Are Dylan and Mingus the same sex? Did Dylan have romantic drives for Mingus? Migus is black, correct?

Dylan and Mingus are indeed both the same sex in this young adult novel. Both are boys. Dylan, a white boy living in a largely black neighborhood, and Mingus, a black boy, keep their close friendship relatively quiet. Racial tensions run high in the area, and the book connects these themes, along with the secrecy enforced upon Dylan and Mingus by the racial situation, to the thread of homoeroticism that runs through the novel.
Dylan is fascinated by Mingus, and, in many ways, it is aspects of his blackness, unusual in Dylan's eyes, which capture Dylan's attention. For example, he wants to touch Mingus's hair, because he is intrigued by how it might feel. At the end of the novel, Dylan refers to Mingus as his "lover" as well as his "best friend." However, it is not clear in the story whether he truly has "romantic" inclinations toward Mingus—at least, not in the modern sense of the word. Rather, the novel explores the idea of an old-fashioned "romantic friendship" in a modern context, centering on the ways in which close friendships between teenagers can often blur into something more intense and ambiguous.