GLR November-December 2023

me directly. My assumed sexuality was enough to inflict semi-pariah status on me among the whites. When the Blacks saw me forced to eat at a separate table, several of them later told me they thought it “way harsh.” But it made them more receptive to communicating with me, as if my marginalization at least made my empathy for their experience as Black people more authentic. Weirdly, they also did not feel threatened by my gay ness, as they honestly were convinced that homosexuality was a white disease they couldn’t get. Plus, I was generous with my instant coffee to all races, and this bought me favorable word-of-mouth. Some of the biggest, meanest-looking guys craving caf feine would come up to me quite diffidently and wonder if I could spare a “shot.” Here, also, there was a touch of retroactive gay privilege at work. I had gone to a majority Black high school, and the LGBT-heavy Drama Society was by far the most inte grated club in school. From then on, I always had close Black friends and roommates. By the time other whites realized that maybe I was not going to give them gay cooties, I was documenting my life inside on a daily basis, sending my sister letters that she posted on a blog. If nothing in particular “happened” that day (which was rare), I would ask one of my neighbors about his life on the outside. (This was a powerful request for men who had never been asked to talk about themselves by anybody.)

I eventually arrived at this universal question, which I re membered as the provocative premise posed once by the host of a Manhattan dinner party a lifetime ago. It went something like this: “If you couldn’t be you, and had to wake up another race, sexual orientation, or gender, what would be your prefer ence to change first, second, and third?” So, using myself as an example, if I couldn’t be a gay white male, I might first want to be a gay Black man, then a straight white woman, and then a white lesbian, and so on. After the first responses, I realized that the answers could not escape our current context. It was all about race.

I was ushered in to see ano ffi cer about whether I qualified for one of the three gay dorms at the L.A. County Jail. I passed with flying colors.

I first asked several white inmates this question. Considering how they had initially treated me, I guess I was surprised that in every instance, they chose “gay white male” as their first option. (Upon further question ing, though, I realized they had done the equivalent of crossing their fingers when they answered. “I mean, I could still screw

around with women on the side, right?” I would roll my eyes, and tell them they wouldn’t want to, but they couldn’t really grasp that.) But whether a gay man, a straight woman or a les bian, their first three choices all kept their skin color. They wouldn’t entertain a fourth choice. Even in a game, they could n’t imagine being Black. Or refused to. Posing the same question to the Black inmates, I was taken aback to hear virtually the same answers. Not a mirror image, but the same pattern. Their preferences were all “white”: first /0DE/FG DF DHIGJFDIG JGDH/IK L G

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November–December 2023

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