Black, Queer, Here

by Adrian Gillan

“My site is family-orientated,” blurts Mia Morris, owner-editor of one of the most active online hubs for UK Black History Month (www.black-history-month.co.uk) which runs through October. “I’m not saying I’d never put something gay-related up. But I might not put it up right now. Change is incremental.”

Her site’s influence has shot up following the demise of “rival” www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk whose owners told Fyne they were “frustrated” and had “given up” due to lack of proper support and funding, with most co-ordination for Black History Month activity now only happening at local level.

Morris urges visitors to her site to “celebrate and share our African and Caribbean history” so as to “heighten the confidence and awareness of black people in their cultural heritage” – so long as you’re not remotely queer it seems!

“You’ve got to be sensitive to the times,” she insists. “There is a time for this and a time for that – as the Bible says. And I’d only ever feature something about black gays if there was firm evidence. I thought all that recent stuff about Malcolm X was so distasteful. They don’t dig up dirt on Edward Heath.”

On the 80th anniversary of Malcolm X’s birth, Peter Tatchell had caused a storm merely for daring to suggest the black US Muslim nationalist icon may well have had a queer past - including allegedly his being a gay prostitute and bringing John Lennon to orgasm. Writing in The Guardian, claimed Tatchell: “It is time to blow the whistle. There is not a single world-famous black person who is openly gay. Young black lesbians and gays need role models. Who better than Malcolm X?”

“It is sad the way most mainstream black organisations fail to acknowledge black lesbians, gays and bisexuals,” Tatchell tells Fyne. “Sometimes is it obvious homophobia; others times just casual neglect and indifference. Either way, black LGBTs get a raw deal. Black history, as it is currently promoted, is just straight history from a black perspective. It is not inclusive at all.”

He relates: “Some black so-called human rights organisations, like the 1990 Trust with its news website, www.blink.org.uk, come across as homophobic. They ignore the contribution of black LGBTs and don't report news stories affecting black queers - such as the murders of the Jamaican gay rights leader Brian Williamson and the Sierra Leone lesbian activist hero Fanny Ann Eddy.”

Reasons for the distinctive suppression of homosexuality within black history and culture are complex yet clear - a peculiar mix of machismo, Dance Hall chauvinism, ex-colonial religion and cultural insecurity fuelled by past racial oppressions and poverty. Equally apparent is the suppression of authentic black imagery within the UK’s still largely gay-white-male-dominated LGBT media and culture – itself responsible for so much black alienation, or enforced assimilation, out on the gay scene.

Simon Nelson

Simon Nelson, Race Equality Lead with the South West Regional Equality Unit.

“The black press and leading black figures talk of diversity but that’s all it ever is: talk,” bemoans Simon Nelson, Race Equality Lead with the recently-formed South West Regional Equality Unit. “Instead, they do much to suppress the true history of black people by ‘cherry picking’ historical facts. Of course there are many famous past black gay men and women, many of whom have been instrumental in human rights struggles - people like Bayard Ruskin, main advisor to Martin Luther King. Yet, when I open the black-written pages of history - and alas also of the gay-written ones - his name is all but forgotten.”

“I am reminded of my school days,” recalls Nelson of a multiple discrimination, “where Florence Nightingale was always a great white nurse - her lesbianism never mentioned; and where straight black nurse Mary Seacole wasn’t mentioned at all - despite doing even greater things than Nightingale!”

“We don’t learn anything from ignoring the past,” insists Andrew Prince from black LGBT website www.UKBlackOut.Com. “If the black heterosexual population don’t know anything about the struggles that black gay people had to overcome, they will never be in a position to accept us for who we are or appreciate us as human beings. In the black community, ignorance to gays and lesbians is anything but bliss. And denying something does not make it go away.”

He continues: “It does not surprise me that many Black History Month websites make no mention of LGBT black experience – no mention of people like Claude McKay, for instance. I grew up in Jamaica, and at that time McKay was to Jamaica what Shakespeare is to England. Not until I came here did I realise his sexuality. This is how they try to deny our existence.”

The suppression of the past is also compounded by the fact that – in the here and now – not only are relatively few prominent black people out, but few black leaders will publicly back the fight for gay human rights – excepting a noble handful like Jesse Jackson, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela.

