Gays Are Black, Too

In the black community, homosexuality is a very controversial subject. So much so that the thought of having a relaxed and meaningful conversation with a gay person is as unthinkable as shaking hands with the grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan.

Writes Shelby Sankore: in Players magazine: "Homosexuality of any kind seems to find less acceptance among Afro-Americans than other groups in this country." This negative attitude is largely based on a host of myths and stereotypes that have been perpetuated for decades.

Because of this attitude, the gay black youths I spoke with have not revealed their gayness to their families. (I've been told of cases where kids have been thrown out of the house after announcing to their parents their feelings for members of their own sex.)

A 20-year-old male college student told me, "I've never mentioned it to my mother because I have an uncle who's gay and my mother doesn't like him at all. She's turned off by it. But I don't fear being thrown out. She's very attached to me. That's why I know she would never throw me out. She would worry too much. But she would make my life miserable if I were to tell her."

This article is intended to encourage, in the words of Dr. June Dobbs Butts, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Howard University College of Medicine, the emergence in the black community of "men and women who respect one another for the ways in which we are alike as well as the ways in which we are different. Only then will we understand that our sexual similarities outweigh our sexual differences." (The emphasis is hers) For the record, Dr. Butts identifies herself as heterosexual.

Above all else, gays are part of the human family. Whether we agree with their lifestyle is unimportant. We should concern ourselves with the content of the person's character, not what he or she does in the bedroom--and with whom.

To paraphrase a National Gay Task Force pamphlet, if the person is loving and responsible today, he'll be that way tomorrow. His gayness changes nothing, except perhaps our attitude toward him.

I'm not saying I have no misgivings about some aspects of the gay lifestyle. I do. But so do the young gays I spoke with. For example, they disapprove of those gays who are into sado-machischism. They disapprove of man/boy relationships. One of them is totally opposed to cruising and prefers "a monogamous relationship. One to one."

The point is, we should be willing to allow people the freedom to choose how they will live their lives--without fear of slurs, violence, and discrimination. So long as they are forcing their lifestyle on others, why should we care?

It should be acknowledged that none of us can say for certain whether we would ever engage in a homosexual affair, just as none of us could say for certain whether we would resort to cannibalism if we found ourselves stranded in some frozen wasteland with no other  food source.

Says Truman Capote, "People are whatever they are under different circumstances, under whatever particular pressures there are."

Dr. Dorothy Harris of Penn State echoes Capote's sentiments: "Circumstances and basic human need have a lot to do with your behavior at a particular time."

It is estimated that gays represent anywhere from 10 to 13 percent of the population. No one can be sure since there are gay people who have escaped detection by  masquerading as straight people. But what if we discovered that a close friend was gay. In what ways would this alter the friendship? Would it make Jenny or Joe any less the person we've come to know and trust? Think about it.

And while you're thinking, consider this thought from Dr. Butts: "...Our minds cannot function when we are gripped by fear." Once we overcome this fear and see others as people first--be they homosexual , heterosexual, bisexual, or celibate--it will go a long way toward breaking down barriers to communication.

This article was originally published in the Oregon Journal in Portland (August 15, 1981).

Note: It was syndicated nationally by the Los Angeles Times to replace Andrew Young's column. Young had to give up his column when he ran for mayor of Atlanta. The L.A. Times editor was initially reluctant (homophobic?) to send this column out because Andrew Young never wrote about homosexuality in the black community in any of his columns.

A Young Brooklyn Choreographer Has His Say

"I'm dancing," says Brendan Upson, a Brooklyn-based dancer/choreographer, "because I have something to say."

Recently [in 1987], in the "New Territory" performance series at BACA/Downtown in Brooklyn, he got the opportunity to have his "say." Two of the three pieces that night had definite social messages.

The first of the dances, "Stay Here and Keep Watch With Me," a male solo (Upson), is about a man's spiritual awakening. At one point, as he sits down in a metal folding chair, he mocks religion by lip syncing the soprano chanter on the soundtrack. But after life's adversities have beaten him down, he sees that the last laugh is on him. It is a very compelling piece, energetically performed.

