Selective Equality: two men's experience facing opposition from an un-expected source

        The Harlem Renaissance was not only a period of a flourishing of the arts in the black community, but also of awareness and outrage for the injustices facing black people at the time. Two Harlem Renaissance members who fought for equality were Richard Bruce Nugent, and James Baldwin. These men ran into adversity throughout their careers, not just from whites who were reluctant to change their discriminatory ways, but also from their fellow African Americans. These writers even felt animosity from other members of the Harlem Renaissance, who disagreed with their beliefs of equality between those with differing sexual orientations.

            One opinion that was unanimously agreed upon among Harlem’s residents during the twenties and thirties was that African Americans were unjustly treated in America, and that one should not be discriminated against because of race. Yet many felt that it was alright to do the same based on one’s sexual orientation. This differentiation was a major issue in the movie Brother to Brother. An example of this is when we see Nugent and Baldwin dealing with this problem in the film after they release the first addition of their magazine “fire.” They, and the magazine’s other writers, are together reading the reviews that ‘fire’ received. The reviews end up being mostly negative. One review that sticks out said that by including articles about homosexuality and the struggles that often come along with it, the magazine, which is centered around Negro pride, had “dragged the negro name though the muck.” This scene suggests that the Renaissance’s struggle for artistic recognition contributes to its negativity towards homosexuality. Fire’s reviewer, probably much like many others involved with the Harlem Renaissance(HR), feels that by associating the magazine with gays, the writers have cast a negative light on the HR movement for the rest of the nation, which still saw same-sex romance as a very taboo action at the time. Despite the possibility that the art world would think less of work coming out of Harlem, due to their association with a certain sexual orientation, it is wrong for the members of the HR to be fighting for their own equal rights while they continue to deny equality to other oppressed minorities.

            Later in the movie, during the scene filmed on the subway we see how the distinction between gay and Negro rights, rather than a broader total equality for all, is still being made today. In this scene the character Perry and his friend Marcus, are confronted by a man who is asking for contributions to go towards poverty-stricken blacks living in the area. During the group’s conversation homosexuality is brought up, the man begins to rant about how it is a sin and that it is wrong. This scene brings up a couple important points; the first is that bigotry and intolerance is still a major problem even today. The second is that many who fight against racism but are still against gays do so because they feel that homosexuality is sinning, and goes against the bible. Many members of the Harlem Renaissance denounced Christianity, this can be seen in much of their atheism-focused works, but many also continued to practice the religion. This spiritual group of HR members could have easily justified their homophobia towards people like Baldwin and Nugent by using certain interpretations of the bible, ones that seem to be against homosexuality. Yet it was not very long before the time of the HR, that the same holy script was used to condone the enslavement of African Americans, a practice, which these theist HR members would have surely been against.

         In the film we see first hand from Baldwin and Nugent’s experience, how a group of people fighting for their own rights can easily write off those of other minorities.