Billy Porter, speaking to Vogue before he walked the Oscars red carpet, knew what he was in for among some social media users:
“People are going to be really uncomfortable with my black (expletive) ass in a ball gown, but it’s not anybody’s business but mine.”
The remark from the Tony-winning stage performer, actor and singer was both prescient and disproven. There was mega-praise for his velvet custom tuxedo look by Christian Siriano and outrage over the notion that an African American man in a dress was a threat to black masculinity.
It was just the conversation Porter had hoped to provoke, not to collect virulent hate but to help move along the idea that we all deserve respect, across racial lines and the gender divide.
“I was ready to create the conversation,” Porter told The Associated Press in a phone interview Monday the day after the Oscars. “We have to teach people how to treat us, we have to teach people how to love us, we have to teach people how to respect us, and the only way we do that is to respect ourselves.”
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