Buttigieg even went so far as to say that “being gay” helped him to relate with that of the Black struggle in America. Not only do those two things not equate, but clearly Mayor Pete was unaware that historically, white homosexuals relationship to Black Americans was one of oppression, exploitation, and rape.
Let’s be real, empirically speaking, Buttigieg likely has friends who socialize in circles with other white gays who fund or act in “BBC” porn, use the word ‘ni**er’ while they’re getting fucked by Black men, but then complain about “Black on Black crime” off camera, at brunch, and at their corporate jobs. Even if Buttigieg doesn’t know any men like this, many white men do, homo- or heterosexual. The presence of such insatiable racial hungers for “big ni**er dick,” found in some white gay and straight porn, the very real community of white gay men who utter such specific terms as part what arouses them about these sexual encounters — in often emotionally and psychologically toxic and drug fueled hookups with Black males, by force or coercion — confirms the strong and clear racialized, white cultural behaviors that stem directly from US slave culture; resulting in malicious and sadistic anti-Black sexual deviance.
As is know well, white people with wealth, as well as poor and middle class— not least, ones attached to Democratic Party politics — have been found to love their Black slave fetish, meth binges, just like their good friend and donor, Ed Buck. A white, gay, Democrat who hunted homeless Black gay young men and coerced them into allowing him to inject them with dangerous amounts of meth. Buck received sexual arousal from, not only the act of injecting Black men with meth (and specifically lethal amounts; he was aroused by the expressions on their faces and other physical reactions to the amount injected), he did this to increase the intensity of the slave/race play fantasies he had them act out with him. A fetish which lead to the death of two of Buck’s victims; Gemmel Moore and Timothy Michael Dean. Given that the Democratic Party is the anti-Black, pro-slavery party — and has been since 1828 — this dark truth is quite fitting.
In 2018, Dalhia Ferlito wrote:
“Gemmel’s death is the result of interconnected oppressive systems that not only bring young men like Gemmel into contact with people like Ed Buck, but also keep the world’s Ed Buck’s safe from prosecution for abuse and murder…This underground economy exists, and is the best option for some, because of persistent employment discrimination in the above-ground sector, because escort work pays more than minimum or entry level wages, and/or for other personal reasons. Because these workers are generally criminalized by society, they have few options to seek redress for harms suffered on the job.”
Police and political officials chose to take no action to arrest or convict Buck when the news of two Black males dying from meth overdoses in his home, as was the case decades before with the white serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer. It took no effort for Ed Buck to claim those Black men wilfully took the Meth and their deaths were not his fault, and mainstream media supported him. Black people — not least the males — are a disposable capital to white Americans. But police and politicians are also made up of white men who make up white institutions of power who regularly destroy the lives of Black men — men who are often their favorite object of sexual pleasure and abuse.
So, of course white America and all of the white institutions that prop our lives up, work in tandem to allow these acts of psychopathic violence to occur and continue largely unabaited. It is only because Buck’s last victim, being held against his will in Buck’s apartment, happened to escape. Ed Buck was finally arrested September 17th, 2019.
“In their relationship with the Black race, Europeans (Whites) are psychopaths and their behavior reflects an underlying biologically transmitted proclivity with roots deep in their evolutionary history. The psychopath is an individual who is constantly in conflict with other persons or groups. He is unable to experience guilt, is completely selfish and callous, and has s total disregard for the rights of others. This premise is supported by overwhelming scientific evidence (Delaney, 1968; Du Bois, 1896; Fanon, 1963; Garvey, 1967; Welsing, 1991; Williams, 1971).
There is a scientific dictum which states, ‘everything that exists, exists in some amount and if it exists, it can be measured.’ One of the best methods that can be used to measure the psychopathic traits of the white race is observing and analyzing their universal and overt behaviors towards Blacks.” — Bobby E. Wright (1984)
Why have heterosexual white American men historically committed homosexual violence? Is our culture just generally filled with repressed homosexuals, or is it something more complex? Is our culture just so deeply sadistic and psychopathic that we need to act out every possible mode of consumption, death and destruction in order to fully satiate our national appetite for Black soul and flesh?
Sexuality changes nothing in regards to white supremacy and the internal identification with, and libidinal hunger for, anti-Black violence. Why is there so much sexually charged, homosexual behavior and violence committed within all branches of the military? Why is so much homosexual violence used on Black males (regardless of their sexuality) by heterosexual police officers?
