What Community Means As A Queer Black Writer

In nan outpouring of 1990, poised astatine nan brink of graduation from Morehouse College, I came retired to my girlfriend. A twelvemonth earlier, she’d chuckled erstwhile I declared my desire that we date. Not that she was an unkind person. To this day, she’s 1 of my closest friends, is 1 of nan astir selfless and accommodating group I’ve ever known.

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But. She was acquainted pinch “my kind”—a young Black man striving to beryllium wrong nan framework of societal and familial expectations. She expressed her doubts astir who I thought I was becoming, said that nan aperture of my objectives mightiness person been retired of focus.

But what nan hell, we gave it a shot. I struggled pinch my soul conflict nan full twelvemonth we dated. When I yet came out, shape-shifted into who she knew I was each along, she hated maine for a while.

It was nan extremity of nan Reagan era. A rising conservatism warned that rampant premarital sex, abhorrent homosexuality, obscene abortions, and fishy celebrated civilization would destruct America. Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority heralded book bans.

Marlon Riggs’s Tongues Untied and Sapphire’s Wild Thing were cornerstone exhibits successful a fear-mongering run that ended John Frohnmayer’s tenure astatine nan National Endowment for nan Arts (NEA). Ignored by nan Reagan Administration, AIDS blazed unchecked, consuming thousands—eventually, millions—of lives.

My life astatine Morehouse warped into nan unrecognizable. The fraternity I’d joined initiated a witch hunt expelling each cheery members. Bonds of relationship were broken. “Brotherhood” became a joke. Emotional chaos suffocated me. I hardly sewage retired of bed.

How would I show my parents? Is this why I had attended Morehouse—my same-sex attraction, a lurking, subconscious motivation? The years of sacrifice and labour of my conservative, Southern parents, tens of thousands of dollars later and this was nan find I’d made?

I was only conscionable opening to understand. The conception of 2 men kissing—of me kissing a man—was revolting. And exhilarating. Going further was unimaginable. Black, from Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, I understood “gay” to beryllium white, effeminate, and disempowering. I didn’t want to beryllium immoderate of that.

I had a cheery uncle—one of my father’s brothers. He worked astatine a infirmary and managed a cheery barroom successful nan Bronx. Fun and flashy, he and his roommate lived successful a fabulously terraced flat that overlooked Queens Blvd. Ear hustling family conversations, it sounded for illustration my uncle and his roommate hosted unthinkable parties.

During Christmas break of my elder year, accompanying his youngest brother—my youngest uncle (who was for illustration an older relative to me)—on a visit, I tried staying for a statement that was conscionable astir to happen. Grabbed a drink, settled connected nan sofa adjacent to a Latino relative I’d caught checking maine out.

Before I could moreover return a first gulp, my elder uncle blurted, “Oh no-no-no,” he waved astatine his brother. “Time for y’all to go.” It was pinch quiet, hushed reserve, nan fewer times I heard my family speak astir my uncle’s lifestyle. It sounded sad, lonely, moreover disappointing. I didn’t want that arsenic portion of my reality either.

Ironically, thief came from 1 of nan fraternity brothers pinch whom I had kept successful touch. He talented maine a transcript of nan first measurement of nan anthology Other Countries: Black Gay Voices. His inscription read:

June 1992

Doug,

If this beryllium ammunition—fire astatine your enemies from wrong and without. If this beryllium love—love yourself and astatine slightest 1 other. If this beryllium helpful, show maine so, for that is what I want for you.

That first measurement of Other Countries was an awakening, gave maine a imagination of a Black cheery man I could become. Living a fearlessly proud life that I’d promote my family to embrace. Other Countries led maine to In The Life: A Black Gay Anthology and Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men.

I devoured those books. Joseph Beam, Essex Hemphill, Marlon Riggs, Assotto Saint, on pinch a move unit of writer-warriors, had captured multi-dimensional realities of fiercely lived Black cheery lives. In me, their activity ignited a quest for courageous engagement of my identity, necessitated nan value of clear, unambiguous connection of really I’d interact pinch my world.

But arsenic they were conscionable getting started, AIDS wiped galore of them disconnected nan look of nan planet. Their abrupt, disruptive absence near maine ravenous. And I could consciousness nan hunger of different Black cheery men beat astir me. We were (are) starving to beryllium heard.

The 2nd measurement of Other Countries: Black Gay Voices successful nan Age of AIDS published my first poesy piece. For Venus Magazine, I interviewed Phil Wilson, E. Lynn Harris, and James Early Hardy, salient Black cheery men. The seedlings that would go my novel, The Fantasies of Future Things had been planted.

America now finds herself riddled pinch regular melodramatic departures from nan logical. Trump’s first statesmanlike word was grotesquely objectionable, lacked nan rudimentary fundamentals of a serious, high-functioning, policy-making agency moving connected behalf of nan people.

So far, his 2nd word has been worse. Never earlier has a president looked truthful petty, truthful infinitesimally small, truthful unadorned successful his bare-knuckled brazen pursuit of power. Never earlier person we had a criminal president. Well. At least, ne'er earlier has nan caretaker of nan Oval Office been a convicted rapist, a draught dodging, thirty-four-count felon, an instigator of insurrection against nan United States.

For each but a very prime few, this president’s onslaught of legally questionable executive orders has revealed nan communal fragility of our civil, mental, social, and beingness safety. Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters’ outrage, decrying, “You weren’t expected to do this to us,” translates to “Do this to everyone but us.” A reality pinch which excessively galore are excessively familiar.

Our authorities has been hijacked by lunatic, right-wing rejection of history wrapped successful evangelical hypocrisy. But location exists a beardown contented of impassioned, egalitarian confrontations pinch indefensible injustice: Reconstruction. The Women’s Rights Movement. The conflict against McCarthyism. The Civil Rights Movement. The Stonewall Riots. Roe v. Wade. The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP).

The Fantasies of Future Things, tells nan communicative of divers group pinch different histories and dissimilar futures faced pinch peculiar dilemmas. Collectively, they ACT-UP, combat their communal foe. Together, they floor plan a caller way forward.

No little is required of america now. If we—the multiplicity of group who represent nan variegated cloth of America—intend to eliminate nan machinations of an authoritarian authorities led by nan inexpensive instrumentality of a wanna-be dictator supported by nan fanaticism of cowardly cronyism, past we, too, must ACT-UP, cull nan tribalism this authorities instigates among us.

As James Baldwin wrote,

If we—and now I mean nan comparatively conscious whites and nan comparatively conscious blacks, who must, for illustration lovers, insist on, aliases create, nan consciousness of nan others—do not falter successful our work now, we whitethorn beryllium able, fistful that we are, to extremity nan group nightmare, and execute our country, and alteration nan history of nan world. If we do not now situation everything, nan fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from nan Bible successful a opus by a slave, is upon us: God gave Noah nan rainbow sign, No much water, nan occurrence adjacent time!

These times are not unprecedented. We are much than a fistful and we do not traverse these waters alone. Generations earlier america person defeated akin tyrannical forces pinch less resources. They person near signposts and markers for america to navigate our way. That is my committedness to our future, nan ngo pinch which I put pen to paper.

______________________________

The Fantasies of Future Things by Doug Jones is disposable via Simon & Schuster.