KICK
RACISM AND HOMOPHOBIA INTO TOUCH
SPECIAL KAY’E
A recent big news story was a particularly unsavoury
one about racist chants suffered by the England soccer players during their
recent international ‘friendly’ in Spain. I feel physically sick
each time Ashley Cole, Shaun Wright-Phillips or any of the black players had
the ball and I heard the Spanish monkey chants. It was nasty.
It’d be nice to think such ugliness had disappeared from the game here
at home, but we’re not there yet. Bananas haven’t been thrown
onto the pitch for a while but it’s widely acknowledged there’s
still something of a problem with racism in English football. Many Asian fans
will still go nowhere near a league match. There was the Dwight Yorke incident
that ended up in a courtroom. And let’s not forget Ron Atkinson.
A few weeks before all this, I attended a conference and sat in stunned disbelief
as I listened to a gay man complain bitterly in a workshop about how the limited
resources that were once the, (assumedly), sole property of his community
now had to be shared with us Africans. There are echoes of this sentiment
on the message board of the UKC’s website, so it’s not possible
to dismiss it as isolated.
I thought things had moved on. I thought the white gay community had come
to terms with the fact that HIV was no longer their exclusive preserve.
But, evidently, the view is still held in many quarters that African ‘migrants’
are swamping the HIV sector and cutting severely into their rations. People
bang on about ‘Africans’ and ‘gay men’, as if the
two groups were mutually exclusive and completely alien to one another. Let’s
not forget that there are people living with HIV who belong to both groups
and, equally, there are people who belong to neither. How are they expected
to feel included?
But it’s not only racism and racial intolerance that pervade the HIV
community. Homophobia is a huge issue too, especially in the African and Caribbean
communities. This was brought sharply into focus by the recent furore caused
by a reader’s response to an article by Rev Jide Macaulay that appeared
in issue 103 of PN last summer. One would have thought that people with HIV
awareness, (particularly PN readers), would have become more accepting of
gay people by now.
But maybe it was the fact that Rev Macaulay is an African that caused distress.
Even among African HIV professionals, the idea that gay Africans might actually
exist still causes some anxiety. Rev Macaulay is not the first gay man to
write in PN by any means, but I believe he’s the first African one with
the balls to be open about his sexuality.
So here’s a newsflash: the notion all gay men living with HIV are white,
have wonderful glamorous jobs, live in luxurious accommodation, go on vacation
several times a year, go mad drug-induced clubbing every night and generally
have loads of money to throw around, is built on an ugly, ignorance-based
stereotype.
Though most positive white gay men may not have immigration issues or have
to deal with racism, they grapple daily with issues like homophobia, unemployment,
lack of confidence and low self-esteem, isolation, depression, bereavement,
loneliness, rejection and general uncertainty about the future. Being positive
is no more of a joy ride for them, than it is for anyone else.
Moreover, black gay men, many of whom are asylum seekers themselves, have
to deal with all of the above. We really need to keep that in mind.
Maybe the HIV community is simply representative of society as a whole and
therefore racism and homophobia will always be with us. However, gay people
are not going anywhere and, by and large, black people are not going anywhere
either. We need to get along with each other, try to work with each other
and see what we can learn from each other. These divisions are not helpful.
It’s also my view that the sooner we all start to embrace the diversity
that exists among all people living with HIV, the sooner society at large
might begin to see that this isn’t just something that only affects
homosexuals and black immigrants or asylum seekers.
Let’s acknowledge, respect and celebrate our differences but equally,
let’s embrace our commonalities. Let’s kick racism and homophobia
out of HIV once and for all.
ekaggwa@ukcoalition.org
