Bay Windows - Local News, February 17, 2000
Scott A. Giordano, Bay Windows staff

Based on an examination of U.S. AIDS cases in the last decade, the CDC study found that the proportion of AIDS cases among men of color who have sex with other men rose from 31 percent in 1989 to 52 percent in 1998. But local black AIDS activists say the latest statistics only confirm what they have known for years.

ôWeÆve all known for years that HIV [infection] has been rising in the black community, particularly among gay men of color. What the CDC is reporting is what people have known for awhile: that AIDS has had a devastating impact on the [black gay] community,ö said Gary Daffin, executive director of the Black HIV/AIDS Coalition in Boston. ôI know a lot of black gay men who died of AIDS. I generally find there seems to be a missing generation of black gay men. I donÆt find a lot of people who are black and gay who are my age. There seems to be fewer than I would expect.ö

In the new CDC report, researchers outlined possible factors for the growing number of AIDS cases among gay men of color. Among them are economic factors, including high rates of poverty, unemployment and lack of access to health care. They also predict that cultural factors, such as a stigma on homosexuality, may be playing a role.

ôThis is a very real and sensitive issue requiring increased dialogue and attention from leaders in communities of color,ö said Helene D. Gayle, director of the CDCÆs National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention. ôThe stigma associated with homosexuality in African-American and Latino communities only compounds the traditional factors associated with rates of disease in our communities. To truly win the battle against HIV, we must be willing to acknowledge and wrestle with the difficult issues.ö

The local response

Daffin believes the high rates of HIV infection among gay men of color partially stems to the lack of openly gay and lesbian leaders within that community, although that is now beginning to change. He recalls the setbacks faced by himself and another man named Michael Richmond when they began to form what was then Men Of Color Against AIDS (MOCAA).

ôWhen I met Michael in 1989, he had been trying for a few years to launch a program to target men who have sex with men in the black community and had a very difficult time getting the [Massachusetts Department of Public Health] to support the idea. We got together and spent a year or two trying to get this program started until we did,ö Daffin recalls. ôI have to say that some of the conversations we had at DPH were difficult; there was some real hesitance to acknowledge that African-American men have sex with men. I remember having these initial conversations, and it was probably the first time these state officials had identified African-American gay people who were trying to do something about AIDS. Michael spent years getting the issue on the map until MOCAA was funded in 1993.ö

The battle was a personal one for Richmond; his life ended due to AIDS-related complications in 1994. But the work that he began continues today.

ôHe developed a lot of social gatherings and marketed them to the community to create a venue where HIV/AIDS information could be disseminated. I think that was a really important thing in Boston. It was the first opportunity for a large cross section of people of color to come together. Those events became fundamental meeting places. It brought out people in the community,ö Daffin said. ôI think a lot of gay men of color died because they never even told people they had HIV. Many didnÆt come out to their families and had a sense that they had no power to navigate the medical world.ö

MOCAA initially was affiliated with BostonÆs Fenway Community Health Center before its second executive director, Matthew Florence, helped create its independent status. Today, the group has its own office space at 100 Warrenton St. in Roxbury. It provided some form of service to nearly 6,000 people last year, according to its current executive director, Pam Johnson, a lesbian of color.

ôThe CDC statistics [are] not new information to communities of color, so our organization has truly been doing everything we can for years now to try to keep focused interventions with those who are HIV-positive and HIV prevention among those who are HIV-negative,ö Johnson said.

She added that many lesbians were involved in the early efforts to get MOCAA started, and that the organization works hard to support all people in the community.

Creating an identity

Johnson believes black gay and lesbian individuals need to establish strong and positive self identities to curb the HIV/AIDS epidemic in their community, and that is why MOCAA places so much emphasis on helping people to do so.

ôI think that there is a lack of access to broader community messages that [black] people can incorporate as being for themselves. I think that we are still struggling with issues of feeling we donÆt have a voice around accessing certain levels of financial benefits, and I think that there is still a high level of feeling as though we have not traditionally been heard, so why bother to speak now. So MOCAA works real hard to mobilize the community in such a way to have the support, tools and resources people need to have their voices heard in order to have a huge impact on this epidemic,ö she said.

