During Friday's Xchange, Brothers considered possibilities around thriving as we grow older through the following lens...
Is there really any such thing as aging gracefully?
"Looking at the ad [for this week's topic] in the newsletter, I thought, there's a future in it [growing older]...and I see what the future looks like for me...and being willing to be of purpose [to the community] it looks good..."
"In the newsletter ad, all the men pictured looked like geezers to me...as in upwards of ninety...and it scared me...I'm an elder now, and I don't look like those men...none of my friends look like those men..."
"As one of the questions says, we live in a youth obsessed culture...It's a Eurocentric obsession...White people got into our families through slavery...Our history goes back thousands and thousands of years...Africans revered their elders...When I look at those photos of old men, I see them as beautiful..."
"I'm an older SGL Brother...I don't party so much now...I have a lot of young people in my family and they look up to me and I feel great...Thanks to organizations like BMX, I never deny who I am any more...I participated even back in California..."
"You age gracefully if you're a role model...If you're a role model, the only way people can look [when they look at you] is up...The way they speak ...in their dignity [is inspiring]..."
"Who gets to determine what constitutes aging gracefully?..."
"I had to find where my grace was...Listening to people and not judging...I can listen more tolerantly [now]..."
{Facilitator asks, "For the purposes of this conversation, if people feel comfortable, would you say your age as you share your perspectives?..."}
"I'm thirty today...and when I have conversations with my peers, a lot of them say, 'Once you're over twenty-five, you're over the hill'...and I wonder if, when I get older, if I'll be able to wear it well, and not look my age...Some people don't want to come forward with their age...like it's some kind of deep secret...BMX has taught me about self-preservation and loving myself...so, I think I'll be okay..."
"I'm twenty-two, and I wonder why does this age have to define who they are...Age is just a number...It really is just a number..."
"I still have trouble saying my age out loud because I wish I had accomplished a whole lot more by now...I got sick in '02 and it changed the course of my life...I wanted to go back to grad school and I applied and I got rejected by form-letter, and I went to bed and I stayed there...I just woke up..."
"Before I came to BMX, I hated myself...I lied about my age...I was ashamed about my effeminate energy...All the forces that are in place to keep us down...the double standard that we're up against because of racism...We don't like to say it...But it's real...You see the way Obama is treated every day...We're wonderful...The reason they attempt to hold us down is because they fear us...I'm forty-five, and people tell me I'm doing the best work in my life..."
"I'm twenty-four...I guess I look to my grandparents [as a gauge]...I guess grace has to do with a positive attitude and how you carry yourself..."
"In families, I guess people can age gracefully as a function of accomplishments...But, discrimination is real...I'm sixty-nine..."
"I don't think it's just an SGL thing...I think it's reflective of society in general...I think it's a beautiful thing to be seventy...I'm twenty-two..."
{Facilitator says, "What age and matriculating through life may mean for one-to-the-next of us, with all the Euro-centric ideals we've acculturated [is likely to vary]...so, let me ask, To the extent that the sex drive doesn't disappear as same gender loving men age, how does one maintain his capacity to be alluring?..."}
"I'm twenty-seven, and when you say your age, [for many] people, it's less about age and more about how they live their lives...My life is not what I thought it would be...It's about the life you choose to create for yourself...It's about creating what you want for yourself..."
"As a child I never felt comfortable around people my age...I always felt more comfortable around my grandmother..."
"I'm a depression-baby...I was born in March of 1929...I spend a lot of time with young people, and something they know about me is there are two things I don't tolerate...Using the 'N' word and calling me, 'Pops,'...We get along great with each other..."
"I think it's really dangerous when society tells you [to devalue age]...When people tell their age, right away a picture comes to mind [of what they're supposed to be]...If I can just be quiet and be in the presence of me...Then I can be quiet and be in your presence and appreciate you for who you are...Age doesn't really exist...Some people die at twenty, and some people die at ninety...Some people die at twenty while they're still alive...Just be your essential self...Just make sure next Sunday is not a repetition of last Sunday...I am an instrument...I have a song to play...I have a friend who is a few years older than I am...and when we walk down the street together, he does things I wish I was young enough to do...In Africa, they say that when an elder dies, it's like a library has burned down...Be very protective of your soul space...One has to be very careful of their age..."
"Having the capacity to "just be quiet in the presence of me" sounds wonderful...The reality, more likely, in this culture of distraction where most of us learn to value ourselves in relationship to things...and comparing what we have with that of others', is that I don't know how to be quiet in the presence of myself...I'm fifty-six, and for much of the first forty years of my life, I hated myself...I believed the lies they told me about being an African homosexual man...And disabusing myself of those myths took me a good decade's worth of processes, including therapy and other introspective methods...Now, I love me and respect me and am leading a purpose-driven life...I love what I do, and am frequently paid handsomely for what I do...[But] For many of us, that inner-quietness may be an important aspiration yet..."
"In terms of maintaining the capacity to be alluring, I say, 'teeth and money'...Use one to invest in the other...I want to be with someone, but I don't want to be poor together...I like Armani...I like Mercedes...I was pricing one yesterday...Part of the hesitation around age is [that] it's the countdown to death...[That's] why people don't like to say their age...Part of maintaining my capacity to be alluring involves resources...[For instance] I have to create the resources to maintain my mother [who is aging] in another place...She's in a home for the aging or a rehab...depending on what state she's in... and it may be the thing to do for some people, but I'm not changing my mother's diapers... She can't come here...She can't...The most un-alluring thing in the world is a mama in the next bedroom...I don't want to be alone...I want to be with somebody cute, and that takes money...I don't want to look back and remember when I was a whore...I want to go out a whore...and that takes money...I have to think about who dies first...I have to think about that before the other one dies [to ensure that I have resources in place for any eventuality]...Age isn't that cute in a disenfranchised community..."