The second work, an improvisation called "Energy Spot," showcased a group of teens from the El Puente Community Center in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. The press release describes "Energy Spot" as depicting "how an individual is blocked from attaining her true potential because of the fears which bind her." However, I came away with the impression that these 11 bodies represented atoms interacting with one another. The El Puente dancers have great potential, although I would like to see the females shed a few pounds; the added weight breaks the flow of movement. I didn't particularly like this work. The dancers crisscrossed the performance space numerous times, making no clear statement. It became so tedious that I was glad when it ended.

Upson was wise to save the best for last. "Delirium Tremens," a satirical piece for four people, good-naturedly explores alcoholism. Upson, displaying a comedic talent, was cast as the alcoholic husband and father. As the lights went up, his head was resting on a portable TV dinner tray, shot glass nearby. His family vainly attempted to rouse him from a drunken stupor. Eventually his dependence on alcohol causes him to wind up in a detox unit. While there he encounters the dreaded "pink elephants," a sign that he is having the D.T.s [convulsions and hallucinations]. The other three dancers, who played his family members, were also the pink elephants, dressed humorously in pink and gray costumes, sunglasses, and elephant trunks. Leslie Arlette Boyce gave a standout performance as Upson's no-nonsense wife.

The piece is appropriately accompanied by New Orleans honky-tonk style music. Although the piece at times can be stereotypical in its portrayal of alcoholic behavior, Upson should be commended for dealing with such a serious subject, the comic touches notwithstanding. Fortunately, Upson knows how far to go. Those comic touches do not turn into slapstick. I was not, sad to say, clear on whether the Upson character licked his problem.


This article was originally published in the New York Amsterdam News (February 20, 1988).

From Haiti To New York: An Interview With Assotto Saint

At the age of 26, Yves Francois Lubin, known in the theatre as Assotto Saint, is a man blessed with many artistic gifts. He writes plays or what he prefers to call "theatre pieces," sculpts, paints, dances, and sings.

It's his belief that "art can transform people," that "art has to be political...that the artist has to be an activist, politician, preacher."

He has written, thus far, three plays. One of them, Risin' to the Love We Need was reviewed by the Amsterdam News critic Lionel Mitchell. "This is a play," wrote Mitchell, "about black gay men and aside from its obvious roughness, it pulls no punches." Another critic, Robert Chesley of the New York Native, had this to say: Lubin "uses language that is frequently very beautiful, and there are some very moving moments in the play."

Lubin came to this country in 1970 with his mother from his native Haiti. He is the product of a well-educated, upper middle class family. While his mother was living in Europe, Lubin was being raised by his grandparents and aunts. "From a very early age,"he says, "I liked boys. I was surrounded by macho men all over and nobody tried to change me.I don't know why. I have so many cousins. About 25, 26 cousins, and we used to play together. I used to always be the bride. I always wanted it. I give my family credit that they let me become who I was. [His family may have been tolerant of his effeminacy, but neighborhood kids were not. They would often call him "massici," the Creole word for "sissy." Even today, Lubin admits to having "effeminate ways."]

Lubin is light-skinned, has a small, well-trimmed mustache, and wears his hair moderately short. Despite his 13 years in America, he still speaks with a heavy Haitian accent.

Charles Michael Smith: You call your plays theatre pieces. What is the difference?
Yves Francois Lubin: They don't necessarily have a beginning, middle or ending. They don't have to have a structure. They're broader.

CMS: Do all of your plays--or theatre pieces--deal with being gay?
YFL: Especially with being black and gay in America in 1983. Certain people  in my family felt I was limiting my talent to work only with gay art.

CMS: Do you write for a specific audience?
YFL: I write for everybody. I deal with black gay issues because my art right now is an answer back. It's a reaction. The world is still fucked up and why not have it coming from a different perspective and see it from there?

CMS: What do you draw on for your characters?
YFL: From my fantasies, from people I've known. Mostly all my characters are composites of friends. My "Miss Thing" [an excerpt from Risin', published in Blackheart 1: Yemonja] was definitely based on a real person, Marcia Johnson, a [black] transvestite who used to be very active in the gay movement.

