ABSTRACT
Throughout the course of American history, race relations between whites and blacks have been an ongoing issue. Wars have been waged, protests have been incited, and thousands have died in the quest for racial justice and equality. Black men are also not exempt from these stereotypes. Black men are assumed to be well endowed, overtly sexually aggressive, bestial and primitive. Black respectability has a damning effect on queer black men. This chapter highlights how violence is done to this marginalized population through silence, ignorance, and exclusion. Utilizing liberation sociology, it takes the lived experiences of queer African American men into consideration, to understand how social relationships influence respectability politics using qualitative, semi-structured interviews of a purposively chosen population of queer African American men. Encouraging this marginalized group to resist respectability politics should also be considered.
