In the Mix

At Least We're Not Dying From AIDS: A Retrospective By Michael Hinson

Today, February 7, 2011 is National Black AIDS Awareness Day, a day of reflection about HIV disease in Black communities all around the world. As I have reflected over the past couple days (knowing this day was coming), I am reminded about my own journey from not knowing about the disease to knowing and at times cycling back to not knowing again and then back to knowing.  I am reminded about my cousin’s, two black gay men and two heterosexual black mothers who lost their lives to HIV in the prime of their life. I am reminded that we are not only reflecting on tragedy of too many Black lives lost or on the lives of Black Gay Men hanging in the balance, but we are also reminded about the bravery, the triumphs and successes in our communities that inspire us to be liberated from our own fear, that we might inspire the liberation of others as referenced by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inauguration speech.

Personally I am reminded about Rashidah Abdul Khabeer, about David Fair, about Tyrone Smith, about Arnold Jackson and so many others who inspired my liberation. I am reminded that without their nurturing, their tough love, their gentle nudging, I too might be the subject of a hushed conversation in my southern hometown, as Arnold’s 1992 piece entitled “At Least we’re Not Dying From AIDS” suggest.

In their unique ways, this Philadelphia based herstorian and historians inspired the greatness that I humbly acknowledge and accept as my own personal destiny for which I am thankful. I am thankful for Rashidah’s gifts of strength, bravery and consciousness. I am thankful for David’s intellectual, strategic and unwavering commitment gifts. I am thankful for Tyrone’s “I’m Black, Gay and Proud” and “Hey, baby it is gonna be okay” gift’s. I am thankful for Arnold’s gifts of wisdom, communication and retrospect.

The theme for this year’s National Black AIDS Awareness Day is one we all know very well—"It Takes A Village to Fight HIV/AIDS!  As the Centers for Disease Control’s press release states “it is a call to action for a collective and integrated approach at the individual, community and national level to prevent the spread of HIV in African American communities”. I am thankful that my “village” understood this notion some twenty years ago and that I understand it today. I am thankful for the opportunity to be a part of the solution.

I am also reminded in my reflection today that African Americans who represent 14 percent of the population, account for 52 percent of the diagnoses in 2008 representing almost half of those living with and dying from HIV. I am reminded that African American men are 9 times more likely to have HIV than white men and I am reminded that African American women are 18 times more likely to have HIV than white women.

Today, as you reflect on what this day and this disease means to you, be encouraged. Many of us are also reflecting. Many have joined the “village” to fight this disease. Many are living with, not dying from this disease.   Many are opening the doors of opportunity and closing the doors of inadequacies in our health care system, the high incarceration rates, low income, low educational attainment, racism, stigma, and homophobia.

As I have been encouraged by my mentors, I encourage you to mentor -- to be an encouragement. Tell someone today, they matter.  Tell someone today that HIV is preventable.  Tell someone today that HIV doesn’t have to be a death sentence. Tell someone today that their future holds a greatness that was given first as a gift from God. Tell them that their life never has to be a hushed conversation, emblazoned in the stigma that my friend Arnold wrote about almost ten years ago.

Below is the article my dear friend Arnold wrote in 1992, which reminds us of the HIV stigma still present today in many Black Communities. Thank you Arnold for reminded us to be the solution!

At Least We're Not Dying From AIDS

by Arnold Jackson (August 25, 1957 -- May 3, 1998)

It's early 1992 and we African-American men and women, children and youth are dying at an alarming rate. This is not news. Everybody knows that, comparatively speaking, we don't live as long as whites. And we all know why: disproportionate rates of poverty, drug and alcohol addiction, intra-racial violence, homelessness, hunger, lack of access to medical treatment. The list goes on.

But I'm happy to report that one thing we're not dying from is AIDS.  Excuse me? You don't believe me?

Then ask Rev. Jones, who funeralized Mrs. Brown's 35-year-old son Jeffrey last week. Ask the neighbors and relatives who turned out for the service. You can even ask Mrs. Brown herself. They'll all tell you the same thing. Jeffrey died from cancer.

