(c) Breeze Vincinz
The situation has happened a few times now. I visit a city specifically to participate in their Gay Pride celebrations taking place (Black and otherwise) and when I contact the people I know who reside in said city they respond in the most sarcastic tone, “Why would you come here during gay pride? I’m avoiding it like the plague!” Keep in mind that said friends are most definitely gay. This happened three times in three different cities with five different friends last year alone. Not even a month into the new year while making plans to go to a Gay Pride celebration later this year and I am already hearing grumbles from an inhabitant of, “Oh God, I’m not going anywhere near the pride celebrations. Why would you even come here during that time?”
It’s definitely something that affected my trip to Atlanta last year where I had unfortunately gravitated towards a brood of people who deemed the whole concept of the Pride celebration to be passé, uneventful and tiresome. At one point I wanted to go to the park where a lot of the participants would be gathering to commonwealth and enjoy the day and I wound up being convinced by said brood that, “nobody’s at the park but young queens twirling around and sashaying about.” The brood, as it were, were closer to my age range and their arguments that these pride celebrations are more for the younger set regrettably spoke to my more spinster-like sensibilities and I wound up instead spending a lot of time at the Olive Garden, going to the gym, buying a Honey and Oatmeal scrub mask from the Body Shop and other activities just as mundane and antithetical to having a kick ass vacation á la the movie “The Hangover”.
It wasn’t until I got back home when I realized that I had been bamboozled, that I had let my own insecurities and fears take over and I had spent an extended amount of time being the disgruntled old man that I figured my everyday waking life had predetermined for me. I wanted a vacation from that too. I wanted to kick up my heels, meet some new people, drink a couple of beers and observe the young queens twirling around and sashaying through the park. Which is why I did get a bit perturbed recently when talking to an Atlanta native about returning this year with a strengthened resolve to fully partake of the festivities only to be met with the same dour diatribe of, “Oh! Why would you even bother?” And this time by somebody under 30.
It got me to thinking about the cynical state of modern Black gay-dom. Geographical and age differences aside, there is a certain burning thread of bitterness that seems to be cutting through the souls of my Black Gay brethren nowadays and I can’t seem to find where that spool begins, where it will eventually knot and end… or even how to cut the goddamn thing. I start with myself and my own bitterness, jealousy and discontentment. I imagine what I would say if someone from out of town were to come to Los Angeles specifically to partake in our Black Gay Pride celebration and what my response would truly be. I would more than likely accompany them in discovering what the city and the organizations dealing with the festivities had to offer but I know there would be this blasé undertone of, “Seriously… this is all bullshit.”
I think as the years go by and society continues to mold itself to whatever Zeitgeist deemed appropriate by the powers that be, every faction that falls short of that paradigm creates a succinct disgruntlement that embodies their hopes, dreams and fears. The struggle for equality for different groups, while having obvious similarities also has distinct qualities intrinsic to said group. The Feminist movement had a specific agenda, as did the Civil Right movement, as did the Poor People’s Campaign… as does the Gay Rights Movement. And the same way each movement had its own plan of attack and rallying cry, the battles that were lost created their own cynicism and modes of bitching and complaining. In modern times, the African American community is commonly clumped with Republican Conservatives as the duly appointed antagonists against LGBT equality, leaving the African American LGBT community who witness White Liberals covered in the American flag rolling on the ground demanding equal rights via Gay Marriage with the distinct rallying cry of, “Fuck you Shirley! Quit blaming me for your goddamn poor planning and maybe I’ll help your sorry ass!”
And is the nature of cynicism, it’s contagious and self replicating and get’s in the way of anything positive that could happen. Thus, instead of celebrating and supporting each other during Black Pride Celebrations, we get the glowering, “Oh God, I’m not going anywhere near the pride celebrations. Why would you even come here during that time?” It’s like with any family whereas you have all this built up frustration about things that happen outside the house and when you get home you unleash on the people closest to you because they just happen to around at the time.
I could give an extended grocery list about the state of disarray that previous Black Pride celebrations have been here in Los Angeles but the truth of the matter is that despite all my bitching and complaining… they provided a much needed confirmation that, whether I like it or not, assholes and angels included, these people, all of these people, are my family. And there is a certain humility in realizing your own place in that family. I do believe that the person who avoids Black Gay Prides like the plague is doing so because, unconsciously… they don’t want to deal with the virus that they are themselves. That they too have been bamboozled into believing that they are not who Black Gay Pride was meant for, that they are either a level above or a level below queens twirling around and sashaying about. Well… I have a cousin who shot up his house and almost his wife because he dumbfoundedly hid his guns in the oven without telling her before she started making dinner. I have a brother who insists on wearing his socks up to his knees when we go to the gym together. My dad is a Republican. I sometimes squeeze my chest together to make it resemble a pair of ample breasts. And you know what, I’m not a level above or below those guys. I love then all I’ll go home to watch them “sashaying” around any day of the week.
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