A Visit to Black Gay London

By Keith Boykin, in pop culture
Tuesday, April 4 2006, 11:40AM

I spent the weekend in London for the 20th annual London Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. I was brought over by Topher Campbell and Ajamu from rukus! Federation, a black LGBT arts program in Britain. While I was there, I had a chance to meet dozens of black gays and lesbians in England and to learn a little more about the culture of being black and gay in the U.K.

Ajamu and Topher Show Me London

After a 7 hour flight from New York, I arrived in London Friday evening just in time to drop off my bags at the hotel and head out with Ajamu and Topher. I stayed at the Selfridge Hotel, a few blocks away from the extremely well-guarded American Embassy, which was hosting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the same time. While Condi and her British counterpart Jack Straw were talking about Iraq, I was on my way out to a local club called The Hospital. We had a few drinks, talked about life and retired for the evening.

Saturday's schedule was packed. Topher and Ajamu picked me up at the hotel and we rode out to Brixton. After walking around the local market, we sat down for brunch at a restaurant called The Lounge. It was my first visit to Brixton, the predominantly black neighborhood in London, and it was much more colorful and eclectic than I expected it to be. I think I expected it to be a British version of Harlem, but instead it was its own thing entirely.

After brunch, we took a car back to central London for an interview with Troy Andrew Fairclough, a prominent playwright and a reporter for MOC magazine, a black gay publication based in London. Trevor had read my web site before and was well versed in black LGBT issues in the States. That's when I began to realize how much more the British know about us Americans than we know about them.

The Down Low in Black Britain

From there, we were off to the site of the 20th London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, which by the way is still going on until April 12. I sat in the green room for awhile and chatted with Simon Nelson, a well known British activist who was also a part of the event I was doing.

The event begin with a screening of The DL Chronicles by American filmmakers Quincy Lenear and Deondray Gossett. We watched what I believe is the pilot episode in which Wes is seduced by his brother-in-law. After the film, Topher, Simon and I took the stage for an hour-long conversation about the down low, and all of us agreed that the issue had been overblown. But I liked the episode of The DL Chronicles, and I particularly liked the way in which the married man was portrayed sympathetically with understanding of his struggle rather than the typical sensationalized demonization of the black man as the evil predator against an unsuspecting black female partner.

The book signing after the film discussion was also popular. The bookstore quickly sold out of all the books so I was left to shake hands with many of the people who wanted to get one. At the end of the line was an old friend I hadn't expected to be there. It was Robert Banks Ramirez. He lives in Los Angeles, and I met him 10 years ago. Now he's a film maker with his own film, Saint Martin de 4th Street, about a young boy of black and Mexican descent who doesn't like his mother's new girlfriend.

London Nightlife

I invited Robert to join us for dinner that night, and we sat and talked about old times and caught up on what each of us had been doing over the years. We were joined by more than a dozen participants and organizers of the film festival at a local restaurant. And from there, Robert, Topher and I went to a nightclub called "Queer Nation," in the heart of Brixton.

If I ever thought that Brixton and Harlem were the same, the experience at Queer Nation disabused me of that notion. Located on Brighton Terrace in central Brixton, Queer Nation is a Saturday night party at a nightclub called Sub Station. What surprised me most was the composition of the crowd, which was mostly white. Although there were quite a few black men in the crowd, the white patrons clearly outnumbered the blacks, even in a space in the middle of Brixton.

The DJ played mostly house music and club music and we danced until 4 or 5 in the morning before returning home in a taxi that charged us 30 pounds ($60 U.S.) for a ride back to the city.

I returned to Sub Station the following night and it was a totally different place. On Sunday nights, the place becomes virtually all black and gay and the name of the space is Caribana (which has also been written about by other Americans). The music on Sunday was a mix of reggae, dancehall and soca with a few familiar hip hop beats thrown in for good measure. But the crowd was very young. Most of the black men there seemed to be 18 to 25, and they dressed, danced and carried on just like the 18-25 year-olds here in New York. In fact, but for their accents, many of the young people in the club looked as though they would be quite comfortable on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village.

Black and Gay in London

If Saturday introduced me to gay London, Sunday helped me to understand black gay London. Sunday afternoon I met with several dozen black gay men and lesbians who came out to a discussion at another local bar. Topher moderated the discussion. He and I sat on a small stage in the front of the bar and talked about black gay life and took questions from the audience. We covered a lot of territory and talked about everything from Noah's Arc to Dirty Laundry to President Bush.

I got the impression that many of the people in the community were looking to black gay Americans for inspiration, but at the same time they were hoping that we in the U.S. would be more aware of the lives and struggles of people outside our own country. Once again it was clear to me that black Britons knew a lot more about black Americans than we know about them. And Black gay Britons also seem to know a lot more about black gay Americans than we know about our British counterparts.

After Sunday's discussion, a group of us walked around the corner to a nearby restaurant called Balan's. I recognized the restaurant as soon as I walked in. It was the first place Nathan and I had gone to eat when we visited London a few years ago. I met several interesting people that night for dinner. First there was Valerie Mason-John, also known as "Queenie," who pulled up to the restaurant on a colorful bicycle. She is one of the most visible and active black lesbians in London. Then there was Christopher, a writer and poet who is helping to bring out black gay culture in England. And finally there was Dennis Carney, a black gay activist who had led the challenge against homophobic lyrics in music.

Given the visibility of Britain's Peter Tatchell, a well-known white gay activist known for his criticism of homophobic dancehall music, it was refreshing to know there were visible black gay Britons who had been leading the charge as well.

It was an inspiring experience and a wonderful weekend. Except for quick peeps outside the taxicabs, I didn't see a single major tourist site during my trip. We passed by the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park and the London Bridge without much notice. Instead it was the people of London who moved me. The black lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people of London.

Other Information About Black Gay London

• List of Prominent Black LGBT Britons
  
• Black Gay British Leaders (Rod 2.0)
  
• Black LGBT ad campaign
  
• Black Britain urged to accept gay men
  
• Gay Black Men At Risk To HIV
  
• Profile of Topher Campbell
  
• Profile of Ajamu
  
• Profile of Simon Nelson
  
• Profile of Valerie Mason-John
  

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