Sweet Tea

by Johnson, E. Patrick

• ISBN13: 9780807872260
• ISBN10: 0807872261
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-09-01
• Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Pr

Summary

Giving voice to a population rarely acknowledged in writings about the South, Sweet Teacollects life stories from black gay men who were born, raised, and continue to live in the southern United States. E. Patrick Johnson challenges stereotypes of the South as "backward" or "repressive," suggesting that these men draw upon the performance of "southernness"--politeness, coded speech, and religiosity, for example--to legitimate themselves as members of both southern and black cultures. At the same time, Johnson argues, they deploy those same codes to establish and build friendship networks and to find sexual partners and life partners. Traveling to every southern state, Johnson conducted interviews with more than seventy black gay men between the ages of 19 and 93. The voices collected here dispute the idea that gay subcultures flourish primarily in northern, secular, urban areas. In addition to filling a gap in the sexual history of the South, Sweet Teaoffers a window into the ways that black gay men negotiate their sexual and racial identities with their southern cultural and religious identities. The narratives also reveal how they build and maintain community in many spaces and activities, some of which may appear to be antigay. Ultimately, Sweet Teavalidates the lives of these black gay men and reinforces the role of storytelling in both African American and southern cultures.

Author Biography

E. Patrick Johnson is Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University. He was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 2010.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Some Bitter and Some Sweet: Growing Up Black and Gay in the South	p. 24
Coming Out and Turning the Closet Inside Out	p. 109
Church Sissies: Gayness and the Black Church	p. 182
Do You Get Down?: Homosex in the South	p. 256
Trannies, Transvestites, and Drag Queens, Oh My!: Transitioning the South	p. 338
Sweet Magnolias: Love and Relationships	p. 430
Of Legends and Young'uns: Black Gay Men across Generations	p. 473
Epilogue: Why This Story Now?	p. 545
Black Gay Vernacular Terms	p. 549
Sweet Tea Recipes and Stories	p. 559
Notes	p. 565
Bibliography	p. 569
Index of Narrators	p. 573
Index	p. 575
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