Book Excerpt - A Lesson in Self Hatred
Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 12:04PM Here is an excerpt from an essay I wrote for an anthology enitiled "Marginalized Men" To obtain a copy of the email me.
As a child, I was painfully shy and my childhood church helped me to find my voice. I always felt awkward because I was a young intellectual and had difficulty fitting in while I was in elementary and middle school; I was always in programs for gifted students which isolated me. Rarely were black students in my class and those who were I really didn’t relate to nor did I relate to many of my white counter parts as well. Although I did have friends and played sports, I never really felt like I belonged. I didn’t feel that I had something that I flourished in outside of academics. Although my scholastic acumen has diffidently paid off now that I am a grown professional, being the smartest in my class really didn’t bring me a lot of popularity early on. Being active in the church gave me a place to grow and flourish. The church helped me to develop my voice and find my way and grow as a dynamic leader and confident public speaker because of the training I received in our youth group. Furthermore, my church helped me to foster and develop some of my closest friendships that I still hold dear and near. The church has not only been a blessing, but also a burden to me. I simply cannot help but to be grateful for the institution that taught me both to love and loathe myself. And for all the good that my church has done for me I cannot help but to remember the covert pain that it has inflected upon me. I can honestly say that I have struggled with my sexual orientation for as long as I can remember; however, it was the church that taught me that being gay was a problem.
In my childhood church, we had members who were gay- both men and women. Seemingly no one had a problem with them during the worship experience or even beyond that. Everyone seemed to get a long and disregarded the giant gorilla in the room. Even though no one ever addressed our gay members publicly, privately it was a very different story laden with whispers and judgmental faces. Most of the Christians that I know have two selves- the one who goes to church and the one who doesn’t. The older I grew, the more I was introduced to the non-church side of many of the adults I respected growing up. Usually, I was introduced to the not- so-holy side of my Christian mentors at social and family functions outside of the church or in the kitchen/fellowship hall of the church. The first day I ever felt the wrath of Christian hate was sitting with my grandmother and her contemporaries around the church’s kitchen table. It was a very black Golden Girls moment as the female seniors sat at the round table talking about everything and everybody. Soon the topic of the preacher who was in town for our fall revival was the subject of the conversation. We were actually preparing the heavy hors d'oeuvres for the after the service fellowship and as we sat at the table, they began to rip him to shreds. I don’t remember who started the conversation, but I remember they spent what seemed like hours degrading him and belittling him for his perceived femininity. When they started to talk about him, I was just terrified in my spirit because he was the first preacher I ever felt a connection with at the church. Something about his swagger and style of preaching spoke directly to me. He was average height and build but was extremely cool and immaculately dressed. During the preceding days of the revival he delivered some of the most powerful and dynamic sermons I had heard- not to mention he was one of the greatest pianist and singers who had ever entered the sanctuary. He was what my grandmother and her crew called a “triple threat” because he could preach, sing, and play the piano well. For some reason, they did not care that he had the three blessings because they said he was “funny acting,” “sweet,” “not right,” “a fairy” and “a punk.” They talked about how he had a big behind which was of course “a dead giveaway” they explained. They repeatedly mocked him as they belittled his voice and his mannerisms. As a child, I was so shocked I didn’t know what to think. I remember asking myself how could they sit here and talk about that man like that. How could they stand up, wave their hands, jump, shout, cry and encourage the man as he preached the night before, yet sit in the very building and talk about him like a dog the next day. The more they talked about the preacher, the more uncomfortable I grew. I didn’t know why I was so troubled with their behavior but I didn’t like it at all. These were the same people who I looked to for spiritual advice and counsel, yet they were acting like the biggest hypocrites in the world. I had seen them pray for and speak highly of drug addicts, alcoholics, even sex offenders as they encouraged them by saying things like “Praise God! He’s trying to get his life together. God bless him!” It didn’t make sense to me that they could be so negative about the man who came and preached such uplifting and beautiful messages. I saw people give their lives to Christ because of his sermons. I saw people’s lives being changed as he ministered to them through song. I saw the Holy Spirit move in and through the worship services because of the atmosphere that he prepared. What difference did it make that he was a little effeminate? I soon realized that it made all the difference in the world.
