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  BLACK LIKE US

  A CENTURY OF LESBIAN, GAY, AND BISEXUAL AFRICAN AMERICAN FICTION

  Edited by

  DEVON W. CARBADO, DWIGHT A. McBRIDE, and DONALD WEISE

  Foreword by

  EVELYN C. WHITE

  Praise for Black Like Us

  “Black Like Us unlocks the closet of black lesbian, gay, and bisexual writing.”

  —Keith Boykin, author of One More River to Cross

  “A phenomenal pioneering anthology.”

  —Ann Allen Shockley, author of Loving Her

  “Black Like Us thoughtfully shapes and lovingly nurtures a literary tradition that has been marginalized for too long. An absorbing and enlightening encounter with compelling American literature.”

  —John D’Emilio, author of

  Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin

  “A vital achievement.”

  —George Chauncey, University of Chicago; author of Gay New York

  “An exceptionally fine read and a rich resource for all of us.”

  —Robert L. Allen, co-editor of

  Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America

  “Black Like Us refuses to separate the histories and imaginations of Black America and Queer America. In so doing, it becomes a model for a more insightful and useful cultural discussion, one that has importance for all of American culture.”

  —Joan Nestle, co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives;

  author of A Restricted Country and A Fragile Union

  Copyright © 2002, 2011 by Devon W. Carbado, Dwight A. McBride, and Donald Weise

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published in the United States by Cleis Press Inc.,

  2246 Sixth St., Berkeley, CA 94710.

  Printed in the United States.

  Cover design: Scott Idleman/Blink

  Text design: Karen Quigg

  Second Edition.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Trade paper ISBN: 978-1-57344-714-0

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-57344-750-8

  Permissions appear on pages 506–508.

  Cover photographs clockwise from center: Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, Thomas Glave, E. Lynn Harris, Samuel R. Delany, Jewelle Gomez, James Baldwin, Becky Birtha, Owen Dodson, Audre Lorde, Melvin Dixon, Jacqueline Woodson, Alice Dunbar-Nelson.

  To Dale Frett & To Asmara Tringali

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  We are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love and die. The grace with which we embrace life, in spite of the pain, the sorrows, is always a measure of what has gone before.

  —ALICE WALKER, Revolutionary Petunias

  FOREWORD

  Evelyn C. White

  READ? WRITE? AFRICAN AMERICANS ARE DESCENDANTS OF people who were forbidden, on the penalty of death, to engage in such pursuits. Then, as now, the oppressor understood that knowledge leads the dispossessed to power. That power is the springboard to freedom. And most importantly, that freedom can lead to bliss. The kind of bliss that Langston Hughes describes in “Blessed Assurance,” his story about the erotic love between two black men that is made plain in the stained-glass sanctity of the historic black church. As the Shakespeare of Harlem was known to have said himself: Do Jesus! Lawd Today!

  As the nation marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of Langston Hughes (an Aquarian born February 1, 1902), how wonderful it is that Cleis Press has been called to release Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual African American Fiction. I’m happy to leave the debate about who, within our ranks, meets the standards for gay “certification” to those who revel in such sensationalism. Indeed, I’m inclined to agree with the divinely inspired Assotto Saint who once noted that black folk have more salient issues to ponder. Namely, how we might best “rise to the love that we need.”

  To be sure, Black Like Us is resplendent with the fierce jubilation of black queer literary genius—as the creators have seen fit to share their gifts. As with its precursors (most notably Home Girls, In the Life, Brother to Brother, and Afrekete), Black Like Us aims at inclusion. The “hot/not” battle lines and encampments that have, unfortunately, been pervasive in media-marketed gay culture and politics are refreshingly absent here. During an era when “We Are the World” has proven to be more than a warm and fuzzy cliché, the collection stands as an exemplary twenty-first century model for our movement—one that provides a foundation for all future scholars of gay and lesbian artistry. To say nothing of the multitudes of black gay youth searching for voice, visibility, and mirror reflections.

  And on that note, this landmark volume makes clear that while we have often been forced to traverse “the rough side of the mountain,” black queers have never journeyed alone. Within these pages, readers will discover the history, geography, hopes, and dreams of a people who have tried to love in the crucible of racism, sexism, and homophobia that is as much a part of the American fabric as the vaunted “amber waves of grain.” Offered in the soaring voices of Alice, Langston, Jewelle, Darieck, Alexis, Samuel, Shay, E. Lynn, and many others, we, too, sing America. Perhaps that sweet, sweet soul brother Marvin Gaye said it best: “Come get to this.”

  PREFACE

  I name myself “lesbian” because this culture oppresses, silences, and destroys lesbians, even lesbians who don’t call themselves “lesbians.” I name myself “lesbian” because I want to be visible to other black lesbians. I name myself “lesbian” because I do not subscribe to predatory/institutionalized heterosexuality. I name myself lesbian because I want to be with women (and they don’t all have to call themselves “lesbians”). I name myself “lesbian” because it is part of my vision. I name myself lesbian because being woman-identified has kept me sane. I call myself “Black,” too, because Black is my perspective, my aesthetic, my politics, my vision, my sanity.

