Reasons I Cry: The Color Purple & Homophobic Parenting

COLOR PURPLE HAD ME BALLING.

But not for the reasons I anticipated.

The first time Mister hit Celie, I thought, “Been there, done that.” (Domestic Violence Survivor)

When I saw Celie tugging into his daughter’s crunchy nappy hair (she fought like revolution), I thought, “Well, she either wants to gets the naps out or not. Felt that before.” (Nappy Ass Hair Embracer)

When he raped her I thought, “Well, that wasn’t TOO bad of rape. Been that before.” (Sexual Assault Survivor)

When Sofia the UnBeatable was beaten and “enslaved” by the police and mayor, I thought to myself, “Sounds about right. Looks like America. Live here.” (Racism & Systemic Oppression we survive daily.)

When Celie pulled out the razor to shave mister, I pondered {revolt], “Mama always told me if you gone do it, make sure they dead. Thought that before.”(Mental illness & the wrath of a jaded woman.)

I was shocked at my lack of emotion, but it’s possible that I had already cried all of those tears.

After the shooting in Orlando, I watched Color Purple, and this time I cried for a different reason.

I cried when I saw Celie and Shug on the bed. I craved that freedom. I remembered when I had done it — kissed a woman. Whoopi Goldberg’s teeth never looked as white and purty as when she smiled anticipating the next kiss. And when I waited in anticipation to see it happen again, I smiled my dark brown Mississippi smile too.

When Shug kissed Celie again, I stiffened in reverence. My heart intertwined a lightning storm of laughter, tears, and curiosity. In my life I had unwittingly become well-versed in the struggles of being an African American woman who had witnessed first-hand certain backdrops of the “Celie Experience“.

But witnessing this scene in this moment was different.

I replayed it a few times (not like porn… I don’t think?), and it encouraged me to revisit Alice Walker’s writing — -to see what I’d missed in my adolescent analogies. I am certain I wasn’t the only one who read about the lesbian scene between Celie and Shug. The soft kisses were a front in the theatrical film; in the actual text, it got REAL.

“She say, I love you, Miss Celie. And then she haul off and kiss me on the mouth. Um, she say, like she surprise. I kiss her back, say, um, too. Us kiss and kiss till us can’t hardly kiss no more. Then us touch each other.

I don’t know nothing bout it, I say to Shug.

I don’t know much, she say.

Then I feels something real soft and wet on my breast, feel like one of my little lost babies mouth.

Way after while, I act like a little lost baby too. (Walker, 16–21)”

In Alice Walker’s most vivid descriptions, she mentions when Celie bathed Shug, “I wash her body, it feel like I’m praying. My hands tremble and my breath short. (24.1–5), describing the scene of Celie washing Shug in the tub.

I’ve have prayed like that before.

Women — BLACK WOMEN — capable of emotionally and physically loving other each other into healing. What was even more amazing is how forgettable the scene was. When I speak to people who remember the Color Purple, they grasp onto the abuse, but not the intimacy of THAT moment.

This scene embodied the fluidity of sexuality and gave me a comfort that shook my eyeballs alive — I cried like a little baby.
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When I saw Obbie West’s video “Homophobic Parenting”, it healed me. It grabbed me from under my armpits, stood me up, shook me to dizziness, and sat me down directly in front of myself. In this brilliant spoken word video, Obbie West truly exemplifies his level of cultural competency and consciousness — even as a black cis-hetero male who is confident in his own masculinity. He speaks about the crippling effects of homophobia and the rejection/invisibility created against LGBTQ youth coming from parents and loved ones who neglect to recognize their identity. Folx neglecting to see other folx and attempting to justify their love as real.

“IS LOVE STILL UNCONDITIONAL?”

Our children are HUMAN; they are a diverse, colorful continuum that represent a magnitude of individual recipes and formulas. We live in a society that reinforces that each human on the face of the earth is unique and special. We encourage each other to seek and explore their own exceptionalism and to embrace their own talents. There are 7.4 billion people on the face of this planet. Yet, in the spectrum of sexuality and gender — -we only acknowledge two groupings of existence. Man or woman. Masculine and feminine. The ones that fall in between those lines are the children we hug from a distance. They are ones whose gender we “guess”.

What if we loved in between the spaces of these existences? What if we recognized our children for who they truly were and groomed their uniqueness through our acceptance and acknowledgement? What if we decided to never put sins on auction blocks to see which would get the highest bid? What if love wasn’t a sin? What if the Color Purple would’ve showed the FULL scene, the way it was written, embracing how it intended to challenge the ways we love?

An evolution of understanding is breeding in the walls a little raspier than before. It is seeking to destroy the complex environment where our children live within two most historically oppressive hate systems — racism and homophobia. It seeks to dismantle the system that seeksinvisibilize our sexuality as being a fluid, evolving, and necessary revolution.

Our children, mothers, fathers, and friends are demanding to be seen in the fullest of their excellence. We cannot keep pushing the conversation underneath the table. We cannot continue to act like we didn’t see Shug kiss Celie. We cannot continue to accept the perpetual home-grown hate present in our very own community. We cannot keep acting like those who find love in familiar places are not worthy of humanness.

Thank you Obbie. Thank you Alice Walker. LGBTQ folx’ revolution is our revolution…is THE revolution. That’s word.