#then I think again how Rand speaks to people who had their individuality oppressed.

[cafeleningrad]

When a colleague you actually like, and you know had to shed a lot of structurally oppressive thinking to become her own person says that this is the reason she likes Ayn Rand. :/

[blackqueerabby]

Not an HIV Poster Child...

I am not an HIV poster child. I will never be that. I am not a Black Queer man who has broken some proverbial glass ceiling and I’m am not an aspiring professional. I say that to say: how I speak and write centers my Blackness and Queerness. How I dress is a conscious decision to disrupt narratives of respectability and how I move my body is in such a way to take up, reclaim and move into my space. I could unfold to you all of the trauma that my body and mind holds, but that isn’t productive right now. Black trauma is such a crop; these oppressive structures live and thrive off of our despair and bodies. If I screamed a thousand times about how my body had to hold anti-Black violence it would only be the beginning.

I must confess, I use to buy into the idea that exceptionalism is survival. I did listen to the voices that told me that difference, education and achievements increases safety for you and that state-sanctioned violence would be less felt in this context. I remember vividly being infuriated with my brother because I couldn’t understand what made us different.

He was caught in the trap of systems and I thought I had escaped. The truth is that I was operating within the same frameworks; it was an illusion that I had escaped. He knew the system by design was not made to protect us. I on the the other hand felt like we could push institutions to include us.

I was wrong and he was right. He didn’t need a book to tell him that the New Jim Crow was here, he didn’t need ten pundits to debate if we are living in a post-racial society or not he had his scars that reminded him of where he is localized in the structures of white supremacy.

A Courageous Accomplice

I had a very courageous accomplice when I was in High School. My teacher Ms. Billick, who to this day will probably be the most memorable educator in my life. She fought for her students and told the truth. We discussed theory of filmmaking, politics and other subjects during this time and I was working at a casual dining restaurant after school. We had a project to discuss Ayn Rand’s the “Fountainhead” and I went to purchase it and began to dig deep. I learned how despicable Ayn Rand was and how she was a chief influencer of Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Chairman who presided over the “housing bubble” and other forms of financial and economic violence. In addition to becoming a very adamant rejector of Ayn Rand’s capitalist ideas about the individual, she lead me into a conversation with a coworker that would render the most violent forms of racism I had ever experienced.

I walked into work and was about to go on the floor to serve and I sat The Fountainhead book down on a chair. A coworker walked by and noticed the book and asked, “what do you know about Ayn Rand?” I discussed my class and my thoughts on the book and told this coworker that I would come back to him and finish my analysis after I’ve completed my reading.

He immediately began screaming and told me I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was and that given his intellectual pedigree he would annihilate any of my analyses. I remember being so shocked I couldn’t respond. I had been called nigger before, but this was layered and different. I guess this was a microassault? I will never forget this, because I remember going home that night and I immediately told my mother what happened and wanted to hear her thoughts. She knew exactly what was going on -- simply anti-Black racism coming out to play.

The Insidiousness of Racism

I mentioned this experience because it let me know that the insidiousness of racism is embedded in the language white people use or not use, it is in how they frame the work they do in Black and Brown communities. Given my name, presentation and being a dark-skinned Black man, I could continue to give receipts about my experience, but I want to dig into a situation that occurred to me at a non-profit. There I was reminded that my Black life didn’t matter, but my Black representation did. It was framed as diversity and they couldn’t wait to take a photo and place it strategically on marketing materials.

I worked there because I was poz and I had been socialized to believe that I needed these spaces to do the work that I was so passionate about, which was to build with community. I now know that narrative isn’t true. I worked there twice because I have a pattern of centering the work and not myself. I went back because I was asked to. I had been working at a food cooperative at the time that was going through a pretty rough transition and figured “hey let me go back to the devil I know!” I had known that the nonprofit was a toxic place to work, but I felt indebted to this institution because I tested positive there.

They do a good job at using guilt, be it subtextual or direct, to get poz people to buy in to their culture. Here is an example: another AIDS non-profit in the same region has a photo series where poz patients disclose their status, and uplift the institution by saying this agency either saved their lives or that they wouldn’t know what to do if that institution wasn’t present. My personal thought is that this is a form of commodification of narratives that does nothing to bring equity and clarity to these experiences. It is visibility for funding sake. It is something I’m sure they used in a narrative report or a funding application to prove they are doing the work.

There is oblique hilarity in listening to messages from non-profit spaces about the “problem” in the context of HIV/AIDS. One of the messages is: the system is broken because the people are broken. The task of the oppressed is to constantly prove we aren’t broken and that the system isn’t either. The outcomes are what is intended.

An example would be when someone black or brown talks to white compatriots in the struggle to eradicate HIV about how to engage our communities and they respond saying: “let us do it!” “Well, we have the tools and resources to help impact these outcomes.” My response is the reason you have the tools and resources is because of the system that you profess to be disrupting. How does that work?

I Thought They Knew Me

Back to the nonprofit where I had returned  to work, again as an HIV prevention counselor: They had asked me back but didn’t ever consider giving me a wage that was commensurate with my experience. They gave me the base rate for that position. Talk about inequity! I accepted the job anyway because, again, I felt indebted.

But not long after, I was hauled into the CEO's office for what would become one of the most humiliating, dehumanizing and anti-black moments in this agency’s very white and privileged history. This one, is as they say "for the books." It is a moment I hope they wrestle with for years to come, because Allah knows, it continues to wrestle with me.

I walked in and my supervisor was present with her boss (a cis white man) and her boss' boss (a cis white man) and lastly the CEO of the organization (a cis white woman) who was behind her desk.

The CEO said that this would go easily if I were honest. She then proceeded to say this: “We have some evidence that suggest you have been selling drugs (cocaine) at our flagship testing space, and using cocaine there. Also, that you've been running a prostitution ring and a speakeasy at that site as well.”

She then asked what I had to say. I was between extremely mad and about to laugh at the ridiculousness of this accusation (which she claimed was supported by evidence). I said “none of that is true,” and stopped there. She said because of how serious these now-termed "allegations" were that she'd have to call the police. I said call them!

Then the tone changed. I was asked why would someone claim that I was doing these things, who might want to hurt me. I said well people do all kinds of things and you as CEO of a non-profit should understand that.

I then had to explain, because of the power in the room and how vulnerable being black in this space is, how I was being stalked and threatened by someone. I had to show my call log -- he called from various phone numbers and I had to share numbers he had called from. They had me read humiliating personal text messages between us and heard voicemails of the individual saying extremely nasty, abusive things to me. All very private embarrassing things. They put two and two together, and I was told to return to work. I said go back to work? I left and was immediately overcome with heat, that's how upset I was.

I was later informed that management had gone to the flagship testing site and looked through trash and searched the place, in full glove and bag mode, "looking" for evidence.

The immediate response was to believe this about a black queer man before the "benefit of the doubt" was even considered. They totally didn't do a thorough investigation and had brought these claims to me. I was hurt that they responded that way. I had volunteered and worked here previously. I thought they knew me.

This moment clarified some things for me. It made clear that this wouldn't have unfolded in the this way had I been white, and that no matter how much investment into community and institution I had behind me they think of me as criminal first, even though I'd never committed a crime.