Then there was Damien. He died four days ago. He was 23. Leukemia, that's what his sister said. Go ahead, ask her.

Sherman, he passed two weeks ago. A fantastic designer. Everybody in the neighborhood loved him. He made a lot of clothes for a lot of people and all for free! I read his obituary in the paper. He died of a long illness.

Vanessa was 28. She used to shoot up. She got pneumonia.

Mr. Harris still can't sleep too well these days and it's been a year and half since his 40-year-old daughter who was married to that addict Maurice died of the same thing that killed Vanessa--complications from respiratory disease. At least that's what the funeral program said.

I know a lot of other young black people who've died recently. Their parents, brothers, sisters and friends miss them a lot. They get depressed but don't, want to talk about it too much. It's painful when you lose a loved one.

But at least they didn't die from AIDS.

 ###

Michael Hinson is the Director of Programs for the International Federation of Black Prides, Inc.(IFBP). The IFBP is the a coalition of Black Pride organizations formed to promote a multinational network of LGBT/Same Gender Loving Pride and community-based organizations dedicated to building solidarity, promoting unity, and ensuring the development of education, economic empowerment, and individual and collective work, responsibility, and self-determination. IFBP membership consists of over 40 Black pride organizations from the United States, Canada, London and South Africa, making it the largest Black LGBT organization in the United States. The IFBP is a proud coalition partner for the Centers for Disease Control’s Act Against AIDS Leadership Initiative.

For more information about the IFBP, please visit www.ifbprides.org

 

Deconstructing the Bishop Eddie Long Scandal

By Earl D. Fowlkes, Jr.

 We all know the series of events by now, on September 21 -24, four men – Anthony Flagg 21, Maurice Robinson, 20: Jamal Parris, 23; and Spencer LeGrande, 22 – filed lawsuits in DeKalb County, Georgia accusing Bishop Eddie Long, pastor of the 25,000 member New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in suburban Atlanta of lavishing gifts and money on them to coerce them into sexual acts starting when they were teenagers.

 So here we have again, another homophobic-laden religious leader possibly caught with his pants down (sort of speak).  One cannot help think of Rev. George Alan Rekers, Yasser Mohamed Shahade, Rev. Ted Haggard, and of course dozens of Roman Catholic priests who have been in the similar “situations”.  However, Bishop Long’s “situation” is different. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church leader "one of the most virulently homophobic black leaders in the religiously based anti-gay movement" and noted that he has referred to homosexuality and lesbianism as "spiritual abortions."  Bishop Long has been in many ways the poster child for those in the Black community who champion the cause of homophobia. 

 At this moment Bishop Long is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, so we have to extend to him this courtesy.  He has not admitted to having sexual relationships with his four accusers then again he didn’t say he did not have sex with them either.  One would suppose that a minister who makes millions of dollars a year would have the benefit of excellent legal counsel, so admitting anything anywhere would not have been his wisest course of action.

 There are those in the Black/African American community who have demonized Bishop Long’s accusers as young men who have been taking advantage of a mentor and are out for financial gains.   Many in the Black/African American LGBT community are perceptually pleased with these turn of events and joined with others in the greater LGBT communities, hope that Bishop Long’s homophobic “reign of terror” will finally come to an end. However, either view is rather simplistic as there are deeper issues and perhaps even consequences at play here which need to be examined much more closely. 

 There are millions of Black/African American evangelical Christians who share Bishop Long’s view of those who are LGBT.   Bishop Long has not been operating in a vacuum while building the largest church in the state of Georgia. He knew exactly what he was doing when he started a program in his church titled "Out of the Wilderness" that claims to help cure its participants of homosexuality.  Bishop Long decided long ago to ride the back of the homophobia tiger to greater fame and fortune.  He and other ministers like him, made this choice to tap into the fears and in some cases, the ignorance of their congregations in order to build themselves up at the expense of thousands of oppressed LGBT men and women who for the most part are not going to stand up in their church to defend themselves for various reasons.

