My Personal Black History in the Land of the Free Part IV

I believe I specifically chose to come into this body, into this world, onto this planet before I was even conceived. I believe I chose my parents, the country I would be born in and many of the other elements that have been a part of what can collectively be referred to as "my life." I believe I had a primary wounding I came to heal. I believe that wounding is the energy around the perceptual duality of worthiness/worthlessness.

I chose to do this all, this healing, through one specific form in the universe. We call this form the earth born Human Being. I believe I had a loosely built script, as it were, I came here with, that I selected before being born. I believe this script selection also took place before conception. I chose this script because I believed it would be a good script for me to follow in order to highly ensure the highest relative probability that I would in fact heal, at least to some extent, the energy around the worthiness/worthlessness duality that is a part of my primary inner purpose for being alive.

My purpose here on planet earth, like everyone else, is to awaken. I choose to awaken through addressing the worthiness/worthlessness perceptual duality in human form on planet earth. I must have understood that bringing any amount of healing to the worthiness/worthlessness perceived paradigm would bring an appreciable amount of healing not only to the Human form I had chosen but also to the world as well. Addressing the worthiness/worthlessness perceptual duality is not the only tool I have chosen to use to awaken in this lifetime.

I believe I made some excellent choices, given what my assignment was. I chose to be a black person, specifically a black male in America, being born at a time when this is a choice that almost always brings a high degree of specific pain and potential suffering with it. It almost always inevitably brings with it a deep questioning of worthiness at this time.

I chose to be a same gender loving person in America, being born at a time when this is a choice that almost always brings a high degree of specific pain and potential suffering with it. It almost always inevitably brings with it a deep questioning of worthiness at this time.

I chose to be born into a biological family that highly honored the Sacred Feminine and did not highly honor The Sacred Masculine.

I chose to be born in a southern state in The United States of America.

The script did not contain just challenging aspects. I chose some exceedingly beneficial attributes as well. I chose to come into a biological family where I would have a loving, dedicated mentor in the form of a maternal grandfather who would guide me lovingly and tenaciously through many of the formative life challenges I would face. I chose to have above average intelligence. I chose to have superior deductive reasoning skills. I chose to have superior intuitive skills particularly with regard to accurately perceiving the particular types of "false self" masks that many around me would wear. I chose to have a naturally big heart and a naturally open mind, etc.

I do not believe in fate. I do not believe in pre-destination.

I do believe in choice. I do believe in a life script that gives one the basic outline for potentially healing something fundamental while in the form of a Human Being. The rest is grace. The rest is chance. The rest is free will. The rest is being present to the present moment and whatever that moment may mean or bring--or not being present to any of that. The rest is mystery.

It has been very helpful to me to spend the time and exert the effort to gain some conscious awareness of some of the fundamental reasons I am here and what I am here to accomplish in this life

I am a black man. I am a same gender loving man. I have been terribly, terribly wounded in this lifetime by those experiences. I have severely doubted my self worth as a direct result of these "things about me." And I have been given tremendous opportunities to discover my self worth through those exact same experiences that are the experiences of those terrible, terrible woundings. Many of the people I have interacted with in this life, I believe, have been there specifically to disrespect, de-value, de-humanize and discount me so that I could consciously choose to either believe the lies they presented to me or be encouraged to eventually Bless them and move on to discover who I Truly am. And Still I Rise. Hallelujah!

I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.

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My Personal Black History in the Land of the Free. Part III

I don't believe I have ever asked a woman to tell me the most sexist thing someone has ever said to her. I've never asked any of my many Jewish friends what the most anti-Semitic comment they've ever received was. I also don't believe I have ever asked any of the gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people I have known over the years what slur, insult, demeaning statement or epithet that has been hurled at them rose to the dubious honor of "the worst."

Identifying such a thing may not be something most of us will find any redeeming quality in. Still, several months ago, while working on the book I am writing, which has a strong autobiographical aspect to it, I found myself musing over that very type question, namely, "What is the most racist thing anyone has ever said to me?" Fortunately (or unfortunately, I truly don't know which) I was able to identify that monumental event in less than 30 seconds.