February marks MOCAAÆs second anniversary hosting its dance night at the Boston gay nightclub Chaps, at 100 Warrenton St, under the theme ôThe Music Factory.ö MOCAA also conducts regular workshops, focus groups and seminars for HIV-positive individuals and their friends and family.

ôThose are to create a safe environment to normalize people who are impacted by the epidemic and share information about treatments and resources,ö Johnson said. ôIn general, a lot of the work we have been doing is around primary prevention and moving towards secondary prevention and wanting to do more assessments and individual assessments with folks who are impacted by the disease.ö

MOCAA also has specific components that target black youth, including jailed youth and street workers, and the group offers a mentor program to teach youth administrative and outreach skills to talk about the impact HIV has on the mind, body and spirit.

Meanwhile, Daffin played a key role in establishing another new organization to curb the spread of AIDS in the black community. Years ago, the local Multi-Cultural AIDS Coalition had convened a small group of people to focus on HIV/AIDS and to drive a response within the black community. Daffin was one of those people who began to craft the groupÆs mission. Now called the Black HIV/AIDS Coalition, it received its first CDC funds last year.

ôWe wrote a proposal to the CDC and got a two-year grant to build the organization and build a network in the community, so I became the director and I am now running it. ... There is a real interest now in figuring out what we are going to do about HIV/AIDS in our community,ö Daffin said.

Breaking the silence

Yet most of those activists who spoke with Bay Windows still believe the talk about HIV/AIDS issues is nearly deafening, and claim the silence becomes deadly.

ôMy concern about AIDS is not just with the African-American gay male population but with all people of African descent. The AIDS virus is ravaging populations of people of African descent both here in the United States and in Africa. One of the biggest factors contributing to the spread of the AIDS epidemic, at least among African Americans, are the black churches,ö said the Rev. Irene Monroe, a lesbian doctoral candidate at Harvard Divinity School and a Ford Foundation Fellow.

ôThe black churches now understand there is a problem. However, because of their discomfort in addressing issues related to sexuality, the black churchÆs outstretched hand, when extended, is passively toward helping people who contracted the virus through intravenous drug use and not those who contracted it sexually,ö Monroe added. ôAt present, there is $156 million in federally funded money that has been made available for civic and religious organizations nationwide that work on AIDS/HIV education and prevention in African-American communities. The concern among health care agencies, politicians and the African-American lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) population is whether black churches will step up to the plate to aggressively help to educate and to heal its communities, and will that help extend itself to its [GLBT] population.ö

Perhaps one of the black communityÆs most successful events is the annual Bayard Rustin Community Breakfast, a fund-raising, educational and networking event for the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, which is the stateÆs largest AIDS-service organization. Now in its 11th year, the event helps people of color to come together and celebrate their identities while breaking the silence on HIV/AIDS as well. This year, Johnson will be a co-chair of that event, to be held this spring.

ôThis will be our 11th year, and that event is truly an inspirational and moving experience for the upwards of 500 people who attend. It brings people of color together and gives us an opportunity to both provide uplifting messages and to inform and educate people on things like the CDC statistics and how AIDS is impacting our community not just in the United States but internationally as well,ö Johnson said.

And Monroe continues to be an outspoken AIDS advocate within the black churches throughout the country. Like so many others, the matter is a personal one for her, because she knows what is at stake.

ôNot only have I lost friends and know of individual friends struggling with the virus, but the epidemic has spiritually devastated the black community, and meö she said. ôIn the face of death or impending death, it is hard to envision a future generation of children not only as leaders in this country but, more importantly, as being alive.ö

(For more information on MOCAA, call 617-442-8020. For information on the Multi-Cultural AIDS Coalition or the Black HIV/AIDS Coalition, call 617-442-1622.)

Part 2 of a series

A few local leaders try to activate a largely invisible part of Boston

Getting African-American gays involved is an uphill battle for reasons internal and external

National gay activists often argue the gay communityÆs greatest political weapon is for more gay and lesbian people to come out, and when possible, to be politically involved. But for gay and lesbian people of color, they have even fewer role models to speak on their behalf.

If you were to call the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum (NBLGLF), you would quickly learn the D.C. organizationÆs phone number has been disconnected due to financial difficulties. And many activists say that the gay communityÆs national organizations like the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) have yet to fully embrace African-Americans into leadership positions.

