13 Gays of Sunshine

This topic is so controversial in fact that I fear I will lose a large percentage of my Ethiopian and Eritrean readers who will invariably be repulsed at the mere mention of this issue. I know, I know, I beat around the bush long enough (excuse the pun), so let me just delve straight into the topic at hand. The issue before us today is that of Gay and Lesbians in the Ethiopian and Eritrean community. No no, don’t go (sigh I have lost 45 readers already), but alas I shall keep typing hoping that the rest of you who stay behind will take something away from this article and contribute to a sorely needed conversation.

I shall discuss this article from a personal narrative, about my on-going transformation on my outlook towards the gay community. See, for too long, I too greeted this subject with hesitation, refusing for one second believe that there was such a thing as gays in the midst of our community. Beyond that simple cognitive dissonance, I looked at gays in general as an abomination—a sinful lot who deserved not acknowledgment but odium. Whenever I saw gay couples holding hands together or worst yet kissing, I would avert my eyes in disgust as if though I just witnessed a cat getting hit by a truck. Well unless those two gay couples were feminine lesbians, in which case I would grab my popcorn and leer on as if I was looking at the second coming of the messiah. But I regress; the point is that I generally viewed gays as an atrocity, my repugnance towards them only outweighed by my indifference to their plight.

Now mind you, this was only about 10 years ago—back when Newt Gingrich was still with his first wife. I used to be the most hardened homophobe of them all. I remember one time a bunch of my friends and I went to a club thinking it was a “regular club”. The music blasting from inside was DOPE, and there a bunch of people waiting to get inside. So we were like “shit, let’s goooo!” We did not readily notice that there was a dearth of women in line, we figured that all of them were already inside—because we all know that women don’t wait in line for the clubs in DC. Anyway, at one point, a car drove by with a car full of women, and they saw us and started screaming “WHY! WHY!”
   It was then that we all noticed the most FLAMING, OVER THE TOP gay dude getting in line with a red leather outfit on. It goes without saying that you never seen 10 black guys running away so fast since Abebe Bikila won the Olympics marathon.

The shit that was crazy was that—discounting the one OVER THE TOP gay dude—the other dudes in line looked straight as all out. They did not exhibit the flair, you know the whole walking with emphasis, talking with a lisp sounding like Rue Paul and snapping their fingers in circles with every sentence that I would typically ascribe to gay dudes. No, these dudes probably had wives and girlfriends at home; they probably lived in the suburbs with kids to boot. I later realized that most of these dudes were probably Down Low brothers, dudes that have to venture miles away from home to satisfy their carnal desires before going back home to pretend that they were typical husbands and fathers. Maybe that is when my transformation began, when I stopped hating on them and decided to at least be tolerant.

See, for a long time, my excuse to loathe gay folks was because I just knew that they had a choice when it came to the topic of who they chose to sleep with. My skin used to crawl with anger when some gay advocate would try to make equivalent the plight of black folk to gay folk. I did not choose to be black, I would say, but they chose their sexual identity. I can’t hide my color, but they can hide their perversions. I guess that night slowly planted a seed of thought in my mind, a seeping idea that over time changed my outlook. Sure a gay dude can choose to hide his identity whereas I can’t hide my color; but what’s worse, hiding your sexuality for fear of retribution or being able to live your life knowing you have no choice but to be black. This fear of reprisal that gay folk feel is what had hundred of dudes waiting in line on that cold December day understand, knowing for one night at least they could express themselves without the scorn of others.

Now I’m not about to say that I have all the sudden become the Gloria Allred of gay rights. Shit, I still get repulsed when I see two dudes holding hands let alone (((shudder))) kissing. Although, ironically, I still find myself grabbing pop corn when I see two feminine girls kissing. But I digress again. The point is that I have by no means arrived at a place where I am able to say that I am no longer homophobic. I just know that I have changed my stance along the way, maybe it was because of that cold December day, maybe I have been inundated with too many images on TV of gays kissing and that image has bled into my inner psyche and convinced me that gays are human too. Above all, it is because I have matured and learned to view the world through the lenses of my prisms, to understand that I—a man of countless sins—should be the last person counting the sins of others. A sin is a sin, so who am I to judge whether a man could marry another when I am engaging in premarital sex marathons as if I was Abebe Bikila in Rome.

Like I said, this topic is a very touchy topic in the Ethiopian and Eritrean community. Go ahead, I dare you, Google Ethiopian + Homosexual and see how many respected publications have written on this subject. The chances of you finding one is slim to none slim; and I don’t blame them, in our culture there is no place for agitators and instigators of thought, do you blame most of them for writing about Hagerachif buna instead? In Ethiopia and Eritrea, there are no communities more repressed and more disenfranchised than gays and lesbians. Coming out of the closet back home is akin to stepping into a stoning circle. Ethiopia’s law strictly prohibits homosexuality punishable by law. If there is such a thing as DL brothers in Ethiopia and Eritrea, they are so down low that not even the Seal Team 6 could find them. Shit, if Osama bin Laden was a DL brother in Ethiopia, he would still be alive right now sipping buna in Bole. It is fair to say that the Ethiopian community is where I was at 10 years ago—collectively indifferent to the relevance of gays and lesbians and reflexively hateful towards their existence.

Now I am by no means saying that Ethiopians and Eritreans should follow my North Star away from ignorance. Like I stated before, I too have my own grudges and scorn that is still engrained in me. But at the end of the day, we as a community—collectively—need to have a dialogue and strive to at least acknowledge that there are gays and lesbians—many of whom could be our uncles or sisters—living amongst us. This dialogue cannot be had with mocking intent, but rather to seek introspection and ask ourselves “who are we to cast that fist stone”. Regardless of our spiritual belief or your moral upbringing, we have to realize that judgment is best left to the supreme judge above. All we can do is try to live our lives as sin free as others, and when we see a splinter in someone’s character, realize first that we have a plan in the eyes that is doing the observing. I am sure some Ethiopian gay guy in the ether just snapped his finger and told me “go ahead boo boo!” See, I told you that I have a ways to go aydel?