Fighting Words: Personal Essays by Black Gay Men

In putting together a volume that emphasizes the urgency of subjective experience, freelance journalist Smith has grouped 28 personal essays in familiar categories: Identity, Relationships, AIDS, Racism and Homophobia, Legacy. Among the best pieces is poet Reginald Shepherd's ""Coloring Outside the Lines,"" which shows considerable subtlety in reconciling the often clashing demands of black and gay identities. Kevin McGruder's ""I Hate Basketball"" is both playful and earnest as it tackles similar themes and expresses insights gained from mentoring young black boys as a Big Brother. ""As an African-American male,"" he writes, ""I admit this with a certain hesitancy, a slight feeling that I have let down the race, and as a gay man, I admit this with the feeling that I'm confirming a stereotype of non-athletic `sissies.' But I love to play most sports. I just don't like playing basketball."" With less clarity, G. Winston James's ""Closets"" traces a problematic genealogy from the safety of children's closets to the claustrophobic spaces of peep shows in ""safer-sex clubs"" that were ""not unlike the pantry in my parents' house."" Other of the essays, however, traffic in stereotypes about both race and homosexuality. And the emphasis on personal experience is relentless and ultimately comes at the expense of more considered insight and elegance of expression. (June)