E. Patrick Johnson

Sweet Tea

Giving voice to a population rarely acknowledged in writings about the South, Sweet Tea collects life stories from black gay men who were born, raised, and continue to live in the southern United States. E. Patrick Johnson challenges stereotypes of the South as backward or repressive, suggesting that these men draw upon the performance of southernness&8212;politeness, coded speech, and religiosity, for example&8212;to legitimate themselves as members of both southern and black cultures. At the same time, Johnson argues, they deploy those same codes to establish and build friendship networks and to find sexual partners and life partners....