If Life Springs from Birth, Healing is the Single Mother of Progress

by Terry Howcott

I take the mission of engaging our delicate Black Same Gender Loving predicament with profound seriousness. My pores and mind are open and affection-ready. My initial brainstorm is to wrap the reasoning of my text around a host of issues. My thought-tentacles travel along the fissures of my memory of good times and generational excellence. Reminiscences of my loved ones snatched from their brilliant lives by the virus run rampant. I think I’ll write about our historic loss of throngs in the South, oblivious to the thousands who’ve died in isolation brought on by that faith-based-deserted, wholesale-disregarded HIV/AIDS; and how Black media and politicians never utter a word about it.

I’ll point to our need for therapeutic engines to flush out the psychological pain of lack of acceptance by our skin-folk. I’ll protest the utter dismantling of our organizational names that boast our collective Black pride, but shoplift the one special characteristic that distinguishes us from our hetero-counterparts. I’ll describe the heartache of our youth at the hands of powerful and sick (which don’t mix well together) teachers, pastors, parents and others, harassing, excluding, preaching against them and then kicking them out into the streets to fend for themselves. I’ll write about women’s health including Breast and Cervical Cancer, hetero-homo sexism, and our disenfranchisement in health and other public policies.

I’ll honor the Black Transgendered—a thousand times less likely to enjoy strokes of confidence and compassionate social provisions White communities supply their “T” citizens. I’ll speak to our shortage of institutions and resources. I’ll expose the moral bankruptcy of “mainstream” Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trangender institutions that sashay’ around wealth-sharing concepts and reject the few of us who are unapologetically Black, proud, and question their conduct. I’ll “out” our “closetedness” which leaves us politically invisible and breathtakingly powerless. I could write forever, but I stop—realizing I’ve missed the point of where this article should lead. If I’m honest, I’ll ask how we’ll address these complicated matters in the condition we’re presently in. How can we immerse ourselves to unravel the complexity of achieving our goals, in the manner we deserve, when our communities are riddled with differences constituted in bitterness, dishonesty, jealousy, or horrid desire for personal advancement over group success? How can we succeed with so many on the sidelines while others openly protect our interests?

What of the arrogant among us with delusions of elitism and supremacy? What of some of us who rush to look sideways at a brotha’ or sistah’ with the identical jaundiced eye through which our oppressors judge us?

How will the wind fill our sails if community resentment blocks our ship from leaving the dock? No, these aren’t cheerful, “embraceable you,” kinds of questions, but their relevancy is irrefutable and strongly felt.

So, I’ll write about my vision of a series of national discussions, conducted by uncelebrated masterminds with no front-of-the-room panels fielding two-minute audience questions. There would be no sleek advertisements with pictures of community “stars” and pillar-popular gays—but glossy photos of incredibly common folk. All who attend would wear like quality-brand blue jeans, that we might get to the business of escaping the seriously medieval roles we play. In fact, perhaps we’re the ones who could stand to learn about ourselves, that to meticulously know us is to thoroughly love us. Out of these events, a different kind of group closeness could emerge, and a way could be paved on which more of us might ache to advocate for one other. But, right now, absent progressive healing mechanisms—not only is there an elephant in our living room . . . but she just ate. ■