  —Cheryl Clarke, from “New Notes on Lesbianism”

  It is not enough to tell us that one was a brilliant poet, scientist, educator, or rebel. Whom did he love? It makes a difference. I can’t become a whole man simply on what is fed to me: watered down versions of Black life in America. I need the ass-splitting truth to be told, so I will have something pure to emulate, a reason to remain loyal.

  —ESSEX HEMPHILL, from “Loyalty”

  MOST LITERARY INTERPRETATIONS OF BLACK LESBIAN, GAY , and bisexual literature focus either on race or on sexuality. Readers sympathetic to gay and lesbian studies typically invoke sexual orientation over race in looking at this work; those who are sympathetic to black studies typically invoke race over sexual orientation. This dichotomous approach to the literature—that it is either black or gay—helps explain the ongoing controversy within some black intellectual circles about the sexual identity of Langston Hughes and the sexual politics of his work, for example.

  But as Cheryl Clarke explains, race and sexuality are connected. She identifies as both black and lesbian. According to Clarke, both of these aspects of her identity inform her aesthetics, her politics, and her vision. Either/or readings of writers like Clarke obscure not only that African Americans comprise a distinguished list of lesbian and gay artists whose work has helped to liberate sexuality from repressive and disciplinary conventions. Such readings also obscure the fact that gays, lesbians, and bisexuals comprise a distinguished list of African Americans whose work has helped to liberate race from its entrapment within narrow conceptions of identity and civil rights.

  Thu
s Black Like Us. Stated simply, the purpose of this book is to showcase the African American lesbian, gay, and bisexual literary tradition in a way that affirms rather than negates the interconnections among race, gender, and sexuality. To do so, Black Like Us brings together thirty-six authors whose combined body of work covers one hundred years—from the writings of the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Migration of the Depression era to the protest literature of postwar civil rights activism and the fiction of the present day that unabashedly transcends sexual identity.

  The table of contents lists equal parts men and women, some of whom are lesbian, some gay, some bisexual, some reportedly asexual, but all of whom are “queer”—and not only in terms of sexuality, but in terms of race and gender as well. The employment of the term “queer” is of course controversial, particularly when applied to African Americans; many black people across the range of sexual orientation object to its white cultural connotation, if not the word’s association with sexual pathology. Consequently, large numbers of African Americans resist identifying themselves as queer, preferring instead the more acceptable labels lesbian, gay, homosexual, or even the relatively recent “same-gender-loving.” Then, too, there are men and women who decline to claim a sexuality under any label whatsoever. Given this social backdrop, it is important to make clear that the term “queer” as employed in this book signifies identity and ideological nonconformity—not a particular sexual orientation. Part of what Black Like Us aims to show is that many of the writers in this volume were queer in terms of how they defined and embodied their racial identity, queer in terms of their conception and performance of their gender, queer in how they articulated and practiced politics, as well as queer in their intimate relationships and sense of sexual identity.

  The majority of authors in this anthology have published at least one novel or short story collection. When taken together, these works represent an impressive cross section of fictional genres, including, but not limited to, romance, science fiction, fantasy, young adult, autobiography, humor, coming out, and AIDS literature. Not all of these works, however, are thought to be essentially “homosexual,” though each contains some form of homosexual content and all are categorized as African American writing. Forthright depictions of queer sexuality, quite expectedly, correlate to the cultural climate of the day. Thus, lesbian and gay fiction in general grew significantly with the advent of modern sexual liberationist politics in the 1960s, with an especially active thrust after 1980. Hence, this anthology is weighted toward the last quarter century, with pre-Stonewall authors represented as fully as possible.

  As this is fundamentally a book about the ways in which race, sexuality, and gender are experienced by black Americans, all of the contributors—with the exceptions of authors Rosa Guy and Michelle Cliff, who immigrated to New York as young children—were born and raised in the United States. This serves the vital function of presenting the first comprehensive collection of twentieth-century African American lesbian, gay, and bisexual writing, but also assists in establishing a more richly detailed consideration of history as it is experienced within a specific country and culture.

  Additionally, the selections included in Black Like Us are exclusively works of fiction. Many of these authors began their careers publishing short stories, establishing their names in magazines and anthologies. The very nature of these publications called for brevity of form and, in the case of the more politically engaged periodicals, sufficient polemical opportunities that were ideally suited to the short story format. For unlike poetry, fiction enabled authors to explore character and circumstance in depth, often toward rhetorical ends. In the case of African American lesbian and gay men, however, fiction also permitted authors to incorporate controversial and overtly autobiographical same-sex content that if candidly expressed might have embarrassed or harmed one’s literary reputation. As for those artists who openly affirmed their sexual identity in print, short stories and novels presented great imaginative opportunities to dramatize fully the stories of characters “in the life.”