Earlier, in another essay, several months ago, I wrote about the five times I have angrily been called a "nigger" to my face, by someone unknown to me, since I've been an adult. I believed then and still believe that is a story that needs to be written about. I'll also begin to tell that story once I resume giving public talks soon. One reason is that I believe it has several unexpected and therefore, very educational, aspects to it.

First, all five of these incidents were completely unprovoked. In other words, they did not occur as part of a series of one on one or group heated and charged debates on race in a number of drunken dorm rooms in my college years---events that are so familiar to those who have ever attended college and lived in the dorms.

No, when I say these five events were all unprovoked I mean just that. They were all completely unprovoked. In one case I was simply walking across a street, minding my own business and a bike messenger quickly passed by me and called me a nigger. More specifically I was crossing a street with the "walk" sign still glowing in its familiar white visage and in my favor when an unfamiliar bike messenger whizzed by going against the light. He yelled something like, "get out of the fucking way you fucking nigger." I had to stop for a moment to survey the environment to see if there was anyone else he could have possibly been speaking to. There wasn't. Now, that young man, in his deranged mind, may have believed I provoked him to yell that at me. Fortunately I know better.

The second interesting thing about these five times I've been called a nigger to my face as an adult is that every single one of them, yes, including the one incident I just elaborated on above--- occurred in the same city. That city? San Francisco, California. What makes that even more interesting is that since being an adult I have lived in Chicago, Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida and Arizona-- places I would venture to say almost anyone in America would believe I would be more likely to be called such a name in before the iconoclastically progressive city of San Francisco. But, whoops, there it is.

And finally, four of the five people in my adult life who chose to add to my adult life experience in such a way were white, openly gay men. I don't know the sexual identity of that bike messenger. The other four instances where I have angrily been called a nigger to my face and in an unprovoked way in San Francisco, California all took place in venues and situations where it was obvious or known that the perpetrators were fine, upstanding, white gay men.

But wait, we haven't even gotten to the punch line yet. None of those events, disturbing as they were, can claim the title of being the most racist thing that has ever been said to me. For that we do indeed need to go way back to my college seminary days. But not to drunken dorm rooms hosting vitriolic, philosophical race debates. Instead we have to look to a group of priests at that institution.

In the junior year in the seminary college, every student had to decide at the end of the year if he wanted to go on to formal study, as a priest or brother candidate, for the religious order that ran the seminary. If one chose to do this, his entire senior year would be a pre-novitiate year. What this means is that one's senior year would be spent preparing to go to novitiate directly following graduation from the college seminary. Novitiate is a stage in the training of young men and women whose ultimate goal is to become a Catholic priest, brother or nun. At that point in my life I was certain I wanted to become a priest in this order, so I entered the pre-novitiate year with zeal and excitement.

The pre-novitiate year consisted of an entire years worth of evaluations to determine if the young man was truly ready for such an important step--novitiate. There was mandatory psychological testing and therapy. There was mandatory spiritual direction focused on preparation for taking vows. There was mandatory evaluation from all the other young men who had decided to go on to novitiate. And there were evaluations from a large cross section of priests and brothers from the religious order itself. At the end of the year the candidate would be given a typed dossier that contained a years worth of summaries of all of that evaluation and process and there would also be a final recommendation stating whether or not the candidate had been approved to continue forward to further study as a novice which itself was a preparation for becoming a vowed person attached to the specific religious order and to formal religious life as a whole. It was all very much like what I imagine an application to a top tier medical school would be like. It was very rigorous. It was all very serious. It was very intense.

With much anticipation, the day arrived when I got my dossier. I remember it as if it were yesterday. The dossier arrived is a large sealed envelope and inside that was a blue manila folder. Inside the blue manila folder were the summaries of all the various tests and evaluations that I had undergone for an entire year. I imagine I was not the only one to go straight to the end to see what the final recommendation was. This truly was akin to being accepted to Harvard Medical School or not. And so I flipped nervously to the very end of the voluminous documents to read the final recommendation. What I read there is the most racist thing that has ever been directed at me in my entire life, either before or since.

