In the May 6, 2013 issue of Sports Illustrated, Jason Collins acknowledges that he is a homosexual man. Since his announcement, Collins has received praise from two Presidents of the United States, has been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, has received an award for courage and has been offered the opportunity to write his story by numerous publishing houses, according to some media outlets. Now that the initial media attention has began to subside, the hating – read reflective criticism – has begun. And, it is the nature of some of the reflective criticism that presents the opportunity for discussions regarding masculinist issues.

            One of the first people to publicly criticize, or should I say analyze, Collins in a manner in need of public admonition was Chris Broussard. Broussard, one of my favorite sports analysts, reporters and journalists for ESPN, while referencing Collins’s sexuality, seemingly questions Collins’s religious and spiritual integrity. Following Collins’s announcement on April 29, 2013 that he would reveal his homosexuality in the upcoming issue of Sports Illustrated, Broussard, while a guest on ESPN'’s Outside The Lines, stated the following:

Before Monday turned to Tuesday, Broussard issued an apology and attempted retraction:

After Broussard’s statement, ESPN, as a corporate entity, released its own statement – in support of Collins and distancing itself from Broussard’s earlier statement:

The Broussard Incident (as I like to call it) reflects a number of problematic masculinist issues in my opinion. For starters, Broussard’s strength and power were undermined; Broussard’s apparent inability to envision the ever widening field of the “commodity” was displayed; Broussard’s antithetical stance to the public narrative was magnified; the importance of ESPN'’s economic interests in comparison with Broussard’s value as an analyst was explicated.

       Strength.  One of the most sought after criterion of middle-class patriarchal masculinity is strength. While we, men, have evolved from a tunnel focus on brute strength alone, our primal desire for strength manifests itself in a whole hosts of other arenas in our lives. In America, the power, clout and influence offered by one’s occupation usually suffices for the power, clout and influence that brute strength once supplied. In Broussard’s case, he has profited tremendously from being associated with ESPN, “the Worldwide Leader in Sports.” Such an affiliation has allowed Broussard to be recognized as an expert in the arena of sports, particularly with regards to professional basketball. He was a guest on Outside The Lines, in part, due to his expertise regarding all things basketball related. In theory, when Broussard suggests that due to the practice of homosexuality, Collins walks “in open rebellion to God and to Jesus Christ,” he is not only making a statement about Collins with regard to religion and spirituality, but with regards to character as well. Broussard ventures into the role of gatekeeper regarding who is of a rebellious nature and who is not; and, by implication, who is capable of acknowledging authority and following rules and who is not. Broussard functions as an arbiter of character in an arena – the NBA and its attendant entities – where the employees (the players) are heavily scrutinized, especially employee character and background. Broussard, however, is no NBA owner. He is not a GM. He has no strength – no power, clout or influence – in relationship to the forces that control the NBA and its message(s) other than that afforded to him by corporate partners of the NBA: like ESPN. And, ESPN only allows Broussard influence in the arena of NBA analysis. Broussard’s perspective on Collins was a distraction from the desires of ESPN; Broussard will not make that mistake again. Broussard may want to find strength as a man in an arena other than his occupation, for ESPN can and will diminish his influence when Broussard’s power, clout and influence are in opposition to the desires of the company.


       Intelligence.  Broussard is a smart guy. No manly American man wants to be thought of as dumb or stupid. We may not all be members of cum laude societies, but we like to think that, individually and collectively, we have an intelligence that is of value and that can be productive. Broussard’s level of intelligence, seemingly, allows him to understand the value of being recognized as a person of religious conviction in America (if only in a Machiavellian sense). He understands the role of Christianity as a “commodity,” a personal selling point, alerting those in his company that he is most likely like them. He states that he “is a Christian.” He does not seem to understand the value of one’s sexuality as a commodity in America in 2013. As Collins himself acknowledges in the Sports Illustrated piece, ten years ago about one-third of the U.S. population was in favor of same-sex marriage; today, almost two-thirds are in support. One’s tolerance of the sexuality of others has become a commodity in 2013. Broussard should be aware of this. He is a smart guy. Jason and his agent are surely aware of Jason’s sexuality as a commodity, as a way to “sell” Jason and capitalize on his assets. 

