Racism In Queer Literature

Color and Class in Queer Literature When studying queer literature, homophobia and discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community isn’t the only type of oppression there is. Rather, most of the time the authors of these works will have gone through discrimination for their race, class, gender, or sexual orientation. Racism is known as prejudice or discrimination against someone of a different race because of the belief some inhabit that their own race is superior to another. Likewise, Classism is the discriminatory attitude against someone of a different class because of their belief that their class is superior to others (Dictionary). James Baldwin was born a black, homosexual, and impoverished man who would become an iconic writer for the 20th
century and ultimately challenge these systems of inequity. On the other hand, Virginia Woolf was born white, bisexual, and into an upper-class family and would go on to challenge the systems of gender inequality through her privilege but not those of a lower class or different race. According to the Biography.com, James Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York in 1924 to a single mother and lived in poverty for most of his life especially because he was the oldest of nine children. His mother later married David Baldwin who was a religious Baptist minister and would often scold James for his explicit writings or actions. David expected the most meticulous religious behaviors from his children and it’s believed this is why James served as a junior minister for three years. It’s likely this profound change was only to please his stepfather and his distaste for queer people, an action that is common within strict religious families (Biography).
Baldwin always knew he was gifted and had an enormous interest in reading books but he had to provide for his large family rather than go to college. At a job in New Jersey, he “frequently encountered discrimination, being turned away from restaurants, bars, and other establishments because he was African-American” but he found an escape in literature (Biography). He later moved to Paris in hopes of getting away from a hostile American Society and had his first essays published where he was free to express his bisexuality and speak about his racial background (Poetry). In the 1950’s Baldwin began to write about taboo themes like homosexuality and interracial relationships giving him a much larger platform to speak on “socially relevant, psychologically penetrating literature … and readers responded.” He spoke and wrote with unprecedented honesty even if he was criticized in order to challenge the inequities black men in a white America have to face (PBS). In the midst of racial tension in the early 1960’s Baldwin returned to participate in the civil rights movement that would change the way African Americans gained freedom and basic human rights like everyone else.
In his 1963 novel The Fire Next Time, James attempted to explain to the privileged Americans what it’s like to grow up black, his words struck the American people like they should today, “Color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality” (Baldwin). Up until his death, Baldwin continued to stand up for his beliefs about racial inequality and advocated for universal love, he often gave advice we could benefit from as a nation, “If we...do not falter in our duty now, we may be able...to end the racial nightmare”
(Baldwin). According to Biography.com, Adeline Virginia Stephen was born on January 25, 1882, into a privileged, upper-middle class family in England. Her remarkable household included her father who was a well-known historian, author, and editor meaning Virginia didn’t suffer economically or socially in her life. Woolf was upset with the way women and young girls felt inferior in society during this time, as most didn’t get to go to public school or have the same privileges as men. She was fascinated with writing especially living in a literary household but the losses of her mother, sister, and father led to depression and several mental breakdowns (Biography). After this, she joined the Bloomsbury group that consisted of highly intellectual individuals, that were “were characterized by sexual, artistic, and political exploration” (Cersonsky). Virginia met her husband, Leonard Woolf in the Bloomsbury group and they eventually got married but several years later her bisexuality was revealed. However, this wasn’t an issue to her open relationship and she became friends with the author Vita Sackville-West, and this friendship eventually became a romantic affair (Biography).
Her fourth novel, Mrs.
Dalloway addressed social “issues of feminism, mental illness and homosexuality in post-World War I England” (Biography). Woolf began to speak publicly to challenge the issues of social norms, ideologies, and gender divisions but not those of the lower or working class. Her purpose was always to educate women but only certain women, as well as to speak on the inequities between men and women but what about the inequities simply between women? As a white, educated, middle-class woman, Virginia couldn’t speak on the disadvantages of being a woman of color or a woman who had to do rigorous labor work in order to provide for her family. She had several women who helped run her home yet she was openly disdainful of working class women especially in her novel, Memories of a Working Women's Guild, speaking on their labor reform, she states, “If every reform they demand was granted this very instant it would not touch one hair of my comfortable capitalistic head. hence my interest is merely altruistic” (Pg 148, Woolf). Her ignorance was understandable due to her background and family since she was never discriminated for being of a lower class, however, Woolf continues to be one of the most influential modernists and feminists of the 21st
century.
In conclusion, Virginia was able to challenge the social and economic inequities between the genders but she excluded the struggles of the lower classes, whereas, James Baldwin advocated for racial equality across the world. These authors came from very different backgrounds and had a much different sense of privilege but they both wished to influence the public about equality between either gender or race. Both of them had been open about their bisexuality and had many queer works where they spoke about homosexuality and the discrimination that comes with it. Overall, James and Virginia are some of the most influential novelists of the 20th century who worked to change unequal ideologies.