Paper Sample on Riley Snorton: Activist, Gender Advocate, Author, and Teacher

Introduction

Riley Snorton, conceived in the Bronx and brought up in Wedgefield, is an author and went to High School in Atlanta, Georgia. The writer has four Kin. He graduated with an A.B in Women and Gender Studies in 2003 from the University of Columbia and with an M.A in communication in 2008 from the college of Pennsylvania. He is now an author, an activist, as well as a gender advocate, especially for the black transgender. In addition to this, he also teaches English and Literature at the University of Chicago, where he is a professor.

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Thesis Statement (s)

Women have recorded a sudden spike in HIV infection across the United States against their will. The spread of the disease has not been because of their promiscuity, but as a result of a practice that their boyfriends and husbands are partaking in practices known as 'Living on the down-low' where men have secret sex with other men.

Important Questions

Some of the questions that have come up by the author in this particular context include:

• How has the down-low practice led to the portrayal of the African American man?
• Is it true that black Sexuality is marked with confinement and hypersensitivity?
• How does the notion of ‘Glass Closet’ represented in the mass media?
• What is the true reason behind the sudden spike if living on the down-low is just but one idea?
• Is there a solution to our problem?

Methodologies Addressed/Utilized

The author has utilized the following methodologies in the text.

• Heuristic methodology: Also known as the experience-based methodology, is efficient for fixing issues such as those concerning sexual, racial, and class oppression. It is a methodology in which common sense is applied in the creation of solutions to the issues of race, sex, and class oppression.
• Shifting focus to the racialized, sexualized, variably classed bodies of these low down figures as well as gendered, can easily provide new opportunities in the studying the differences and discursive strategies that may be utilized in the process of negotiation.
• Another methodology that has been utilized, in this case, is the identification of the relationship which exists between the low down figures and how black Sexuality is represented generally.
• Metaphors such as the ‘Glass Closet’ and ‘Living on the Down low’ have also been utilized and defined effectively to denote exactly, what they mean, as it shall be noted in the course of this text.

Key Themes

The following are some of the primary themes, as noted from the passage by C. Riley Snorton.

The writer suggests that the ethical balance of this type of argument is that there may be a kind of homonormativity that's typically deeply indebted to the black respectability politics, for that reason suggesting that the false privateness of the pre-AIDS closet tended to need particular public acknowledgments as well as disavowals which may, in the end, have the impact of building the conditions of the gay closet, therefore functioning as a space for containment.

The concept of the big glass seems to occupy space in physicality, as well as publicly. These aspects go ahead in showing how the racialized production of space can be visible/forgettable and, at the same instance, unseen as well as forgettable during the production of space. Such could happen in many kinds of ways.

Based on Sullivan, at some stage in the pre aids durations, a homosexual person was always marked publicly as a man or woman who had an (over)sexed body; and relatedly, the situation which came along with residing in any such marked- upon frame ended up building such licentious sexual activities.

Theoretical Frameworks Addressed

The writer of the passage suggests that all things visual logics which has the popularity of situating blackness as a specific tool of sexual deviance which is generally repeated over the direction of time as well as changed if no longer absolutely refined and therefore move into indicating pretty much how a whole lot the imbrications of Sexuality and race within the famous discourse consisting of the down-low pass into curbing positive opportunities of intimacy even at periods whilst such kind of narratives are considered revelatory. Through the commentary of ways, the mass media and the pop-way of life represented the black Sexuality, then it would be clear to peer how this illustration by the mass media affect the down-low concept as well as the glass concept.

Summaries of Each Section

Introduction

The author starts by referencing a show by Oprah Winfrey from 16th April 2004. The name of the episode is called “A secret sex world: living at the ‘down low,’” with a very uncommon statement where Oprah started by claiming, "I'm an African American Woman." In the episode, Oprah suggests that she was quite surprised to hear information from the headlines, which suggested that AIDS was the main reason for the losses of lives among African Americans aged 25 and 44.

She was shocked since primarily based on her studies, AIDS became more and more becoming not unusual amongst girls, the college students, as well as individuals over the age of 50 who are now at more danger than they had been. The cause why the populace is increasingly a risk is because boyfriends, as well as husbands, are now secretly engaging in sex with other guys, and then contracting those sorts of sicknesses, and unknowingly bringing them home to their girlfriends or wives.

Exposition

There are a number of ways that the mainstream media has used to talk about the concept of the down-low. The first is that down low has been viewed as a health risk, and the other has primarily focused on it the aesthetic as well as the specialized masculinity mode. For that reason, the narrative of the down-low has the effect of amplifying all the fears as pertains to sexual contagions while at the same time foreclosing conversations concerning safer sex.

Improvisation on Glass

Glass, in this case, is taken as a metaphor that is embedded and shaped in the daily routine as well as the materiality of human life. We live in a glass-cloaked society, meaning that the civilization we exist inresembles the glass in many aspects of the everyday lives. It is also essential to note that even though glass is ubiquitous, it still remains of the invincible item to people. Also, glass is strange such that researchers in chemists have established that glass usually defies the given classification it is to be placed in since it cannot be defined as a true liquid or a true solid. In addition, glass is infinitely malleable yet brittle as well as chemically inert yet durable and transparent. Comprehending the glass materiality offers a vital window of knowing as well as inferring meaning, thus shaping our many identities, which we often share through properties of the glass-like brittleness,malleability which show that humans, just like glass can have the ability to adapt to change as well.

Synching Race

The depictions of pop culture by the mass media are racists since the concept of the down-low has been rationalized among the African Americans, with more focus being placed on the race than the act. The negatives which surround the narratives of the down-low such as numerous anxiety tends to raise a concern the possibility of a refusal to comply with the various sexual identifications, which essentially means resisting being associated with gayness or MSM, therefore resisting categorization forces that are crucial for structuring the bio-political will to know. The reason for the synching race is to evaluate how the racial aspect has been affected by the concept of Sexuality, and how people have been sidelined on not considered as a part of a whole because of their gender. The fact that a person is African American does not necessarily imply that they would be living on the down-low more than other genders. It is paramount to note that living on the down-low is not influenced by one's skin color.

Interlude

Riley Snorton claims that "Our awesome choice of being exemplary bodies arose from the long history of radical denial of the exemplary function toward black gay our bodies whilst it came to the intersection of two types of network that seem so keen to carve every different out of perceptual life: a tacitly racist comprising of white homosexual communities for whom a given black queer frame, however, eroticized, might also stand as a representation of blackness but may want to by no means seem like an embodiment of queerness itself and a more or less brazenly homophobic African American network through whom the queerness of any black-determine ought to be denied, suppressed, or overridden for that determine to be allowed to function as an embodiment of black identification or struggle."

Coda

It is not easy to talk about the down-low figures without necessarily making some kind of recourse to wherein they said figures are said to arise in the area. According to the author, after carrying out studies in my opinion, he discovered out that from small-scale content material analysis, the portrayal of the down-low is specially not unusual inside the city spaces. As the author shows, it's miles possible to analytically explore the narrative of the down-low protective techniques and consequently analyzing facet by using aspect as a way to set up the possibility of the co-lifestyles of the two narratives; "The glass closet," and the "down-low."

Critical Discussion Questions

• Can women be saved from the sexual promiscuity of men? Especially in relationships?
• Is there a version of 'staying on the down-low' for women that should also raise a concern in the increased HIV infections among them and the men in their relationships?
• Why discuss Sexuality, especially among African Americans? Of what relevance is this knowledge?

Reference

Snorton, C. Riley. 2014. Nobody is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.