I don't know if you heard the news, but a few prominent folks came out of the closet, and it was all anyone could talk about. Over the past year or so, we have seen more and more celebrities come out of the closet in their own ways, and all of them have either shocked many (see Frank Ocean) or surprised none (see Anderson Cooper). What has been even more interesting than the actual coming out of said celebrities is how their respective communities have talked about these folks. Anderson Cooper's coming out was met with a mixture of annoyance, "duh"s, and happiness, because speculation had been swirling about him for years, and no one seemed too surprised when he stepped out. However, Frank Ocean gave the world a little more shock and awe, and you didn't have to dig too deeply on the Internet to see some real ugliness directed at him, which led some folks to create the website hatetweetstofrankocean.com, which documented the Twitter backlash against the black artist. What we see documented on this site, and what we see when a lot of black people come out, is the far-too-real fact that black gay people have to deal with a lot of shit.
I am not going to make the statement that blacks are more homophobic than people of other races, because I do not believe that is necessarily true, but I will say that when you are black and gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, you deal with much more complicated issues than people of other races. Regarding his sexuality, CNN's Don Lemon, in an interview with The New York Times, stated, "I'm scared. ... I'm talking about something that people might shun me for, ostracize me for." He goes on to discuss the ways in which coming out is a very different process in the black community, one that is looked down on tremendously, and he cites religion as a factor.
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