I Have Arrived. I am Home

Last evening I was watching a program on PBS about various LGBT people--their awarenesses around being LGBT, their coming out stories, their triumphs and their challenges. Near the end of the program it  shifted its focus tangentially, to the dawning of what we now know as The AIDS Pandemic.

Several people recounted their memories of this time and everything that came with it and that was unfolding all around them during this striking time in our shared history. My mind drifted. I thought of the first stories I had heard about "the gay plague" in the early to mid-1980s. I remembered my first friends who succumbed to AIDS in the late 1980s. Then I began to think about a whole lot of things, a whole lot of bullets I have so far dodged in this life and how that has made me the person I am today.

I am a black man. I am a black gay man. I am a black gay man who grew up in The American South. And I am a black gay man who grew up in the American south who was born in 1960. This birth year; this very simple thing of being born in 1960 meant I dodged a very specific bullet that, given what I know about myself, I may not have successfully dodged if I had been born just a few years earlier. And that birth year meant that I was right in line for two different bullets aiming dead for me. Pun intended.

If I had been born maybe ten years earlier that would have meant I would have been coming of age right in the middle of some of the heaviest and most challenging times for young black men and women in America though especially in The American South fighting for civil rights for a generation of black people and beyond. And there is absolutely no doubt I would have been fighting and fighting hard in that movement if all or even most of the other factors in my life had remained even somewhat the same. But I wasn't born ten years earlier.

If I had been born ten years later I would have been born in 1970. I would have been coming of age right about 1991/1992. I would have, for all intents and purposes, missed all of the "in the trenches" significance of the turbulent 60s including the heat of the civil rights movement. I would have also missed the onset of AIDS. I would have become an adult right as William Jefferson Clinton was about to become the 42nd president of these United States of America. Given the other two options--being born in 1950 or 1960, this would have in many ways, provided the calmest and safest of all the potential outcomes or so my rational mind believes. But I wasn't born ten years later either.

I was born in 1960. This insured that my life would still be heavily influenced, as a young man, by everything that happened to shape the lives of black people during the height of the civil rights movement. I witnessed much of it as a child. And it meant I was coming of age smack dab at the inauguration of GRID; what we now know as AIDS. And for members of the black community, this at first uniquely gay holocaust just barely preceded the beginning of a separate black holocaust--the crack cocaine epidemic of the mid-1980s. Many people fail to remember that these two holocausts closely coincided with one another. For the black gay urban communities of America they represented a powerful one-two punch, the effects of which can still be clearly seen in cities from San Francisco to Los Angeles to Atlanta to Miami to New York City. And so for black gay men living in urban centers, it seemed like two speeding bullets were heading toward us on a collision course that seemed absolutely unstoppable.

There are some very stupid white people who truly believe I am an arrogant man. Their stupidity is their right. For they do not know what arrogance truly is. I can honestly say I cannot remember ever being accused of being arrogant by a black person or a person of color in my entire life.That speaks volumes. Why do I call these specific white people stupid? I do so because I have so far dodged the bullet of being born a black man. And I have dodged the bullets of being born a black gay man growing up in The American South who came of age right at the dawning of both the AIDS pandemic and the crack cocaine holocausts and everything else that can befall a black gay man in America. And I have so far successfully dodged each and every one of those bullets without walking around every fucking moment of every fucking day like I totally own the entire fucking planet, as a result. So it is armed with this knowledge that I do not in fact carry myself in such a way that lets me know that anyone who accuses me of being arrogant is certifiably stupid in my book. That is the kindest description I have for them when I am speaking from my absolute most diplomatic place of personhood.

If I were a different person I would tell a number of people I know that they should be grateful I even acknowledge their existence. If I were a different person I would climb to the top of the highest building of every city I have ever lived in since turning thirty five and scream from the rooftops, "You did everything in your fucking power to keep me from getting to this point without ending up in prison or in the cemetery. But so far you have failed you fucking bastards."  And anyone who believes those words are hyperbole is a fool. If I were a different person I would not have suffered all the fools I have suffered in my life having gained nothing from that suffering, as best as I can tell, except wasted time and well...perhaps patience. Patience, I suppose, is a very good thing indeed now that I think about it. Many a fools life has been saved by someone else's patience. If I were a different person, I would have slugged the various police officers, male and female, who have stopped me, during the course of my lifetime, for nothing other than driving while being black. Yes, patience can be a very good thing indeed.

I am not alone in my bullet dodging. Many have dodged all kinds of bullets, as it were, in this life and continue to do so with ardor and distinct magnificence and brilliance. There is obviously something more we have to offer the world before we depart and go on to some other plane of existence. I had a stoke five months ago. Maybe that was the first real "hit" for me, a reminder that I can run but that ultimately I cannot hide. If that is the message, it has been clearly received. Time will tell if it was a flesh wound or something more significant. What I already know is that something has deeply shifted inside of me as a result.  My resolve has been strengthened to redouble my efforts to work for social change in this world. My resolve has been strengthened to suffer no more fools in this life. That time has passed. My resolve has been strengthened to seek out only those as confidants who have proven that they indeed deserve to in fact be called my comrades. My resolve has been strengthened to follow my own truth and no one else's. My resolve has been strengthened to increase my compassion for others while having no attachment to the idea that others must in turn do the same for me. My resolve has been strengthened to see everyone and everything as my sister or brother or both or as my Dear Relation while having no attachment to the idea that anyone must in turn do the same for me. My resolve has been strengthened to be myself because everyone else is already taken. My resolve has been strengthened to love myself like I love no other. For...

I have arrived. I am home.
I have arrived. I am home
I have arrived. I am home

and...

This is a home that can never be foreclosed on.