      Some have suggested, perhaps in a manner slightly sarcastic and full of satire, that Collins has employed simple game theory in his use of his sexuality at the end of his “less than stellar” NBA career. In his article for World Net Daily entitled, “NBA’s Jason Collins: Gay Superhero,” Matt Barber describes Collins as a “fading, 34 year-old free agent” who, “just as he was ready to move to the next level of his basketball career (couch, Cheetos and NBA 2K13 on his PlayStation)…may now have to contend with millions in product endorsements, speaking fees and, potentially, even a renewed NBA contract.” There may be a bit of haterade detected in Barber’s tone. The article begins in a tone reflecting envy regarding all of the attention that Collins has received as a hero and for being courageous for his stance on sports and sexuality. Responding to Collins being described as courageous, Barber writes,

Certainly, Barber exhibits a bit of jealousy regarding Collins. Here is Barber (presumably a heterosexual male) not receiving any national attention as a man of courage (and he probably is a courageous man, too), yet the gay guy receives accolades for his courage, from the President! For men like Barber, men like Cameron Kyle should be acknowledged as heroes, for their actions: not homosexuals like Collins, for their sexual preferences. He writes

It takes courage to donate bodily material to a complete stranger, not to live out your desired sexuality, according to Barber.

Did I mention that courage is a criterion of middle-class patriarchal masculinity? So here, Barber is upset because the gay guy fits the criteria of masculinity better that he, or perhaps Kyle. I say: men we need new criteria for masculinity if we are to live in tact, as full human beings. If we are to work on the hows and whys of the manifestation of petty jealousies within and between us; if we are to be the supportive partners to women that are needed for us all to develop our most; if we are to become our childhood dreams, then we must renew and reinvent ourselves.  But, I will admit, Barber’s comments also point out the material gain that Collins stands to attain as a result of his announcement.

Simply put, game theory is strategic decision making. And so, if, at the end of a professional basketball career, Collins has concluded that he can facilitate his ability to continue to live in the luxury that over $34 million in earned NBA salary has afforded him over the last decade by embracing his homosexuality and selling his sexuality as a commodity to the American public, then so be it. Don’t hate the player, hate the game. The economic appeal of Collins and his story has already been felt by NBA executives: 

Yes, Collins stands to make a lot of money as America’s first active, gay athlete. I will say, however, that I am a little uneasy about the “extortionist” nature with which Collins’s impending free agency has been presented to potential NBA suitors for Collins’s services. NBA clubs have been placed in the position of being accused of homophobia if they do not offer a contract, at a minimum of $1.4 million, to Collins – an aging, NBA journeyman who has never averaged more than seven points a game. But hey, if Marcus Camby is still on an NBA squad, then I guess Collins should be. Someone should tell Broussard that he should broaden his horizons regarding the commodity as we continue to live in the machine that is America.

Difference. Difference is something that African American men have had to deal with since the inception of the thought of the Union. To alleviate the collateral damage that sometimes results from being different, African American men have sought middle-class patriarchal masculinity: to be just like all the rest of America’s men, white men. And, part of such an assimilation has been an acquiescence to Christianity as the milieu from which one draws one’s religious understanding and spiritual grounding. Some African American families, post-Migration, acquired identities reflecting such an acquisition of Christianity; perhaps, the Broussards are such a family. But, the criteria by which the mainstream of America’s population judges and evaluates its members have evolved, somewhat, since those days of yore (maybe, perhaps?). Broussard’s inability to recognize such an evolution only serves to underscore and reinforce difference of the very nature that his family seemingly sought to eradicate. Broussard is totally out of step with the public narrative regarding homosexuality. He is against it; the American public supports it. He finds himself at odds with the American public. A position not wholly unfamiliar to black men in America, but a position that Broussard’s occupation at ESPN suggests should no longer be a concern of black men like Broussard. (Too idealistic? Maybe).