The recommendation was made by a group of three priests at the seminary--all white--who were on a panel that collated all the information and came up with a final recommendation based, presumably, on what they believed was a thorough analysis of all the information that had been collected throughout the year. Given this, I don't know precisely who came up with the final recommendation. I do know it was not my spiritual director. I do know it was not my therapist, who was also a priest of the order. I do know it was not my peers. It was likely two of the three priests on that final panel.

The recommendation from the three member, all white panel of priests was that I was indeed suited to go on to study for the priesthood but that I needed to take a year off to go work at a predominantly black church somewhere in order to get more in touch with my "blackness."

I just literally laughed out loud just now when I wrote that above paragraph. I'm still laughing. I can assure you, the time I first read it however, there was absolutely no laughing happening whatsoever. At that time I was stunned, just stunned. I truly have no other words to describe how I felt at the time. Devastated may...may come close...

Many years ago when I was a young child, I would place a white t-shirt on my head and prance around the house pretending to be a white girl with long blond hair. None of the priests at the seminary were ever told about this. Besides, I'm pretty sure that particular childhood burlesque had far more to do with wanting to be a girl than wanting to be white. So it was a complete mystery to me exactly what information they used to come to the conclusion that I was not comfortable enough with my own blackness to go on to novitiate. I still don't know. Additionally, just how does a 50-something year old white priest who has largely been separated from the world at large, all his adult life, come to know or realize such a thing about another person? I truly and I do mean truly shudder to imagine what they were thinking. I really don't want to know either. I never found out from anyone directly involved in the whole mess and that is completely fine with me.

Some time after reading that recommendation, I pulled myself together enough to complain to the main superior of the order in America--a benevolent man who was also the superior to all the priests who had signed off on that unbelievable recommendation. He also just happened to be a black man/priest. That recommendation was then very quietly and swiftly revoked and I went on to novitiate with all my classmates minus the need to become more "black" first. The damage however, had already been done. I am impressed however, to see that I can get such a hearty and genuine laugh out it all now, all these many years later. But is the laughter masking something far more disturbing and unresolved?

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My Personal Black History in the Land of the Free. Part II

I grew up in Lexington, Kentucky. I lived in the same house from just after my birth until I left home at age 18 to enter the seminary to study for the Roman Catholic priesthood. The house was in a predominantly black, middle class neighborhood. I believe it was one of the first predominantly black middle class neighborhoods in the city. It was built in the 1950's when blacks, as a group, in Lexington, first really dared I believe, to indulge the thought that they could achieve something approaching equality with whites.

When I grew up the neighborhood was a very nice one. Kids from other, nearby, less middle class neighborhoods would tease those of us who lived in "The Village" (the nickname for our neighborhood which was formally named Saint Martin's Village, named after the Roman Catholic Saint--Saint Martin dePorres--a citizen of Lima, Peru who was the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman and a black former slave.) I lived on the main street of the subdivision; dePorres Avenue. The kids who teased us called us "the rich kids." (O Lord if that only had ever even had a whiff of truth to it I would have been ever so grateful.) Today, it is one of those neighborhoods where pizza and Chinese delivery places refuse to deliver to for fear, I am imagining, that the delivery person might be robbed. My mother still lives in the neighborhood albeit in a different house and on a different street from the ones I grew up in and on.

When I was in high school, two separate events occurred separated by perhaps a year-- though I believe it was less-- that directly involved four black men from the neighborhood--two sets of fathers and sons. Both events had a lasting impact on me. It was years however, before I realized just how tremendous that impact would be.

In the first event a young man who lived in the neighborhood who was a year ahead of me in school got into a violent confrontation with his biological father one evening. Somehow a gun was pulled and the son was shot. He died at the scene. Even today I can remember the shock people at our high school and in the neighborhood were in. It was very surreal. In those days, our neighborhood was exceedingly quiet and safe. Donnie had also been a varsity football player. The father never served any time in jail. The death was ultimately ruled an accidental homicide. My family knew Donnie's father quite well. Over the years my family would report back to me on how this man was doing after the death of his son. Their reports were that he was never ever the same person after this event; that he was less than a shadow of the man he once was. In essence, two black men had died that night.

