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Misinformed College Reporter Screws Over ‘Gay Is Not the New Black’ Movement

Sherri Keaton

We do not feel hostility or disappointment or even frustration for Sherri Keaton, a straight black woman. We just feel bad for Keaton, a senior reporter for Central Michigan Life, and (we’re thus assuming) a student at Central Michigan University. Because the second she wrote a piece titled “Gay isn’t the new black” and included the line, “I cannot change myself from being black to another ethnicity while, with homosexuality, sometimes people can choose to become heterosexual,” she shot the entire “the difference between civil rights battles” argument not just in the foot, but through the temple and exiting the back of its skull. She writes:

The argument also can be raised that with bisexuality, is that still the new black?

I have an understanding of both sides of this issue of gay being the new black and why this statement is logical to some people. What I do not understand is that when I hear arguments about why being gay is the new black there are claims that, “black people should know where we are coming from, especially with them always being discriminated against.”

I have empathy for anyone discriminated against, whether they are gay, straight, black, white or blue.

But because of reasons beyond my control, I cannot relate to sexuality as being the same as an ethnicity, or the new version of black.

The reason beyond her control, namely, is a complete misunderstanding of sexuality.

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