            With Broussard being an African American man of a light-skinned complexion, I did not like the idea of Broussard suggesting that Collins did not fit the criteria of a Christian: that Collins was in rebellion to Christ. I am quite sure that at some point in Broussard’s life he was, perhaps, teased for his skin. Perhaps his authenticity as a black child was questioned. I would ask Broussard to reflect on those instances, if they ever occurred, when he makes declarations about Collins and Collins’s rebellion of God and Christ. I would be willing to bet that Broussard’s distaste for those who question his authenticity as a black man because of his skin tone would be similar to Collins’s distaste for those who question his religious and spiritual authenticity because of his sexuality. I would hope that African American men – who suffer from the overdetermined interpretations of others – would not continue the cycle of projecting traits we find uncomfortable about ourselves onto others. Freud is dead. Let his shit die too!

            Lastly, the Broussard Incident illustrates that the economic bottom-line of a corporate entity far outweighs the value of and validity (or lack thereof) of perspectives taken by the corporation’s employees. Put another way, ESPN will not risk losing the economic relationship that it has with the American people because of some heartfelt remarks made by one of the company’s analysts. ESPN sells sports news. They sell it to poor people, rich people, old people, young people, straight people and GAY people. ESPN is “fully committed to diversity and welcomes Jason Collins’ announcement.” If Broussard does not have enough self-control, rationality and loyalty (all criteria of masculinity as practiced in America) to ESPN to understand ESPN’s commitment to the public it serves, then perhaps Broussard should not be working at ESPN. When presented in such as way, all of the independence and freedom of thought as a journalist that Broussard once believed he had is placed in stark relief: he is one who better damn well do as his superiors demand and command. Hence, his apology. And when episodes like the Broussard Incident happen, they can result in men like Broussard speaking of feeling emasculated by the company. That emasculation occurs because the criteria by which men like Broussard may be evaluating their masculinity is flawed. As long as men, particularly African American men, have a tenuous hold on the criteria of middle-class patriarchal masculinity, they will continue to experience periods of emasculation and the rage and anger associated with such emasculation. I tell you, we need some new criteria.

     So, to everyone hating on Jason Collins: get a life. If you want to criticize him about anything, then criticize him for lying to that young lady for eight years. She will never get that time in her life back. And for that, I empathize with her. Although I believe that Jason should be afforded the space to develop a healthy masculinity that works for him, I do not believe that that masculinity should be in opposition to America’s feminisms; if anything, the newly created masculinities should function in tandem with and as a benefit to America’s feminisms. 

       I originally intended to write about Jay-Z and his influence on masculinity in my first blog, but Jason Collins and his announcement made me scratch that. As is probably known by now, Collins is the first, active major league sports athlete to announce to the world that he is gay. Collins is also African American. His story is not receiving such attention because he is the first black gay athlete in America, but because, other than Martina Navratilova, he is the first active athlete who is gay. He has embraced the dialogue that his announcement has started and has been commended for his courage. I am not concerned with Jason’s intimacies and relations; what does interest me is what his performance insinuates and suggests for concepts of American masculinity in the twenty-first century.
      Collins says he is happy to begin the conversation about gay athletes in sports; the conversation, however, cannot be contained by the sports arena. The sports arena simply serves as another conduit through which we can discuss matters of sexual orientation, sexuality and masculinity. And to those ends, Jason’s announcement caught the ears of some of my peers who would normally resist discussions of homosexuality and masculinity. But, because they are sports fanatics – and strict adherents to sports talkshows like First Take, Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption – they couldn’t escape the abundance of attention that Jason has received since Monday. I learned some pretty interesting things about my friends. About myself. I learned that I have a visceral reaction to men dressed as women. I learned that some believe, as one of my colleagues put it, that “Homosexuality is some white shit. Black folks didn’t play that before slavery.” And, of course, there was the admonition from one of my most pious of friends who believes that homosexuality is a sin against God and, while she could overlook an active, penetrating homosexuality, she could never see eye to eye with men who are passive homosexuals. I left my friends, feeling not so much upset, as confused. With them. And with myself. Some issues where in need of investigation: Why do cross-dressing men engender a visceral response in some heterosexual men? Is there any truth to homosexuality, at least among African American men, originating with contact with European civilization? Can we/should we allow for different types of homosexuality? Does it matter?
       The idea that homosexuality among African American men began with and was influenced by contact with European civilization, more specifically the idea that American chattle slavery engendered homosexuality among black men, is nothing new. I have heard such an explanation of black male homosexuality while a member of many African American communities throughout my lifetime. What has surprised me over the years has been the fact that it has usually been African American women who posit such a claim. African American men rarely speak on issues of homosexuality with what could be acknowledged as any kind of depth. And, African American women writers have been even more graphic and forthcoming about
interracial homosexual bonds between white men and black men in their literature. In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs hints of the sexual horrors suffered by a male slave at the hands of an overly-sexed homosexual master:

Here Jacobs insinuates that the young master and Luke engaged in homosexual, or, at least homosocial, practices initiated and motivated by the perversities of the white master.
      More recently, Toni Morrison, in her highly acclaimed novel Beloved, writes of the damn near rape of Paul D as he is forced to perform fellatio on white prison guards while in the Georgian coffle. Indicative of the common sexual exploitation of African American women by white men, the suffering of Paul D in the coffle in Alfred, Georgia, where the guardsmen’s ritual exploitation each morning of their black captives - fellatio at gunpoint – was one of many atrocities to be survived, Paul D’s plight reminds us that black men too suffered sexually at the hands of white superiors.
      If we are to believe, as Pauline Hopkins reminds us, that fiction serves as a record of the inmost thoughts and feelings of a people, then both Incidents and Beloved would serve to underscore the belief held by some that homosexuality among African American men is in no small measure due to influences by and contact with white Americans of European descent. The history of cultural practices among Africans in the New World suggests that there is reason to reevaluate such a stance.
      I want to make it clear that I am aware of white masters, and some among the white male population in general, who took sexual liberty with their slaves. In Tropical Versailles, Kirsten Schultz writes of slaves, male adolescent slaves, accosted and molested on the streets of Brazil by random, recently arrived Portuguese men. When one considers the fact that a master’s sexual liberties with his slaves were only limited by the master’s imagination, then it is not hard to imagine that a master with homosexual desires would act those desires out with his male slaves. But, the point that I want to make here is: some black men displayed sexual proclivities deemed other than normal outside the presence and authority of white masters. And under such circumstances we must acknowledge that homosexuality and homosexual acts were not always forced by a superior authority. Sometimes, as a result of unfavorable sex ratios in the slave setting and sometimes, as a result of institutional gender inversion in Africa, black men participated in consensual same-sex relationships.
       In many locales throughout the New World, due to the intense labor demand, more male African slaves were imported than females resulting, at times, in a great disparity between the number of female slaves and male slaves on a given plantation, or arena of labor. Sometimes the ratio was as high as ten to one (male to female). It should not surprise us that male slaves sought out other males to satisfy their sexual impulses. Since the personal and private lives of slaves remained largely hidden from the master class, few of these homosexual encounters were ever recorded; yet we should not let the silence of the records keep us from asking how gender-isolated men either maintained or reformulated their sexual and gender identities. Some no doubt remained “heterosexual,” perhaps resorting to celibacy and/or self-gratification. Others became so desperate in their quest for sexual satisfaction that they resorted to bestiality – recall the scene that Morrison paints in Beloved. Before the arrival of Sethe, the men were found “fucking cows, dreaming of rape.” But I would suggest that, because the male slaves faced such isolation, some did recast their sexual identities as they reached out to their male peers for a combination of sexual and emotional sustenance. We see the phenomenon played out daily in America’s modern prison system and we saw it played out for entertainment value in the motion picture Life, starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. Consider the relationship between Jangle Leg and Biscuit. Jangle Leg! Jangle Leg!
