OK this one is going to be a little bit blunt, but it needs to be. Black people, stop being so hung up about homosexuality. On a broader context, stop treating heroes as holy icons instead of human beings with faults and human emotions.

I say this, and I focused specifically on the Black community, because of an article I saw in The Grio, which is a black news site in partnership with NBC. They're was an article, more of an op-ed piece, about a recent book about Malcolm X. In the book there is one half page mention of the possibility Malcolm X may have engaged in bisexual activity. According to the book and the author of the article, this isn't something new in the discussion of Malcolm X. There was also talk about the possibility of Malcolm X doing drugs and, of course, prostitution of women.

Yes the article was focused on the half page, if that, discussion of bisexuality in a 600+ page book, but man, the letters people wrote in, you would have thought they were six year olds who were told Santa Claus doesn't exist.

I've seen this happen many times. People in general put so much hopes and dreams into a person, bringing them up to a divine standard, the person isn't allowed to be a person. It would seem to make sense if Malcolm X was in the world of hustling, he would be selling women to men. He might even partake of drugs, either light or hard. It is even in the realm of possibility that he may have had a tryst or two with a man.

That's not saying something shocking. That isn't defining the man as homosexual, bisexual or any other sexual. If you can have men in that life doing the same sorts of things, why would you want to say this one man was able to fight that economic temptation?

See, for whatever reason, if you suggest that, it is interpreted that you are somehow taking away is manhood. Which kind of gets to the real sadness of the issue. If Malcolm X was a full on closeted homosexual who had sex with men up until the time of his death, would that diminish his accomplishments? The honest answer is no but because people want to have their icons pure, they can't have an icon even having the hint of being 'different.' What amazes me, especially reading a lot of the responses to the article, is how many people disregarded the hustling and drug element and focused on the one or two possible bisexual incidents, and getting so upset that they pulled out every conspiracy theory to say how Malcolm X was either being destroyed by unknown forces or was trying to be co-opted into the gay community.

I would have maybe passed by this article but a few days ago someone pointed me to some YouTube posts by Professor Griff, formerly of Public Enemy. One of his conspiracy theories had to do about how blacks in Hollywood, in order to make it, had to embrace the gay culture. It was like some Masonic initiation they had to go through. Like any good conspiracy theory, there was just enough facts, conjecture and feeding on suspicions that made what he said seem, if you wanted to look at it that way, seem right. The people who were listening to him definitely agreed with what he said.

That is what I'm finding disturbing. There is a kind of unwritten law in black churches that no one talks about homosexuality, you are to love them and cure them, but please look past the organist or choir director. There is a marginalization of homosexuals in the black community, a shamed acceptance as long as you keep it hidden. There is the notion of doing what you have to do when in prison but don't bring it to the community. The aspect of the downlow shows we have a problem. It doesn't go on much now, but people who are my parents age (in their 60s and beyond) think of homosexuality as a 'white man's disease' and are unwilling to confront it.

We can't keep washing away or hiding things that may have happened in the past in terms of sexuality. The men and women we admire are men and women, not gods or icons. They lived in the same world we do, tempted by the same things we are. We cannot continue to angrily denounce people who bring truth to the table. It doesn't and shouldn't diminish the contributions they made. If anything, the truth may give better insight to their motivations.