Eddie Glaude and the Word "Queer"

By Editor |

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

What We Call Ourselves

I am a 70-year-old male homosexual.  I grew up using the term "gay" to describe myself.  "Gay" wasn't the best term to use, since it means "happy, merry, lively, bright, showy" -- things which I am generally not -- but those meanings didn't seem so bad to me.  According to the dictionary, the word "gay" has had various sexual meanings going back to the 17th century.  In that era, a gay woman was a prostitute, a gay man was a womanizer, and a gay house was a brothel.  So the word has had a long and honored sexual history.  (Sex, it seems, makes people happy, which accounts for all the gaiety.)  Ultimately, however -- since about the 1930's -- it just came to mean "homosexual".

But American children for the last thirty years have used the term to mean "stupid", apparently because they consider homosexuals to be stupid.  If you've ever watched the animated cartoon South Park, you know what I'm talking about.  The characters in that series used the word over and over again, and always to mean "stupid".  Perhaps because of that, some younger gays have decided not to call themselves "gay", but instead are calling themselves "queer".  In addition, transgender people who are not sure if they are male or female are also calling themselves "queer".

 

To me, it seems terribly foolish to call yourself a word which means "odd, strange, abnormal, weird, unusual" and which is still a slur when coming from the lips of heterosexuals.  Gays who use the word "queer" often talk about "reclaiming" the word, but it is not a word that gays can reclaim because we never used it in the first place (except when speaking ironically, or in anger among ourselves).  If the word "queer" were used like the N-word (referring now to the slur which is a mispronunciation of the word "negro"), I would understand.  Black people sometimes use the N-word among themselves, but it is always understood that it is a slur when spoken by outsiders.  But young gay people, in their supreme stupidity, are not just using the word "queer" among themselves; they are referring to themselves as "queer" to the general public, and inviting the general public to call them that also.  And you can be sure that portions of the public are happy to do so, since they are already contemptuous of gays.  Therein lies the problem.  "Queer" was always a slur when used by heterosexuals.  Now, for gays to be using it to describe themselves just confirms the worst suspicions of straights that homosexuals are indeed "odd, strange and abnormal" -- after all, if we call ourselves a word that means "odd, strange and abnormal", it must be true.  In short, young gay people are inviting bigots to call us the equivalent of the N-word.

To make matters worse, bleeding-heart liberals, who want to be up on the latest trends and terminology, are picking up on the word and cementing it into our language by using it in their writings, in television interviews, and in phrases like "Queer Theory" in college curricula.  Indeed, I had an exchange with Eddie Glaude, an African-American writer and professor at Princeton University, who used the word "queer" repeatedly in an interview on the PBS Newshour.  Judy Woodruff was the interviewer, and you could see from her expression that she was wondering if she should object.  But Glaude is black and an ultra-liberal with "credentials", so she didn't.

I decided to email Eddie Glaude, and we had a rancorous exchange, with most of the rancor being on my side.  Glaude has no problem with terms like "Queer Theory" and "Queer Studies", but I'm sure he would object if Princeton changed "African American Studies" to "N****r Studies".  Glaude is not gay, so he has no right to defend the use of "queer" when there are many gays who object to it.

Glaude's behavior may seem pretty astonishing, but there has always been prejudice in the black community against gays.  I'm sure that Glaude sees himself as a progressive and not a bigot, but I think it is likely that his acceptance of the term "queer" is a form of unconscious bias.  This is highly ironic given that he is an admirer of James Baldwin, a gay black American writer and activist who died in 1987.  In fact, most of the interview was about Baldwin.  Glaude describe Baldwin as "queer", but it is unlikely that Baldwin ever called himself that.  During Baldwin's lifetime, the word was an unambiguous slur.  I haven't read everything that Baldwin wrote, so I don't know if he ever applied the word to himself.  But even if he had, that doesn't mean he would have wanted to be called "queer" by others.  Frankly, I think Glaude has got a lot of nerve.  There's no doubt in my mind that he is biased against gays, at least unconsciously.

 

Let's indulge in a little word play:  If the South Park kids were right, and "gay" means "stupid", then perhaps Glaude is gay himself.  One thing is for sure:  He isn't very wise.