With their heads hanging low, they pace the floor backstage rehearsing every line.  The dressing room is filled with the aroma of warm pizza and picked over hot wings.  Warm bottles of water are stacked on a huge bag of ice in a cooler, courtesy of the local grocery store.  Pictures of comic legends line the hall ways, as a new generation of comedians pray to one day have their photo on the same wall.   Although the room is crowded with people, you find most of them holding conversations with themselves.  A scene so strange, that if it were to happen elsewhere, would land these same people in the funny farm.

     But funny is what they hope to be as they face one of the toughest jobs in the world, the job of making strangers laugh.   Add to the mix that you’re a black woman, with the craving for the love for beautiful women, and you may rank this job close to president-elect Barak Obama.  No, you’re not saving the country, but something else.  Our forgotten culture.  The black, lesbian culture.  The culture of studs and femmes, baggy jeans and braided hair.  A culture of beautiful dresses, hoodies, and tims.  A culture of swagger and aggressiveness.  A culture of sensitivity and promise.  But that culture seems to always be forgotten by the rest of America. 

     The M.C. deals with a heckler, and then proceeds to announce the next comedian.  “Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for….”  On stage walks the existence of the forgotten culture. 

     Their years of experience varies from four months to 19 years, but their need to put smiles on another’s face is the same.  They are all still pursuing their dreams of having their own sitcoms, movies deals with Eddie Murphy or Martin Lawrence, maybe their own talk show would be nice.  For several black, lesbian comedians trying to achieve this dream, it is an uphill battle in a business ruled by white, straight men.  They are hoping to open the doors for the next generation of lesbians of color trying to break into show biz.  But how difficult could it be, after all there is Ellen Degeneres, Rosie O’donnell, and Vickie Shaw.   

     Well maybe that’s one of our problems.  The doors still haven’t opened for African-Americans lesbians in the entertainment industry like it has for other cultures.   Yes we now have Wanda Sykes, who recently came out of the closet, but really, who else do we have?  And why are there so few? 

One of the problems is that the black lesbian doesn’t always play it safe.  Stud comedians can be just as raunchy as Eddie Griffin or Dave Chappelle, and many times that can scare off white LGBT audiences and promoters.  Even in a city like Los Angeles, white gay and lesbian promoters don’t get our humor, so they don’t book us.  And if we do get booked, we know we have to lighten things up.  We miss out on many big events like Olivia Cruises, Dinah Shore, and lesbian comedy tours. 

And the promoters have a reason to be picky, very few black gays and lesbian come out to support comedy events.  We tend to spend our money getting into the night clubs.  And speaking of night clubs, we have very few all black gay and lesbian clubs, usually 1 or 2 in big cities like Atlanta and Los Angeles. 

     We also get very little media coverage.  There is a shortage of us on television.  We all know Snoop from the Wire, but who else?  Even gay and lesbian characters on reality TV shows become celebrities in the white gay and lesbian community.  But we aren’t even on there. 

There’s no doubt we will knock down the doors, but it will take the whole black LGBT community to do so.  So next time you hear lights, camera, action, don’t be surprised if you get someone from the forgotten culture standing on stage.