All Boys Aren't Blue

by George M. Johnson

We are not as different as you think, and all our stories matter and deserve to be celebrated and told.

It’s as if the more visible LGBTQIAP+ people become, the harder the heterosexual community attempts to apply new norms. I think the majority fear becoming the minority, and so they will do anything and everything to protect their power.

Unfortunately, my life story is proof that no amount of money, love, or support can protect you from a society intent on killing you for your Blackness. Any community that has been taught that anyone not “straight” is dangerous, is in itself a danger to LGBTQIAP+ people.

When you are a child that is different, there always seems to be a “something.” You can’t switch, you can’t say that, you can’t act this way. There is always a something that must be erased—and with it, a piece of you. The fear of being that vulnerable again outweighs the happiness that comes with being who you are, and so you agree to erase that something.

Navigating in a space that questions your humanity isn’t really living at all. It’s existing. We all deserve more than just the ability to exist.

But I’ve come to learn that symbolism is a threat to actual change—it’s a chance for those in power to say, “Look how far you have come” rather than admitting, “Look how long we’ve stopped you from getting here.”

“Are you in the hood?” “Is your family from the ghetto?” “Is that your real hair? Can I touch it?” Microaggression is the academic term for what I was experiencing. Simply put, it’s when a person insults or diminishes you based solely on the marginalized group you are in. It’s called “micro” because that person isn’t outright calling you a n**** or a fa* or both. Instead, they’re calling attention to your differences in a low-key way. At times it can seem almost innocent or naïve, but make no mistake, these small things become big over time. These little assumptions grow to create an entire stereotype. This kind of microaggressive behavior often leads to overt racism or homophobia, eventually.

You’ll find that people often use the excuse “it was the norm” when discussing racism, homophobia, and anything else in our history they are trying to absolve themselves of. Saying that something was “a norm” of the past is a way not to have to deal with its ripple effects in the present. It removes the fact that hate doesn’t just stop because a law or the time changed. Folks use this excuse because they are often unwilling to accept how full of phobias and -isms they are themselves—or at least how they benefit from social structures that privilege them.

When people ask me how I got into activism, I often say, “The first person you are ever an activist for is yourself.” If I wasn’t gonna fight for me, who else was?

The greatest tool you have in fighting the oppression of your Blackness and queerness and anything else within your identity is to be fully educated on it. Knowledge is truly your sharpest weapon in a world hell-bent on telling you stories that are simply not true.

When she says, “I love each of you differently,” she doesn’t mean I love you less, she means I love you whole, and as you are.

I often think about what it would be like if the world existed with a “Nanny” in each family. Why was my Black queer experience one of unconditional love when several others have become the standard of hate and familial violence? Although the national rate of homelessness for LGBTQIAP+ youth is near 40 percent, the rate in my family has always been 0 percent. How could one family get so right what the world has gotten so wrong? We should have been the rule. Not the exception.