OK, dammit. I'll admit I got into a serious funk on Saturday and ended up not going to Pridefest. I really didn't feel like being around a bunch of happy queers and falsely wandering through life like time is on their side. The few gay Black friends I have usually don't attend such events anyway. The gay community is still fiercely divided amongst race here in Central PA. You'll be lucky to find many Same Gender Loving identified men. Most of the guys I do know are either on the "low" or don't message with our white brethren and run to Philly every weekend. People, like me, black men who bridge the gap between White Gays and Black Gays are around, but I wanted solace within my own "people" so to speak this past weekend.
I should have went. In my situation, I tend to get along better with white gay men rather than black gay men. Call this a carry over of past life from my childhood and adolescence. Black people have never really been kind to me. Shame left me isolated.
There is a part of me that crave to be whole. Being a single man, a single Same Gender Loving Black man, take no merit for me. I feel ostracized from my support base, the African American community. In recent years, the community has hopped on the conservative bandwagon and denounced homosexuality with a vengeance. It's no wonder black men are afraid to come out and so many brothas creep around on the 'low (I really do hate the expression DL, but what can you say). There is so much self-loathing black brothers out there, dealing with their own internalized homophobia, its very sad.
Black people are our own worse enemies. When I examine our own black on black hatred and crimes, I shake my head. The in-community racism, while in some ways has dissipated, still resounds with our own self-color bias. Horrendous as it may seem, my soul wants unification, completeness with the gay black community; with the heterosexual black community. Am I self-hating? Perhaps. Insecure? Yes, most definitely, yes.
My association with my ethnicity has always been tedious and at best, distant. While I wholly accept who I am from an ethnic standpoint and how most of America would view me, my ethnic background is diverse enough that I could lean on the multiracial category. I chose not too, however. I like being black, have come to appreciate the black form in its beauty, and love the community, even with its faults. Am I proud of my ancestry? Hell yes! I wouldn't change my racial ethnicity for anything. Anything. What I do want though is acceptance from the black community. I was tortured emotionally as a child and while some may say I'm just a "punk" I do have feeling and I have a heart. I might not walk with swagger or talk the lingo (I refuse to say EBONICS!!!! A racist term developed by racists, non-African Americans) but I still know who I am.
I allowed judgment from other divorce me from my people. I ran away quite willing. I've come back into the fold, having not really left it, just hovering on the outside of the village. My ability to get along with most people has helped me to survive. Now I want to come home and rest in the bosom of my culture, my heritage, and feel loved. You don't have to approve of me, but you must love me.
Black people need to get over this brainwashing from the Republican conservations and realize gay people have always been interspersed in our community. We need to embrace our young men and women who may be different sexually. We need to teach them self-acceptance and pride, never to sacrifice their soul for self acceptance. The Black Church needs to be a leader in this. Preach God's love, not hatred. It strikes me as humorous for all the revered clergy casting out "gay demons" in the name of Jesus, but are forgetting to cast out their own seven deadly sins they're perpetrating.
When I was younger and had the stirrings of realizing I was different, black children, black boys, and eventually black men, were malevolent. I understand older generation believed in toughen up a boy-child, but this was did not have anything to do with any about tough love. My experiences were sadistic and cruel. Spat upon, taunted, lies told about me, harassment I still shudder when I remember it. It makes me cringe and feel fearful. My resentment is a process I'm attempting to overcome, but it is difficult. I don't trust black men. Really, I should say I don't trust men period. Given my life situations men of all races and ethnicities have been jerks and assholes. But in those I should seek counsel, solace, and comfort, have often been negligent in their duty and responsibility.
I'm working on coming to terms with my life. I'm trying to be at peace with myself within my community. Slowly, through many wonderful sistah-girls in my life, I've met some genuine, caring, compassionate, NICE, black men on both sides of the sexual fence. Not all black men are like those I knew in childhood. Fortunately, I don't live in Philly or DC any more. I live in quaint Central PA. I have the opportunity to gain self worth and regain my trust of my black brothers. We're reacquainting ourselves. It'll take time.
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