Orville Lloyd Douglas (born September 26, 1976) is a
Canadian, essayist, poet, and writer. He was born in Toronto, Ontario to
Jamaican parents.
He graduated from York University with two
Bachelor of Arts degrees. He completed his first Bachelor's degree in
History and the second Bachelor's degree with honours in Sexuality
Studies. Douglas' work focuses on the tensions and intersections of
race, gender, class, and sexuality.
He has contributed to several
Canadian and international publications, including The Hill, TheRoot.com,
Washington Blade, The Guardian, ColorLines, Word Magazine, The New
Zealand Herald, Georgia Straight, The Toronto Star, Xtra!, NOW, Library
Journal, and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Douglas' first volume of
poetry, You Don't Know Me, was published by TSAR Publications. It is no
longer in print. The book explored many polemical issues such as death,
drug abuse, male prostitution, suicidal idealization, suicide,
depression, identity, love, homophobia in Caribbean culture, and gay
racism. Douglas' second poetry volume, Under My Skin, was published by
Guernica Editions on May 15, 2014.
In 2006, Douglas' piece "TV
Still Stereotyping black women" was published in the The Philadelphia
Inquirer. His perspective is the character Dr. Bailey on the ABC drama
Grey's Anatomy is the stereotypical loudmouth and overweight black
mammy. He also criticized the ABC talk show The View for engendering the
racist stereotype of making television host Star Jones a modern Aunt
Jemima.
In 2007, Douglas' fifteen-minute radio documentary The
Good Son, was broadcast across Canada on the CBC Radio One program
Outfront.[2] The first section of the documentary was an interwoven
quilt of Douglas reading his poetry and interviewing his father. The
second part of the documentary was a monologue as Douglas talks about
his frustrations. He explores issues such as homophobia in the black
community, the pernicious hypocrisy and gay racism in the homosexual
culture, heterosexual marriage, family discord, and racism against black
men.
Douglas' poetry has been featured in the The Maple Tree
Supplement, Wilderness House Literary Review, SNR Review, The Vermilion
Literary Project,Pedestal Magazine. His poetry has also appeared in the
Seminal (2007), the first anthology of gay male Canadian poetry,
published by Arsenal Pulp Press. His verse has also been featured in The
Venomed Kissed, an Incarnate Muse Press anthology exploring issues of
childhood emotional and psychological abuse.
In the essay "Shades
of Blackface", published in The New Zealand Herald, Douglas criticizes
Angelina Jolie for taking the female lead in the film A Mighty Heart.
Douglas argues that since the real Mariane Pearl is what he terms a
"bi-racial" woman an actress of similar heritage such as Thandie Newton
should have had the role instead of a white actress. Pearl, a
multi-racial woman, is the daughter of a Dutch-Jewish father and an
Afro-Chinese-Cuban mother.
He expands his thoughts about Hollywood
racism and sexism against black women in The Georgia Straight opinion
article "Is White the New Black?"
The essay "Is Madea A Drag
Queen?" appeared in the July/August 2009 issue of ColorLines. Douglas
perspective is Tyler Perry's movies parrots a black gay aesthetic,
reinforcing racist and sexist stereotypes about black heterosexual women
and black gay men.
The article "Same Sex Marriage's Colour Bar"
published in The Guardian, challenges the stereotype that the gay
community is a monolithic group. He argues it is hypocritical and racist
for the white gay elite to complain about homophobia in the mainstream
culture, yet discriminate against gay people of colour.
In the
piece "The Slighting of Serena Williams" featured in The Guardian,
Douglas argues that the white American tennis establishment has a
history of disrespecting African American tennis champion Serena
Williams . His perspective is, the hostility the white media have
towards Serena Williams is rooted in racism and sexism because she is a
black woman dominating women's tennis, which is still a white sport.
In September 2013, Douglas's essay "Why I won't be watching The
Butler & 12 Years A Slave" was published in The Guardian. Douglas
criticized Hollywood for having a lack of imagination and making
derivative Oscar bait black dramatic films about slavery. He also
accused Hollywood of being heterosexist and creating films that only
focus on black heterosexuals and ignoring black gays and lesbians.
Douglas piece caused an uproar in the African American community. Black
writer Michael Arceneaux wrote a rebuttal essay "We Don't Need To Get
Over Slavery…Or Movies About Slavery". Arceneaux criticized Douglas for
being ignorant and having an apathetic attitude towards black Americans
and slavery. African American writer Yesha Callahan also condemned
Douglas for trivializing slavery and ignoring the suffering of his
ancestors.
November 9, 2013, Douglas' piece "Why I Hate Being A
Black Man" was published in The Guardian. The piece examines Douglas'
conflicting feelings about being a black man and the negative perception
and stereotypes of black males in Canada. November 16, 2013, CNN host
Don Lemon interviewed Douglas about the article.
November 22,
2013, Douglas article "White Privilege Keeps Crack Smoking Mayor in
Office", was published on the African American website TheRoot.com. The
piece examined the reticence of the Canadian media to discuss Toronto
mayor Rob Ford's white privilege and the issue of race in the crack
scandal.
February 2014, Douglas wrote an article for The Hill,
criticizing the focus of black history month only focusing on black
heterosexuals while ignoring black LGBT people. According to Douglas,
the erasure of queer black history is due to homophobia in the black
community.
June 2014, Douglas's essay "Why do black gay celebs
have white partners", was published in the gay newspaper Washington
Blade. Douglas argued the reason black gay celebrities such as Don
Lemon, Wanda Sykes, Michael Sam, have white partners is due to the fact
whiteness is placed on a pedestal in the LGBT community. Douglas also
stated since whiteness is valued more than blackness, this is a key
reason black gay celebrities have a predilection for white partners.
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