P.M.W.
Literature and the crafty use of the english language was my very first love. As a young child I remember being so fascinated with the art of narration and story-telling. It was the story of the ghost, who cried “bloody finger” that first captivated me. Throughout the spooky story I was afraid, but that feeling was met with a comically relieving conclusion, as the author jokingly told the ghost to go “get a bandaid” and be quiet. Then again in middle school, I read Max Ehrmann’s “Desiderata” for the first time and fell in love with poetry. From a young age, dealing with childhood trauma, I learned to quiet my mind and make sense of things by narrating stories and poetry that helped me to translate my feelings.
It wasn’t until high school that I really discovered a love for hip-hop and RnB. The verbato of songs like Mary J. Blige’s “I’m Going Down” and Janet Jackson’s “I Get So Lonely” relayed immense emotions to me, and with their sheer use of their vocal tone. I remember feeling the dread, the love, the passion, the sadness in their voices and relating to it. The Carter men, Jay Z and Lil Wayne, dropped “Lost One” and “Something You Forgot” , and I was again in love with story-telling. The rhyme, alliteration and metaphors used, as they narrated their feelings and experiences resonated with me in a way that was spiritual. I hadn’t met any of these people I just mentioned, but I knew them, they understood me, and we were of one mind and emotion on those tracks.
I was just a little black gay boy, tucked away in the closet from all my alleged “friends” and “family”. However present I was physically, I was morbidly isolated for knowing I was queer and that no one would love or protect me if I had expressed that part of me openly. Simultaneously, I dealt with immense depression as a result of my own broken family and internalized insecurities. “I Feel Like Dying” by Lil Wayne became my anthem as I spiraled into experimentation with weed and alcohol as numbing mechanisms.
I am a writer and I’ve been on a bit of a hiatus from my penmanship, but for good reason. I write from a place of inspiration and lately I’ve had to find new means of becoming impassioned. The last four years saw me writing a bunch and it was because I was constantly provoked by trauma of the Trump presidency. As an empath, I felt it my duty to find a means of being active with the love and care our society so desperately needed (and still needs). Every day we turned on the television, there was some new evil to face; Some new horrible thing taken place: Travel bans from Muslim countries, Mass Deportations of Latinos and kids in cages, attacks on women’s rights to self-govern their health, and attacks on the Trans community.
It was exhausting, but I was up for the tasks. I could not in good conscience remain quiet as our country sank morally into the depths of a dangerous hell. I found power in my pen. It was and would become my sword, as we waged war for the soul of this country and for the souls of men. I wanted to take the conversations and studies and data I researched on current events to a broader audience, in hopes of effecting change. For several years on end, that is what I did.
So it is with joy that I relate my hiatus, in-part, to the swearing out of Donald J. Trump and swearing-in of a more conscionable president. And it is with excitement that I return to my first love in a way that is less reactive, and more inspired by possibility, thought, theory and philosophy that might actually create progressive revolution within my readers. This I feel is the hour of Renaissance; An age where we focus on thriving and effecting change which positively impacts generations to come.
Birth of a Movement
My last writing saw me take a leap from from the laptop to being a part of real world change I wished to see in the world. I wrote “Deviant: An Origin Story”, that narrated how and why I sought to create a safe space for queer people of color, like me. Exhausted of trying to fix the world for everyone else, I finally stopped and asked myself what I and those like me needed, most immediately. That answer was a time and space to just let our hair down and not worry about our own survival or that of others.
People of color, black people specifically, have been historically enlisted with the tasks of saving this wretched country. Whether it’s enslaved or imprisoned labor (one-in-the-same) of our black men stimulating the economy, or our black women voters in mass to save democracy; Black folks are always tasked with saving the soul of America. It is America, who must learn to love us in the way we have loved and protected her since her founding days.
My becoming a part of “the change I wished to see in the world” is what accounted for the rest of my writing break. Deviant was born as a sort of social experiment for creating an ideal world for queer people of color, rooted in ideas of autonomy, safety and freedom. I know that by being tasked with constant survival, we were losing our opportunities to just live… breathe… in and out… eyes closed… feeling embraced by the universe and safe in the world around us.
That space is wherein we thrive and get inspired to new and fresh ideas, which spark cultural revolutions and innovations. We were missing our opportunity to actualize all of the magic that we are, and that is what I sought to restore to us. What I found is that so many of us have never actually lived free.