Yet it always takes a few soldiers to speak for the under-represented army of gay and lesbian people of color. In Boston, there are several of those soldiers: including a prominent black leader who shatters many stereotypes by also being a Republican. That man, Abner Mason, recently spoke with Bay Windows about the continued role he plays in his communityÆs history, not just during Black History Month, but every day of the year.

ôI can leave the Republican Party and go to another place where people might embrace me and say nice things about me, but where I doubt I can make much difference; or I can stay in the Republican Party and basically be on the front lines of the gay and lesbian movement. That is where the action is in terms of the battle for gay rights right now; itÆs within the Republican Party,ö said Mason, 37. ôI will not always be embraced, but I am not looking for that from my political work. I do political work to make a difference à ö

Although the South End resident was born in North Carolina, Mason moved to Boston at age 14 in order to attend prep school and later attended and graduated from Harvard University. His political activism began in 1990, shortly after he met openly gay Republican Michael Duffy.

At the time, Duffy was running for a state representative seat in the Massachusetts state Legislature. Rich Tafel, who now heads the nationÆs largest gay Republican group, the Log Cabin Republicans (LCR), was running DuffyÆs campaign. Through interactions with both Duffy and Tafel, Mason began working on the campaign to elect Republican Bill Weld as the governor of Massachusetts. Within a short period of time, Mason became the LCRÆs national president for a three-year period, and Weld was successfully elected governor of Massachusetts.

ôIt was a wonderful learning experience. Log Cabin is now a political force in the country, and I feel very good about the role I contributed to that. I think itÆs positive for the gay community to have a strong gay Republican presence in the country,ö Mason said.

Many question how someone who is both gay and black could embrace a political party with an anti-gay and ù at times ù racist reputation. But Mason said he is naturally inclined to support the political party that shared his strongly held beliefs about the limited role government should play in peopleÆs everyday lives.

ôI think that, historically, the Republican Party has been the one of limited government, so I naturally have an inclination to support that point of view. But recently, the party has been infiltrated by people who donÆt share that point of view,ö he said.

Despite that realization, Mason continues to be an active Republican because he believes his prior experiences have proven that change only comes from working within the party.

ôAs exhibit one, in 1990, I could have not been involved with the Weld Campaign. I chose to, and over the course of eight years, I think that anyone looking at government in America in all the 50 states would say that Weld and [then-Lt. Gov.] Cellucci were the most progressive and did the most groundbreaking things around gay rights anywhere in the country. The last decade of the millennium saw the most progressive gay rights advances happening in Massachusetts, under the leadership of Republicans, because of people like me who understood that is the way to make change,ö Mason said.

In addition to his work with the LCR, Mason is now involved with the LCR-based Liberty Education Fund, a Washington, D.C., group that works to educate people from both political parties on the issues affecting gay and lesbian Americans. Through his efforts in both organizations, Mason believes he also has helped impact positive changes at the federal level. He noted that the Republican-controlled Congress continues to increase HIV/AIDS funding.

ôIn 1994, when the Republicans took over Congress, everyone said, æOh my God,Æ because they feared we would lose AIDS funding. What happened is that every year since then, the Republican Congress appropriated more money for AIDS research than [Democratic] President Clinton even requested. The point is: That didnÆt happen by accident,ö he said.

Unique as his role may be, Mason is not BostonÆs only black political leader within the gay community. Gary Daffin has been active in the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus since 1989 and has remained co-chair of the stateÆs largest gay political organization since 1991. In addition, Daffin heads the Black HIV/AIDS Coalition and helped to co-found Men of Color Against AIDS (MOCAA).

Kenneth Reeves, now the acting mayor of Cambridge, is that cityÆs senior City Council member and previously was the stateÆs first and only openly gay mayor when he was Cambridge mayor from 1992-1995. And in Worcester, former policeman Al Toney runs the Safe Homes Project of Central Massachusetts to help gay and lesbian street youth, and plans to make a second bid for the Worcester City Council next year.

Meanwhile, the local leaders noted how none of the national gay organizations have black leaders on the front lines, although Daffin said he knows that many gay and lesbian people of color work behind the scenes for those same organizations, and he himself was the only black gay person to ever host the HRCÆs New England dinner.

ôI donÆt think black gay and lesbian people identify with the national gay organizations, partially because they are political, and I think itÆs hard to find black gay people who are interested in that level of political activity,ö he said.