CMS: What writers influenced you?
YFL: James Baldwin used to be a big influence in my life. Pablo Neruda nurtured me, really nurtured me. Anne Sexton also. I'm one of those confessional [writers], letting it all out there, bleeding, very melodramatic. I wish I could restrain myself. I'm one of those people who are sometimes too open for their own good. Sometimes you have to leave a little bit for the imagination, a little bit for suspense.
One of the things I realize, especially from gay writers, is that we have to stop dealing with cock and cocksucking and deal with other issues that may not be fashionable for gay writers to deal with, like the nuclear issue. People feel that when a black leader like Jesse Jackson speaks, he has to deal only with civil rights. Bullshit. You're a human being, you're living in 1983, in the United States. You're paying taxes. You should involve yourself in all kinds of issues.

CMS: I am told that Haiti is a playground for American gay men. How much difference is there between Haitian gay life and American gay life?
YFL: It's night and day. Most Haitians you see who are gay in Haiti are prostitutes, though there is a Haitian gay life. There are celebrated artists who are gay. But gays have no power in Haiti--although I've been told that there are a few highly positioned gays in this present [Baby Doc's] government. I don't know. Whenever I go to Haiti, I go there to relax and to just lay down from all that's happening in New York.
If you're an American going to Haiti, you will not have problems. But if you're gay [and Haitian] in Haiti, you will have problems. American money is being sold in Haiti. Being an American is being a god; it means money. You can do whatever you want, whether you're gay or not. But if you're gay and Haitian, that's different: there's homophobia you have to deal with. You're a pariah in that society.




This article is an excerpt from an interview that was published in the New York Native in 1984. The interview took place in his apartment in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

Surviving The Trauma Of Foster Care

About Courage by Mickey C. Fleming (Holloway House, Paper)

In his autobiography, About Courage, Mickey C. Fleming, a black gay man from Washington, D.C., relates the story of the evening he sat in a friend's home and revealed, over a glass of Riunite wine, his childhood experiences while in foster care. His friend exclaimed: "You have a great story to tell. You should write a book!" Fleming, at first rebuffed the idea with the remark: "I'm not a celebrity."

It's true , 99 percent of the autobiographies and biographies published each year are by or about the famous. To be quite honest, if this book had not been sent to me for review, I probably would have given it scant, if any, attention. Not because it dealt with foster care--an important and timely subject--but because its author, an unknown, was dropped in our midst without any introduction. After all, it's asking a lot to expect people to plunk down $2.95, plus tax, to read the life story, or confessions, of someone you never heard of.

In fact, while reading About Courage, I kept wishing that Fleming, who spent virtually all of his childhood in foster care, had introduced himself in the pages of a magazine, say Essence magazine's annual men's issue, rather than in a 224-page book. Despite all of the ups and downs in his 33 years, there still isn't enough compelling material here to warrant a lengthy retelling. A 2,000-word magazine piece would have been more fitting. His life as an absurd, self-hating, confused, and rebellious gay adolescent isn't really all that remarkable. Aside from giving current foster kids the feeling that they too can rise above their situation as well as providing them with a resilient role model (he goes on to college, later landing a job as an electrical draftsman), About Courage otherwise doesn't offer any profound insights into the foster care system or the foster child.  As a reader, it stirred no outrage in me. In fact, it would have been better if he had written about the Washington, D.C.-based orphanage, Junior Village, where he had spent some time as a child. (It was closed in 1973, after 26 years in existence, writes Fleming, "because of an alleged history of abuse of the very children it was designed to help.") All we're offered really is a succession of horror stories: his sexual victimization by the older boys at the orphanage, the on-the-job harassment of him by male co-workers because of his sexuality, his reunion with his mentally ill mother (strangely this episode is twice recounted--in Chapters 1 and 17, in almost identical words), his eviction from an apartment he shared with a resentful, irresponsible heterosexual couple who misuse the rent money he's given them.

Despite a few flaws in the book, it is clear that Mickey Fleming has writing talent. It will be interesting to see what his next book, if there is to be one, will be about. I hope it won't be a sequel. I also hope he'll use his own photo for the dust jacket and not a model's. If, in the words of one of the characters in the book, he and pop singer Prince "could pass for brothers," why the subterfuge?

This article was originally published in the Chicago-based gay and lesbian publication, Outlines (February 1990).