Deviant revealed to me the deep revelation of ongoing mental slavery that still bars so many in our community from true freedom. It is in indoctrinated ideology that America and its white cis-gendered, heterosexual, property owning, gun touting, raping and pillaging, violent men still keep us away from freedom in the form of autonomy. Lately, I’ve been pondering the question of who are we, if truly unfettered by white supremacy, mask for “masc” masculinity, politics of “respectability”, heteronormativity and monogamy.
So much of our black queer soul has been sanctioned by society for so long, that I wonder who we are really, and what we all really could be if given the opportunity to really think, decide and be free. I feel as though there was a Golden Age of life and liberty peeking in the Free Love Era of the 70’s. Sex and love and drugs were becoming less taboo and more embraced in cities as apart of the natural human experience.
What Interrupted “Free Love”
It wasn’t until the crack and Aids epidemics of the 80’s that humanity’s evolution in the United States was brought to screeching halt. With medicine and contraceptives now understood in this country, and history under our belts to better inform us, I hope to pick-up with the progress of the 70’s. Socialist revolutions like the Black Panther Party, were aided by hipsters of every race, in their attempts to afford healthcare and food to communities.
Hipsters and black activists alike, criticized the government’s barbaric, insidious and expensive obsession with war. These same revolutionaries championed the autonomy of communities and individuals. Folks of this era were encouraged to explore, experience and experiment with happiness, so long as they were not physically hurting anybody. Again, sex, love and drugs were not treated as sin, but as natural happenings in the human experience.
I believe that people have a right to be more than “basic”. My whole damn community is everything but basic. Black folks and queer folks alike are cultural engineers. We are the creators of cool and curators of culture on and off of social media. We have a right to reach, run and fully enjoy the journey that is our Pursuit of Happiness. And America is constitutionally vowed to protect us as we embark on said pursuit.
History and education should be employed to better inform us of how to safely and healthily explore and experiment. Those are the only guards we need: guidance, as we maneuver freedom. As a studied Sociologist, I see the government as society’s acting parental figure. Since the aforementioned epidemics of the 80s, this parent has become hypocritically strict; denying us our rights to pursue happiness, while it engages in true evils of racist policing, criminalized poverty and international wars. It is those parental figures, who uphold politics of “respectability” and enforce them with unjust laws, who are out of touch with their humanity.
So many of those with political power have proven to be some of the most morally bankrupt, and we should reconsider the legitimacy we lend to their authority. Religious groups alike, who professed their love of Donald Trump, abandoned their stake in moral high ground. They displayed their love of money above all else, as they stood by his side in exchange for tax cuts. Evangelicals and even Baptist pastors like Kenneth Copeland and Paula White were among those hypocritical religious figures who ignored the blatant racist, xenophobic and sexist remarks of Donald Trump. The Bible itself clearly states that the love of money is at the root of all evil and those two pastors proved that part of the scriptures to be true. Self-proclaimed, self righteous, said-evangelist of Jesus Christ, those two pastors, and many others, went against all that Christ actually preached and exemplified in his life.
Christ himself was a manger-born immigrant from the Middle East, who would have likely been banned or caged by Trump’s inhumane, anti-immigration policies. Christ led his life on socialist principles, as he fed the masses of poor people, healed the sick and absolved his followers from the shame of sin. He also condemned the wealthy tax collectors and the self-righteous religious leaders, who would eventually see him hung from a cross. It is people and pastors with the actions of those who hung him, who now cling to his namesake as “Christians”; Professing themselves to be his followers, while so many actual sick, hungry, poor and ashamed people continue to suffer in our society. “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”- Romans 1:22
America now, with these crooked leaders, continues to criminalize the poor and working class populations for the same activity in which the rich partake. Those same leaders who uphold rape culture and racist structures have made sex work and drug use illegal for the poor. Research proves that the rich equally partake in drug-use and the purchase of sex workers, but both activities are condemned and criminal for poor people. Private prisons let wealthy perpetrators profit from the policing and fining of already poor and oppressed communities.
