Featured News Opinion Jeffrey Dahmer was White and Gay — Deal With It
October 06, 2022
By Jasmyne Cannick
I’ve been watching a scary phenomenon sweep across America where if enough of us don’t like something from our past and take to social media to bitch and complain about it, we can simply erase and revise it under the guise of anti-racism and reconciliation. The latest victim of whitewashed revisionist history is serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
After social media backlash, Netflix has removed the LGBTQ tag from its Ryan Murphy-created Jeffrey Dahmer limited series, “Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.” Apparently, the LGBTQ community doesn’t want to be associated with a serial killer.
This is a complete about-face considering Netflix didn’t flinch in the face of its controversy over its relationship with comedian Dave Chappelle over his comments made about trans people. They seemed to double down it.
Now I don’t claim to know everything, but I know that Jeffrey Dahmer was three things — a serial killer, white and gay. No amount of whining and wishing it wasn’t so will change that or that most of his victims were Black gay men.
There are a lot of things that, as a Black woman, I don’t want to be associated with. I can’t tell you how many times I joined the collective groan of Black people everywhere when some atrocious crime is on the evening news, and a Black face appears on the screen as the alleged suspect. Do we get to call up the news, ask them not to show that the perpetrator is Black — to just gloss over that part — and they actually do it? No, we don’t. Both Samuel Little and Lonnie Franklin, Jr. were Black male serial killers who spent decades murdering Black women before being caught. As Black people, we don’t get to change the fact that they were a Black men because we’re embarrassed.
Jeffrey Dahmer was a white gay man who murdered lots of Black men. Deal with it. Deal with it in the same way that the families of his victims had to. Be mad, be offended but don’t you dare say that “This is not the representation we’re looking for.” The white LGBTQ community doesn’t get to disassociate itself from one of its own just because they’re worried about the impact on its image, and the fact that Netflix acquiesced is a slap in the face to the Black community — specifically the Black LGBTQ community. So what? Our truth and history doesn’t matter because white gay men are offended?
As a Black lesbian, I’ve spent my entire adult life trying my best to offend the white LGBTQ community with the truth about their racism.
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Well, 23 years later, we had a repeat with the murder of 27-year-old Gemmel Moore at the hands of another white gay man — Democratic major donor Ed Buck. Yes — Democratic donor, because similar to Dahmer and the white LGBTQ community, the Democrats never want to admit that Buck was one of them — one of us.
Also, like with Dahmer, no one wanted to believe that this white gay man in West Hollywood was targeting Black gay men and shooting them up with meth. Law enforcement, the district attorney, and for a long while, even the news media gave Ed Buck the benefit of the doubt over his Black victims, even after there were two dead bodies.
Five years later, Buck is finally in prison with a 30-year-sentence.
Watching “Dahmer,” I felt for Glenda Cleveland because I know exactly what it feels like to know what’s going on and scream it as loud as you can, and still no one listens. To be gaslit and told it isn’t what you know it is and then have those same people turn around and pat themselves on the back for stopping a killer two deaths, one near death, and countless other victims later.
Rest assured that when I do the Ed Buck story, it will be tagged LGBTQ, true crime, geriatric, horror, and whatever other genre it falls under.
The Black LGBTQ community deserves to have the truth told about both Jeffrey Dahmer and Ed Buck, and that starts with the fact that they are both white gay men who killed Black gay men. White gays shouldn’t get to absolve themselves from that.
JasmyneCannick is an award-winning journalist and on-air contributor who writes and speaks about collisions at the intersection of politics, race, and society. She spent five years working to bring serial killer Ed Buck to justice.