As the month of February comes to a close, I wanted to share a story from someone who lives the black-queer experience. This month is just as important to the black community as it is to the LGBTQ+ community. Our culture, unconsciously or not, has merged with black culture and we must recognize and thank those. My interviewee this week was someone who I wanted to be able to talk about their experiences as a queer individual and a black individual, and the duality of those things.
The Water Bearer is my interviewee this week, they are from Columbia, South Carolina. From their website, “The Water Bearer has felt the need to help others since before they can remember.” They are a dancer, a spiritualist, own their own business, and an overall total package. However, their approach to their blackness and queerness and its’ intersectionality, is different, and we explored that in the interview.
Q1. How has being a black person affected your views?
“I have a different experience with being black and queer, because I didn’t fit in either. It has worked with my mission and my business; I just have a different view. It has definitely showed how your physicality, and your external shell, can receive instant perceptions from other people instantly. I grew up in South Carolina, so super southern, I have friends that I had to sneak to their basements because their parents were that racists and I wasn’t allowed in their house, I came from deep south. I don’t come off as a threatening presence, and I am very feminine, and seeing women grab their purses or lock the doors, being all dramatic. I was usually the only black person in my friend groups, I remember being downtown a few times and a group of black people would be walking up and my friends would be like, “Get in the car, get in the car!” I thought something bad was happening, but she was like, “That group of people made me nervous.” It has taught me that your external shell affects you, as a young person, it is not something you notice at first. When you first realize it’s like, they are characterizing me without knowing me on physical appearance. My mother is an educator and is big on education and put me in the highest classes, and so I was the only black person or the only black guy especially. They would be like, “Are you in the right class?” Like, you haven’t even seen what I do you are just looking me. The main thing that has affected my view, and has shown me the opposite, and how to look past that. Like you just read me up and down and you down even know me yet and so let me not do that to other people. I am grateful, and while it’s not fun to experience it, I am grateful because it showed me to not do that to other people. I am the darkest person in my family, and I remember one time I got skin-bleaching cream for Christmas. Not from my immediate family, if you are darker than a paper bag, you got an issue. So not fitting into that community also showed me that my blackness is just a part of me. We can get trapped in identities, and if we get too trapped, I mean we are infinite people. They are mental constructs, if you get too lost in that it keeps you restricted. I am glad I didn’t fit because it showed me to find something outside of that community. It’s not been fun receiving the perception of other, but it has allowed me to have an open mind. There is a more openness with black people, for other races, because there is an understanding and relating in a way.”
Q2. How has being queer affected these views further?
“The queerness is different, my blackness is external, my queerness is my self-expression. My blackness taught me that my appearance could get me judged, and my queerness showed me that my expression can get me judged. My first day of kindergarten, my teacher used to hold her hand, limp wrist against her hip. I thought it was so chic, I remember copying her. There was this guy, another black guy, he called me a tom-girl. It was like what? Even though I used to do Destiny’s Child choreography during recess, like c’mon. It really showed me that when I was just expressing myself, I had to work on changing my mannerisms. Queerness really showed me that your self-expression can have an effect on you, or how you’re perceived. However, it also allowed me to be more open when other would express themselves, since I was judged for mine. From the second part, I did not fit in the queer community as well. There is a lot of stigma in the queer community, especially me being black, but also, I find that any kind of group that gets patronized by society, they form a really tight unit, and the unit seems to have very strong ways of doing things. After I graduated high school, I went to college in South Carolina for a year and a half, and then I moved to New York like I’m gay! Let me move to New York. I tried to fit into that community there, like at the clubs everyone wore those V-necks and it was all just rigid. I realized very soon that I don’t fit into this community either. The black community is very rigid, especially with their men. I was the only man in my family who did not go into the military, I wanted to be a gay dancer that does astrology readings. A lot of groups needed that; black people wanted men to be strong to fit into x community. Queerness also need that identity to have that community, not fitting in those showed me that there is more to that.”
Q3. How has the more current political state affected your views?
“Again, I feel like it’s all opening my mind. Initially, there was like a “Let’s get in the streets.” I am just a rebellious person. I am really all about truth. Also, when I saw the whole separate side going against BLM, and seeing the All-Lives Matter, it made me think, why do they think that? Lucky for me I had those friends who had really conservative parents and I got to hear their fathers why they were conservative. Your people had been doing it for so long and making hella money, why would you change? It was messed up, but I can see that. I remember, when Affirmative Action, and all my friends were like hating me for that. This whole situation has really opened my mind to what people were thinking. I think that is what we need. Conversation. It can get too trapped in these ideals, if you get too lost in that, that is why war is started. People are not open minded. It needs to get to that open-mindedness. With the internet there is so much information, it is so good. With trans rights right now, and my sister read me up and down and how I am a cis man, and now I can go online and figure it out. We need to not fight each other but use each other to open our minds.”
