Before I get into this story, let me say that making a
conscious decision to embrace all lifestyle choices didn’t mean that I
instantly stopped using words like “faggot,” “queer,” “homo” and the like as
pejoratives. It meant that I went through a process of ever-increasing
awareness that those words and the intent behind using them carried far more
weight than I ever realized. That's what happens, that’s what’s happening, now
and everywhere. We are experiencing civil rights history here, take it in,
enjoy it, participate. This had to be how it felt when decent people made the
connection between their use of words like “nigger,” “coon,” and “spook” and
the weight those words were carrying beyond who they were saying them to. You
start to realize that you’re in one of those moments in history where the
collective consciousness just sort of decides on a particular path, and you
have to decide if it’s the right one for you. In the span of a couple of years,
I went from feeling very little when I used those words to feeling
like…no…knowing I was choosing the wrong way to express myself when I did. That’s
not to say that I still don’t use those kinds of words on rare occasions, but the
context is much different, I’m very careful when I do and I completely
understand if someone wants to take me to task upon hearing me say them. This
is kind of similar to my relationship with the word “nigga” as used by my white
friends. The word will always invoke a certain feeling or reaction, but that
feeling or reaction will always depend upon the person’s intent and the
context. It doesn’t always give me a negative feeling, actually, among white
people who are close to me, it rarely gives me a negative feeling. However, I
think that they should always be prepared and accepting of the fact that any
black person has a right to a more adverse reaction upon hearing them or any or
white person use the word. Words like “nigga,” “homo,” and “faggot” are heavy
and if you aren’t prepared to carry the load you assume when you decide to use
them, you shouldn’t pick them up.
I used to be a school safety agent at a really tough high
school, Adlai Stevenson in The Bronx. I went into the job with big, bright
naïve eyes and ideas, and I exited with a layer of hardened skin I’ve since
been thankful for, but didn’t enjoy earning at the time. Everything went on
there, drug dealing, sex, gang activity, low achievement/expectations, all the
good stuff that’s since been effectively tackled by NCLB, Race To The Top and
Teach For America. I was 21, meaning at a school like that, there were students
my age. I’m from the ‘hood, I lived less than a mile away, and nothing that
went on there was out of my realm of experiences, but having to help police it
all was something else entirely. I was just trying to hold up my end of the
rent for my first apartment, and working for a division of the NYPD meant a
city gig with good benefits and security. I wasn’t thinking much past that,
even though we heard horror stories in school safety academy. I knew how to
talk to drug dealers, flirtatious females and various ne’er-do-wells because I
was raised around them. But supervising them, with the main objective of trying
to get them into class and care about their education, was a skill set my ego
made me believe I had at an age where I hadn’t even began drinking. Add in the
fact that I have a baby face and had a chronically pleasant demeanor (even
students warned me that I smiled too much), and you can probably deduce that
this wasn’t the job for me.
There were many clicks, ethnic clicks, nerds, thugs, the
artistic kids, the goths, etc. There was also a click of gay students and a
click of Jamaican students, mostly male. If you know anything about Jamaicans,
then you know that those two clicks weren’t exactly sharing a lunch table.
Incidentally, Jamaican dudes have never felt me much throughout my life, for
reasons I still can’t quite put my finger on and won’t even attempt to ponder
at this stage in life, it just is what it is. It’s not all of them, but I’ve
clashed with them enough times to realize that there is just something about me
that they don’t like. One crew in particular hated me and went out of their way
to annoy me, usually by straggling when the bell rang and during dismissal, or
making remarks about me in patois. I always had the advantage, being the
“adult” backed by 15 other agents tasked with keeping them in order, but they
did get under my skin. Once, in a not-so-empty hallway, one told me that I
better be happy to be able to “see Christmas” as the winter holiday was
approaching. I took that as a major threat and followed him through the
hallway, using the kind of language the NYPD doesn’t officially approve of,
trying to provoke a confrontation I didn’t need.
So what does any of this have to do with me realizing I need
to chill with the homophobia?
