Seventy-six entries were submitted from across the country for National Youth Pride Services' annual State of the Union For Black Gay America essay contest. This was the winning entry—and the official state of the union for National Youth Pride Services.
Black SGL young men across the nation are in a serious state of crisis at the back of the line. There is an urgent need for a call to action and strategy specifically for this group of youth. Young Black SGL men must understand that they matter in this country.
We must begin by looking at the society that we live in the United States of America. Then, take a closer look at our own community: Black America. Finally, the system that silences our voices and denies our history must be addressed in relation to LGBT community. Stigma and silence plague our community, and it is this generation's responsibility to answer the call.
Examining the context of society in which we live is key to addressing this call. Sexual-relationship dynamics, social norms, social support, policies, laws, environmental barriers, racism and homophobia are external factors that dictate our existence. We are facing issues of power, control and decision-making within our sexual relationships like we have never seen before as a community.
The pressures of family, culture, religion and peers orchestrate our behaviors, whether it is right or wrong or whether it is okay or not okay to do. We need positive reinforcement of our change efforts from our partners, family and peers. The most impactful encouragement comes from the people in our own circle of friends.
America is making progress when it comes to rules in place that will assist us with changes within our community and some that help create barriers for this specific group. Laws that govern our behavior have been strike off the books but still plague the mind of the nation. Our communities lack the resources and knowledge that make things easier for us as a people, whether we have access to the necessary life saving resources to support our existence. In society, there is a perceived and experienced sense of negative social attitudes, beliefs, and actions based on race and sexual orientation that affect our personal behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs.
As a community, these interrelated concepts of self-worth and value matter. They define how we see ourselves as individuals: Determining what we believe in, what we think is okay and not okay for us to do. We identify ourselves based on who we are and where we fit into society. Ultimately, how do our lives fit in with how we see ourselves?
We struggle with our dual identity of being Black men and gay men, and how to manage our identity. We must fit into the Black community because of the color of our skin and fit into the gay community because of the lives that we live—or so we think. This dual identity makes the visibility of a strong and proud community almost invisible.
In Black America, men are everything that our lives are stereotypically not supposed to be. The community sees Black men as strong, masculine, heterosexual, fathers and providers, marrying Black women and taking care of the family. Why cannot all of these things coexist with another Black man? They can, with the exception of the obvious. The community voids of romantic and sexual contact with other Black men. We encounter homophobia and disapproval from our own community, including the places that we should feel secure in such as churches, family and friends.
These experiences result in our own internalized homophobia. When we look at the gay community, we see something completely different. White and feminine are the images that we see that do not reflect us as Black men. The ownership of being LGBT rests amongst this community because of racial discrimination and disapproval based on skin color, fueling internalized racism. This is a struggle for our community and our identity because society has not created a place for us to Black, SGL men. If it has not been created, then we must create it. But why have we, as a community, expected someone else to create our community for us? All of these identities make up who we are as a people, so they must be embraced and woven into the fabric of our society.
Our perils and possibilities on this journey as a modern young SGL Black man is a path of pride and prosperity. We are gifts with a sense of hope. As a community, we must start where we are as a community, not where society is as a collective body. This community is a group of individuals, just like each and every one of us. There must be a paradigm shift to impact this population, so that we are not marginalized without resources. Room needs to be made at the table for us with a chair that has our names on it.
Hope is vital to our survival to create a healthy sense of masculinity because our current state is about performance. If we address these issues that plague our community, we can make positive changed to our physical (health), mental, emotional, social and educational well-being. We have work to do as a community and it will take each one of us to create our community.