Many aspects of our country’s culture developed from chattel slavery, colonialism, and through other acts of cannibalism and human consumption. From that system of bondage white sexual fetishes were to a large extent developed or refined based on our sexual relations to people who were enslaved and illegitimately used as property and money. A system which was not only incredibly profitable for many white people involved, but it apparently was also very pleasurable. So it’s no surprise that both white men and women, hetero- and homosexuals partake in BDSM and “race play.” It’s also no surprise how much of white people’s sex (with each other) consists of so much rape.
What is it about the white psyche that needed to enslave “Black” human beings in order to be validated and to nation build? Why did white nation building require the most sadistic, vile human atrocities ever committed? And why did that violence turn in on itself and manifest into the sexual hunger to act either as master or slave? There has always been an unconscious and conscious sexual aspect to racism, especially in regards to anti-Blackness. Whether it was “protecting white womanhood” from the “Black male rapist” or miscegenation laws, its always been about fucking; not only, but always.
It doesn’t matter that white people often engage in this type of rape/slave sex with each other, the context remains the same. Whatever has been ingrained in some Europeans and Americans, whatever sexual behaviors developed to satiate their appetites to recreate the historical violence we have committed against “others,” it seems to have some very important staying power.
When we think about all of the homosexual violence American police use on Black males, it’s very appropriate that a cop worship meme surfaced with an image from a gay porn film. Whether its licking leather boots or covering oneself head to toe in leather (all mimicking Black skin) during sex, why this need to reinforce this violence? What causes some white people to need to enslave or abuse in order to get off? Why the need to act out being enslaved while covering oneself in black leather (skin).
Harriet Jacobs wrote that “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women,” but this declaration withheld many details of abuse that should rightfully lead us to understand that men may have actually had it worse, or at least worse than such traditional accounts. Thomas Foster (2011) revealed the complex and often hidden realities of the abuse of male slaves and homosexuality in the US slave culture and other colonies, which is worth considering at length:
“The scholarship on early America shows us numerous instances of rape and sexual assault of men and boys…We also know through the handful of extant sodomy cases that males have been so abused. The seventeenth-century Connecticut gentleman Nicholas Sension, for example, sexually preyed on his male servants. Virtually all of the cases of sodomy that came to the courts in early America involved individuals violating status boundaries — instructors on students, masters on servants. None involved peers…sexual assault of enslaved men took a wide variety of forms, including outright physical penetrative assault, force reproduction, sexual coercion and manipulation, and psychic abuse. It is difficult to determine with certainty the prevalence of the sexual abuse of male slaves. Marth Hodes concludes that the sexual ‘coercion’ of [B]lack men in antebellum America ‘lurked as a possibility regardless of how frequently it came to pass.’ Antislavery movements documented relatively more instances of such abuse than did previous eras. Nineteenth-century sources discussing slavery in the South, for example, are more abundant given the abolitionist movement, which drew attention to sexual depravity to argue for the immortality of slavery as an institution. Given the variety of social and cultural barriers to documenting the sexual abuse of enslaved [B]lack men, however, it would be an error to assume the pattern of surviving sources reflects the historical practice of abuse. Indeed, the unlikliehood that cases would have been documented at all suggests that it would be safe to say that, regardless of location and time period, no enslaved men would have been safe from the threat of sexual abuse” (447–448).
Given that ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ under current late-stage liberalism is nothing more than the next phase of white supremacy, ‘gay’ police and politicians of any race are not going to work to dismantle the system of white supremacy purely because of their sexual orientation. Mayor Lori Lightfoot has protected, defended, and funneled pandemic relief funds into the Chicago Police Department; one of the most violent, sadistic, and corrupt group of slave patrollers in the entire country — next to the NYPD and LAPD. Mayor Lightfoot had done nothing about the unconsitutitional ‘black site,’ Homan Square, where citizens have been kidnapped and brought to, unable to contact anyone, abused and raped by male cops. Lightfoot’s position of power, and how little has been done to protect Black citizens of Chicago, makes clear not only the failure of diversity to overturn white power but also the deliberate nature of that failure. Chicago is a city which has its own legacy of homosexual, anti-Black violence at the hands of police. Such as the type that took place at the hands of Officer Job Burge.
