Queer Eye star Karamo Brown urges white gay men to call out racism and face up to their privilege
Karamo Brown (Paul Archuleta/Getty)
Queer Eye star Karamo Brown has urged white gay men to call out racism in the LGBT+ community and become aware of their own privilege.
Karamo, who is the culture expert on the hit Netflix show, told Reuters that there is “a lot of racism in the LGBT+ community”.
“The things I’ve seen outside (in society) I’ve only seen perpetuated in the LGBT community,” he said.
“Yeah, you might have had a struggle because you’re gay, but white privilege still exists,” he added.
Queer Eye star Karamo Brown criticised white gay men who wanted Grindr to keep its much-maligned race filter.
He pointed to the reaction from a number of white gay men on social media recently when Grindr scrapped its much maligned ethnicity filter as an example of the toxic racism that exists among white LGBT+ people.
“White gay men were like ‘this is wrong, I should have the right to be like I don’t want Blacks, I don’t want Asians,'” he said.
“If you inherently don’t understand why that is wrong, as a gay person… then you need to check yourself,” he added.
Yeah, you might have had a struggle because you’re gay, but white privilege still exists.
The Queer Eye star also spoke about the significance of Pride Month, which runs for the month of June each year.
“Protests are always part of Pride,” he said.
“It’s just they get overshadowed by boys and girls with rainbows painted on their faces.”
Protests have erupted across the world after the brutal killing of Black man George Floyd.
Karamo’s comments come amid protests across the United States and the world in response to the brutal killing of Black man George Floyd by white police officer Derek Chauvin.
Floyd died after Chavuin knelt on his neck for eight minutes. The incident was recorded and subsequently went viral, leading to global outrage and condemnation.
Elsewhere, Black trans man Tony McDade was also shot dead by a police officer – and the force has not yet released the identity of the shooter.
The fifth season of Queer Eye hits Netflix Friday (June 5). Karamo is joined on the show by fashion expert Tan France, grooming expert Jonathan Van Ness, interior designer Bobby Berk and food and wine expert Antoni Porowski.
