At the place where I used to work, one of my “friends” was a young gay man. He was single and lots of attractive gay and straight men would come in to where we worked. So one day, about 3 or 4 really attractive fellows came in during various times of the day and I went to fetch my friend to get a glimpse and he was so happy that I was trying to help him meet a guy. Anyway, later in the day, a gorgeous African American man came in, so I went in the back to get my “friend” to come out an have a look. He got a horrified look on his face and dragged me into the back and said, “I can’t go out with him! He’s a colored man!”
I was floored. Here was this openly gay, extremely flaming young guy, who’d had lots of nasty comments directed at him, telling me that this attractive man was “below him” or “un-acceptable” simply because he was an African American and he was white.
A few of the other employees witnessed this whole scenario and a little bit later on, most of them reminded our “friend” that the term “colored” is really not cool to use anymore and they asked him why he wouldn’t consider dating an African American man, especially a really attractive one like the fellow who came in. He replied, “In Texas, whites don’t date coloreds!” This guy was in his early 20’s so it was really shocking for me to hear someone that young, who should be more enlightened and hip and understanding, sound like an old, grumpy Klansman.
We kept cringing everytime he used the word “colored” and told him that he shouldn’t use that word, at least not in California, because it’s considered derogatory. He said, “In Texas everybody calls black people colored. They are colored.” I wanted to melt into the cabinetry and disappear. Needless to say, we stopped being friends on that day. He got into a screaming match with one of the other guys that worked there, who was trying to explain to him that racism is really ugly, certain racial terms are outdated, and that we’d all thought he would be more understanding, because he had been the target of homophobia.