[B]lack men’s genitalia were subject to scrutiny and punishment. Castration and other genital mutilations served as punishment in the hands of overseers and owners as well as in popular depictions of public enforcement of “justice.”— (Foster, 2011)
An 2014 article Chicaog and Illinois: Torture details the racialized sexual violence inflicted on many Black men in Chicago during Burge’s employment:
“In May of 1972, Anthony Holmes was interrogated by then Police Detective Jon Burge among others at Area 2 Police Headquarters. During his interrogation, Holmes’ hands and legs were shackled while he was forced to sit in a chair. Burge then took the wires from his electric shock box, known by the detectives as the ‘nigger box’ and wrapped the wires around both sets of shackles. Burge then proceeded to repeatedly shock Holmes with the box while suffocating him with a plastic bag, causing him to pass out from the pain. At one point, after Holmes had passed out and fell to the floor, he remembers gaining consciousness while being lifted up off the floor and thinking to himself that he was going to die. He then agreed to falsely confess to a murder he did not commit. The confession, the sole piece of incriminating evidence, was used against him to secure his conviction and subsequent incarceration for thirty years. He has not received any form of compensation.”
By comparing documented use of “sexual humiliation, mutilation, electric shocks, solitary confinement in ‘stress positions,’ burning, even waterboarding” (Baptist 2014) inflicted on enslaved men, one can see the unbroken line from the first phase of US chattel slavery to the violence inflicted by Burge and his gang of criminal psychopaths and the collective environment cultivated within the US prison industrial complex.
“William Benemann and others maintain that the image of whipping exposed male flesh carried a homoerotic charge — one that mirrored the nearly obscene fixation on whipping nude enslaved women, as has been suggested by scholars such as Colette Colligan. John Saillant’s work on the eroticization of the black male body in early abolitionist literature also contributes to this view that whites found sexual appeal in black male bodies” (Foster 2011:450).
The reality that very little has changed since the original manifestation of chattel slavery and the erotic affect that system of dominance has had on our white culture is undeniable. This being the case, it is historically dishonest and extremely irresponsible to leave out these considerations when having public discussions of police violence and other forms of white terrorism. These facts are necessary in the activism directed towards achieving the protections for Black males within white society; one area being the criminal justice system.
Likewise, the North consisted of some of the biggest slave centers in US history — New York City, not least. Bill de Blasio and his administration has done very little to end Jim Crow in our city; this isn’t surprising given New York City’s long relationship to the southern plantation economy. A more honest and critical look at our city’s history and current condition can help us understand how the architecture of race and space is utilized by, and perpetuates, white supremacy — particularly through policing and the use of homosexual violence against Black men.
“[Franz] Fanon argues that the white ‘Negrophobic man is a repressed homosexual.’ Fanon recognizes that racism, the aversion the white man has to the Black man, is explained not solely by his hate for the Black male but also by his fear of, and desire for, him. Cleaver maintains that white male domination over the Black male is a sexual obsession with his Black virility…Fanon offers an analysis of the white man’s subjectivity insecurity and fear of the Black man. Fanon insists that the ‘Negro is phobogenic,’ meaning that the Negro triggers a pre-rational fear in the mind of the white. This fear objectifies the Negro, overdetermining his being as the phantasm of the white mind…The sexual revulsion of whites is not disgust; they are not repulsed by the thoughts of ‘fucking’ a Black man. They are ashamed of their repressed sexuality that craves him — the immoral and shameful things his flesh allows…” — (Tommy J. Curry 2017)
When Coleman Cruz Hughes started gaining clout for being a ‘Black’/Latino conservative public figure, he was booked to speak against Reparations for African Americans at the 2019 HR40 hearing. Coleman is a Hispanic young man much like congressman Ritchie Torres. Both have one African American parent and one Latino parent. Both men supposedly stand in political opposition to each other, but only do so marginally at best. These two men represent not only a need within the system of white supremacy, to have “Black” or colonized people championing politics that support whiteness, but they also represent bodies/minds of sexual desire. Because we know about the existence of homosexual slaveowners — and also heterosexual ones who acted out homoerotic dominance and violence against Black men under slavery — we can make the connection to the likely existence of sexual arousal (conscious or otherwise) derived from these men; consumed and now digestible products of the descendants of those who were enslaved in the West.
Coleman appeared in a music video, which accompanied his 2017 album of “rap” tracks in which he walked through Manhattan, laying in different poses and wearing nothing but tight white underwear. Those with even the slightest awareness can understand how his overall public presence leaves open the possibility for the homoerotic white male gaze; whether that gaze is from the white males who he knows socially or white men in power. What could be more sexually satiating to some white men than someone, representative of historically sexualized males, who parrots and fights for their own conservative logic?
