Staying Alive

At first we thought it was just a white disease. You know because locally it was only affecting White men in West Hollywood. It was the eighties and unless you were a snow queen who lived there, Black gays did not frequent West Hollywood as not only did we have our own neighborhood clubs (and House music), we were clearly unwelcome north of Wilshire. I’ve always found it amusing that people so often perceive the gay community as extremely liberal and accepting to all. For us when it came to white gay establishments, our blackness clearly outweighed our gayness. We used to joke about getting double carded at the West Hollywood clubs while White guys on skate boards with back packs looking all of twelve years old rolled on in past us with no ID. But it eventually reached our side of town and slowly began to invade our lives, this disease not yet named. A friend of a friend had gotten sick from some strange flu virus or something and within a matter of months and even sometimes weeks they were gone. We tried to rationalize by blaming it on those who did drugs, spent time in bath houses or generally led unhealthy lives. The crowd I ran with was fairly clean cut so we all fooled ourselves into feeling safe.

When it began to affect us as a group, we were unsure how to react. Hushed voices spoke of so and so who’d gotten sick…but shh, don’t tell anyone…keep it to yourself. We watched helplessly as our friends began to die off and our ranks diminished. The reaction from the Black community was particularly devastating. We were told we were less than and somehow deserving of what we had foolishly brought on ourselves…God’s wrath. We were shunned and ostracized by those who we called our own and the one place we should have been able to seek non-judgmental solace closed its doors to us. The Black church. Those who claimed they cared for our souls condemned us to hell. I can remember having to actively seek burial and memorial services for friends as their homecoming was deemed dirty in houses of worship. When we were able to secure a place, we were either completely ignored or preached down to and publicly demonized. You’ll forgive me my obvious angry bias against bible thumping, select scripture quoting, fake Black Christians but if you’ve ever spent time seeking a place to memorialize your friend, a friend whose family had disowned and abandoned him, a friend whose only crime was living his life truthfully, a friend who assumed those who had raised and righteously protected him as their baby boy would do so with his passing, you might understand.  To this day I’m unable to fully release the resentment I harbor as though it would somehow be a sign of disloyalty to the memory of my friends. To be clear in spite of the total disregard for our lives by the many Black pulpit bullies and their willfully ignorant congregations, I never turned away from God. I just realized I don’t need a church in order to facilitate my spiritual relationship.

So we formed our surrogate family and banded together to silently but defiantly fight for our dignity and to battle the discrimination from within our own community. Discrimination brought on by ignorance, assumptions and false prophecy. And always as we battled it was in constant fear of that dreaded four letter word and the certainty of the death sentence it imposed. We battled simply to stay alive leaning on each other for support as hope became our mantra. Perhaps we should have been stronger and ignored it but the weight of the judgement was crushing and the fact that it was coming from the people and the community we loved made it painfully unbearable. Fortunately, over time scientific research led to effective preventive solutions and the community allowed themselves to become educated about the disease as well. The ignorance and judgement abated…somewhat. And I have to say I was privileged to have friends and family to lean on who were mostly non-judgmental but always caring and compassionate. Others, many others were not so fortunate.

All these many years later I find myself today turning 60…WTF! Though I feel proud to have lived through those times I feel guilty for having survived. I know that in those early days I did nothing particularly different than those who passed, as initially none of us knew what to do…I was just lucky. Of course with time I learned the rules of survival. I learned how to stay alive but for many of my friends, it was already too late. Today I can’t help but to think of my friends. Those who never saw their 30^th, 40^th and certainly not their 50^th birthdays. Friends with whom I assumed I would grow old. Not all of them were victims of the disease but they all died much too soon. I wonder how their lives would have turned out, what they may have become and the successes they may have achieved. I wonder how they would feel about the things the younger generation now take for granted. Way back then most of us were not out to our families and certainly not at work. There were no Black out athletes, politicians or other people of prominence. My friends were never able to engage in an argument of gay marriage, adoption or even simple gay rights, to them it would have been unimaginable in fact not even on their radar. A Black president? They would have laughed you out of here. Dating hook-up sites? Please, back then you met people the old fashioned way…at the club.

So Happy Birthday to me, I’m fortunate and thankful to have lived another year but more importantly Happy Birthday to my friends for all those many birthdays missed. I celebrate you and today I live every moment for you all. Please join me in toasting my brothers.

Garland Jones

Dennis Mathieu

Vince Livingston

Calvin Woodard

Leroy “Poncho” Matthews, Jr.

Duane Bremond

Darrell Trible

Anthony Jiles

Aaron Davis

Leonard “Mickey “Gindratt

Greg Washington

Torrey Edwards

Matthew Pearson

Heywood “Woody” Weaver

And

Daryl Lamar Troup