Sharon Williams and Tokes Osubu are fighting
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By JAMES WITHERS
Friday, May 27, 2005
For three years, Sharon Williams thought she and her husband were happy. Both
were college educated. Her husband was a minister.
Then, one day, everything changed. Williams took her husband to a hospital
emergency room in their upper-middle-class Maryland suburb. Williams found out
her husband was HIV positive.
“My whole world fell apart,” Williams said. “I was very
ignorant about AIDS and HIV and never thought it would reach me.”
Williams told her story at a symposium called “Both Sides: Black Women
and Black Men, HIV and the Down Low.” Sponsored by the New York State
Black Gay Network, the panel, held at the City University Graduate Center, discussed
a phenomenon that has gotten press everywhere from the New York Times Magazine
to the Oprah Winfrey Show.
While no one tried to dismiss the reality of the down low, everyone on the
panel wondered why the “DL” eclipsed all other issues and concerns
when the conversation turned to sexuality, increasing HIV rates, and the black
community.
Keith Boykin author of “Beyond the Down Low” and a former special
assistant in the Clinton White House, call the DL a “sexy” issue
that “fits into all of our stereotypes. It’s not helpful to the
black community at all and demonizes black men as predators and black women
as diseased.”
Jonathan Gray, a PhD candidate at City University of New York and co-organizer
of the 2004 Black Masculinities Conference, agreed. “The narrative tends
to reinforce the three century myth of black male hyper-sexuality,” Gray
said.
Gray pointed out when former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey came out, the stories
about that did not include HIV transmission nor was the governor described as
living on the “DL.” Gray said that by paying so much attention to
the “DL narrative,” other causes for the increase in HIV transmission
— such as unsafe sexual practices and the disproportionate number of black
men who are part of the prison population — are given short shrift.
“This is a discourse we continue to have with ourselves,” said
Robert Fullilove, associate dean for community and minority affairs at Columbia
University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “The down low conversation
is about blaming someone.”
Tokes Osubu, executive director of Gay Men of African Descent, pointed out
that the history of the AIDS epidemic has been mired in a politics of scapegoating
from gay men to Haitian immigrants. “We need to blame someone and it is
sexy to blame someone who is leading a secret life,” Osubu said.
Osubu also had some strong words about homophobia among blacks themselves,
and the confining options black men have in defining manhood. “We do not
create a safe space for men to be who they are,” Osubu said.
Williams even wondered if homophobia in the black community is so pervasive
that black gay men would rather die than announce their sexuality. “Would
a black man in our community be willing to die first than accept his homosexuality?”
Williams asked.
If homophobia is an issue, the lack of any political agenda for the AIDS epidemic
is another. “There isn’t a black AIDS agenda in this country,”
Osubu said.
Any black AIDS agenda must be multifaceted. Boykin suggested it must deal
with needle exchange, condoms in prison, and health care coverage. “There
are so many issues we don’t talk about,” Boykin said.
While some concerns might be particular to the black community, the feeling
among many gay men that they must date women is universal. After the May 20
talk was over, Susanne came up and shared some of her story with Williams, a
tale that was strikingly similar expect Susanne and her husband are white.
“All of the things they are saying about the black men who are married
and gay, my husband did that,” Susanne said who only gave her first name.
“That is so persuasive. It transcends every race. This entire panel is
on the shoulders on how society has created an atmosphere where these men lie
and want to lead separate lives. My husband thought the two would never meet.
He would refer to it as his ‘dark side.’ It is who he is, but he
never could accept that because he knew his parents wouldn’t, his church
wouldn’t, and his community wouldn’t.”
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