  Many people would be surprised to learn that black lesbian, gay, and bisexual literature appeals to diverse audiences. While a handful of the authors featured in Black Like Us are read by mainstream audiences of popular fiction, others are read by lesbians and gay men (across race), or by African Americans (across sexual orientation). Still other contributors are familiar primarily to black lesbian, gay, and bisexual audiences. And a few are essentially unread outside of academia. While many readers are certain to find works by their favorite authors, very few readers of Black Like Us will be familiar with all of the selections, let alone will have read them. As one might expect, this literature reflects the lives of black lesbians, gays, and bisexuals, seldom involving the experiences of black queer men and women exclusively. Therefore, Black Like Us gives voice to mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, ex-husbands, neighbors, classmates, friends, and associates of black lesbians and gays, all of whom contribute to the diversity of what might be called the black homosexual condition. Yet, in some sense, singling out a black homosexual “condition” or “experience” proves as challenging as labeling human sexuality, and indeed may be just as shortsighted. Furthermore, one reasonably might inquire as to the propriety or necessity of showcasing an author’s work in the context of his or her sexuality—or race or gender, for that matter. To put all of this more directly, would not a more effective way to honor black lesbian, gay, and bisexual authors be to free their work entirely from the constraints of identity politics? The answer may depend on whether one believes, as Essex Hemphill did, that who we are in terms of our sexuality and sexual practices “makes a difference.” Black Like Us argues—strongly—that sexuality, like gender and race, matters.

  Black Like Us is organized into three sections, corresponding with three historical periods: The Harlem Renaissance, 1900–1950; The Protest Era, 1950–1980; and Coming Out Black, Like Us, 1980–2000. Each section is introduced by a historical essay that situates black queer fiction in terms of the corresponding cultural, political, legal, and literary conditions under which each author worked. To that end, the introductions combine extended discussions of black lesbian, gay, and bisexual expression with comparably elaborate treatments of the political currents that shaped the sexual identities of these authors and the corresponding gay-identified, or non-gay-identified, content of their work. Informing this approach is the notion that the cultural and political context within which an author produces literature provides at least one interpretive framework for evaluating and making sense of the work.

  The methodological approach we take in the introductions is “integrative.” That is, each introduction attempts simultaneously to engage black history, women’s history, and gay and lesbian history (to employ the conventional identity labels), as well as to illuminate the literary movements of each of the foregoing groups. We adopt this methodology for two principal reasons. The first is to make clear that race, gender, and sexual orientation are interconnected aspects of personhood. The second and related reason is to deliberately complicate our understanding of history, civil rights, and social and literary movements. Typically, we study black history as though it were disconnected from women’s history; often we study gay and lesbian history as though it were somehow not a part of women’s history; and rarely do we study black history in the context of making sense of gay and lesbian history (or vice versa). The tendency is to study literary movements in the same disaggregated way. Indeed, in conducting the research for this book, we could not find a single piece of scholarship that comprehensively delineates the connections among the literary productions of blacks, women, and gays and lesbians (again, using the conventional identity labels), let alone works that situate those connections vis-à-vis history, politics, law, and civil rights over the span of the last century. While the introductions we provide are certainly not comprehensive, they do attempt to “defrac-tionalize” the dominant understanding of the literary producti
ons of subordinated groups as well as the social contexts within which those productions took place.

  If Black Like Us was conceived to encourage an intersectional approach to black queer literature, the book also was conceptualized to expand the literary canon of black queer writing. All too frequently, the canon is reduced to a few distinguished authors: James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and Langston Hughes. Although the works of these authors are undeniably important and often groundbreaking, they are part of a larger, politicized literary tradition. Almost certainly, none of these landmark authors would have wished to see their writing set above or apart from other black queer artists. For just as writers of the pre-Stonewall era drew inspiration from their antecedents, so too have contemporary black lesbian, gay, and bisexual authors carried forward the black lesbian and gay literary tradition in ways perhaps unimaginable to their predecessors.

  Still, Black Like Us is not a definitive study of black queer fiction. In spite of the breadth of its undertaking, the book is intended merely as a point of departure. Nor does the inclusion of any piece constitute an endorsement of its literary quality or ideological orientation. As you will see, some of the literature is better than others; some more political than others; some more sexually explicit than others; some more black gay/lesbian–affirming than others; some more conservative, even problematic, than others. Guiding the selection process was our aim of presenting a broad representation of the literature and avoiding, to the extent possible, policing the literary quality or ideology of the work.

  Yet there are numerous writers whose work is not represented in this collection. Were this a multivolume project, there no doubt would have been room for a broader sampling. One could quite easily fill a book of this size with the black lesbian, gay, and bisexual fiction published during the last decade alone—and still exclude popular authors. This is one of the reasons Black Like Us includes an extensive bibliography: to provide readers with an opportunity to pursue the literature in greater depth for a better appreciation of the wider literary tradition that includes poetry, memoirs, histories, anthologies, plays, academic studies, and other works. All of this is to say that to some extent Black Like Us is just the beginning. Our sense is that this beginning is long overdue.