Q4. What are some of your day-to-day struggles with being black?
“The main one, and now that I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten tougher skin but it’s the reaction. I am very intuitive too, so I just know. I am a dancer and when I taught dance, there were certain times, when I would try and discipline a child their mothers would storm in. It was as a black man, they’re perceiving how I am, it would be someone else, and then just seeing those things. The physical bit we talked about, even on the street, I don’t know if I have a threatening presence here. Here, there is not a lot of black people, I mean I lived in South Carolina and then New York so there were black people everywhere. I really feel outcasted here. Not in a bad way, just different. I will be walking on the street and people will cross to a different way from me, and then they walk by someone of the same race and don’t move. I don’t know if they think I’m going to fight. I have my Gaga in my headphones, doing choreo, with my iced coffee. Then now instead of sitting there and enjoying my song, I can’t. For the next 10-15 seconds, I’m thinking is it something I did? What is it? You always wonder, what were they thinking? I also feel that a lot of my path as a black person, I am very ambitious, it’s about proving myself. In dance, my spiritual business, they want certifications, etc. But it’s like you just got a reading from this girl, why are you asking now? The fun thing is, I am competitive. In the black community they say, you have to work twice hard. You never know how people are going to take you. That is the main thing, the physical appearance and [people’s predispositions they have.”
Q5. What are some of your day-to-day struggles with being queer?
“Definitely, the intuition thing and having to read people. I am 6-foot and that has been an advantage, in New York my friends would tell me all the times about when they almost get beaten up. My first day at Marymount College in Manhattan, there was this super fem-guy, and we went out that night. He was like, “If we get pushed onto the subway tracks do this…” Luckily, but not luckily, growing up down south around masculine men, I can put on that every masculine approach. I remember in college, me and a friend kissed on the cheek, South Carolina, and everyone was being dramatic, it was like a “moment.” It’s like having to know if they are threatening, you never know. Black queer people are really targeted, being down south, the number of married men would approach me, because people have their own things going on. I had a cousin who got murdered because of his sexuality, all of my siblings though are gay, but we need those things to bring it out. You never know what people are going to think. People throw slurs all the time, especially when I was in New York. I think we are leaving; it’s getting more in the public eye it’s not okay to be violent towards queer people. A lot of the violence though, it’s because they murder because they were interacting with someone who was attracted to that other person. Then the person can’t deal with their own issues and now it’s like, you have to die. We need to really talk about these things, you never know how people are.”
Q6. Why is it important in our community to learn about these struggles for black individuals?
“It’s for opening the mind, if you hear more stories you can relate. The main thing that people have issues with is that when you don’t know something, it scares you, and you try and come up with an understanding. If you are just connected with a person, it comes naturally. It sucks that I was the only black person usually in my classes/friend groups, but that was also nice because all those people had not been around black people. They just saw me as…cool. I had certain people you’re not even really black, which no I am black, but you need to realize is that you are not seeing that predisposition. Yes, I am black, I’m black as hell, just notice how comfortable you are, that’s what we should be noticing. Once people are open, it shares stories and allows others to see another side. Black Lives Matter has been so great, by sharing stories and it allows people to connect in that way. It allows us to verbalize in a personal way, you see the true appearance, you see they’re human. I want to talk about the trans community, especially as a black trans person. As I said as a black person I get judged for my appearance, as a queer person I get judged for my self-expression. Black trans people get judged for their skin color, self-expression, and their identities, that’s all who you are. We just need education and opening of the mind. Once you see another perspective, you can help a percentage of people. Coming where I come from, a lot of people don’t know. I’ve had stories of people asking if I grew a tail at night, because that is what their grandparents told them black people did. I think education is a big thing, again my friends, the one’s homes I had to sneak into, it actually turned and ended up where they were defending black rights to their very racist parents, because of the relationships they had with us. Education can change so much.”
The end of February marks the end of Black History Month, a month so important for the black community. Yet, we must pay our respects to the black people who have come before and who are here now, that continually pave the way for the queer community. The Marsha P. Johnsons, the Langston Hughes, the Durand Bernarr’s, etc. My speaking with The Water Bearer was to be able to shed light on the problems within our community but also outside of it. Being black and queer is telling of how mistreated one can be in America, but also how strong that makes us. Our frontlines are black trans women, and they are also our most endangered. We as a community need to have a tighter knit on our values, our acceptance, and our overall respect for other people. We must begin to break away from the norms, the binary, to truly see how far we can go. Happy end to Black History Month, a month so important, everyone is affected by it.
Where to find The Water Bearer:
Website: www.thewaterbearerstea.com
Instagram: @thewaterbearers.tea
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