       Records of slave societies, particularly in South America in places like Portugal, reveal several instances of same-sex behavior on the part of male slaves in the New World. For example, in Brazil, between 1591-1769, eighty-five sodomites appeared before authorities; thirty three were of color. The use of such historical records can give us some insight regarding the nature of same-sex relationships among male slaves in the New World.
   The case of Joane, a “Negro slave from Guiné.” Joane and another Negro of Guiné were witnessed as they entered Joane’s place of work in the middle of the night. The unidentified Negro reported that Joane brought him to the place to sodomize him. It was later discovered that while Joane did wish to have sexual relations with the man, Joane preferred to be acted upon rather than do the acting. Joane was accused of seducing another man of African lineage, a Duarte. Upon questioning, Duarte acknowledged that he and Joane were partners; but, he was quick to boast that he, Duarte, was the active partner while Joane was the passive partner. Other incidents of cases of consensual same-sex behaviors have been recorded, mostly of peoples from Central and Western Africa. One of the more famous of these cases involved two slaves, Antonio and Frances. In his testimony Antonio describes how he and Frances met. He says that around June of 1647 Frances propositioned him, asking if he wanted to spend the night with him. Antonio accepted his offer, and the two had sex with one another. According to the record, this relationship continued, with the two men having sex on several occasions. It appears that their relationship ended only when the religious authorities stepped in and had Antonio sold off.
      Even though some same-sex relationships were clearly enduring emotional attachments, others had less to do with loneliness and the search for affection than with flexible gender categories that apparently existed in various parts of Africa. The narrowness of Western gender constructions did not , and still today don’t, recognize this third gender category that some African men brought with them to the New World. As a result, men adhering to the flexible gender categories of some African societies were categorized as sodomites, as homosexuals. Men like Frances believed that they had the orifice (buraco) of a woman. He reports that there “were many in his country who had the same buracos who were born with them.” In addition to the buraco, Frances took on the dress and mannerisms of a woman. His admission suggests that there were many like him (back home…in Benin? Angola?) who were endowed with buracos and who dressed and acted as women. Frances’s gender and sexual choices were apparently an accepted part of his African society, an integral part of Frances’s identity which the New World sought to erase because he was a sodomite. In many New World societies, acts of sodomy had long been punishable by death, but in some locales the worst punishment was reserved for partners like Frances, the rationale being that masculine male penetration was a natural act, while feminine male reception was not. Such social and cultural vacuums in the Western mentality affected Africans and their descendants in the New World in profound ways, confining them to sexual, gender, and family categories that were alien to them…and confining…and constraining…and suffocating.
     These cross-dressing men were so prevalent in some Central African societies that there was even a word for them in the language of Angola and Congo: jinbandaa. The term jinbandaa in Central Africa did not carry the same negative moral connotations that the term sodomite carried in the New World. Jinbandaa was significant in Central African religious beliefs. The stem of the word means medicine man and throughout Central Africa words similar to jinbandaa imply religious power. In fact, several revealing descriptions from the Angolan coast in the seventeenth century suggest that jinbandaas were a discreet and powerful caste in Angolan society. As early as 1606, the Jesuits in Angola described jinbandaas who were

