Despite all of the reasons why black gay men are beaten down, beaten up, discriminated against and blamed for the spread of HIV among African Americans, the main perpetrator is, in fact, black gay men ourselves. That’s the opinion of AIDS advocate and journalist Keith Green. It’s time for the black gay community to stop blaming everyone else for its plight, he says, and to start standing up for itself.
A group of black, gay community leaders, businessmen and activists joined together in the Windy City to publicly launch the Chicago Black Gay Men’s Caucus, one of a small but slowly growing series of efforts among black, gay men in the United States to mobilize in the fight against HIV. The group’s official launch included an unveiling of its first HIV prevention effort, a music video and public service announcement encouraging men to learn their HIV status.
Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child talks about playing an HIV-positive character on UPN’s Half & Half.
African-American HIV/AIDS Resource Center at The Body
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“It’s time for the black gay community to stop blaming everyone else for its plight, he says, and to start standing up for itself.”
Is the black gay community really blaming others? I don’t see evidence of that. From my POV, black, gay men are pretty clear that we are our own worst enemy (although, we seem to think we are exceptions to the rule, individually). I applaud organizations like the Chicago Black Gay Men’s Caucus. However, HIV-preventions - or rather, why black men engage in high-risk behavior - is a complicated subject of which activists themseleves aren’t entirely unfamilar.
I return to this question continually: “Are Black Gay Men worth saving?”
It’s a question I want to pose to everyone, “we” as bgm, African leaders and activists, black American and diasporic communities. It gets to the heart of what we (mistakenly to my mind) call homophobia.
Not to mention, saving from what?
In my mind there will never be a question about whether Black Gay men are worth saving, because we are. The challenge is how do we go about doing that in the midst of a decline in the quality of life of Black people period! We cannot look at Black Gay men as mutually exclusive from the larger Black community. Many of us are deeply intertwined in both.
Here in Philly, we have just recently formed an entity of Black Gay men, similar to what is going on in Chicago to address the health and well being of Black Gay men. Our mission doesn’t stop at HIV/AIDS, but goes further to address the other contextual factors that negatively impact the lives of BGM. We are also lucky to have a Unity Fellowship chapter starting up here, with Rev. Jeff Haskins as the pastor and a Black Gay Pride celebration. I have hope that there will be positive changes for Black Gay folks here in Philadelphia and nationally.
One cautionary word though, is that I think we need not look at some of these statistics and misinterpret them. The study discussed in one of the links in this post talks about the 5-city study where almost 50% of the Black MSM were HIV-positive. We need to put these stats in context and not blow them out of proportion. It doesn’t say that 50% of ALL Black MSM are HIV-positive, nor does it even mean that all the Black MSM in those 5 cities are HIV-positive, just the ones who took part in this study. It DOES mean that there are a disproportionate number of Black MSM who are HIV-infected and that we need to address this immediately. I just don’t want people thinking that every other Black Gay man they cross must be HIV-postive. I think this view is part of what fuels a sense of fatalism among our young people (though not limited to young people) who think that contracting HIV is unavoidable so why bother to protect yourself?
Well that was more than I was planning to write…LOL, so I’ll stop there.
Lee, I really wish I could be as affirmative. I don’t *know* that my life is worth saving. Perhaps an expression of fatalism, but also a real sense of psychic embattlement. I’m (he says arrogantly) smart enough to get past the bs of having to “love myself.” As I write on my blog, self-love has never been a problem.
But I need someone else, someone who doesn’t want to sleep with me, someone who is not queer, to say my life is worth saving. I need to feel my life adds value to someone, because and not in spite of my queerness.
I refuse to pose this question because I’m not sure I could live with the answer: do you, non-queer community, think my life is worth saving? Perhaps one day I’ll be brave enough to ask it.
Then why wait any longer, Keguro, get it over with and check out.
No man will ever confirm or affirm your existence you already ARE.
Let’s not get into my politics concerning euthanasia (in support of). I simply point to my idealistic belief (necessarily so) that coalition politics are possible. My emphasis is not on a “man” finding me worthwhile. It’s against, on the one hand, the narcissism we call “self-acceptance,” and, on the other hand, the need to inhabit community. I’m still struck by Joseph Beam’s powerful vision of “coming home.” Indeed, it drives most of what I write and think and teach and dream about. Nostalgia? Perhaps. Some dreams are worth it.
Round and round we go and where it’ll stop nobody knows! Maybe this is part of the predictable plan AIDS would come out to be; us fighting us instead of working together and finding viable solutions.
You would’ve loved Joseph Beam, his heart was as big as any ocean but alone, he too, could not stop the inevitable. Let me know when you are ready to fight and take on these issues especially AIDS, I’ll join you, fight along with you for however long it takes. Take your power of one and multiply it, TOGETHER, we are our best and only asset, WE are it’s cure.