Sitting at the table listening to allegedly devote Christians spew such hatred about a man that I 
admired soon became too overwhelming for me, and I eventually snapped and yelled, “HE CAN’T HELP IT!” As the words burst out of my mouth, tears gushed from my eyes while snot oozed from my nose as I felt my face slip into the ugly cry. As I sat at the table trying to gain my composure, a holy hush fell over the room. No one knew how to react as the twelve year old boy sat in tears after defending the effeminate preacher. I cried and cried. I sniffed and cried. I cried tears that I would not even understand until later in life. I cried because I was gay even though I didn’t know it at the time. I cried because I felt such hatred from the very people I loved. I cried because I neatly knew that he could not help who he was and that he was just trying to let God use him the best way he knew how. As I cried, the women just stared at me. Unfortunately, my grandmother was the first to respond as she asked, “Do you have something to tell me?!?” Grandmother’s eyes burned of hatred as the words oozed from her lips and I was terrified. I am not talking about an “Oh, she’s going to spank me” fear- hell I was 5’10 in the 5th grade, so I’ve been taller than most of the women in my family for as long as I can remember. I wasn’t physically afraid; however, my spirit was petrified. The look in grandmother’s eyes that day was a look of hatred as her eyes seemed to glow with fire as she stared through me without blinking. She stared at me with an intensity that I have never experienced since. He stare burned a hole in my spirit that created wounds that have never healed. I didn’t know how to respond or what to say. Had I been brave, I would have yelled “I’M GAY,” but shit I was twelve, and although I think my body and heart knew, my mind couldn’t even comprehend it yet. I wished I could have came out then - got it over with shocked all those old broads, and then went on with my business. I wish I was brave enough to just stand up for what I believed in but at that time, I wasn’t sure what I believed in. I didn’t know I was gay. I didn’t know what it meant to be gay; I just knew that somewhere in my spirit I had to cry out in defense of someone with whom I felt a kindred relationship. As my grandmother’s burning face heaved looks of judgment and revulsion onto me, the other ladies silently sat looking confused and nervous. Eventually, someone else from the church entered the kitchen, and her sheer presence in the room dispersed the thick tension. I continued to sit at the table acting as if tears were not drying on my face. I sat there because I felt that it was important to act as if the previous few minutes never happened. Evidently, I was not the only one who felt that it was necessary to do this because no one sitting in that room on that day has ever brought up that incident again (to my knowledge). Even though I’ve never really thought about that incident since, it occurred and even though no one has brought it up again (to my knowledge), those few moments sitting around that table changed me forever. On that day at that moment in my church that I loved surrounded by the people that I loved, I learned how to hate myself. Moreover, I also learned how to hide myself in order to keep the love and acceptance from those in my life. It wasn’t fair for them to put me in that situation because that day they officially taught me to hate the person I was to become. That day I learned to mask my true self in order to appease the church and the people in it that I loved. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, that was the day I learned to be the DL Dude.
After that incident, I spent my teen years going to church and working harder than ever. I was active in local, regional, and national activities of the AME church. Everywhere I went, I took the lesson that I learned from my grandmother and her judgment cronies with me- I learned how to manage people’s perception of me. It is crazy that the church is the place where I was taught to be black and proud as well as Gay and ashamed. Even though the church says “Come as you are” what they really mean is “Just come, and I will turn you into the person I really want you to be.” Eventually, I was great at being a “good church boy.” Hell, I should have won an Oscar! I sang in choirs, played the piano, prayed prayers, and lead ministries. I loved the feeling of serving what I thought was God but was actually just the church. Eventually, I developed such an affinity for worship and spiritual matters that individuals began to insist that God was calling me into the ministry. I loved the idea of serving God in such a passionate, committed, and sacred way, and I knew that as long as I could keep managing people’s perception of me, I would not have any problem. I prayed and prayed and felt that God revealed Christ to me and I did indeed felt called to preach, teach, and minister. The first thing I did was look up that revivalist preacher that I remembered from childhood. No matter what I never forgot about him and I just felt that it was essential that I build a relationship with him. Since he served as the senior pastor of a church in my denomination, it wasn’t difficult to get a current email address for him, and we began chatting online. He was a blessing and encouraged me to pursue ministry. I was hesitant, but we prayed together and he always encouraged me that God had great things in store for me. In the midst of his encouragement and praise, I could not help but feel a willingness to share with him the other desires that I was secretly dealing with. I can now look back on my life and say that I know I have 
always been gay; however, by the time I graduated high school, I spent most of my energy trying to convince myself and others that I wasn’t. I never admitted it, but I started looking at gay porn online by the time I was in middle school; moreover, I ventured into gay chat rooms at that time and had inappropriate conversations with men who were three or four times my age. Hell, the truth is I didn’t know what I was doing or what I was talking about, but I remember feeling wrong, dirty, and ashamed because I remember the look my grandmother gave me when she thought I might be gay. I wanted to ask the pastor about my feelings and ask him if God really would call me. I wanted to ask him if I was wrong for being one way in public and another way in private. I wanted to ask him why it felt so good and natural to masturbate to gay porn and why did it feel so filthy afterwards. I wanted to ask him a million questions; however, the lesson that I learned at the kitchen table in the church was not to let ANYONE I loved or admired think that I was gay because if I did, they would hate me. The pastor and I built a friendship; however, though I am sure he knew it, I never told him my truth.
