137. The Being Gay in the South Episode: When You Always Knew You Had a Little Sugar in the Tank

I'M THE VILLAIN

Kenny knew he was gay pretty much all his life, and has lived in Fayetteville, North Caroline, and then Raleigh North Carolina for the last 11 years. He talks to us about what his experience has been being gay in the South, especially given that a lot of the rest of the US considers the South a lost cause from a gay rights standpoint. When he first came out at the beginning of high school, the first people he came out to were his nerd friends on Gaia Online, an online community for anime fans where you could dress up your avatar with accessories from your favorite anime series. He describes this as a very common experience when you're queer in a more conservative area, because when you're gay it can feel like you're the only one, and online you have access to so many more people who are like you.

We also get into the conversation around the North's perception that the South is so much more homophobic and racist than the North, to the degree that a lot of Black friends Deondre' has talked to in the North literally try to avoid going to the South because they are afraid they are going to get hate crimed in some way. However, there is racism and homophobia in all parts of the US and at least in Deondre's experience, the South can actually feel even more comfortable because the majority of Black people in the US do live in the South and he feels more comfortable in spaces where there are more people of color, as opposed to a lot of the places he has travelled to in the North where he is the only Black person in the room or on the block. Obviously the comparison of racism and homophobia is very apples to oranges in a lot of ways, but we get into the ways in which they manifest differently, and Kenny talks about a specific instance that highlighted the real importance of intersectionality to him.

There's a huge frustration with progressives who say that they believe in gay rights or anti-racism but then essentially tell people in the South "What did you expect? You live in the South! Just leave." because that's exactly what the conservatives in the South want, is for the gay people to all move to more progressive places and get out of their hair. And a lot of the places in the world that have implemented progressive policies, like the Scandinavian countries, were only able to do that because they are very ethnically homogenous and those progressive policies are about to be tested as we have more and more climate refugees. The bottom line is that any progressives who believe in either anti-racism or gay rights would be remiss to dismiss the South as a lost cause, just because the South votes more conservatively.

You'll also hear some stories about petty times we have either fucked with someone's life (such as putting oreos on a nemesis' windshield), inadvertently fucked with our own life (Deondre' had someone accidentally leave raw salmon in his microwave in college and they couldn't find it for weeks), or would hypothetically fuck with someone else's life (such as by putting sugar in someone's gas tank, which then caramelizes and totals the car). This was a long conversation so tune in next week to hear Part 2!
Links:
When Deondre' is talking about his story about the raw salmon in the microwave, we mention a "Dolly Zoom" and if you aren't familiar with this term, you can watch this quick YouTube video explaining the concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5JBlwlnJX0
Kenny's website: http://kwical.com/
Kenny's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/okaykennyray/
Music is The Beauty of Maths by Meydän.

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