 Many of Bishop Long’s congregation and defenders will never accept that these accusations could be true even if he is found guilty in a court of law.  In their eye, he is the victim because he stood up and defended marriage as a right that only heterosexuals can enjoy, that he is standing on the Bible every time he condemns homosexuals and the most aggresses, his teachings to millions of people via mass media, that a LGBT man or woman is not acceptable in eyes of God. 

 In many ways, this entire situation is tragic for the four young men, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and the Black African American community.  The homophobia runs so deep in the Black church and the Black community that it has caused many oppressed men and women to become oppressors.  The Black Church community in many ways has become a hiding place for people who for whatever reason cannot come to terms with their homosexuality.  There are number of ministers who preach the evils of homosexuality while enjoying the pleasures of the flesh with someone of the same gender behind closed doors.  What should be an opportunity for honest dialogue about homosexuality and homophobia in the Black/Africa American community has quickly become yet another opportunity for people to become further entrenched in the narrow view of the worth of millions of Black/American LGBT men and women who are family members, neighbors and members of their churches.  Perhaps the lesson for all of us is, “what would Jesus do”.  And perhaps the lesson for Bishop Eddie Long would be, “He who rides that back of the tiger, ends up inside”.

“Why We Need Black Prides”

By Earl Fowlkes, International Federation of Black Prides, President/CEO

Memorial Day weekend 2010 marks the 20th anniversary of the first Black LGBT Pride event in world.  While there were other Black LGBT social gatherings occurring around the United States for years, DC Black Pride was the first formal gathering of its type.  DC Black Pride was founded by Welcome Cook, Theodore Kirkland and Ernest Hopkins in 1991 to continue the tradition of Black LGBT communities coming to Washington DC to participate in “Children’s Hour” social events which was organized by The Club House.  The Club House closed in 1991 and, the founders decided to organize what we now called DC Black Pride. The original name of the gathering was and still is Black Lesbian and Gay Pride Day, Inc.  The founders also wanted to raise funds for HIV/AIDS service organizations that provided services to African Americans living with HIV/AIDS given the impact of the epidemic in our communities.  This was before the Ryan White CARE ACT and other HIV programs.

 

The founders of DC Black Pride had no way of knowing that their small event would start a movement – a “Black Pride Movement” with over forty Black Pride events taking place from February to November in four countries with over 400,000 attendees each year in the United States alone.  In addition, the International Federation of Black Prides, Inc. (IFBP), the only international Black LGBT organization, was founded at DC Black Pride eleven years ago. As such, DC Black Pride remains the “grand daddy” (and grandmother) of them all.

 

Over the fourteen years of my involvement with DC Black Pride and subsequently with the IFBP, I have been asked hundreds of times why do we need Black Prides.  Why can’t Black LGBT individuals and families participate in the local community LGBT prides and why must the Black LGBT community be separate from the greater LGBT community.

 

Black Prides are not intended to continue the de facto segregation that has existed between the Black LGBT communities and the white LGBT communities for many years.  Rather, Black Pride events are intended to provide safe spaces where our communities and allies can celebrate being both a person of African descent and LGBT. Homophobia in the Black community has made being openly LGBT potentially dangerous and even deadly. Racism in LGBT communities has likewise added to the historic discrimination faced by members of our communities. Coming together based on racial and sexual identities can be very reassuring in a hostile world.

 

Community LGBT pride events are intended for the entire community to celebrate being LGBT but often does not reflect the cultural norms of the Black LGBT experience. If anything, Black Prides are often the gateway to the greater LGBT experience.  The workshops, Poetry Slams, Writer’s Forum, Interfaith or Church services and other cultural activities provide an opportunity of personal growth, and understanding.