Thomas Foster’s work also reveals the particular attraction to “light-skinned,” “fancy girls” under antebellum US chattel slavery. He explains how this “evidence also leads us to speculate that an unusual interest in light-skinned men may have paralleled the more formalized and documented fetish market in ‘fancy maids’ that Edward Baptist has analyzed” (449). If we read “light-skinned” as “bi-racial” or “mixed,” then we can make proper connections between the sexually consumptive practices of white people and the digestible bodies that were produced from those practices becomes clear. Homosexuality has historically played a role in this violent process of colonialism, whiteness, and that which is required to maintain those systems. Coleman Cruz, Ritchie Torres and many others exemplify this historical process.
To have diverse representation for the white status quo — when the discussions and political activism around reparations for Americans directly descended from US chattel slavery are rapidly growing — is immensely important for the maintenance of whiteness. It is not difficult to see how sexuality, or sexual arousal, also plays into the politics of whiteness, given how sexualized racism and anti-African Americannes as a whole have always been.” In a culture and country that operates on white power the notion of “I can think what I want and you can think what you want” has its own problematic repercussions to it — given how much this permitted cognitive dissonance and avoidance of intelligent debate contributes to the lack of progress for actual change — it is easy to see how, likewise, having Black, Latino, and ‘Brown’ people conditioned to support conservative (white) politics results in the same nuetralization of truly progressive politics and ideology.
People new to these frameworks may be skeptical of the connections and conclusions I am presenting. That is understandable given the public performance that conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, and other unabashed proponents of the white status quo keep up for the cameras. However, when we consider the historically vital sexual aspect to racism and anti-Blackness, it is less surprising how prominent the “cuckold” fetish is within the conservative white male culture. However, without these frameworks, anyone skeptical of these conclusions that happened to look at the wide range of heterosexual cuckold porn might be confused, seeing how often these white male fantasies include a hired Black man fucking their wife, not to mention occasionally ‘eating’ his ass out.
In her short article for Insider, Julia Naftulin cites the work of David Ley when she explained that “[c]uckolding might also appeal to someone who wants to experience ‘vicarious bisexuality,’ ” to theorize reason why “conservative men may be attracted to cuckolding.” Lay further explains that “[t]here are men who really would like to engage in sexual activity with other men but they have a lot or moral or social prohibitions against it, and they can use their wife’s body, basically as a vehicle to have sex with other men” (2021). A racial component must be included for this thought process to be complete, considering how much cuckhold porn consists of white men paying Black males to fuck their wives while they watch and jerk off. It is also not uncommon for the white man to engage in some form of oral sex with the hired Black man. While I agree that the presence of “taboo” behavior within diverse conservative cultures has much to do with the restrictions of “acceptable behavior,” I feel it is insufficient to leave out the very real, objective reality of the sexual and homosexual aspects to anti-Blackness in the West and anti-African Americanness that developed under US chattel slavery.
In The English by David Frost and Anthony Jay, there is a passage regarding homosexuality and law in England. Frost and Jay explained how legislation restraining homosexual behavior was designed specifically for the lower classes. However when upper class members were caught in these acts as well, the awareness that the understanding of laws and behaviors was going to need to change in order for “gentlemen” of their ruling class would not experience the same consequences and social stain as those beneath them. Given that whiteness can be understood as a “Pan-European” project (Horne 2020) and that the United States is merely the “revolting spawn” of England (Horne 2017), we can see how our corporate rulers have adopted and utilized methods to maneuver and maintain power and wealth in their families from our nation’s origins.
Major corporations and surveillance capitalist behemoths like Facebook and Google aren’t flying the rainbow colors because they care about people’s right practice ones sexuality and have equal rights. In the same way that political actors most pander to their constituency — in some of the most conspicuous and embarrassing stunts that will ever be burned into our brains — these capitalist giants are doing this because the pride flag represents the ability for white Americans to retain their wealth and status, for white capital to stay in white families and white control. These liberal performances are also acted in order to make sure everyone’s money continues to flow into white bank accounts, and therefore, wealth.
White American culture creates people who are sexually aroused by abusing, torturing and murdering Black people, especially Black males. Our women are equally as guilty.
Not only do many people in our racial group commit sadistic acts of sexual assault and violence on Black people in real life…but the libidinal appetite our culture has is so insatiable that we must create pornography which also reflects those same scenarios of sadism. Through this type of media the memory of violence is passed down and reinforced in the culture. If there is a need for a society to reinforce something, clearly it holds some form of importance.
I’ve seen on the social media accounts of several porn stars that basically said: “Porn is great because it’s not racist. Everyone fucks everyone.” But this is a gross misconception. Particularly because of the astounding presence of “race-play” type porn produced in the country. Everyone has already been fucking everyone, this is not revolutionary or non-racist. Interracial slave rape was an integral part of nation building for the United States. But not only are those behaviors and fetishes not going away, they are disturbingly reinforced in our media. Why is this so needed?