The second event involved another young man from the neighborhood who was also a year ahead of me in school, except I knew Kevin much better than I had known Donnie. Kevin had been a friend when we were growing up--until it became uncool for him to be hanging out with someone who was a high school freshmen to his sophomore reality. And again, his family and my family were close. In this event Kevin had been driving home one night and had been stopped by a white police officer for some reason that was either never made entirely clear at the time or that has escaped my memory after all these years. What ensued however is something I clearly remember. There was some sort of strange confrontation between Kevin and the police officer that had resulted in Kevin receiving multiple bruises and a few minor injuries. The police officer sustained no bruises and no injuries. Kevin had been "roughed up" by the police officer for apparently no reason. Reports in the community very quickly had it that this had been a case of Kevin simply "driving while black" way before that phrase became part of the cultural landscape here in America. It is my first memory of being aware of a potential hate crime perpetrated on a contemporary and peer of mine. It would not be the last. This story also had a particular twist that was so over-the-top at the time it would have normally only been thinkable in our community, as a plot twist in a daytime soap opera of the day. But here it was in full unadulterated truth right before the entire city, our neighborhood and our multi-ethnic high school to look at. That twist--Kevin's father, at the time of this incident, was serving as Lexington's first black police commissioner. I can't make this kind of shit up even if I wanted to. I don't have that much skill as a non-fiction writer. Some heads did roll in the Lexington Police Department after this incident. But like Donnie's father a short time before him, Kevin's father was also forever changed after this event involving his son.

Breathe In, Breathe Out.

After these two events shattered a certain innocence that had existed in my life until they occurred, I went about my little life as if two thunderously momentous events had not seriously altered the course of that life--like that 19th century series of New Madrid earthquakes and tremors had altered the flow of The Mississippi River. I had read in books and had talks with my grandfather about the historically and highly treacherous plight of the black man in America. I had even been called a nigger to my own face a time or two by that time. But reading about two 8.0 magnitude earthquakes and living through them are...well...two very different things.

Photo Credit: This is me (Coyote, which is my biker name to this day) on my 2000 Harley Road Glide when I was the President of an Oakland, California based Motorcycle Club (MC). Circa 2005

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My Personal Black History in the Land of the Free. Part I

I don't believe I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the trajectory of my life. Today however, is the fourth day of Black History Month 2011; my 51st birthday is less than 48 hours away; and perhaps most importantly, this morning I
also awoke from a very life like dream in which I was back in a place I haven't been back to in real life, in any meaningful way, in nearly 30 years.

In the dream I was back at the Catholic college seminary I attended from ages 18 - 22. I was my present age--50-- but had come back to continue my study for the Roman Catholic priesthood. Many of the priests, brothers and seminarians I had known there 29 years ago made appearances and cameos in the dream, even some I know have made their transition. The most interesting thing to me is that I was happy to be back. I was enthusiastic about being back in that place and I distinctly remember feeling in the dream, like I had come home.

The dream primarily had a happy reunion feel to it. The bulk of the dream had me simply reconnecting with folks and us re-telling old stories from decades ago---with joy and warmth. This however, was not exactly reflective of my actual experience of attending that particular institution of religious and higher learning. Or was it?

I woke up from the dream, found myself in my 2011 reality, in bed with my partner in Tuscon, Arizona reflecting on the life I've led in the ensuing nearly three decades since graduating from that place. I started to cry spontaneously. And I had this curious thought enter my consciousness, "My time in the seminary and monastery, studying for the priesthood, was the pinnacle of my life here on earth. Everything that has occurred since has been a representation of my life being in decline...everything"

I looked over at my handsome and sleeping partner next to me whom I absolutely know, absolutely adores me. How many people, I wondered, have a partner who truly and absolutely adores them?

I smiled.

There were a few less tears.

