Okay. I’ve had a couple of days to let the piece settle. Many or most are aware of CNN’s recent two part special on Black (and Heterosexual) in America. It was advertised as Black in America, so I expected to see myself there….somewhere… and a few times I caught what might be a glimpse: identified with a young, curious kid who believed that incentives might be a way of “highering” motivation for academic achievement, sympathized with the single mother of 5 in Houston struggling to make ends make sense, even identified and was moved by the reunion of families, like so many of ours, who are cut off from white and/or Native cousins. To be sure, a four hour special on Black in America cannot cover everyone, but absolutely NO mention of LGBT African-Americans, even as a point of complexity that can be covered in a later exploration, is another huge slap in the face to Black LGBT America. I’m not sure who to be more upset with, LGBT Black America for its continuous complicit silence; for agreeing to be silent for the sake of not “stirring up trouble” with our feigned, “unified”, essentializing blackness…. OR CNN for having the audacity to completely omit it. But I should have expected what I saw. And so perhaps my own hopefulness is what I am most disappointed about.

Silence is more than deafening; like Audre Lorde suggested, it’s DEATH. In such instances where a “reliable news source” proposes to “tackle” the hard issues facing black America, we get the same patriarchal ham hock that continues to choke us, give us high blood pressure, if tasty and non-confrontational. We get whatever is reducible to what will appease black mega-churches on Sunday, forgetting that millions of black people aren’t there.

The face of AIDS in Black America, for example, while increasingly absorbing more African-American women, is the black gay man. A PWA (person with AIDS) I don’t hold any shame about the associations of black gay men and AIDS. The statistics are evidence enough of the shame we carry. Some suggest that if you mention gay men with AIDS that’s all that black people will think about us. Well, Newsflash: They ALREADY think that about us. So while I understand appreciation for the omission in that respect, it’s still shameful. As long as black gay men are dying of AIDS, it’s not a crisis in our community. Once heterosexual black women get it, we have a state of emergency. Tell me if that’s not downright differentiation of life-worth.

It’s not just the AIDS epidemic that could have been covered with regard to black gays. Beyond how it is believed that some 46 percent of black gay men in many cities are infected, LGBT black folk are also educators, single parent mothers and fathers, scholars, brothas behind bars, physicians… Oh… I suppose we could assume that any number of those interviewed for the special could have also been gay or lesbian (e.g., “speculative identification”…find yourself in the absences, like when reading history books)… but the silence of it reeks, not like dirty laundry, STANK laundry….the mildewed STANK of neglect when you know some nasty shit is in your house and you pretend it’s not there until neighbors and inspectors come to find, not some old food, but somebody dead under the house. Black gays and lesbians are somebody dead under the house– often suffocated by our own hesitance and shame… and it’s time that we raise the muthafuckin dead! Enough with trying to be nice about this stuff.

I shouldn’t come off as completely negative. I’m sure that many white people learned a lot of “new” things about Obama’s people; and maybe even themselves (e.g., “white people suffer too”). There were various truths uncovered– if the echoing painful statistics that most conscious black Americans already knew about. Like many black specials, you’re left feeling hopeless, as if given a mirror so that you can verify your own disfigurement. I’m not sure where the hopefulness was, but I had to find it beyond the showcase.

This isn’t just another “Why didn’t they expose the gays at the family reunion, or jails, or the gay rap artists” vent. Representation, when not done with earnest and respectful intentions, comes off as condescending and tokenizing at best. Still, could we have gotten a line or two in relationship to the minister who doesn’t do enough to address AIDS in his black church? The homos were surely there, stifled by his awkward silence, suffocating underneath the church pews in the silence. Could we not talk about how many black gay men ARE raising their children (by blood or adoption) in spite of a political climate hostile to gay parenting against the logic that too many black children need loving, nurturing guidance? Can we talk about the ridiculousness of encouraging black women to marry their “baby daddies” when many of these “conceptions” were the result of one-night standing or irresponsible sexual slips? Can we discuss how many mothers, albeit alone, raised strong, self-reliant, productive black men who are an asset to the “community”? Can we talk about breast cancer? Can we talk to women who aren’t, in fact, traumatized that they can’t find a black man…or who don’t want one at all? Can we talk about black artists, or is everyone chasing the dollar and a home in suburbia? Damn! Is anybody else feeling me?

