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New York Times bestselling author and CNBC commenter Keith Boykin
expands on the "It Gets Better" project by bringing together 25
essays by men of color on the topic of surviving growing up gay. In
1974, playwright Ntozake Shange published a choreopoem called For
Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf.
The book/play/poetry would go on to inspire legions of women for
decades and would later become the subject and title of a hugely
popular movie in the fall of 2010. While the film was selling out
movie theaters, young black gay men were literally committing
suicide in the silence of their own communities. In the same time
period, a young Rutgers University student named Tyler Clementi
took his own life after a roommate secretly videotaped him in an
intimate setting with another young man. In response, syndicated
columnist and author Dan Savage created a YouTube video with his
partner Terry to inspire young people facing harassment. Their
message, It Gets Better, turned into a popular movement, inspiring
thousands of user-created videos on the Internet. Savage's project
targeted people of all races, backgrounds and colors, but Boykin
has created something special "for colored boys." The new book
responds to the crisis of youth development and suicide in the
black community, and more specifically among young gay men of
color. For Colored Boys is designed to educate and inspire those
seeking to overcome obstacles in their lives. About the Author
Keith Boykin is the editor of The Daily Voice online news site, a
CNBC contributor, a BET TV host and a New York Times best-selling
author of three books. Educated at Dartmouth and Harvard, Keith
attended law school with President Barack Obama and served in the
White House as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton. Keith
was a star on the 2004 Showtime television series American
Candidate and has since appeared on numerous national media
programs, including Anderson Cooper 360, The O'Reilly Factor, The
Tyra Banks Show, The Montel Williams Show, Judge Hatchett and The
Tom Joyner Morning Show. He lives in New York.
In the aftermath of the historic 1993 March on Washington for gay and lesbian rights, Keith Boykin, in One More River to Cross, clarifies the relationship between blacks and gays in America by portraying the "common ground" lives of those who are both black and gay.
Against a backdrop of civil rights and the black experience in America, Boykin interviews Baptist ministers, gay political leaders, and other black gays and lesbians on issues of faith, family, discrimination, and visibility to determine what differences--real and imagined--separate the two communities. Boykin points to evidence of African and precolonial same-sex behavior, as well as figures like James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin, to dispel the myth that homosexuality is a "white thang," while his research suggests that blacks are less homophobic than whites, despite the rhetoric of rap and religion. With stories from his own experience as well as that of other black gays and lesbians, Boykin targets gay racism and black homophobia and suggests that conservative forces have substituted the common language of racism for homophobia in order to prevent a potentially powerful coalition of blacks and gays.
By portraying what it means to be black and gay, One More River to Cross offers an extraordinary window into a community that challenges this country's acceptance of its minorities, both racial and sexual.
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