Instead of investment in education, art, jobs, sciences and health resources that might actually make communities safer, poor people are given police. Meanwhile, addiction and disease, the said deterrents of legalized drugs and sex work, thrive. But incarceration and fines do not solve these struggles. Again, as I am a Sociologist, I follow the researched data that proves more information and access to tools of health and safety actually saves people from addiction and disease. Criminalization and shame around sex and drugs does nothing but push people into the dark crevices of society, where they administer experiences themselves in the most dangerous and potentially harmful ways.
A look back at Reagan-era history proved that the same drugs that first plagued the black community were being enjoyed by upper class white people. These drugs were not home-grown, but trafficked into the states by those wielding wealth and power. Those drugs were then diluted and laced for poor people’s consumption. Beyond the concoction, the only other major difference is the way in which the government policed communities of color. Black communities were ripped apart during Reagan’s failed “War on Drugs”. Meanwhile, white communities went unfazed and freely enjoyed cocaine at the clubs and at home.
Even today, as the opioid crisis strikes white communities, we hear politicians like Hillary Clinton, change their tone about how to handle it as a health crisis. This same politician who used to refer to young black and brown youth as “super-predators” somehow found the humanity in people struggling with addiction, when their skin tone looked like hers. This kind of blatant hypocrisy from politicians and religious leaders is why I challenge everyone to question everything: Who made these folks the barriers of such moral judgment? What else, other than race and wealth, separates the struggles had in communities of color from that of the wealthy elite?
Most of these leaders are white people with a history that’s stained with the blood of enslaved and incarcerated black people. And many of the black folks in those same positions have proven out of touch with vulnerable communities of queer people, poor people, and young women. It is our duty then, as those most impacted by criminality and poverty, to reassess the legitimacy we give to political and religious authority. It is our duty to elect leaders who look like us and struggle like us. It is those leaders with proximity to our struggles that will possess the empathy and shared life experiences to create real applicable solutions for the problems that plague our communities.
A Whole New World
Imagine with me for a moment, what it might mean to decriminalize drug-use, and instead meet the users with information of exactly how those drugs might impact their body chemistry. Imagine if instead of locking drug users behind bars, where they get no proper rehabilitation, we made rehabilitation centers a government funded resource in all communities. What if instead of leaving the drug-concocting up to careless dealers on the street, our government tested, concocted, sold, regulated and taxed its own narcotics? We could create a barrier of required counseling and information for every person who wishes to purchase substances. We could keep track of drug-users and regulate their purchases and doses. We’d also have the peace of mind that they were not getting laced substances that may lead to additional negative health impacts.
In a conversation with a young mother, we explored the idea of drug regulation and education in place of criminalization. We began on two opposite ends of drug theory: She saw drugs as inherently evil and I saw them as a part of the natural human experience. I challenged her language around drug users, as she referenced “coke-heads”. I rebut that cocaine doesn’t often create addicts, and explained that the cheapened version sold on the street, as “crack” is what is actually dangerously addictive.
She and I researched data together and found that many high-functioning professionals like doctors, lawyers and construction workers are who account for the most cocaine and other illicit drug use. Understanding that these working professionals can potentially be a part of our very own peer groups and families was intentionally noted to humanize drug-users. Judgment and shame must be eliminated for us to think critically of how we can help folks who are vulnerable to addictions. It worked.
She and I agreed that the inherent evil was not the drugs themselves, but it was actually the stigma placed on the substances that was most problematic. The isolation that stigma brings about for substance users curates real harm and danger and addiction. We shared stories of our experiences in Caribbean countries, like Jamaica, who have no stigma around marijuana and provide no legal age for alcohol consumption. Visiting there, as youth, neither she or I encountered dangerous addicts of alcohol or marijuana.
Because the substances were so common-place, people felt no temptation to use them as tools to rebel. Even young people who would partake, did so in moderation because it was not seen as some secretive, cool or taboo thing to do. Meanwhile, she and I both encountered youth in our school days here in America, who snuck bottles of alcohol in school, disguised as sodas and juices. Young people in America also experimented with much harder drugs, simply because they were tempted to experiment with what was not allowed. The results of our setup here in the states bred so much more harmful and dangerous health effects, than what we witnessed during our trips to relaxed rules in Jamaica.
