ASSUME
MAKES AN ASS OUT OF U AND ME
SPECIAL KAY’E
I’m often mistaken for a straight man. I don’t know how
this happens. I suppose, like the vast majority of black gay men, I don’t
fit any of the dumb stereotypes many people subscribe to.
I don’t mind. Not these days. In my younger, more militant years, I
used to get so stroppy with people asking questions like: “How’s
your wife?” that I started wearing a badge with “How dare you
presume I’m a heterosexual?” written boldly on it. Ah, the good
old days.
But I’m older and mellower now. I can honestly say that there isn’t
a heterophobic bone in my body. Indeed, some of my best friends are straight.
But there are times when being ‘straight-looking’ can be inconvenient,
like when seeking a new partner.
It’s not easy getting attention from other men if you’re perceived
to be straight, even if they are gay themselves. Unless you’re in a
‘gay environment’, you’re much more likely to attract the
interest of women. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting for
a minute that I have women throwing themselves at me in orgasmic desire, but
I have had offers.
My wonderful local HIV organisations are fairly typical of the national norm.
Apparently, if you’re a black African man living with HIV in this country,
it is automatically assumed that you’ll be heterosexual. Similarly,
I get the impression that there’s an inherent belief that any white
man similarly afflicted, simply has to be gay.
I understand why this happens. “Well, we have to allocate available
resources according to identified need, blah, blah, blah.” I’ve
heard it a thousand times but I often wonder: what becomes of a positive black
gay man like me who wishes to get some peer support? The kind of support only
other positive black gay men can provide? And what about a white heterosexual
man with similar needs? What about Caribbean or Asian people? There might
not be many of us about but we’re still here and we do have needs.
I remember talking with a colleague a few years ago. I expressed concern at
the seemingly low priority being given to HIV prevention work in the Caribbean
community. I was similarly worried about the lack of support services for
people of Caribbean origins living with HIV.
“Pah,” he said dismissively. “There are not enough of them.
There are more people in the city of Lagos than there are in all the Caribbean
islands combined.”
I never got the chance to find out if this is true or not but it’s hardly
the point. No matter what the overall numbers involved, if HIV infection rates
in the Caribbean community are drastically rising, and they definitely are,
surely it needs to be looked into. And even if there’s only one positive
West Indian person in this country for every thousand Africans, surely they
need support too.
My guess is that there will be many positive African men out there who have
chosen to either stay away from HIV support organisations or keep quiet about
their sexuality if they do. I don’t find either acceptable. I’m
aware that services for positive black gay men now exist down in south London,
as provided by those good people at Positive Place but up here in The North,
we’re not so lucky.
Maybe there’s no market for such a service in West Yorkshire. As rapidly
developing and as fascinatingly vibrant as Leeds is as a city, its black gay
population, assuming one exists, is virtually invisible. And trust me, I’ve
looked very hard for it.
But how about HIV services just making an effort to be more inclusive? A group
I used to volunteer with in London had an inspirational worker who ran a support
group simply called ‘The Black Communities Evening’. It wasn’t
called ‘the African group’, nor was it called ‘the Caribbean
group’. It wasn’t advertised as a group for heterosexuals, or
as one for gay men, but everyone felt welcome: young, old, gay, straight,
men, women, African and Caribbean. It was fantastic for people to get together,
laugh, cry, share experiences and talk about the many things they had in common,
as opposed to the few things that made them different. I’d never seen
anything like it before and since and wouldn’t have thought it possible
if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I suppose the divisions between
the races will always define a line between the majority of HIV services but
divisions within the divisions?
ekaggwa@ukcoalition.org