I think I’ve come to a conclusion watching the CNN special. We have a divided black America. Some people didn’t see it and wouldn’t care to see anything about the “state of Black America”. Others saw it and became upset, incensed, and sensitized to the plight of many their brothas and sistahs who have largely been forgotten. Some watched it and said…”I gots mine, my brotha, You, gots to get your own”. And there are those, like me– not even just gay blacks, but progressive blacks– who were utterly disgusted by the patronizing, glossy, exposition about the continuing decline of half our race while the others of us Americanize and forget. A black man, as portrayed by CNN, is either a thug OR someone anxious about ways to dis-identify with black culture and experience. Save Dyson, I didn’t see a reflection myself anywhere in those four hours. They didn’t even talk about Dyson’s anti-homophobia stance. Strong black heterosexual men are, of course, homophobic, right?

Do I ever expect to see a more accurate reflection of my black experience in America? Not until we (LBGT Negroes) seize the blogs and the airwaves, make more black gay music, write more black gay revolutionary poems, have more black gay affirming sermons and shame the ministers who try to shame us, have our families look at us, mouths wide open and often aghast, for having resurrected our truth and placed it alive and center to the black experience. We need more black gay families and parents and people in relationships to come out of their closets. A closet ignored becomes a grave. I am not dead, America. The audacity of my truth speaks, if romantically or revolutionary at times, against any portrayal that continues to bury my experience, contributions, and possibility. And I don’t plan to shut up about it until I see a reflection of, not just my own experience, but all those deadened through the silence of authoritative journalism. Shame Shame Shame on the Cowardly Normalization Network’s peek into “Black (and Heterosexual) in America”. We won’t see any different until we who are cast out and told to shut up for peace sake gain courage enough to represent ourselves…the way we REALLY are… and hold people accountable for such cowardly omissions.

Next?

The road here was bumpy, but optimism made smooth the turbulence of asphalt and thunderstorms. Leaving SW Atlanta just after my Deeper Love group meeting en route for Houston on June 25th might be one of the stubbornly brave things I’ve ever done. I was moving for love, but not just the love of a man, but the love for family and for myself. Not even a year before I headed to Atlanta– a great city full with lots of possibility…if you are moving TO Atlanta, and not AWAY from somewhere else. Atlanta could have been San Diego or Chicago for the purpose it served: healing, a reflective respite from the previous years in DC– a place where I loved hard and hurt harder. I made many close friends and connections in Atlanta in that short year, and more deeply secured friendships that I had prior to moving. Being a black gay mecca, it provided an opportunity to develop my thoughts about what it means to be a warrior for my community– optimistic about the change that awaits in ‘08 and beyond. Still, beyond the creative and activist energy I gave to Atlanta, it was still just the place I ran TO, in order to get away from DC– a place with too many painful memories to hold any immediate joy. Sometimes leaving is healthy. Houston was a different move: better planned, for more reasons than what many assume, and yes… a man who has stolen my heart is among them. I look forward to getting back to Atlanta (to visit) with a great deal more energy and joy than anyone ever saw during my months there. Atlanta deserved a better Tim’m than i was able to offer.

I stopped in Tuscaloosa on the way West to hang with one of my younger brothers, David. He (just a few years younger) and I fought all the time as kids. I think we “get” each other as adults; and the evening together watching Family Guy in his living room reaffirmed one of the many reasons I was moving to TX. Family is precious to me. I’m a mama’s boy who left home at 17 to escape whatever I thought was damaging about being in the rural South as a black gay man. But in driving through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and the short 2 mile drive barely into Arkansas where I was raised, I was reminded that this place, this red dirt, holds every forward-thinking, creative, abstract intention I have shared with the world since leaving. The sky on the farm is bigger and so where my dreams growing up there. I’ve achieved much of what I projected upon leaving– namely saving myself from the acute self-torture of being young, gifted, black, and homosexually Christian. No more Front Porch contemplations of one versus two pills of aspirin, or what city i would escape to in order to find love. I’ve found love everywhere I’ve lived because it rests within me. I’m a living and breathing personification of passion. Look at my eyes smile and you’ll realize that beyond being a big flirt, I love to love… I know that God loves me just as I am. That’s no longer up for debate… and it feels pretty damn amazing to have finally accepted that.

