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Reviewed by:
  • The New Black by Yoruba Richen
  • Mark Hain
The New Black Yoruba Richen, 2013 Promised Land Films DVD: California Newsreel, 2013

“The new black,” according to filmmaker Yoruba Richen, refers to young activists who are opening the way for discussions about minority sexualities and gay rights in African American communities. But the title of Richen’s feature-length documentary also alludes to the at times contentious comparison of the current-day struggle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality to the black civil rights movement of the latter half of the twentieth century—an analogy made especially inflammatory because of the condemnation of homosexuality in many black evangelical churches. The New Black investigates African Americans’ responses to the ongoing controversy over same-sex marriage, combining interviews with representatives of the “pro” and “con” positions on the debate with archival footage to lay the groundwork for better understanding the history, politics, strong emotions, and complexity behind the sometimes fraught relationship between black and LGBT Americans, and the difficulties faced by gay and lesbian people of color.

In working toward this understanding, the strongest aspects of Richen’s film lie in its attention to the historical and cultural contextualization of African American attitudes toward minority sexualities. Richen wisely keeps the historical focus of her film narrow, documenting the months leading up to Maryland’s 2012 statewide vote on Question 6, a referendum to legalize same-sex marriage. Coverage of similar ballot initiatives, such as the 1992 defeat of a gay-rights ordinance in Cincinnati and the 2008 passage of California’s Proposition 8, banning same-sex marriage, provides a frame of reference. As pointed out in the documentary, the overturning of marriage equality in California was widely blamed on African American voters (an assumption that has since been discredited, but is not addressed in the film). Some of Richen’s interviewees report that this accusation inhibited the jubilation over the contemporaneous election of Barack Obama as the first black president of the United States. News footage of Obama’s evolving views on marriage equality, interspersed throughout the film, illustrates a larger social change in which more and more Americans have grown to accept same-sex marriage: Maryland’s Question 6 passed by a majority of 52 percent.

All of the interviewees, regardless of political position, emphasize the centrality of church and family in the African American experience, describing them as refuges from racism and injustice, and as sources of community, [End Page 236] dignity, and emotional solace. The importance of family and religion, however, is also at the root of what Sharon Lettman-Hicks, the Executive Director of the National Black Justice Coalition and the film’s most interviewed subject, refers to as “systemic homophobia” perpetuated by religious leaders who “use the pulpit as a space of hate to undermine people’s rights.” As Lettman-Hicks asks more than once during the film, what does ostracization from the institutions at the very heart of many African Americans’ sense of stability, identity, and belonging “mean for black people who happen to be LGBT?”

While The New Black’s concern for presenting a balanced and objective overview is apparent, its greatest and most surprising weakness is in the scarcity of black self-identified LGBT individuals as interview subjects. Aside from a brief interview with gay gospel star Tonéx, voices of black gay men are notably absent, reinforcing the film’s gender divide in which almost all of the voices advocating marriage equality are women’s, and a preponderance of those objecting to LGBT rights on religious grounds are men’s.

The limited representation by those most directly affected by homophobic prejudice, unequal treatment, lack of legal protections, and rejection by family and community, leaves the question of “what does this mean for black people who happen to be LGBT?” without satisfying answers. As the film’s most prominently featured representative of “the new black,” young Human Rights Organization activist Karess Taylor-Hughes would seem to be the documentary’s logical focus, yet although the film opens with brief footage of Taylor-Hughes, she is neither identified nor revisited until nearly halfway into the film. Similarly, police officer Irene...

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