Another description reads:

      Three important points are revealed about the jinbandaas in Central Africa: 1) they were a discreet social group who lived together, 2) they were respected by others in the community, and 3) they performed traditional burial ceremonies and exercised a wide range of spiritual roles. Taken together, these three points produce a compelling argument for the religious power and respectability of the jinbandaas. In Central Africa, jinbandaas carved out their own third-sex (gendered defined) living space in society. The spiritual capacity of the jinbandaa was so universally known, it seems, that they were referred to not by their patterns of dress or by their sexual behavior, but by their roles as religious leaders. When these African men encountered the New World we begin to see the breakdown of the gender-defined organization of the society. So, I guess one could argue that it is after contact with Western white men that some African men become recognized as gay or homosexual; but, it could also be argued that some African men, while not classified as homosexual, exhibited - what would become recognized as - homosexual tendencies. What is clear is that modern Western standards of sexuality and gender did not fit African men and it seems that some African American men are still suffering from this in 2013: men like Jason.
     Perhaps, cross-dressing men elicit a feeling of the uncanny in me (like the Jewish character Shylock engenders a feeling of the uncanny in Harold Bloom). Perhaps, I have internalized America’s fascination and idealization of middle-class patriarchal masculinity with its attendant visceral reactions to anything that seems to contradict middle-class patriarchal masculinity. I am still working through it. What I do know is: there were no such things as heterosexual sex and homosexual sex before the advent of the middle-class. All of this is spelled out very clearly (well, maybe not so clearly) by Michel Foucault in The History of Sexuality. Before the rise of the middle-class (think French Revolution, American Revolution), societies were generally divided into the upper-classes and everyone else. No one cared what kind of sex another person enjoyed (except the Church). If you were born into the upper class and the aristocracy, then you were always an upper-class aristocrat. If you were not born into title, then you would most likely never transcend your social class. The French Revolution screwed this manner of social organization all up. With the advent of the middle-class, the entrepreneurs, the New Men – those new to entering a new sphere of life – needed new ways of distinguishing the middle-class from the lower-class people from whom they had just escaped association. So, in the legal (penal and civil) sphere and the social sphere, new edicts and expectations regarding behavior were established. Some of these codifications pertained to sex. Around the end of the eighteenth century, marital sex between a man and a woman was defined. All other forms of sex (which had been practiced as long as man had been on Earth) were outlawed and deemed improper. Just think about it: there are U.S. laws still banning sodomy, in 2013. The middle-class, with its doctors and lawyers and orators and philosophers and…and..developed the discourse of sex and sexuality and what is permissible and proper. And any sex which does not lead to procreation is bad sex! Any concept of femininity which does not lead to procreation is bad! Any concept of masculinity which does not lead to procreation is bad! Middle-class conceptions of sex and sexuality not only suggest that any sex that Jason Collins has as a homosexual man is bad, but immoral (Church), illegal (law) and disgusting (social). And not only that, Jason’s masculinity should be in question for he does not fit the middle-class patriarchal conception of masculinity. I know what you are asking yourself: what the hell is middle-class patriarchal masculinity?
     Middle-class patriarchal masculinity reflects the following criteria: nobility, intelligence, strength, articulateness, loyalty, virtue, rationality, courage, self-control, courtliness, honesty and physical attractiveness as defined in white Western European terms. Men, masculine men, reflect these criteria. If one is lacking in any of the above, then one may be lacking as a man. I find it ironic that Jason Collins, a member of one of the most respected African American, blue blood, upper middle-class families, feels confined, constricted by the demands of middle-class patriarchal masculinity. I mean, does Jason not reflect all of the above criteria? Yes and no. He was not honest with himself for fear of what others may have thought of him. Does that make him any less of a man? Yes, according to the above criteria. And that is what I detest regarding middle-class patriarchal masculinity. The criteria, especially for African American men, is damn near impossible to live up to. Jason had more access to the development of the criteria than most African American males and he found it stifling, suffocating. For African American men middle-class patriarchal masculinity is problematic; black men, at best, have a tenuous hold on these definitions. Few of the elements of middle-class manhood can be attributed to blackness. Especially if you have any kind of rhizomatic connection to the jinbandaa, which could live spiritually in your makeup. Attempting to live according to the principles of American middle-class patriarchal masculinity often leads to spiritual demise. Just ask Jason.
     Nevertheless, middle-class patriarchal masculinity has been used as the ideal criteria by which America raises her young boys to men. And, as a result, African American men are trapped in cyclical, overdetermined roles of dominance, which have, at times, led to feelings of failure or feelings of lack. The failure of the folk spirit to embrace modernity during the Migration involved the failure of black male entelechy to carry that spirit as revealed in art – song and music, literature, drawing and painting - to Northern environs. Not hearing or seeing or feeling that spirit as expressed in art, some African American men seem to suffer from forms of impotence, from a kind of generalized inadequacy that speaks to aimlessness. To combat such impotence, we need to develop concepts of masculinity that work for us, in the twenty-first century. And in doing so, let us not forget that the travail of black mothers should be the conduit through which black sons acquire an understanding of masculinity that is at once both sexual and political, and impediments to this mean a confusion that could lead, at least, to spiritual demise. Thank you, Jason, for providing an avenue to present such a position to those in my peer group.