Reflection

The following essay was published by People for the American Way in a book called "Hostile Climate 2000: Report on Anti-Gay Activity."

In the spring of 1980, my uncle, a black gay man, was shot down and murdered in the bedroom of his home in St. Louis, Missouri. The murderer was never apprehended. I learned from the experience that some lives are more dispensable than others.

A few years later, a woman at a Dartmouth College fraternity party asked me if I was gay. I denied it, but her question sent me into weeks of self-reflection and doubt about my sexual orientation. What was I "doing wrong," I wondered, to have sent that message.

After graduating in 1987, I worked nearly two years for the presidential campaign of Governor Michael Dukakis, who virtually never addressed gay issues and had a mixed record on the topic.

Finally in law school in 1991, I came out of the closet. I told my family, one by one, but was told not to tell my grandmother. Eventually she found out, and she made it known to my boyfriend at my law school graduation ceremony that she did not approve of my "lifestyle." She even asked him to provide his mother's telephone number so she could contact her. My grandmother and I argued and left the issue unresolved.

By 1992, gay issues were central to the presidential campaign, with all the Democratic candidates taking a pledge to lift the ban on gays in the military. Only a year and a half after I came out, I was working in the early days of the Clinton White House when I overheard a senior staff member joke about the issue of "fags in the foxhole." That was enough to prod me even farther out of the closet. Later, Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders was fired because she had the temerity to discuss masturbation as a sexual abstinence tool to reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS. The message again -- some lives are apparently more dispensable than others.

Much to the dismay of my family, I left the White House in 1995 to write my first book, a nonfiction piece about being black and gay in America. Before I finished writing, I found myself on the front lines of another debate as I led an openly gay contingent of 200 African American men in the Million Man March. "We're black! We're gay! We wouldn't have it any other way," we chanted, as we marched through the streets of Washington. As our group connected with the larger assembly on the Washington Mall, we kept marching and chanting into the throng of hundreds of thousands of men until the crowd separated to make room for us. A member of our contingent observed that it was almost like watching the parting of the seas.

A few days later I was in South Central Los Angeles looking for a barbershop. I decided on a place on La Brea Avenue although some friends had warned me the barbers were homophobic. The barber who cut my hair asked where I lived and I told him I lived in Washington but worked in Los Angeles. "Really," he said. "Where do you work?" I told him. "The National Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum." He put down his clippers and I could almost feel the wheels processing in his brain. "The National Black what?" I told him once more. Nothing happened.

When my book was published the following year, I went on a nationwide book tour to 20 cities, including my hometown, St. Louis, where my grandmother lives. My grandmother and several people from her church showed up. I asked one of them afterwards why he attended and how he heard about it. He told me that my grandmother, unbeknownst to me, printed invitations to the book signing and gave one to him. In fact, she gave them to all her friends at church and even asked that the church announcer read the invitation during the announcements.

I learned from that incident, and from the barbershop and Million Man March episodes, that when we have the courage to be open and honest about who we are, many people will not only accept us, they will respect us more. Nevertheless, many of my brothers and sisters are suffering each week in the closets of homophobic workplaces and places of worship.

Unfortunately, self-empowerment is important but it's not a panacea. I've seen that many times in this area recently. Tyra Hunter, a black transgendered person, died after a Washington, D.C. emergency technician stopped treating her at the scene of an accident once he discovered her male genitalia. Lynn Vines, a black gay man in Baltimore, was shot six times by a group of people who yelled anti-gay slurs. Being out and proud was not enough to protect them. All of us share the responsibility to prevent these crimes from happening.

No one's life is dispensable.

© 2001 by Keith Boykin. All Rights Reserved.