- You have to surround yourself with people that are
going to move you higher, as Oprah said,
or somebody said.
(relaxed hip hop music)
- I was like 10.
I was with my dad at his office.
I was like on one of the intern's computers or something,
and I'm thinking to my 10 year old self,
"Hey, I wanna look up boys.com.
"I'm sure it's gonna be full of fire trucks."
It wasn't (chuckles).
That's when I first started feeling this attraction to it.
My mom caught me a year or two after that,
and she flipped out.
I kinda saw how my mom reacted to how other black people
would react, especially how I thought my dad would react.
- I thought I had my shit all hidden, folder after folder
after folder, and my brother happened to find some clips,
and then he called it out in front of my mom (chuckles).
And I was mortified.
And I mean, I guess the writing is on the damn wall
at that point.
I was just like, "Well, here I am.
"I'm gay.
"Now do you have a problem with it, and if you do,
"I don't care."
- Well when someone tells you you're something,
and you cancel it out, you don't listen,
and you're like, "Nope, nope," and then there was a moment
I was 15, I was like, "Wait, am I gay?"
And my heart sunk because I knew what that meant,
and it was hard, you know, just that feeling of
being scared to just be yourself.
No one should have to go through that.
- My parents were super, super, super strict Catholics.
I went through the whole, we called it religion class.
Very traditional, and it was always talking about
man and woman, and I'm just like, "What, huh, who?"
- I was also a minority in terms of my religion
that I grew up in.
Maybe the only black family in the church, you know,
but the Mormon religion is so misunderstood
because I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt
that I never once felt bullied or like I wasn't seen.
- The church that I grew up on was totally apolitical.
I didn't really feel that kind of homophobia that does
happen in the black church until my family switched churches
while I was away.
I'm there in the service and they're like,
"We're gonna sign this petition after service
"and let them know that we don't accept this gay marriage,"
whatever, whatever, and I'm like, "Okay, no, stop."
And my dad's like, "Warren, why are you so upset?"
And I'm like, "Because I think I'm gay, Dad."
And he just looks at me and he's like,
"Well, I mean he didn't have a girlfriend all of high school
"and that's stupid."
- Masculinity in my home was expressed through sports,
and I started flipping off shit and I ended up
getting into gymnastics because I wanted to be like
Dominique Dawes and my parents supported it.
They still support my crazy dreams.
I was a damn good athlete.
People think because I'm feminine that I can't beat you
in a track race, but I grew up very lucky to have a family
that focused on my talents and my skills and not
what they didn't understand.
- So far as like black gay characters
or black female characters, like I didn't really see
much of myself.
Especially like back then, they were always
so stereotypical.
I will say though, when I saw Rent, Collins,
Jesse L. Martin's character who's like this out,
proud HIV positive gay man, it's the first kind of
breaking up that stereotype.
Like I kinda saw a little bit of myself there.
And the fact that he was dating this awesome drag queen,
like, this is very cool, and that was kind of
the first time I saw myself so completely in a character.
- Kerry Washington, when she was falling into those roles
where they wanted her to be that ghetto girl
and she killed it and that inspired me to embrace
my blackness.
Now she's doing Scandal and that inspired me to know that
I am powerful beyond belief.
You can go from the streets of Brooklyn to the White House.
- Growing up, I used to run home every day and watch Oprah.
To this day, this woman has probably inspired so many
black people, white people, queer people, straight people,
everybody.
She really had that voice of reason that I looked up to
every day.
- The hardest part at least for me was figuring out
how I could be like confident in my blackness
and confident in my homosexuality.
So often, there's so much negativity from one of those
to the other.
- I have learned to really invest in
really good friendships.
The journey I think is finding people outside of
your family.
- I was like, "Dad, this person said that I'm this,
"and I can't even tell my family that I'm gay."
He said, "The only thing that gets me mad is that
"you waited so long to tell me."
I mean, I'm still emotional about it too because
we don't speak on it.
- I wish that I could see ahead of time and see that
it isn't gonna be that bad.
- The world is infinite.
The possibilities are endless, and there are a billion
different paths for you bigger than you liking men,
or bigger than you having dark skin.
Those two things are things to be so proud of.
- The black community has a don't ask, don't tell
type policy.
It's okay to speak on it, and when you do,
you can have a beautiful relationship of love and support.
Love in the black community needs to be highlighted
and expressed.
- You're gonna go to school, you're gonna learn,
and then you're gonna get a bomb ass job,
and you're gonna build your career and you're gonna be
fucking great.
You can do it.
Now go do it.
Make us all proud.
(relaxed hip hop music)