10 Most Important Modern LGBT+ TV Characters
4. Lionel Higgins - Dear White People
Lionel Higgins is a hugely important character, representing the intersectionality still needed within various discriminated communities.
Intersectionality is best explained with a quick anecdote. It’s the 1960s: women push to be involved in the workplace, so a company hires white women for the office. Black people push for more involvement too, so the company hires black men on the factory floor.
Where do the black women work?
Both communities they belong to got a semblance of what they wanted, so the struggle is over, and black women have nowhere to go.
Intersectionality remains a problem in the LGBT+ community, with black people facing fetishisation everywhere they turn. In black communities, especially in inner city America, a high value is placed on masculinity, and LGBT+ discrimination continues.
Lionel Higgins is too black for the gay community and too gay for the black community. His character arc is startlingly real, and explains the need for intersectionality in a much more nuanced and less patronising tone than above.
Gay men have probably had the most representation of any section of the LGBT+ community on TV, but Lionel Higgins takes this representation in a new and necessary direction.