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Written By: Alexis Pauline Gumbs

First published on September 8, 2007 in Trea’zure Magazine

Girl, you want this. You know it. You would stand in line for it. Waste your time for it. Work all year to pay for it. You would dress up for it. Strip down for it. Travel out of town for it. You would scheme, dream, sell your soul for a pass at this. You wake up wanting this, and you pass out dreaming it too.

And no. I’m not talking about sex, and I’m definitely not talking about money. I am talking about what we really want. The need that races your heart to the beat of the next black gay pride celebration. Queer black women like me and you stay up all night craving a community where we can be ourselves and express our love freely. We know that we deserve to feel at home everywhere we go. We deserve to be reflected lovingly in the eyes of strangers. We deserve to feel well-fed and safe in the homes we create.

But we are deprived. Everyday we experience the unwanted advances of disrespectful men and boys as we walk down the street. We work at jobs where we can’t be open about our sexual desire for women. We consume TV shows and music that ridicule or ignore our lives. We get harassed when we hold each other’s hands. And worst of all we are subject to racist, sexist and homophobic violence at all times. And the law does not protect us.

So we take what we can get. Because we are desperate for the sight of each other. We thirst to remember we exist. We pay full price for watered-down drinks at the one club in town that has a gay night and plays hip-hop. We drive for hours and shell out even more money for overpriced nightlife events at Black Pride celebrations around the country. We bear a party scene that is reminiscent of a second-rate hip-hop music video with neither a hook, nor a storyline. We even accept disrespect and stay in abusive and unhealthy relationships because love seems so hard to come by.

And we are not wrong for this. It is no surprise that after 10 months of keeping our desire for women under wraps we go buckwild at “hot-body” contests and pad our pockets with one dollar bills for go-go dancers. And this is definitely not meant to disrespect those of us who dance to support ourselves and our families.

But we deserve MORE than two nights of extreme sexual expression to sustain us for the next year of silence, fear and repression. And the fact that we survive invisibility and violence from the larger society along with violence and disrespect in our OWN spaces and keep coming back for more is proof of how much we want each other.

In these, the worst of circumstances our need for each other does not die. The fact that we have enough energy to keep funding the less-than-perfect spaces that are available to us proves that we ALSO have enough energy to create something else. An empowering community is not something we can buy, barter for or pay admission to get into. It is not waiting for us at the next chocolate city “Girl Ball”. Community is something we have to make ourselves.

This magazine is an example of black queer women coming together to create a space of empowerment and mentorship for each other, and this is just one example in a rich tradition. For example, the Combahee River Collective, a group of black lesbians in Boston in the 1970’s held retreats and did day to day organizing to fight violence against women, win more jobs for black people in black communities and eventually created Kitchen Table Press a publishing company especially for women of color centered on the writings of lesbians. Today, magazines like this and publishing companies like RedBone Press continue that legacy along with the other community organizations and informal support networks that keep us alive. Community is something that WE create ourselves.

And I believe that we can, because those of us who are brazen enough to endure spike heels and shiver half-naked for the attention of other women, those of us who are bold enough to bend gender and shine studly despite what the men on the street might say or do in response, those of us who insist on being ourselves no matter what anyone says are warriors. Those of us who are BRAVE enough to do anything for the possibility of love are also STRONG enough to go for the real thing.

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is queer black trouble-maker, a freedom seeking writer, a PhD candidate in English, Africana Studies and Women’s Studies at Duke University the founder of BrokenBeautiful Press & a SONG member. She lusts for community, so email her at alexispauline@gmail.com.