Staceyann Chin

Me and Jesus

Picture it

in the middle of Ohio
an hour east or west (I forget) of Dayton

hundreds of Black faces
college faces

an auditorium

Keith Boykin-writer/blogger/Black man/gay man
and little old me

waltz out onto a stage

both imported to sensitize students
with a reputation for homophobia

ta-da!

first there was Keith

a tale of coming out
intimate
honest
quiet

and then the season opens!

Boom! Bye!

and the Bible appears/front and center Jesus is dragged in for testimony
what he said and what he meant

hisses and boos and students with mothers/sisters without heath insurance
rush in
cheering when they thought he had lost a point

neck deep in the shit of student loans
and more than rumors about the building we argued in
being turned into a MOTHER-FUCKING PRISON

they were more concerned about Leviticus
and Corinthians

no mention of their peers
in Iraq
and the forgotten Afghanistan

I feel like a broken CD
a bloody pipe dripping the same rusty fluid of an ailing truth

I was so angry
at these faces that looked like mine
negro/Black/African-American/Caribbean boys
Brown girls hurling hate

Central State University is a Historically Black College, once conjoined with Wilberforce—the place where W.E.B. Dubois spent his “two undistinguished years”

Following a series of events that marked the school community as under-educated about fags and trannies and dykes—

the air was ripe with students needing targets for their rage against those of us dare transgress the black heterosexual stereotype.

By the rime I took the stage
I was ready to shock the shit out of those bible-quoting amen and hallelujahs.

So I said pussy as many times as I could muster
and I was confrontational
and provocative
and I called them out
on how little they knew about a world they so easily judged

I told them
I wasn’t interested in praying towards straight

How surprised they must have been
to hear that I actually liked being a dyke

loved the feel of my woman just fresh from sleep
or exhausted from travel
or cranky from writing a paper about black boys like them
in prisons
making bras for Victoria Secret

for me
and my boobs pushed up for them to gasp

“But you don’t look like a lesbian”

Maybe because I looked so much
like them—

how far we are from talking to each other

and so Black folk continue to be caught wheel and hamster
between racism and under-education
and misguided loyalty
disguised as religion

same Bible that told niggers
“be happy they got nice Masters!”

Same pages now being used by niggers to tell black faggots
they ain’t shit

never mind the number of choirs they have kept going
the revolutions they have orchestrated

never mind the dykes that kept marching in Selma
and DC
and Philly
and New York

fuck the writers that made it so Black students could be in college
making infantile noises at a phenomenon they know nothing about
except that they despise us

maybe because in a world that insists
that everything is equal under God

in the Bible
there are no recommendations for the high drop-out rate for students
at all levels of brown
in America

there are no verses to encourage young Black girls
they own their bodies
whether they are pregnant or not

on the darker side of this country
no advice on those jobs you are not getting
when you graduate

I was goose-pimpling when Keith yielded a litany of their names

Bayard Rustin
James Baldwin
Audre Lorde

and there are others still
un-named because they could not tell
and still be Black

I will not be forced to choose
to mark one side of me invisible so you can see me

one-dimension and frail
I am Black
and Lesbian

and anything else—this body can hold it all
Asian
and Activist and Artist

Wake the fuck up-Black America/Jamaica/Sudan/Barbados/South Africa /

Haiti
Nigeria
St. Lucia
Ghana
Trinidad

From East to West of all the colonies of the Diaspora
we are here

we will not disappear into the oblivion of a white existence
because you cannot see beyond religious bigotry

we are here
writing poems
building houses

raising your abandoned children
we are here

making babies of our own
trying to make space for all of our bodies

in a world that holds us hostage to so much
let us find ways to mend our common fissures

the children yet to come will belong to all of us
it is time we created a house
equipped to deal with their basic needs

what I do or do not do in my bedroom
or kitchen
or anywhere I wish to do it

is irrelevant in the war for affordable housing
and healthcare
and ways to make a living wage

let us turn our rage
to the places that most adversely affect us

the expanding prison industry
the drugs—

since the drugs, a pretty girl said to me,

since the epidemic of the drugs
there has not been a revolution in our world
in our blood

and you are worried about whether I believe in Jesus?
Jesus was a rebel who turned over tables of cash/money
in the church

he rolled with a dozen men
all the time

and one time
he let a prostitute oil his feet with her scented hair

I move steady with Christ, Motherfuckers!
everyday
I try to start revolutions that have to do with freedoms
and truths
that cannot bend—no matter what you do to me

you cannot claim my space
I am Black
and lesbian and here

walk with me, people
or get the fuck out my way!

you can respond at myspace.com/staceyannchin

Posted by staceyann at October 25, 2006 10:04 PM