The same thought and research process can be applied to sex. Instead of meeting this very natural pursuit of pleasure with shame and abstinence-only teachings, we should employ comprehensive sex education that includes lessons on: orgasm achievement, mental health and decision-making, dating and intimacy, pregnancy, anatomy of male, female and trans-gendered bodies, and STDs. This kind of inclusive, in depth learning can start the work to heal and help so many. There are kids with genitalia that they’re unfamiliar and uncomfortable with, there are so many women struggling to achieve orgasms, there are so many young people still contracting STDs, there are so many young girls still having unwanted pregnancies, there are so many young minded young boys who are being indoctrinated with principles of rape and objectification instead of respect and consent. All of these realities impact our lives as individuals and collectively as a society. True help and healing begins with revelations of truth that surround our sexual bodies, minds, and influences.
A huge part of that societal healing process is relinquishing shame around sex, and it must begin with the end of policing what people chose to do with their sexual bodies. Policy-makers need to legalize sex work and enact regulations that keep sex workers safe. In our new world, picture legalized brothels, where bouncers can keep sex workers safe from ill-intentioned clients. Security presence on the side of sex workers may ensure that those workers feel confident in their demands for condoms and continued body-autonomy throughout their work. This directly uplifts consent and dismantles a culture of rape that currently persists in America.
What our current system of criminalization does is ignore the autonomy and safety of all sex workers. Criminalization and police are not protecting sex workers against back alley rape, forced sexual slavery by pimps, potential STD transmission and sexual assault. This impacts everyone social and sexual lives beyond the industry of sex work. Vulnerable women and queer people are preyed upon and never defended by police or a legal system that sees them as deviants for wanting to be in control of their sexual bodies. Young women are asked what they wore, if they dated their assailant, if they had a drink, and all to characterize them as being less deserving of body autonomy. Rape culture works in the way in which it assumes all deviants are somehow absolved from victimization. Rape culture normalizes the behaviors of those who appear in closer proximity to America’s historically elite, who are white, rich and male.
Dismantling the criminalization of sex work is the beginning of the work needed to dismantle the stigma of sexual deviants. Sexual deviants are often young women and queer people that refuse to conform to bullshit ideals of modesty, monogamy and heteronormativity. These social, sexual rebels are full human beings, who deserve protection from predators as they pursue their own happiness. The stigma placed on sex-work leaves sex workers, who are often young women, gay boys and trans people, with shame and in hiding. Often already oppressed by structural discrimination, these vulnerable people are left to dangerously work alone and in secrecy. In doing so, sex workers are continuously at-risk of predatory interactions with clients, who know they cannot report abuse simply because their industry is illegal.
To humanize this group we should highlight the astronomical numbers of young women kidnapped into sex trafficking, who have no means to report their abuse to clients or other adult voluntary sex workers. We also need a hard look at the reality that faces so many trans people of color, who are still met with job discrimination and then homelessness, which contributes to their survival sex and sex work. They should not be criminalized for trying to survive, and more importantly they should have access to legal brothels, where they can feel safe and be protected by bouncers, as they finance their survival.
Removing shame and uprooting stigma allows us to face these realities with more productive solutions. The solution in this case is legalized brothels, mandated health reports from sex workers to work, and enforced age regulations. Legalization and education is the answer which uplifts those who are being hurt the most from unsafe sex and rape.
Our government should be assessing the morbid effects of sex work criminalization and reassessing policies which defund policing the harsh realities of already oppressed and vulnerable people. Our governmental parent could instead incite real change in our society with comprehensive education on sex and drugs, rehabilitation centers, regulated drug administration and legalized brothels. Bringing light to the realities of the most affected demographics helps us to intentionally create the programs and institutions that they need for positive change.
Demystifying vices like drugs and alcohol also steals the appeal they have on impressionable and sometimes rebellious youth. Policies which champion autonomy also remove the shame, blame and fear, which isolate individuals and put them in potentially dangerous predicaments. Equipping the population with the applicable information and resources that they need, offer them the trust and personal responsibility to make the most informed decisions for their lives. Studies have proven that harm reduction drug policy and comprehensive sex education work best for this kind of behavioral intervention that results in sustained healthy living.
The Long Road Ahead
It often seems like the journey to progressive policies is a long and winding road, especially when we have so many stagnant members of leadership refusing to budge on progress. That is why it’s up to us to create our own change. History is only useful if we take a hard look at it and learn from it. The most present and pressing history of America’s most divisive and disgraceful president is one we should be looking at and learning from.
