Question Hilton Als

In the Richard Pryor article, you write “The black folklorist and novelist Zora Neale Hurston once wrote that, although she had “landed in the crib of negroism” at birth, it hadn’t occurred to her until she left her home town that her identity merited a legitimate form of intellectual inquiry”.  Do you believe it is the same way if you are writing a piece about someone who is either gay or black? Do you think that article could of been written by someone who isn’t black?