Through college I remained active in denomination. I went away to school and found a nice Ame church reminiscent to the one that I grew up in and decided to prepare myself for a life in college. I studied well and continued to date a young lady that I honestly fell in love with back home. People always ask me how I could fall in love with a woman though I have always known that I was gay. My answer is simple: you can’t help who you fall in love with. I loved everything about her and planned that we would one day get married. Although we had sex, I still enjoyed viewing gay internet porn, but at that time, I told myself it was “ok” because I could stop at anytime. Eventually the porn caused me to resent who she was because during our love making sessions, I tightly closed my eyes and pictured myself freaking whatever gay porn star I was in love with at the time. Although I am sure she did not know that I was in love with gay porn, she did feel that something wasn’t right in our relationship, and she dumped me. I was crushed and tried everything in my power to get her back. I showered her with flowers, candy, stuffed animals- I even purchased her a beautiful gold Tiffany necklace in an effort to get her back. Eventually, I literally begged her to come back to me, but she was uncompromising, and I nearly lost my damn mind. I wasn’t so upset because I had lost a girlfriend; I was upset because I had lost part of my cover. Some part of me thought that if I did not have a beautiful, smart, Christian girl on my arm in a serious relationship other people would find out my secret. Moreover, I was afraid of finding out that I REALLY was gay. Up until that point in my life, I had never done ANYTHING with a guy, and I convinced myself that as long as I refrained from engaging in any relationship with the same sex that I was straight. To that end, I worked to convince others but really myself that I was straight by bedding any girl who would let me. I did what I learned from my grandmother and her cronies around the table- the only thing that matters is that you don’t allow people to think you are the person who you really are. Eventually, it was difficult for me to even know who the hell I was. One part of me was in the church all the time working, singing, praying, and leading while another part was at home in my room jacking off to gay porn and yet another part of me was engaging in crazy amounts of sex with random women. I wanted to serve God in ministry, but I didn’t know how much longer I could keep up the act. Each day I worked to try to force myself to be someone that my grandmother and the other church women could be proud of, yet it just led to me being a zombie who slipped in and out of different characters but who was essentially dead to the world. I worked so hard to convince other people not to hate me that I began to hate myself more and more. Finally, something happened that forever changed me and forced me to be honest with myself.
One morning as I was running late for church, I got the news via Facebook that the preacher whose ministry I had adored since childhood was found dead in his home. I won’t even attempt to explain the way that I felt because mere letters organized as words on a page can never even begin to convey how I really felt. Over the next several weeks, a part of me died as I learned how the pastor fell to his doom. Each day, I woke to visit the online newspapers and news stations in the pastor’s city to catch up on the latest concerning his story. Eventually, I learned that the pastor was entertaining a twenty-something year old male along with the young man’s teen cousin. During the course of the evening, they consumed pizza, marijuana, and liquor -all surrounded around the pastors promise to pay the twenty-something year old for a sexual favor like they had done before. At some point in the evening, the two young men beat the pastor and robbed him for cash, jewelry, and the pin number for his debit 
card. They bound him, stabbed him over 30 times, and left him bound and bleeding to death on the floor of his home as they stole his car and drove it around for the next week. The pastor laid on the floor bound, stabbed, and beaten to death for a week until the police found him. Each day as I read the online news articles, I felt indescribably saddened by not only the story that was unfolding but the comments that online newsreaders were making. A myriad of derogatory names and sentiments trailed each online story as an example of the hatred the readers had for the once adored and beloved pastor. In essence, most of those commenting on the news stories felt that the pastor got what he deserved because he was gay. The man was beaten, bound, stabbed nearly forty times in his head, chest, and body then left to die naked and alone on the floor where he laid dead for a week, and people commented that they thought he got what he deserved because he was Gay. Really?
Contact me to buy a copy of Marginalized Men to read the complete essay and other stores as well!
1-Luv
Reader Comments (3)
Speechless. Awestruck. Dumbfounded. These are the initial reactions to this piece.
Puts the DL [and your definition of it] in a WHOLE new perspective- ALL OVER AGAIN. The lives that were described in this piece reflect my own TO THE 'T'.
I FOR 1 would like a copy of the publication. Let me know how to obtain it please. Thanks, and be encouraged. 1LOVE
Wow! I desperately long for the day when our community can become a loving one where you can be who you are!
HERE, HERE!