Eight LGBT African-Americans Who Changed The Gay Community
Wanda Sykes
Comedian/actress
Comedy isn’t just the best medicine—sometimes it’s our greatest weapon: In 2008, comedian Wanda Sykes—known equally for her acerbic standup and for tearing into neurotic Larry David on HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm—came out publicly during an anti-Proposition 8 rally. She also revealed that she had legally married her wife, Alexandra, in California prior to Prop 8’s passage. “We’re in love and we want to spend the rest of our lives together,” she told The Advocate in 2009. “That’s why you get married.”
Raised in Washington, D.C., Sykes first hit the standup circuit in the late ’80s. As part of The Chris Rock Show’s writing team, she won a 1999 Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music, or Comedy Special. Sykes landed recurring roles on TV shows The New Adventures of Old Christine, Curb, and her own 2003 sitcom, Wanda At Large, and in 2009, a namesake late-night talk show.
After coming out, Sykes, 47, incorporated her sexuality—and headlines affecting the queer community—into her comedy. Already popular with black audiences from her standup and film and television roles, she’s able to reach people who may not connect with Ellen or Rosie, and use humor to illustrate the links between minority groups.
Sykes has also dedicate time to numerous LGBT causes: In 2010, she was honored with GLAAD’s Stephen F. Kolzak Award for making a difference through her visibility. “I’m very humbled,” she shared with the audience. “Just being able to be out and open and free and be able to say thank you to my wife… I love you baby, you mean the world to me. I’m telling you, it is love and being honest that’s gonna win hearts and minds. That’s where it is.”
Ain’t nothing funny about that.
NEXT: Don Lemon makes headline news
Photos: Jemal Countess, HBO
Frank Ocean has done nothing for the gay community or the music industry. Being gay is not an act of anything. There are far more artists in the last 20 years that have done more than come out of the closet.
As for his talent, he has done nothing Usher or Justin Timberlake have not done. Even the prick Chris Brown did it better.
·
@Red Meat: The world disagrees with you:
http://www.villagevoice.com/pazznjop/albums/2012/
·
@Eric Auerbach: Jazz album that got less than 2000 votes on a website directly about the thing he is in.
Lets not get ahead of ourselves, the world doesn’t give a fuck about Frank Ocean, it’s good that he’s come out and is continuing doing the thing he loves in spite of criticism.
But lets not go assuming he’s up there with MLK, Harvey Milk and countless others.
·
@Red Meat: @2eo: Visibility is power. It’s light and truth and transformation. That’s never more true than in black communities that have long been ruled by cultural ignorance, groupthink insecurities and religious intolerance. Ocean’s coming out is significant and potentially huge for young black and minority LGBTQ and their families.
·
Did we have a brain fart and just forget James Baldwin? Baldwin had to go off to the safety of Paris to write and publish ‘Giovani;s Room” one of the few gay themed novels around when I came out. He also wrote on the themes of race and sexuality and the intersection of those themes.
·
Thank you for including Bayard Rustin on this list! A forgotten hero to the cause is finally getting the recognition he missed out on in life.
·
How do Frank Ocean and RuPaul get on this list but not James Baldwin? Speechless.
·
I say take Frank Ocean’s name off the list. He played the gay card because it was the only one in his hand. Frank is basically propped by a media who seemed to know what the worst outcome could have been in his coming out, and went out of their way to shield him from it. Behind the forced critical praise, on every blog, message board and real life conversation I’ve been witness to where he’s the topic, I see a stalemate in reaction; he has his defenders, but he also has many callous detractors.
·
I’m sure Bayard Rustin would have dreamt that one day all his work would result in being on a list with Don Lemon and Frank “he’s never said he’s gay” Ocean.
I wonder if a similar list is being compiled of white gay people who changed the world. With Harvey Milk, Lance Bass and the Honey Boo Boo dude…
·
Very confused, very: how about a column about those who are changing: Don Lemmon, Frank Ocean, Wanda Sykes, et al, and those who have: Bernard Rustin and Mabel Hampton.
Alas, a list of 8 is a list missing too many: No James Baldwin? No Langston Hughes? Where is Alvin Ailey? Long, long before RuPaul — who is making waves for the LGBT community and I applaud that — there was Sylvester.
Barbara Jordan? Alice Walker? Sheryl Swoopes?
******
Honorable Mention — Julian Bond, the gay community has no better friend and advocate than the Chairman Emeritus of the NCAAP. An all-out advocate for equality for all; and his advocacy for marriage equality is changing the LGBT community as the walls of resistance from the larger black community crumble.
·
Wanda Sykes grew up in suburban Maryland actually. She went to the same High School I did, just about 20 years apart.
·
White, gay websites kill me trying to make Frank Ocean into some gay, black hero. He doesn’t even want to be associated with us and the fact that y’all label everything black “hip-hop” is so annoying. Bye.
·
When will the click-through photos end???