 

However, there is a deeper reason for having Black Prides as was evidenced recently when local DC rapper Wale backed out of performing at the DC Black Pride’s Health and Wellness Expo scheduled to be held at the Washington Convention Center on Sunday, May 30.  Twenty, ten or even five years ago there would not have been a public outcry for a recording artist pulling out of a Black LGBT event.  There would have been no news interviews and no headlines that read, “Rapper in Hot Water”.

 

But much like its bold initiation twenty years ago, DC Black Pride along with Black LGBT communities made their voices heard.  We are sick of being the targets of homophobia within our community.  Many Black LGBT folks still live in Black communities and don’t want to leave but do want and insist upon to be left alone – to live our lives with the same dignity and respect that should be accorded to every human being regardless of race, gender, religion sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Over 400,000 Black LGBT individuals attended Black Prides in 2009 – there is strength in numbers.     Our communities are maturing and we are using Black Prides to educate and strengthen our collective resolve to fight for all the rights and privileges afforded to us in the Constitution including a stand for our LGBT rights.

 

 

Why This Black Gay American Still Supports President Obama

In late August 2008, I had the opportunity to attend the Democratic National Convention. I listened carefully to the speeches of Michelle Obama, Mrs. Clinton, and President Bill Clinton. On August 28, 2008, I listened to Senator Barack Obama outline his soaring vision for America. I heard him speak on how he would address the sinking economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, health care reform, clean energy technology, and job creation.  I felt like Senator Obama was speaking directly to me when he said, “I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in a hospital and to live lives free of discrimination”.  In my opinion that statement was his promise to millions of LGBT Americans that we were part of his plan to make America a better place and that eliminating those vestiges of discrimination would be an important part of his agenda. Like millions of Americans, I decided that I would work hard to help elect Barack Obama President of the United States.

Fast forward to today, a little over a year since Barack Obama was sworn in as our President; and there has been much discussion in some quarters of LGBT communities questioning whether or not his administration has the stomach to move “our” agenda forward. There are those who believe he is moving too slowly on the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) and the Defense of Marriage Act, and that he has not done enough to push the passage of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA).  Many of those same voices have called for the LGBT community to withhold support and money from the Democratic Party, based on their belief that President Obama has not kept his word to our communities.  But for this Black Gay American, this rhetoric contrasts greatly with the reality of the Obama Administration’s accomplishments on LGBT issues during his first year in office.

In only one year in office, the Obama Administration has extended benefits to same-sex partners of Federal employees; signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded the existing US federal hate crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or disability; lifted the HIV Entry Ban; extended the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act; reversed an inexcusable US position by signing the UN Declaration on Gay Rights; has spoken out forcefully on Uganda’s repressive treatment of its LGBT communities; endorsed the Baldwin-Lieberman bill; hired and appointed a record number of qualified LGBT Americans, including over ten Senate confirmed appointments; and in the summer of 2009, the Administration released the first Presidential PRIDE proclamation since the year 2000. In addition, the Obama administration has sought out input from the LGBT community on hundreds of proposed policy changes affecting all levels of the Federal government.

Recently Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the Senate Armed Services Committee, ”Speaking for myself, and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly is the right thing to do. No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape the … facts that we have a policy that forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens”.  Anyone who understands how the Pentagon operates must realize that the Obama Administration had a strong hand in moving the military establishment to support the repeal of this odious law.

I believe that advocacy and applying political pressure for the LGBT agenda on both the Obama Administration and Congress are fundamental tenets granted to all citizens of this Republic.  While our great nation still has a far ways to go before LGBT Americans will enjoy all of the promises and benefits made to us in the Constitution, I do believe that the Obama Administration has been subject to unfair criticism from parts of the LGBT community, who, for whatever reasons, refuses to acknowledge the many accomplishments in the first year of this administration.  I have faith that our President will continue to make good on the promises made that warm summer evening in Denver, Colorado and, this Black Gay American will continue to support the Obama Administration as one of our best hopes to bring about equality for LGBT Americans.

 Earl Fowlkes