Well, like I said, the school had a click of gay kids, some
of who were pretty cool with me, some who didn’t dig me so much. (One time a
girl who had a confusing crush on me said to me, “Man, I wish you were a
lesbian, I would go with you.” There’s so much I’m confused about regarding
that. Moving on…) People like to spill their guts to me, and I find peace in
helping them sort it all out; one day one of the gay kids did just that. I
can’t remember why or how, but I do remember that having good talks was a good
way to past the time or jolt myself out of the mental prison I had to put
myself in just to resemble an effective SSA. I listened, because I’m a much
better listener than I am a talker, and I think her appreciated that. One thing
we found common ground about was how annoying (I guess that’s a euphemism; when
we’re talking about what that one said to me, and about how they followed this
gay home and threatened him in front of his sibling, I think annoying is
putting it mildly) the Jamaican kids were. (For the record, I have some good
male Jamaican friends/acquaintances, not all of the Jamaican male students were
bad, or even from Jamaica, and I idolize Usain Bolt, so don’t paint me
anti-Jamaican. Everyting irie over here, bredren.) He told me about their
constant harassment, among other personal things, like touching on the
difficulties of being openly gay at his age and his dreams of becoming a
dancer. From then on, we were pretty cool.
Fast forward a couple of years later, I’m still living in
that neighborhood but I’ve quite school safety to resume my studies more
consistently. While waiting at a bus stop across the street from my building, I
see someone who looks like this same kid, except he has further embraced his
gender identity, and has in hair extensions, and maybe make-up on. As he
started to cross the street, obviously to wait at the bus stop also, I got
really nervous really fast. It was then that I realized just how homophobic I
was. Talking to this kid at work was one thing – it was easy, it was in the job
description, no one would attach any meaning to it that mean anything to me,
everyone knew who we were. But in the street, out in the world, I got scared
that strangers might wonder how I knew this guy, why we were talking, and if we
were of a similar flock, him willing to show his feathers, me not so much. I
wasn’t going to leave, I mean, I needed to get the bus, and I couldn’t just
ignore him if he decided to speak to me, I don’t do that. Funny enough, I could
tell that he sensed my apprehension (no doubt, he had experience with such situations)
and walked over but not too close, and not looking my way, almost as if he was
offering the option for me not to have to interact with him. I was instantly
brought back to an incident from my high school days, when while taking the
train home from summer night school with a bunch of my peers, an extremely
flamboyant gay dude from my block entered the train to much laughter and
ridicule from my classmates. I prayed to God that he wouldn’t reveal that he
knew me, and as he walked through our subway car to get to another, he just
gave me the slightest acknowledgment and never missed a step. He’d been in
those situations before, trying not to embarrass straight people who could only
bring themselves to treat him like a normal human being under very controlled
circumstances, with his presence. I felt incredible relief and not a small
amount of shame.
More than six years later, at this bus stop, I should have
grown enough to expect more of myself. In a split second it hit me – Was I,
StarPower, the guy known for saying/doing the most outrageous things on stage
because I don’t embarrass easy and didn’t give a soaring crap about what anyone
thought of me, scared of what some STRANGERS might think about my sexuality if
I held a conversation with this dude while waiting for the Bx22? Really?? The
absurdity of the thought hit me with the force of logic, reason, and common
sense. Before he cold comfortable turn away from me, I reached out to him and
began conversing. After a minute or two, I was completely relaxed, and he
seemed to be also. Maybe someone was watching from a window, wondering if we
were two gay guys having a conversation. So what? Why was I afraid of that? It
was the kind of moment in which you do something you should have done, and then
realize you should have done it not only because it was the right thing, but
because it would’ve been so EASY to do the right thing.
My journey away from homophobia is ongoing; just a couple of
years ago a close friend of mine, a teacher who is a lesbian, was quite
disappointed with me when I said that I didn’t think I could bring myself to go
to a gay rights rally. I considered myself a supporter of civil rights, but
there was my boundary. I used all the logic I could and believed to explain why
it was alright for me to feel that way, and we eventually agreed to disagree.
I’m sure that affected what she thought of me afterwards to some degree, but
true friendship is patient so I’m also sure that if she thought I was the
person she hoped I was, that I just had some growing to do, something I
admitted then and I do now. Now I realize that you can’t draw a line on where
your support lies when it comes to equal rights. It’s not for us to decide who
gets to do what in what way, we aren’t smart or civilized enough, and if we
were we’d probably just come to the same conclusion. Maybe I’ll always let a
smirk or chuckle escape when I hear what I take to be a clever racist,
homophobic or sexist joke/remark. Maybe one day I’ll stop thinking such things
even have the potential to entertain. The only thing I know for sure is this:
“Change, shit, everybody goes through change. As long as you
change for the better, I don’t see how anybody can be mad at ya.” – 2Pac