How was he elevated to power, allowed to hurt so many communities of people and able to come so close to destroying modern democracy? In that analysis, we cannot only look at those who shared his beliefs and voted in his favor. We must also be critical of the inaction and complacency of our said allies. White allies with political power left space for Trump’s rise to power. There are not just “good” and “bad” people; There are also those which contribute to evil by simply ignoring its evident existence. We cannot stand by as evil continues to transform and grow. We must become active revolutionaries for good, and push progress and positive change. There are too many immensely disenfranchised folks, who have no voice to vote, whether for a lack of time, energy, information, naturalization or financial means, and they are all worth defending.
Now is when we should have a hard look at the history of the 70s ``Free-love Movement”. That movement for America’s progress, was associated with exploratory sex and experimental drug use. Now is when we advocate for health policies and access to resources which protect vulnerable populations. Already oppressed minority communities are only more crippled with misinformation and a lack of resources. To close that gap of socio-economic wealth inequality, we must provide what information and resources are lacking, and do so in a way that attracts the affected populations.
Deviant was my first real life application of my combined historical and health studies as a Sociologist. I stopped imagining an ideal world and decided instead to create one. Within those four walls, for those five hours we spread messages of self-love, body positivity, sex positivity, harm reduction, safe sex, consent, personal responsibility, accountability partners, and we saw great results. Our patrons, often burdened by racism and homophobia, finally felt welcomed to really just be themselves: Their full selves. Wholly black and brown, and queer as fuck.
Black and brown queer folks finally felt cared for by the informed messaging and resources we provided. Their voices back to us were full of gratitude. The events we host at Deviant are so much more than a party. They are a place where our community is free to be themselves, learn themselves and safely experiment without the threat of ridicule or harm. It is a space wherein they can comfortably ask questions and receive informed answers, tools and resources.
The access to information and resources for health and safety is wherein we intend to continue building in Deviant. Our niche is working in industries that influence culture and curate environments, and we do so in a way that intentionally centers the needs and life experiences of queer people of color. As we push for our people’s health, safety and liberation, we intend to continue advocacy for policy change which challenges the status quo. We learned in 2016 that complacency can be dangerous. We never want to move back into those traumatic times, where so many other vulnerable minorities and women were enduring structural violence from our government on down. So, we won’t stop the fight for enlightenment and progress until our policy includes protections for the most vulnerable black and brown LGBTQ youth.
November 2020 we celebrated the fact that Deviant withstood the test of time, with over a year of continued support and business. Even amidst the global pandemic and global protests, that had to proclaim “Black Lives Matter”, Deviant thrived. In that year we pivoted to create more social environments, beyond dance parties. We curated safe spaces at home, with our “Keep it 100” card game. We launched the “Deviant TV” IG TV broadcast, which entertained and informed our audiences of topics that most interested our community of LGBTQ people.
Furthering the curation of safe spaces has become our present calling. We are actively working to create a safer world with one event, one game, and one broadcast at a time. We’re beginning at home, within the community that we love so dearly and are a part of. No one will know our problems and solutions better than we will. Our goal is to push the ways in which we see freedom for ourselves. Our hope is that new revolutionaries and innovators will be cultivated from the kinds of spaces we cultivate online, at home and in events.
However comfortable the status quo may be now, we must keep up the good fight for real progress that is inclusive. In our time of dance, celebration and comfortably living, we must find a means of continued work towards a better, safer society. And I know these proposed policy changes may seem somewhat outlandish to those who have never seen or explored the possibilities of legal brothels and drug decriminalization. Countries like the Netherlands and Portugal with policies for this type of autonomy do exist and their data proves them to be healthier, safer and more equitable societies. It’s time our country take those same steps forward; Away from over-policing and towards real effective policy which protects people along their Pursuits of Happiness.
Again, I am glad we are beyond the age of fighting for basic human rights, but I don’t want to stop the fight just because those who have the most access and accepted life practices are already accommodated. I want to continue pushing for the real safety and health that includes my vulnerable community of black and brown LGBTQ people. As illustrated in the very first personal story of my youth, I once upon a time was that depressed young person, coping with drugs and sex. My writing today is inspired by my belief that now is when we should keep pushing for bold policies, and painting society with the ideologies which include the beautiful realities of queer communities of color. That is the only way we save are future generations from realities that we are living thru.