Several white gay and straight porn stars came out publicly as Trump supporters in 2016. There are several gay porn companies that produce videos of all white males having sex in bedrooms, in front of large confederate flags. Articles have emerged recently showing other actors wearing MAGA hats during frat house, group rape scenes. Clearly there is a market and a demand for this.
There are both gay and straight porn sites that produce stop-and-frisk themed scenes; all white cops (male and female) forcing all Black males to submit to rape out in public, staircases and jail cells. I think it’s very safe to say that the same police officers who are slowly and deliberately choking Black males to death in real life are doing so, partly, because they are sexually aroused by it. I feel this is further confirmed by the existence of popularity of fetishes for suffocation, like “choking” porn. Murdering Black males likely creates a homosexual arousal in heterosexual white males.
In the last few years there have been stories in the porn news circuit of known heterosexual white supremacist actors, such as Bo Sinn, who interestingly enough is now also doing full on hardcore gay porn. Of which he was sometimes having sex with Black males, and he’s not the only one. Bo apparently had a huge white supremacist symbol tattooed on his chest, which he has been slowly covering over…did he have a change of heart? Or is it something else? Domination sex with Black males clearly doesn’t divert from historical white supremacist behavior, male or female. Either way, the themes of his films seem to be of an abusive, and somewhat disturbing nature — typical of white American tastes.
What is it about white culture that requires this kind of porn to exist? Particularly when we live in a society where those exact acts of violence happen daily, often resulting in the slow and painful death of Black people. The fact that the actors portraying these police refer to the Black victims as “thugs”, along with the use of other stereotypically derogatory and racist catch phrases, only further reinforces that this type of porn is meant to satiate the sexual arousal white Americans receive from the actual racial terrorism that our culture inflicts on Black people. It’s art imitating life.
If we apply the sexual framework to what we already understand about police brutality or other types of racial terrorism, then we can see how deep the psychosis really goes. To come up with real solutions we need to fully understand the enemy we are dealing with.
Language and Ideology — “Heterosexuality” and “Homosexuality” as terms or labels are relatively new. The sexual behaviors that they have been designated to describe are not new. What is referred to as homosexuality has always been normal behavior for many cultures across the globe; including all of the colonizer groups who orchestrated the creation of the west through chattel slavery in the would-be United States. It was only in the 19th century did these new terms come about, and with purpose. In her book, “Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality”, Hanne Blank delves deeply into the reality that “the original creation of ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’ had nothing to do with scientists or science at all. Nor did it have anything to do with biology or medicine. ‘Heterosexual’ (and ‘homosexual’) originated in a quasi-legal context, a term of art designed to argue a philosophical point of legislature.”
The liberal narratives and ideologies that are now commonplace, across a much larger section of the United States than ever before, don’t exist for the genuine liberation or self-determination of oppressed groups. Those narratives are strategically conditioned into mainstream politics to distract awareness from the fact that the giving of rights to all “oppressed” groups is given priority — and screen time — to successfully avoid having to give rights and reparations to the descendants of US chattel slavery.
Even today, some LGBTQ+ activism and political lines are actively used to obfuscate the more entrenched oppressions of African American males and their communities as a whole, who suffer under the continued legacy of chattel slavery. This is equally true for the politics pertaining to Immigrants and Feminism. The same way that liberals have gotten comfortable with lumping different groups together with American descendants of slavery with the use of “POC”, sexuality is another apparatus of manipulation.
As discussions of critical race theory continue to grow, along with the predictable resistance to it being implemented in schools, we need not only white women coming out in droves to protect and uphold the patriarchal system of white supremacy (as they have always done), so are gay white women, like Barri Weiss. Weiss write and article for The New York Post in response to the proposal to change the names of San Francisco public schools “that honor so-called “racist” historical leaders — including Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson” (O’Neill 2021).
Trump’s 1776 commission needed to be decommissioned. It’s a small victory, but we still have a culture of men and women who contribute to the same historical lies in everyday life. Not having the 1776 commission is excellent. It had robust institutional backing, but so do the white people who publish articles like these. Biden’s move to cancel Trump’s commission was a perforative move, one that still requires material action within the system of whiteness. Biden, however, will not be doing that.
White women (and those who are ideologically and culturally aligned with whiteness), wether Republican or Conservative, like to throw around the term “woke” to refer to any and everyone who resists the antiquated Daughters of the Confederacy education that we are all fed since birth in the US. White women like Weiss want to fight woke culture because, as whites women, they are raised to protect narratives of “American exceptionalism” to instill in the white childre — And therefore, culture — that they nurture.
