i'm prolly gonna cop the book today, but dude being a gay hustler as a young man doesn't make him a gay icon. if anything, the fact that, post-conversion, he lived his life as a conservative heterosexual man flies in the face of that agenda. means you can pick and choose. unless folks -- and by folks, i mean gay folks -- are willing to more deeply embrace fluidity and the idea that someone can basically choose not to live as a gay person in any shape or form.

i never heard dude speak ill of gays & he was cool with james baldwin, so i don't see why folks are so eager to co-opt him as a gay icon. except inasmuch as they want everybody to be gay. :-/

btw did not know richard wright was gay. that's my motherfucker right there. best black writer of the 20th century & i'm tired of ralph ellison getting all the shine that wright should.