In Arkansas, I got to hang with moms. When I was little, people believed that I looked more like my father. With the years, and the development of more mature features, it’s clear that I’m, as much, my mother’s son. She’s a woman who knows me well and has never indicated anything to the contrary. My own fear prevented her from knowing her son for many years; but today, we share so much more– including a primary impetus for the move to Houston, my partner Dave. I came out to mom at 18, while a frosh at Duke during Parents Weekend. For all my mother sacrificed in her loving, getting beyond my fear of being authentic is something I owed her. Many gay children do their families a disservice in assuming they won’t understand or accept who we are. Some gay men go to their graves never having given it the chance. And disownment and abandonment by black families says a great deal about how little love is there in the first place, if you ask me. Hurtful, we all deserve a family grounded in acceptance and love.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like my mother sit around and talk about drag queens, bears, and leather sex, but she has a basic understanding, in spite of her religious beliefs, that her son loves a man– and that not accepting this fact would mean distancing herself from someone who fought those feelings to the point of not even wanting to feel anymore. Houston is a short 5 hours from Taylor, Arkansas, but it’s the closest I’ve been to home in a long time. I expect to see a lot more of moms and to have her more fully share my joy than has been possible living in DC, NYC, the BayArea or Atlanta. When I was a child, I was addicted to my mother’s smile and the feel of her stockings– spending fetishistic amounts of time rubbing her calves. She is as perfect a being as I know and I’m growing to approximate her gift for being, among other talents, a person who values family and working through whatever challenges come with relationships.

Driving from Arkansas to Houston was tiring. This was day three of the trip, but I had the distinct feeling of excitement for a move TO, instead of AWAY from a place. I expect to make great friends here. I expect to be a creative force for change and social justice in a place not generally regarded for its activism or progressive attitudes. I’ve already found Houston to be surprisingly “warm”– little pretense in this vast city that is a great deal more diverse than I expected (so many nationalities …EVERYWHERE). People warned me about the heat and humidity, as if summers in DC and Atlanta are “moderate”. I welcome the heat; it keeps people humble– aware that there’s something greater out there that we all submit to.

Joyful as I approached my favorite skyline (after Chicago and San Francisco) my new best friend Willie greeted me while we waited for Dave to finish Opera rehearsal. Willie and I enjoyed a few laughs about the trip in my worn but faithful Isuzu and lamented gas the prices (cheaper than most places I’ve lived). He’s a great guy and a rock for me beyond the rock I’ve moved here to build a life with. Dave arrived at the Wendy’s fine dollar-menu restaurant with a smile bigger than my appetite (those who know me know that’s big). I love how I make him feel, as much as I adore how he makes me feel. It’s a simple feeling of emotional safety that is, honestly, a bit new for me. I’ve known this man since 2004; though a lack of interest in the “good guys” at that time got him quickly reduced to “friend”, since they’ve, historically, stayed around a lot longer. I like Dave as much as I love him, and that’s important– he’s a friend I think is damn HOT (even when he gets under my skin). There’s a resolve and security I have about our life together, our commitment to building together: no threats of what I could do to force him to leave or reprimands for loving too hard. He welcomes the passion of this boy who loves books, loves basketball, loves House Music, and loves Flirting, as passionately as he loves his mother’s scent or the feel of her stockings.

In Houston, i get to be simple in all of my complexity. As I work to secure a job that will enable me to provide for my new family (academia holds some promise here), while pursuing creative opportunities (e.g., my first novel, performance opportunities, and an album on the horizon), I expect much joy in this big beautifully simple city that is my new home. Things here ain’t perfect, but my heart is smiling more these days. It Feels damn good… good like soft stockings on a beautiful black woman who has loved you unconditionally and accepts your flaws for all of your 35 years. Long time coming… I’m home.