"[When talking about mamas] They cleaned our diapers, and I say, we should clean theirs when the time comes...I will clean my mother's diapers [if I have to]..."
"As a person who's waiting for the other shoe to drop because I just got news that my mother, who has diabetes, has three months [to live]...My mother loved me, but she also traumatized me, following the church [doctrine she was immersed in] she demonized me because I was homosexual...She is sorry for the way she treated me...But our relationships to our parents are different..."
"A while ago, I asked what constitutes growing old gracefully...It sounds as if people are trying to decide for others what growing old gracefully looks like..."
"The saddest situation is when someone is growing old and they don't like old people..."
{Facilitator says, "I didn't hear anyone speaking about not loving their mothers...I want to urge you to do your best to give yourselves the opportunity to have the conversation you came here to have...The last question was, to the extent that the sex drive doesn't necessarily disappear as we age, how do we maintain the capacity to be alluring?..."}
{Other Facilitator says, "For me, regarding being alluring, the man I'm with...what attracted him [to me] was not so much what I looked like, but the fact that I am the leader of an organization for Black men...You first have to get to a stage where you love where you are to be alluring to others..."}
"I tend to date older men...I don't think the sex drive necessarily changes...Just being who you are [is alluring]..."
"I look for transparency...I'm never introduced [by a suitor] as a friend...That thing we did last night makes us more than friends...I'm not going to play that game any more...I always look at my progression as, 'How am I going to raise my children?'...When I look at a man I'm walking along with, 'DL' is some bullshit...It's some slavery bullshit...[Be] discreet for who?...So, I look at aging as not compromising my identity any more...Who's in a relationship in here?...And, if you're not and you want to be, [maybe it has something to do with how transparent you're capable of being]..."
"I'm twenty-seven...what concerns us as we grow older...I'm in a relationship for the past four years...My boyfriend is forty-eight...His parents are in their eighties and he takes care of them...My parents are in their fifties and sixties...I'm in grad school...When I finish, I'll be thirty, and I don't want to have children..."
"Regarding being 'DL,' I'd rather be a live dog than a dead lion...Me and my husband or my boyfriend are a little nervous about being out in the world...One time we were on the train platform and there were like ten "thugs" who were calling us faggots and a whole lot of other things, and we decided to walk towards them...We decided, 'If we're going to get beat, somebody's going to get a black eye...a broken jaw'...But it was scary..."
In indigenous cultures, the elder's role is to guide the community . Are our elders observing that role? Are we permitting them that observance?
"We talked the other week about rites of passage for SGL folk...A lot of this disruption in our ability to simply be who we are and to develop healthy relationships with each other is because of the fact that we haven't created rites of passage which are ceremonies the community observe together to honor members' moving through the different phases of life...Adolescence is when heteros in the culture get to go to proms, possibly graduations, and learn how to mate with each other...Because our love is forbidden, and because we didn't have the rite of passage from childhood to manhood, a lot of us come to adulthood and to the mating game socially and emotionally retarded...A friend of BMX, a West African shaman and scholar named Malidoma Some' shared with us that, in his culture...The Dagara people of Burkina Faso, there is a group of people they call Gatekeepers...He said, "not all gatekeepers are SGL, but all same gender loving people are Gatekeepers...The Gatekeepers' charge is, when there is crisis in the community, taking cues from nature and the ancestors, to restore harmony and balance to the community...That's why so many of us are the ones in our families who are the rocks in our families...the voice of reason... the ones who the family relies on to when the shit hits the fan....Our community is in crisis, but there's hope because we have the power to heal first by having the courage to find our own balance...to heal and love ourselves... We have among us, brothers who have studied different kinds of divinity, including indigenous forms...We are going to work with them to create rites of passage to assist us along these lines"
"Thanks to BMX and finally finding a shrink I like, I've finally started disclosing [my sexuality]...A lot of people tell me, they never guessed...I decided, if they don't know, they suspect...I decided, from here on in, if people ask if I'm gay, I'll say, 'No, I'm same gender loving'...I'm taking it on a case-by-case basis..."
"We are suppressed people...That's why we don't feel like kissing each other...I'm flamboyant as hell...If you feel comfortable to be you, why the hell can't I feel comfortable to be me?...I'd rather go down fighting...I'm not going to let someone suppress me...I' twenty-two...You're allowing people to suppress you when you go on the 'DL'..."
Even though he mainly studied painting, Barthé's talent as a sculptor was recognized by his fellow students and local critics in Chicago. In 1928, he put on a one-man show that was sponsored by the Chicago Women's Club. He eventually moved to New York City, locating his studio in Greenwich Village and creating art - and socializing - with central figures of the Harlem Renaissance, including Langston Hughes, Alain Locke, Augusta Savage, and Carl Van Vechten. While he rejected the circumscription of his art within racial boundaries, his most well-regarded work had a strong racial content. Feral Benga and African Dancer, the latter of which was purchased by the Whitney Museum of American Art, celebrated the black body and African culture, while The Mother contemplated the horrors of lynching. Of particular inspiration to Barthé's art was the black male body, a reflection of his comfort with his homosexuality, according to one of the foremost scholars of Barthé. 
