I was captivated by the intriguing New Yorker article "White Like Me" (June 17, 1996, by Henry Louis Gates Jr.) If you missed it, it's fascinating reading. The story of Anatole Broyard, the critic who dominated the elite world of literary greats like his friend Harold Brodkey, is worthwhile just for its insights into one of the most excitingly chic literary circles which ever existed. That might be true, even if one isn't looking for any special "angles" in an article about a black man who intentionally fooled an adoring white society for over half a century.

"White Like Me" might be required reading for any black person wishing to "pass as white", or any gay man trying to "pass as straight". I speak only for myself, not wanting to put myself in the position of telling any Black American, or even any gay American, what one needs to do with one's own life. It doesn't logically follow that we must inevitably draw parallels and conclusions from the experience of other communities ("they're different; that couldn't happen to us!"), but don't you think it's time we started doing so?

One could see in this article other parables, other infinite numbers of "categories" into which we mark ourselves for self-exclusion. One could do this, that is, if one wanted to, and knew where to look. It all depends on our situation, and what we're trying to pretend we're not hiding from.

The parallels I saw between Anatole Broyard and my own past as a closeted gay man were striking. The psychology of "it shouldn't make any difference" becomes pervasive, eventually obviating the need for any kind of serious self-examination whatsoever. The cleverer we are (and Broyard was obviously exceptionally clever and witty), the more adept we become at self-deception, thus triumphing over simple truth and honesty with an extended charade of veiled, intricately layered allusion.

In the end, conventional wisdom has it that the deceptions become the man. The truth is that neither ever become entirely comfortable living with the other, but wear each other down, like other enemies who prefer to live under the same roof where they can keep a watchful eye on each other.

The irony is that, the more others become convinced we're the greatest thing since sliced hamster, the better convinced we become that they're all really hopelessly full of it. Thus must we be too, for buying into it. The quiet, unarticulated agony of a lifetime of truth-dodging, on the part of an Anatole Broyard or anyone else, takes its toll in ways only the afflicted can see and feel -- not just in what we are, but in what we could have become.

I don't kick myself around the block for it, and suspect Broyard didn't either. For my own part, I'm grateful that reality and loss of self kicked me hard in the head before I completely lost hope of becoming whole. When is that point reached? I don't know if it's cast in stone that it ever is. Nevertheless, I can even now imagine Broyard wondering if there is a breakpoint at which one can no longer stand to live with the enemy, but beyond which it is altogether too late to contemplate moving out.

Alex Forbes
June 15, 1996