I don’t know Jimi Izrael and am not familiar with his writing. A commemorative stamp of James Baldwin greets you on his home page. He claims some further connection to and/or knowledge of the kids by saying “Oh, I used to DJ for y’all, so I know the T …” but he issued a statement regarding our recent victory against hate-mongerers Beenie Man and TOK that seems to reveal a disconnect rooted in the same rampant patriarchy-laden bullshit that allows virulent hate to fester in both dancehall and hip-hop and instantiate murder.
Jimi doesn’t seem to understand that being Black and gay is not simply the sum of being Black and being gay. Throughout his post he diminishes the Blackness of being Black and gay by referring to the resources of white gays while simultaneously reminding us of their racism. He doesn’t seem to understand the trajectory of being Black and gay in terms manifesting our own resources and networks. Don’t most Black gay people start out in Black families that live in Black communities? Don’t most Black gay people stay in their communities for as long as we can? We all don’t leave everything we’ve ever known to pack up and move to Chelsea: a lot of us have more severely limited socioeconomic choices. Our communities’ response to our sexual orientation usually directs that trajectory.
He doesn’t understand any of that so he conveniently casts us as cornered, barking dogs with no connection to anybody but racist white gays with no resources of our own and no other choice. Because he can’t see either our uniqueness or our complexities, he can’t hear our singular voice - particularly if it’s a call for justice. It’s frightening and sad how readily he dismisses our urgent repudiation of our genocide in certain dancehall songs as mere feedback, as if responding to the threat of murder is simply something we’ve chosen to do besides shop or vogue.
And he says that we’re co-opting AIDS. Please! Black gay men didn’t choose to be the most affected by this disease, but we are. We also didn’t choose to be more sensitive to issues of sexual orientation, but we are. Black gay people are not only infected disproportionately by HIV, we are also disproportionately on the front lines of providing treatment and promoting awareness. And not just for other Black gay people either. We’re at Callen-Lorde AND St. Vincent’s, Walt-Whitman AND John Hopkins, AMASSI AND Cedars-Sinai. We are everywhere. So no, we don’t have to co-opt HIV/AIDS. Besides, I don’t think he or any Black straight person really believes that Black gay people want to ‘own’ HIV/AIDS so that we can deny straight people access to prevention messages or treatment options. To believe that we are the treat is a lazy way of circumventing around actual dialogue and collective analysis. No, you can’t win this fight without us.
And yes, if you aren’t ready to value and contribute to everyone’s basic right to life, regardless of what you believe about anyone else’s life, then you are not ready to do HIV/AIDS work AT ALL. If people like Beenie Man, Buju Banton and TOK aren’t ready to give up their murdersongs, then they aren’t ready to get up on anybody’s stage to promote HIV/AIDS awareness. What - a straight man contracts AIDS and, through song, you’re going to encourage him to take his meds so that he can live long enough to chop a battyman up in the head with a machete 70 times? That’s the kind of ridiculousness you’ll find in that wacky parallel universe. Connect with hate, if you must, on your own time, not while you’re supposedly fighting this epidemic.
Well done. i read his nonsense too and was amazed that he could say that he knows us because he used to DJ for gays.
Here in the caribbean HIV/AIDS is still considered a predominatly gay disease so much so that any str8 man that becomes infected is assumed to be gay. How can you ever expect the Caribbean Community to comes to grips witrh this disease if they do not change their attitude towards gays. How can Beenie et al promote this attitude change if they keep singing “burn the chichi man”? Why must we be considered selfish if we are fighting for our lives????
I don’t think that my time spent working in the gay community gives me any kind of pass or insight into homosexuality, because that would be stupid: I mention it to suggests that I’ve had more contact with the gay community than the average straight black guy, and to stave off the name-calling(ie homophobe). I have lost many, many friends to AIDS, and continue to lose more. 75% of the kids I spun for are dead, and it breaks my heart.It’s funny that my time spent volunteering in the community and working for the community doesn’t give me any credibility. The gay community should stop trying to recruit and take allies where they can find them.
Homosexuality is not an accepted norm. That isn’t likely to change. The challenge remains for the gay community to humanize themselves and lift the level of discourse, because trying to connect politics and such to (for example) anonymous sexual activity in public parks or encounters in nightclub bathrooms that sometimes end with piles of doo-doo on the floor(I’ve seen more piles than I want to talk about)—let’s just say that most people have a hard time caring about who wants to kill and beat-up people that participate in “subversive” behavior. All this talk, and it gets back to sexuality. And sex. Gays: lift up the discourse. Quickly, before the next election. AIDS is either a gay disease or it belongs to all of us. I don’t care who got it first, and you shouldn’t either, because that is the larger ratonale behind hate crimes against gays and lesbians.
AIDS is either a gay disease or it isn’t. Can’t have it both ways.
Jimi continues to say “I’m not one of you, but here are my credentials that allow me to talk about you, so you should listen to me. And I think you should do exactly what you haven’t been doing. And I think you, the lesser accepted of us, should shut up and just accept whatever’s given to you.”
That reminds me of white people who say “Oh, you know, this whole Beenie Man thing is really a global issue. Lots of us helped you, too!”
Both lines of reasoning are designed specifically to quiet Black gay voices and to limit Black gay choices. So, again, I say learn the difference between support and intervention. Because if it doesn’t matter what Black gay people say or do in terms of the AIDS pandemic, why does ‘progress’ require our powerless decision? And, um, how did we just shut this shit down? Don’t hate, celebrate! Or just back the fuck up and go do whatever it is that you do well.
