Get Out! GAY Magazine – Issue 469

“My mother marched for this,” my
roommate said, quietly. “My grandmother
marched for this. How long are we going to
keep marching?” I didn’t know what to say.
Once we were marching through the
streets, I started to relax. Every single
person marching was wearing a mask--
though, when we marched past the precinct
on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, not a
single police officer had one on. In the
protests I’ve attended since, I’ve never seen
anyone from the NYPD wearing a mask.
They won’t cover their noses and mouths—
only their badge numbers.
Before we agreed to head home, an elderly
African American man came up to me and
said, “Thank you for being here.” I nodded,
but I was upset at myself for not showing up
until that day.
Another confession that I’m not proud of:
This was the first protest I’d ever attended.
While I supported many other protests, I’d
never actually shown up. I’d never pushed
myself to make a difference further than a
Facebook post or popular hashtag.
In a way, I was now trying to make up
for lost time. My Facebook wall became
entirely Black Lives Matter. I made an effort
to only post videos, not articles, because
you cannot argue with videos. Articles are
bound to elicit preference, one way or the
other. A person can argue, “Well, that’s
what they say happened,” and I didn’t want
any of that. You cannot argue with a video.
You cannot say the police did not pull down
a man’s mask to pepper spray him in the
face. You cannot say the police did not push
an elderly man to the ground, leaving him
to bleed. You cannot say the police did
not drive an NYPD vehicle into a group of
protestors.
It’s funny the things we remember from
our childhood, the things that stick with
us. I remember car rides with my dad, who
got me on the weekends after my parent’s
divorce. It was an hour drive from my mom’s
house in Knoxville to his house in Norwalk,
and we’d listen to music the whole ride.
My dad has a very eclectic taste in music.
One day, when I was seven or eight, we
listened to Tracy Chapman, an artist I
wouldn’t appreciate until I was in high
school. I remember looking at the album
cover and saying, “She looks like a boy.”
My dad stopped the car and looked me
right in the eye. “Tracy Chapman is a
beautiful woman and musician,” he said. “I
won’t listen to any of that.” We were silent
the rest of the way, and I knew I’d fucked
up.
That memory came to me
while marching. Was my dad
upset because it sounded like
I was being a bully, or did it
go deeper than that? Did he
hear racism, something he
and my mom both taught me
against my entire life? A racism
I learned from elsewhere, a
racism I didn’t know existed in
me?
In high school, I listened to
Tracy’s “Give Me One Reason”
and “Fast Car” on repeat.
Now, I listen to everything, like
“Talkin’ ‘Bout A Revolution”
and “Telling Stories” and
“Bang Bang Bang.”
PHOTO BY STEVE BRENNAN
“Thank you for being here,”
the elderly man said to me. I
want to remember that, to let
it serve as a reminder to keep
showing up.