In typical white fashion, Weiss defends counter-American exceptionalism narratives because we are all actually “free.” According to her claim, we are a free country because she can “walk down the street holding the hand of my partner, a (beautiful) woman, in many places in America,” and that she can “wear a Jewish star without fear.” However, she does make clear that she is writing directly to “[s]ocial conservatives. Never-Trump Republicans, and anti-anti-Trump Republicans, too. Lukewarm liberals and libertarians. Progressives…” (2020).
Also, comically, she calls out “woke culture” in San Francisco in defense of Lincoln High School that is “is at risk of being renamed by woke city leaders.” Weiss claims Lincoln was “a hero,” which, of course, is not the whole story. At different “intersections,” white women are active participants in protecting and perpetuating the mythology of patriarchy and white supremacy. Weiss makes sure to casually mention “[B]lacks” as having been victims of….wait for it…..” bigotry,” along with “gays and Jews and immigrants.” But this is effectively a footnote in her assessment of oppression in the United States. The act of lumping together “blacks” with other groups fits her liberal-conservative politics/life perfectly.
The United States was not built on anti-gay/anti-semitic oppression. It was built on Anti-Blackness, and it runs on anti-African Americanness, a fuel source utilized and enjoyed by all sexual orientations, gender identities, and religious groups. Anti-Black whites will commonly invoke “bigotry” to try to remove themselves from being complicity in this system — in speech or practice. The reasons/freedoms Weiss lists here, as supposed proof of a “free” United States, have been given institutional protection and priority because they facilitate the avoidance of the country’s foundational problem: the oppression and financialization of African Americans and their ancestors, the consequences of the institution of chattel slavery and Reparations.
As white people, we have been conditioned to claim that other white groups have been and still are oppressed so that we have a way to shield ourselves from being called racist, particularly if we can lump ourselves into one of those white groups. But the important part to understand here is that bigotry is not primary to racism in the hierarchy of oppression, not least in the United States.
White women have always been the right hand of the patriarchal system of white supremacy, which is no longer news for many folks. Nor is it news that the New York Post publishes white racist propaganda regularly, just like we saw this year with Ritchie Torres. But aside from the colonial media system, women like Bari Weiss are paid to promote antiquated, already invalidated talking points for the anti-Left populations in the United States.
Bronx Representative Ritchie Torres, the new “gay” “latino” face of the status quo, almost immediately revealed his true colors in May of 2021 when he spoke out in support for the “sovereignty” of the Israeli state as they were dropping more bombs and other forms of violence against Palestinians. Torres, without any consideration for a great majority of Muslims citizens within his district — which happens to be the poorest in the entire country — decided to write an article for the racist tabloid newspapers, known as the New York Post, reaffirming his stance with Israel and calling his critics — who are saying that Palestinians are humans, who deserve protections from ethnic cleansing like eveeryone else — a “mob.” Torres’ sexual orientation did absolutely nothing to stop him from being a staunch supporter of Imperialism. He’s just happy to be a passive receiver of white supremacy into the depths of his core.
Ritchie is just another stand-in for ‘representational politics’ under late-stage liberalism making his rounds to other white, apartheid state supporting media. While he continues to push minor concessions for this deeply impoverished constituents, he is merely doing behind the scenes what all other anti-Black, pro-imperialist whites (and those who are ideologically and culturally aligned with whiteness) do once they have lied to enough colonized people to get elected. Torres, unfortunately, is part of the new wave of “diversity” and “inclusion” within the world of (white) politics under late-stage liberalism. Ritchie’s sexual idenity didn’t stop him from taking money from white billionaire, Daniel Loeb, “two years after vowing he wouldn’t accept money from the hedge fund manager over racially charged comments.”
The New York Daily News reported that :
“Loeb is an outspoken advocate for charter schools. He stepped down as a chairman of the board at the Success Academy Charter Schools network last year after he referenced the Ku Klux Klan in social media ramblings.
In a since-deleted 2017 Facebook post, Loeb blasted Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, who is black, by writing that she did ‘more damage to people of color than anyone who has ever donned a hood’ by supporting public teacher unions over charter schools.”