Internal racism?

Some black leaders believe the gay community is not immune to racism, which may be in part why some people of color are less likely to take active roles in their community.

ôThe only organization that began to hear a black voice was the [NBLGLF] in D.C. Right now, we donÆt have a national organization. Until [the NBLGLF] gets back on its feet or another organization begins, it is imperative for African-American lesbian and gay people to work very closely and diligently with their local organizations,ö said the Rev. Irene Monroe, a doctoral candidate at CambridgeÆs Harvard University who is also a NBLGLF board member and a board member for the Millennium March on Washington.

ôWhen I was asked to be on the board for the Millennium March, it comes from the place that the constituencies that I represent are under-represented. ... A large part of it has to do with blatant forms of racism and the inability [for black people, among others] to get on those boards and in [national gay and lesbian] organizations. In making this internal critique within our queer community, itÆs a replication of how racism is rampant in the larger society. ... I donÆt think you have real strong black leadership in any of these big metropolitan cities,ö Monroe said.

But both Mason and Reeves say that racism has not been a problem they have had to face within the gay community. The larger problem, they believe, is invisibility among gay and lesbian people of color.

ôMore recently, you see gay and lesbian African-Americans being referenced, but there are still many people who are not quite ready to acknowledge some major figures are black and gay, like Bayard Rustin. Bayard Rustin was a prominent civil rights person in the 60s. ItÆs great that we keep his work alive and keep talking about him,ö Daffin said. ôBut there is still the problem of people like Barbara Jordan, who everyone knows was lesbian. There is an uneasiness about publicly saying someone is lesbian, but that is not part of the definitive history of this great congresswoman, and that is particularly disturbing. We have a long ways to go before folks are very comfortable talking about well-known black accomplished people who were gay and lesbian.ö

Role models

Like Daffin, Monroe cites Rustin as one the African-American communityÆs most politically active role models, calling him ôa handsome six-footer who possessed both athletic and academic prowess,ö who was also instrumental in organizing the 1963 March on Washington that catapulted the Rev. Martin Luther King onto a world stage.

ôIn the [black] civil rights movement, Bayard Rustin was always the man behind the scenes, and a large part of that had to do with the fact that he was gay. Bayard Rustin is an example for all [gay and lesbian] people of African descent, and by extension, to all queers, because he was a man of formidable courage,ö Monroe said.

Locally, there is Sgt. Det. Norman Hill from the Boston Police Department (BPD), the BPDÆs former gay community liaison who was promoted within the department just last year ù while lesbian crusader Pam Johnson heads MOCAA, an organization aimed at curbing the HIV/AIDS epidemic within the African-American community. They are among the countless others who work diligently and passionately behind the scenes, many of whom are not even known by Bay Windows.

Meanwhile, the local activists urge gay and lesbian people of color nationwide to come out and to be politically involved in their own community, so they can be role models for tomorrow.

ôAs the black queer community [begins] a new year and a new century of black queer life, we must also marshal in a new vision of social justice and social action,ö Monroe said. ôFor decades now, Black History Month has not once acknowledged [nor] celebrated the contributions and achievements of its lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Just like white American history, black history would lead you to believe that the only shakers and movers of its history were heterosexuals.ö

And Mason hopes that Black History Month also will be used for people to celebrate what they have in common.

ôI think Black History Month is something that used to concern me in a negative way. When I was in college and even a little later, it appeared to be a time when African-Americans kind of focused on our accomplishments in America. The affect was and can be to kind of put people who arenÆt African-American on edge. So I used to think that Black History Month is not helpful, frankly,ö Mason said. ôAs I have gotten older, what I found is that you can make the month a positive thing for everyone by focusing more on the things we have in common with people who are different from us,ö he added. ôOur history is so tied up with other peopleÆs history because we all form one American experience and we canÆt separate ourselves from each other. I think itÆs positive that [the month] is increasingly viewed that way.

Part 3 of a series

Black gays still yearn for religious support

Scott A. Giordano Bay Windows correspondent

During times of slavery, the church was often the place where black people would find a sense of community and belonging, and a place they could turn to for guidance and foundation. That prominent role of the church within the black community continues today, viewed by many as the most powerful institution within the black community û and that holds true for many gay and lesbian people of color.

