(Untitled)

I just got a link from another blog of Langston Hughes reading his own poetry.

The seeming simplicity with which he reads his words is the thing that stands out to me, as if he is trying only to relay the pain associated with being a gay black man in the early part of the last century.

There was a time when this would have affected me in such a way as to feel a part of the pain. Not that of a gay black man, have you, but of being "black" in America. Of course I don't feel "black" anymore. Don't know if I ever really did.

But listening to this has reminded me that I definitely shy away from such thoughts, thoughts that invaded my psyche every single day. "Don't talk about my people that way," are words I said as a nine-year-old. What the hell did that mean, though?

As I've mentioned many times to many people interested in my racial and ethnic "plight," I spent lots of years in the not-so-distant past taking steps to feel black. But it was all outward activities I engaged in: attending poetry slams at black establishments, purchasing books from black bookstores, and even doing a collage.

I have given up on any quest to achieve racial belonging. In fact, there are times when it is still overwhelming, and that is when I am moved by not the words they're saying or emotions they're evoking, but rather remembrances of my quest and ultimate inability to achieve belonging.

Every once in a while, though, I will go back to that time when I was swimming in an isolated state of clinging to something that wasn't really mine. Like when I'm watching Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk and am moved to tears as Savion Glover performs "Slave Ships." I was just reminded of this recently. Or when I listen to the words of a song from Ragtime:

Go out and tell our story, let it echo far and wide. Make them hear you. Make them hear you.  How justice was our battle and how justice was denied. Make them hear you. Make them hear you.  And say to those who blame us for the way we chose to fight, that sometimes there are battles that are more than black or white.  And i could not put down my sword when justice was my right, make them hear you.  Go out and tell our story to your daughters and your sons. Make them hear you. Make them hear you.  And tell them in our struggle we are not the only ones. Make them hear you. Make them hear you.  Your sword can be a sermon or the power of the pen. Teach every child to raise his voice and then my brothers then will justice be demanded by 10 million righteous men.  Make them hear you. When they hear you I'll be near you again.
Ultimately, this is for all of us. The willingness to understand and accept where we all are no matter what color our skin is or isn't is key. So no I don't speak Spanish. Maybe one day I will. During the summer I look a little more Cuban, perhaps, than Puerto Rican, the latter of which is the resounding opinion.

"Black" or "African American" seems to have taken a back seat to what I present now, and it was a strange process to give up everything I had put in my head. Langston Hughes put my mind here. Go listen to him.