When we see “rainbow representation” this should not, in our minds, represent progress or intent of genuine liberation; it’s just another manifestation of the consumptive and digestive acts of our white cannibal nation in its attempts to protect and perpetuate itself, its white family structure, its economy, and its uninterrupted access to Black flesh. However, these consumptive efforts don’t have to try to hard to get into the minds of the majority of the LGBTQ+ community, many of whom are white. White gay culture (like all other segments of white society) is founded on white supremacy, the consumption of Black body/flesh, and other forms of cannibalism. Sexuality was never going initiate change for descendants of slavery. And their white culture informs and shapes much of the larger LGBTQ+ culture in general — particular when it comes to aesthetic, taste, drug use, self-image, and politics. So it’s no surprise that after Christian Cooper was racially harassed by a white, female Democratic Party donor, that Christian not only said he didn’t think the white woman’s life should be destroyed her racial assault on him…but he wrote a whole piece about how he endorses Biden for President.
Cooper’s story fits so well together on many levels that it’s unnecessary to pick it it apart any further. But I think there is one important aspect to note: When it comes to the LGBTQ+ community, one that stands on an ideological foundation that promotes and demands the acceptance of various “genders” and “non-binary” existence, the general understandings about mainstream politics are strangely quite binary. And binary thinking is a big part of what got us here in the first place.
The non-revolutionary thinking that is cultivated within much of the LGBTQ+ community furthers white supremacy largely because it does little to nothing to change anything about our society, outside of the bubble of sexual relations and gender identity.
Although this is what Cooper, and many other Americans, have been conditioned to believe, it is also the political ideology of the larger oppressor race and it is unacceptable if we are supposed to be genuinely fighting and working towards actual freedom. It keeps many populations politically in the same place that we have been for generations; and that is dangerous, first and foremost, for African Americans. Christian Cooper attributed his endorsement of Biden based on the fact that he believes Biden is “special” and “what makes Biden special, and uniquely suited to this moment, is his capacity for growth.” But this statement is made with absolutely no proof. Actually none of the points he mentioned are backed with any proof. He is stating them as fact merely because of things Biden “said” in his many scripted monologues.
Christian continues, “I’ve seen his understanding of our country evolve over the years to meet new challenges. His own personal story of tragedy and then triumph in his family life wouldn’t be possible for someone who couldn’t take pain and forge something new from it. It shows a capacity to heal, to learn, to evolve, to overcome.”
None of Cooper’s claims are backed up by anything. Particularly because, as we have seen in the year since Cooper made these statements, Biden has proven that he hasn’t changed at all. Not only has be continued to Bomb other countries, send billions of dollars to Israel, billions of dollars to American police (after they caused one of the largest nationwide rebellions in the existence of the USA, has continued to keep immigrants children in cages at the border…he has completely ignored the nightmarish syndemic that is African American life; one that he had a significant hand in over the last forty years.
Not only does Cooper mention African Americans last in his list of grievances of Trump’s administration — “dismantled environmental protections, retreated on civil rights and LGBTQ rights, betrayed our nation’s immigrant tradition and coarsened our public discourse. He has pilfered taxpayers for his own personal profit, stifled efforts to get more Americans voting…” — but he build his entire argument on the the fact that he merely “believes” Biden is going to be different than Trump.
He bases his support on the fact that Biden has “years of experience that make him [Christian’s] choice” but Biden apparently shows a “readiness for the job” which “would be a refreshing change”. All of this, again, based on absolutely nothing; most especially because he avoids mentioning that Biden’s “years of experience” were littered with references to Black Americans as “ni**ers”, “thugs” and “predators” that were a threat to his white family and THE white family.
In fact, the only time in the op-ed that Christian rightfully mentioned “Black” first was when he lumped them into gather with (catch it!) “white, Asian, LatinX, Native, immigrant, straight, LGBTQ, and every gender and configuration of our American family.”
The unfortunate reality of the binary thought process that is cultivated in the LGBTQ+ community, which is largely put in place and shaped by the larger, racist white society, is going to accomplish nothing of actual change or revolution for American descendants of slavery, nor anyone else the LGBTQ+ community believe they are fighting for. It’s a perfect example of exactly why the LGBTQ+ community/identity has been pushed to the forefront of “liberal” Democratic politics. The politics of their community mirror and perpetuate white ideals, and therefore it is perfectly used by the Democrats to further attempt to neutralize, absorb and obfuscate the ongoing fight for Reparations for descendants of American chattel slavery.