HIV/AIDS is like water. None of us own it, but Black gay people have been soaking in it for over 25 years now. If you can’t take that flavor, then maybe you shouldn’t drink.
Jimi, are you sure that’s not your shit on the floor?
Thank you Donald. You know, I know Jimi. We’ve met before years ago, when he used to spin at Numbers in Cleveland OH, circa 1993. He was the Dj there, and friends of a couple good friends of mine, also str8 Black men who loved house, and that was literally the only place to go if you loved house music. We went to several after hours breakfasts at The Big Egg, or My Friends Restaurant after his sets.
But, a DJ for the black gay community, and someone who has had friends who are black and gay, does not an ally make.
Jimi, you may have an opinion about how we politically engage, but you don’t get to determine that. That, as an ally, is not your place. I wouldn’t accept some white dude telling me how/when/where and on what terms Black folks need to organize and for what reasons, and I am not going to take it from some dude who acts like we oughta be grateful for his “kindness.” That sounds a little too “Ms. Millie” to me if you catch the reference. Fuck that.
And this argument about how we invest our time organizing, how in the hell do you know whether or not we are organized against homophobic violent ass music AND electoral politics? We do both and then some. So don’t presume to know what work we’re doing because we happen to get some press on one of the many things that all these brilliant fucking Black GAY men, Lesbians, Trans people and whom else are engaged in.
I also organize around police brutality and prison issues. My gay son is the communications director for a national voter mobilization organization. Some of us do HIV/AIDS work on a daily basis. We do this and then some, so don’t dare condescend to tell me what the hell I/we need to focus on. We are on all of it, and if you were as bad as you purport yourself to be you’d know that.
Can I also add, that even if I were to use the logic “Gays don’t own HIV,” and were to look at the other group most affected, Black women, we could just as easily have a conversation about Beenie Man, TOK and other artists about the protrayals of Black women and sexuality, and the relationship to HIV where they’re concerned. So that argument is about as whack as can be. Any way you slice it.
So. AIDS is a gay disease after all. Who knew the playground got it right? Boy, you Sneaky Nancies sure had us str8 cats going for a minute. So what did you all use that federal funding for—make-up, sex-changes and fondue sets?
The problem, while I will freely admit that gays get the disease in disproportionate numbers is…str8 peoiple get AIDS. All kinds of straight people. ALOT of str8 people from the Carribean, who were being targeted at that LIFEBeat benefit that got shut down, may have it, according to certain reports. Or at least could have used the free condoms. Beenie Man apologized for his comments 3 years ago, but you heterophobes are never satisfied. Tsk. Maybe he should marshall a PRIDE parade. Or maybe you should open up a dialog directly with him. Nah. That’s silly. Nevermind.
It’s funny… but I learned in health class that EVERYONE got AIDS, and we have to work together to stave off the infection rate before it kills all of us. I see the truth now: it’s only a gay disease. “Kills fags dead” as all the homophobes and right-wing bible nuts say. But apparently, they were right all along. it IS a gay cancer. Man, that’s a load off my mind. Thanks for the clarification.
Congratulations on shutting down that stupid AIDS education thing. It’s not our problem anyway. I don’t know what were thinking.
You gay bros…carry on, by all means. Be sure to wipe the blood from your hands before it dries. It could stain your Chanel.
All the Best,
jimi
ps (We will work through homophobia, as a society. But not tommorow. AIDS is killing everyone. Today. You are either fighting it by all available means or helping to spread the ignorance. Do the math. WAKE UP)
Jimi, you keep ducking and dodging the issue of murder, but that’s okay. Not really your bodies so not really your fight, right? Well, Beenie Man knows why he’s being shut down and knows the role he’s played and continues to play. Now, whether he’ll stop lying and own up to his responsibility in that matter is another question. And Beenie Man probably knows where to find us if he wants to talk. It’s entirely his choice to make that move and change the discourse into dialogue. It’s possible that he might not have the constitution or the integrity to expedite a real change.
Again, none of us own HIV/AIDS, but look who’s worried about ownership issues. Trifling! The real deal is that you can’t show up to the table unless you own the table. That’s where your investment lies and what’s unfortunate about this conversation: people like you and Beenie Man want to eliminate the influence of HIV/AIDS’ pre-existing constiuency so that you can excuse yourselves from your homophobia - all while exercising your need for control under the guise of doing your good deed of the day. Well, keep running boys. You can hide from yourself. Everywhere you go, there you are. Meanwhile the Black people doing the work, gay or straight, will keep doing the work without you.
Be sure to wipe the blood from your hands before it dries. It could stain your Chanel.
And THIS is why the “I’m not a homophobe; I used to spin records for the gay community!” defense is a laughingly bad one.
I can’t even address the rest right now, other than to say KUDOS to the people who got the concert shut down. Right or wrong, they took a stand and made their voices heard, and not over some Cristal, either.
I’ll never understand the mind of the black homophobe as long as I live. We just got like…65 of our rights 50 years ago, but want to tell other groups of people how to live.
Trackback tool didn’t work for some reason.
But if it did you would have seen a link to this post
I guess “take on” is the new slang for “get completely sonned by”. And I completely agree.
Ah, and that “65” should’ve been “65%”.
I can’t believe I missed this post. Kudos Donald for exposing the doubletalk in Jimi’s post. I was too frustrated to respond. Honestly, I think he wants to mean well but “the words get in the way”.
We are not trying to “own” the AIDS movement. This bullshit about how black gay bloggers have denied an island of people of AIDS awareness is particularly ridiculous.