Beautiful African Men

Anyone who doubts the beauty of the African male should check out the YouTube video  Beautiful African Men which is a series of still photos of men from various African countries (Ghana, Congo, Nigeria, etc.). The photo gallery is set to an uptempo soundtrack. The only celebrities whose names I recognize are actors Boris Kodjoe and Idris Elba. But, famous or not, all the men are worthy of a look. Black is indeed beautiful.

Jan Ernst Matzeliger, African-American Inventor (1852-1889)

You may not know it but every time you put on a pair of shoes, you owe a debt of gratitude to the genius of Jan Ernst Matzeliger, a young black immigrant from Dutch Guiana (located on the  northeast coast of South America and now known as Surinam). Because of his efforts, the American shoe industry was revolutionized by his invention of the shoe-lasting machine.

In the 19th century, shoe lasting--attaching the upper leather of the shoe to the sole--was done by hand. The work was so slow that the hand lasters could not keep up with the pace of the machines producing other shoe parts and consequently the work would pile up. This limited the number of shoes made and caused shoe prices to soar. No one thought a machine would ever be built that could duplicate the finger work of skilled hand lasters and thus speed up production. Several models were tried and they all failed.

Then along came Matzeliger. When he arrived in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1876 (the largest shoe manufacturing center in the United States in a state responsible for more than half of the country's shoes), his mechanical skills and his previous employment as a cobbler's apprentice proved useful when he landed a job in a shoe factory. While there he learned to operate most of the machines involved in the shoemaking process. (He also attended night classes where he studied English and  became an excellent student.)

His decision to build a shoe-lasting machine made him a laughingstock. But this did not deter him. After spending as much time as he could watching the finger work of the hand lasters and studying physics and mechanics from books and experimentation,  he fashioned a model from wood, old cigar boxes, and other scrap materials. He then began building the real thing out of parts from discarded machines. He completed a second and more durable version and received a patent on it in March of 1883. In the spring of 1885, the machine underwent a successful factory test run. Because certain parts for this version had to be made to order, Matzeliger
sought the financial backing of two local businessmen who received two-thirds ownership of the machine. When additional capital was needed to begin large-scale production of the machine, two more financiers answered the call.

Matzeliger's machine became quite a success because of its capacity to turn out as many as 700 pairs of shoes a day. (The hand lasters could only do 50 pairs a day.) This improvement in productivity cut the price of shoes in half. By 1889 there was a worldwide demand for the shoe-lasting machine which eventually became known in the shoe industry as the "Niggerhead Laster," because of its inventor. (In 1888 he received a patent on a third model.)

One of Matzeliger's backers made a fortune from the machine by forming a shoe machinery company that bought up other such companies and became, as a result of this merging, a multi-million-dollar monopoly. Unfortunately for Matzeliger, it was not possible for him to share in this wealth beyond owning some stock certificates in the shoe machinery companies.

In 1886 Matzeliger caught a cold at a rained out church picnic. His weakened condition, due to lack of food and warmth (he had very little money) and ceaseless labor during the time he was designing and building the machine, caused him to contract tuberculosis, a common ailment among shoe factory workers at that time. He remained bedridden for the next three years. This prevented him from completing work on a fourth version of the shoe-lasting machine. In 1889, only three weeks short of his 37th birthday, he succumbed to his illness and was buried in the Pine Grove Cemetery in Lynn.

A very important tribute to his invention and to his genius came in the form of a gold medal. It was awarded posthumously at the Pan American Exposition, held in Philadelphia in 1901, where the most advanced machinery of the day was put on display.

This article was originally published on the front page of the Harlem Weekly newspaper in 1983.

Rambling In The Ramble

Voice of the People
New York Daily News
450 West 33rd Street
New York, NY 10001
July 20, 1994

Dear Editor:

In Jose Lambiet's article about Central Park after dark, he referred to gay men walking past each other in search of "a date." Anyone who has ever been in the Ramble [a heavily wooded part of the park] knows that the men who frequent this area have no desire for a date. It's all about sex.

Sincerely yours,
Charles Michael Smith

Note: This unpublished letter was written on a scrap of paper but was never sent to the Daily News.