Yet the Rev. Irene Monroe, a black lesbian minister/theologian who is a doctoral candidate at the Harvard Divinity School, knows from both personal experience and the stories she has heard from others that the role of religion within the black community is not always a good one.

ôThe price of being black and [gay or lesbian] within [the church] very seldom leads to excommunication, but it does quite frequently lead to social and emotional alienation. à Their black skin ostensibly gives them residence in their communities, but their sexual orientation most times gives them eviction from it,ö Monroe said.

Other local black leaders working within their communities agree that the church can be both a place of great comfort for the black gay or lesbian person or the very place that keeps them in the closet.

ôI think black people as a whole are pretty much entrenched in spirituality. We didnÆt get here on our own, and we believe in some fashion about a higher power. Christianity in America has been one of the anchors that black people have had as we have gone through our experience in America,ö said Pam Johnson, the black lesbian director of Men of Color Against AIDS. ôI would say that some folks who have been entrenched in the church have learned to understand there are certain conversations that are best not becoming community knowledge.ö

Perhaps even more threatening, however, is that the religious Right has tried to use black churches to promote its anti-gay agenda. Back in 1997, celebrity spokeswoman Anita Bryant began the modern alignment with the religious Right and black churches when she launched her ôSave the Childrenö crusade that successfully repealed a gay-rights law in Miami. In the last five years, the gay movement has seen football star Reggie White and the niece of Martin Luther King, Alveda King, become active spokespeople against gay rights û and doing so in the name of God.

According to local activists, the Right intentionally tries to create a rift between African-Americans and gay people in order to distinguish between what they believe is the ôtrueö civil rights movement ù the civil rights struggle among African-Americans ù as opposed to what they call the immoral gay rights movement. In order to do so, they use people like White and King to perpetuate the myth that sexual orientation is nothing more than an immoral choice and a character flaw as compared with race that is inarguably biological.

ôMuch of our failure with right-wing organizations in the country is because of either our refusal or our inability to also argue for the Biblical legitimization of our rights,ö Monroe said. ôReligion has played a salient role in discrimination against all people at different times in this country. Both religious intolerance and fundamentalism not only shatter the goal of American democracy, but also foster a climate of spiritual abuse that leaves many people in spiritual exile for the rest of their lives. At present, its excommunicated population is [gay and lesbian people].ö

Johnson noted how she initially felt like an outsider in her Lutheran Church, as she first began to acknowledge her sexual orientation. ôWhat the church taught à led me to believe that I was less accessible and fell into the category of æabsolute sinner.Æ I think that is a message that gay people hear [in the black churches] even still today, and that does cause some rift between these people having to feel as though they must choose between coming out or remaining in their church,ö she said.

Yet these same leaders say their religions have played a critical role in their own lives, by bringing them a sense of community and personal strengths. So rather than abandoning their faiths, they believe the best way to make the black churches more welcoming of gay and lesbian people is by finding the personal conviction and courage to come out and speak for justice.

ôIn our pushing the envelope on the issues of sex and sexual orientation à people will begin understanding that sexuality is not only about procreation. à The locus of freedom for all humanity lies in our ability to explore and share our sexualities across race, class and gender lines,ö Monroe said.

Moreover, the leaders say that black gay people must remember that God created and loves them for who they are, and they believe people like White and King are not speaking for God but for themselves, which makes it even more imperative for gay people to speak for themselves.

ôItÆs a matter of making the religious Right less the focus point and being who we are and doing the work we need to do to evaluate ourselves as individuals. For me, itÆs a personal and a collective journey,ö Johnson said.

In addition to speaking from a personal viewpoint, Monroe believes gay and lesbian people also can further the gay civil rights movement by learning to understand the Bible and combat the religious arguments raised by the Right.

ôAs [members of this community], many of us keep the power of religion interpreted and executed by heterosexuals, by not knowing the Bible,ö Monroe said. ôOur ignorance about the Bible, whether we are practicing atheists or recovering Christians, perpetuates our oppression and makes our participants in this climate of queer hatred. Our strategy to stop queer bashing has to be on both Biblical and legal fronts.

ôAs more [gay and lesbian] people unabashedly take back the Bible, new theological and ethical questions must be raised,ö she added. ôWith this understanding, both church and state must provide us all with new rules and language to make sense of our lives.

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