White America is effectively a cannibal nation; all white people are a part of the oppressor race — sexual orientation does not change that. Politics of representation under late-stage liberalism are meant to distract and confuse a population that has been long propagandized and conditioned to have very poor historical memory. In a country such as the United States — which was built on anti-Blackness, slavery, torment, death, and white supremacy — the movement for “diversity” and “inclusion” is understandable and necessary; but those broad and duplicitous terms need to be clarified and specified further. The destructive and corrupt creation of the US was not founded on anti-gayness or bigotry; the United States is not “a country of immigrants,” it is a country built by slaves and anti-Blackness. The rightful order of “representation” should start with the descendants of US chattel slavery at the top, given that their ancestors singlehandedly built this country. This, of course, cannot happen until the system of white supremacy is sufficiently dismantled.
Diverse groups who were easily propagandized into voting “blue no matter who” (which means they demanded absolutely nothing for their votes) are a example of how white supremacy has gotten the upper hand…again. While it is important to note that their voting “strategy” was toxic and illogical, let’s also make note of the fact that the “vote blue” crew actually did get something for their vote: protected complacency. The one demand that Democratic party voters did have, and got, was that the new white supremacist that they “chose” continue to perform liberal political theater, making it possible for them to “return to normal” without having to pay any attention whatsoever to the real problems sitting right in front of us. While the George Floyd Act still hasn’t passed, and Black males continue to be abused and murdered by police, many liberal/Democrat/Republican/Conservative gays run around in desperation to avert their attention.
Now with Coronavirus temporarily subsiding in many cities, especially here in New York City, the liberal gays are back at brunch, the clubs, and Fire Island. The parties are slowly gearing back up and everyone that voted for Biden was successfully able to be lulled back to sleep. Gay pride festivities are likely to continue without much interruption — just like the avoidance of real, existing and encroaching issues and the political attention and action required to combat them. What is also important to understand is that the “vote blue” crew is — and has always been — exactly like Trump supporters. Regularly looking the other way when it comes to the issues within the African American community, denying actual facts about their favorite celebrity candidate, and voting against their own interests. This is why those who voted for Biden are dead silent as their Blue Trump dismantles more rights and protections for African Americans, eliminates any possibility of liveable wages for working class people, and has aligned himself with anti-LGBTQ causes. To this day, the Democratic Party has yet to codify Gay marrige into law, leaving the ability to do so vulnerable.
Likewise, without truly facing the realities and shapeshifting capabilities of that system we will not be able to address the conspicuous avoidance by “other” groups about the rights and protections they are gradually receiving from the government, while African Americans continue to be held at the bottom of society. Superficial diversity, nor inclusion into the system of white supremacy, will not achieve true freedom in the US. Multi-racial solidarity and coalitions will not achieve this either unless such efforts are accompanied by a multi-racial, country-wide solidarity for the federal claim for Reparations to those Americans who are direct descendants of US chattel slavery.
The Democratic Party is the anti-Black, pro-slavery, minstrel party and have been since 1828. Continuing to believe they are any different than Republicans or Conservatives, and mindlessly voting for them will not bring any change to the system of white supremacy. Communities whose identities rely on the acceptance of “non-binary,” that refuse anything other than a binary perception of politics, will also not help to achieve freedom for anyone other than themselves. Which is, of course, why insidious political parties like the Democrats champion gay rights. Millennials and Gen Z must take the lead in revolutionizing our politics, knowledge, and historical memory.
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References
- Amnesty International USA, “Chicago and Illonois: Torture and other Ill-Treatment”, amnestyusa.org. 2014.
- Baptist, Edward E. “The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism”, Basic Books. 2014.
- Blank, Hanne. “Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality”, Beacon Press, Boston. 2012.
- Curry, Tommy J. “The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood”, 2017.
- Foster, Thomas. The Sexual Abuse of Black Men under American Slavery”, Journal of the History of Sexuality, University of Texas Press, Volume 20, Number 3, September 2011, pp. 445–464.
- Frost, David and Jay, Anthony. “The English”, Stein & Day, Inc. 1968.
- Gordon, Allison. “Christian Cooper, the Central Park birder, endorses Biden for president”, cnn.com. 2020.
- Naftulin, Julia. “Why conservative men may be attracted to cuckolding, according to a researcher who studies the kink”, insider.com. 2021.
- Ko, Aph. “Racism As Zoological Witchcraft: A Guide to Getting Out”, Lantern Books. 2019.
- Torrés, Ritchie. “Here’s why I’m supporting Israel — despite the Twitter mob”, nypost.com. 2021
- Weiss, Barri. “10 ways to fight back against woke culture”, nypost.com. 2020.
- Wright, Bobby E. “The Psychopathic Racial Personality and other essays”, 1984.
- Woodard, Vincent. “The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism within US Slave Culture”, NYU Press. 2014.