That thought that my life has been in decline since my seminary days was experienced by me as an extremely shocking one and then very quickly as terrifying and then ultimately as an extremely sad thought. I lay in bed with the eerie calm that exists at 4 am and quietly asked myself, "Is that true?" "Do I really believe my life while studying for the priesthood was the height of my purposefulness in this life? Is that even possible?" "What is going on here?"

I am a black, same gender loving American. I am a deeply spiritual, compassionate, emotionally centered and empathic man. I have given my entire life over to the service of others both in my personal and professional life. I have relatively little by way of  "The American Dream" type of things to show for this. I both think that is OK and I don't exactly think that it's OK as well. It's odd.

I have hurt people both intentionally and unintentionally. I have flaws. I know I am both perfect and imperfect in simultaneous never ending co-arising.

I have many scars that are invisible to most and that are an homage to living my entire life in a world full of racism, homophobia, heterosexism, selfishness and greed. I am a black man whom many other black men reject because I am also a gay man. I am a gay man who has been rejected by specific white men, both gay and straight identified and specifically because I am a black man. I have had to suffer through several Republican presidential administrations in my life. I have had to live through a lifetime of crazed homophobic, heterosexist rhetoric from the seemingly ubiquitous "Black Church" in America. I have had to painfully witness the insane hypocrisy of black men like Colin Powell, who while speaking as a black man who broke barriers and also faced race based oppression supported something as bigoted as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." (We all make mistakes. He's since changed his tune on this. Still, there are consequences for our past bigotry, no matter what). And I have had to do all of that while trying to be a man working tirelessly for the liberation of The Sacred Masculine in a climate where it seems many men only want to kill one another, enslave one another, tear down each other, challenge each other, argue with one another and attempt to emasculate one another while obtaining virtual graduate degrees in one-up-man-ship.

And I have lived in a world where various men and women, black and white alike have the audacity to use phrases like "man up" in public as if it is an elegant, legitimate and righteous term of ahimsa. My God. It's enough to make a brother wanna holla.

The seminary was far from perfect. The monastery was far from perfect. Both had their own name brand of insanity. At the same time they each contained a fraternity of men who at least earnestly attempted to genuinely love one another and for the most part, genuinely respect one another as well.

There is a reason so many gay men flock to the seminary. That reason, contrary to some degree of popular belief and myth, is not to have a constant supply of other men to have sex with. It is because by and large the seminary and ultimately, if one is studying for a religious order as I was---the religious community of priests and brothers tend to be places where there is a collection of gentle gay, straight and bisexual men who get to live their lives with other gentle gay, straight and bisexual men bound by a spiritual quest to continually strive to fall in love, over and over again, with their god. I miss that. I miss that very, very much. I mourn the loss of that in my life. Nothing in my life has come close to replacing that particular expression of beauty I have had the great joy of experiencing in this life. What has replaced it is a life where men are consistently and deliberately cruel to one another, cruel to me, cruel to everyone; a corporate state made up of walking zombies with seemingly no soul nor compassion to speak of--I understand the reasons for all of that and have great compassion myself for it and have dedicated my life to transforming it--that however, does not lessen the power of the sting of the experience...

To be young, gifted and black, Oh what a lovely precious dream. To be young, gifted and black, Open your heart to what I mean...


I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix...


The expression of the face balks account, But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists, It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him,The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth, To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side...


Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own back yard. You may shoot me with your words,You may cut me with your eyes,You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise...


My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims' pride, From every mountainside Let freedom ring...


Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?

1.  Nina Simone, Lyrics, "To Be Young, Gifted and Black." Lyrics by Weldon Irvine. Music by Nina Simone. Black Gold. 1970

2.  Allen Ginsberg, Howl. Howl and other Poems. 1955

3.  Walt Whitman, "I Sing The Body Electric." Leaves of Grass. 1855

4.  Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise." Still I Rise.

5.  Samuel Francis Smith. Lyrics "America/ My Country 'Tis of Thee." 1831.

6.  Matthew 27:46. New American Standard Bible. The last words of Jesus on the cross

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