Facing such obstacles, Prince contends that black LGBTs cannot afford to sit back and wait for the black hetero community - or the wider gay one for that matter, with its own LGBT History Month - to promote their past experiences: “At the end of the day, we should be out there pushing it ourselves, and not be afraid to approach Month organisers, to be included in whatever way. I’m learning more and more that if black LGBT people want to be remembered or acknowledged, we must do it ourselves.”

And - to be fair – several organisations are already on the case. Despite the Black Gay Community Awards failing to materialise this year, the first BME float paraded in Pride London and there was further black queer presence at the Notting Hill Carnival. During the summer, black queer arts organisation The Rukus! Federation held a successful exhibition in London, entitled The Queens Jewels, featuring British representations of black men that appeared in gay media and club culture in recent decades. Unfortunately, although many LGBT media did promote the event, black media utterly snubbed it.

Yet Rukus! organisers Ajamu and Topher seem both philosophical and feisty: “The issue of visibility and representation of the black LGBT voice is not confined to our place in any History Month, Black or Gay. Our history did not start only when others became interested in us.”

“On one level,” they contend, “there has in fact often been a vocal and visible presence by black LGBTs in politics, music, club culture and the arts – albeit sporadic and poorly resourced. However it is evident that the majority - and by that we mean the wider black communities, the wider white communities and even the wider white gay communities - have on the whole ignored the significance of such voices.”

They expand: “Although it can be difficult to forge an identity as a young black LGBT, it would be wrong to simply blame the wider black community. Forces within the white gay fold also conspire to edit the representation of black culture. We think it only became interested in black gay culture when the threat or titillation of homo-thugs spreading HIV or homophobes preaching hate lyrics emerged as hot topics.”

“The victim narrative is not our narrative,” they conclude firmly. “Our experience, and that of our peers and those younger than us, is that black LGBT life is thriving and the kids are taking to the streets. It is in no small part black gay culture - banging on club doors seeking greater diversity - that has paved the way to so many promoters creating so called Urban Gay Club nights in recent years. Black LGBTs by their sheer force of nature have helped to change the UK’s gay scene forever.”

Ten prominent black LGBTs from history:

  1. George Washington Carver (1731 - 1806) – US Botanist, the inventor of Peanut Butter.
  2. Ma Rainey (1886-1939) - Blues singer Rainey recorded Prove It On Me Blues with the line, “Went out last night with a crowd of my friends. They must’ve been women, ’cause I don’t like no men.”
  3. Bessie Smith (1894-1937) – Regarded by many as the greatest blues singer ever. Her first recording - Down Home Blues (1924) - sold 780,000 copies in under six months.
  4. Ruth Ellis (1899-2000) – When she died aged 101, Ellis was the world’s oldest known out lesbian.
  5. Bayard Rustin (1910-1987) - Chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington and one of Martin Luther King's main advisors. Rustin was always completely open about his sexuality.
  6. Brian Williamson (1945-2004) - Founding member of the Jamaica Forum for Lesbians, All-Sexuals | Gays (J-FLAG), Williamson was found dead at his home in June 2004 with multiple stab wounds.
  7. Frankie Knuckles (born 1955) – DJ and music producer/remixer. Known as the "Father of House", Knuckles is credited with pioneering house while a DJ at The Warehouse, Chicago.
  8. Justin Fashanu (1959-98) - Nigerian born British soccer star who came out to tabloids in 1990 and took his own life in 1998.
  9. Isaac Julien (b 1960) – British film maker responsible for works including Young Soul Rebels.
  10. David McAlmont (born 1967) – British singer-songwriter and one of the first out black gay personalities – ever since his career kicked off back in 1990.

Website UKBlackOut serves the UK’s black LGBT community, and contains info about other prominent black LGBTs from history: www.ukblackout.com
Terrence Higgins Trust works to challenge black homophobia and support black LGBTs: www.itstimetoaccept.org.uk
Big Up is GMFA’s black gay men's group: www.metromate.org.uk/amm/gmfa/bigup.phtml
The Black Gay Men’s Advisory Group is an independent group of black gay and bi men of African and Afro-Caribbean descent: www.bgmag.org.uk