Family Album 8

Copyright 2009-All Rights Reserved

Annie E. Reynolds (birthdate? –1970’s)

(Note: Auntie is pictured with Mama embracing her as they stand in the back yard of Auntie’s Alcoa home.)

On my mother’s side of the family, by the time I was born, there was only one relative: Annie E. Reynolds. Mama called her Sister. Daddy called her Mrs. Reynolds. I called her Auntie. Sometimes Auntie would come from Alcoa to babysit me at the Mee Street house, though I can’t imagine how my mother got her to do it since I was told, years later, by one of my no-relation aunts, Teri Lenoir, that Auntie didn’t like me.

According to Mama, Auntie, like Grandmama Lennon, had had two husbands, the second of which, I was given to understand, left her. He left her—Auntie said, repeating this mantra for years—because of my mother-- that is, because Auntie had to raise my mother after pledging that she’d do so to her own dying mother. I don’t know if I believe that he left her because of that. It sounds so extravagantly dramatic, that line. Dramatic and manipulative. It casts Annie Reynolds—a young Auntie—in a circa 1940’s Hollywood movie as an unselfish, sacrificing, noble woman who utters the line: I gave him up to raise you. Music up. Handkerchiefs out. Cut and print! This is just the kind of line that somebody would drop at the just the right time and in just the right situation to work a person. You know? And work Mama it did. On my mother’s lips, the line morphed into: “She gave up her marriage to raise me.” Mama used to repeat it a lot to justify why she went to such exhaustive lengths to please Auntie.

Auntie did not approve of wild things. But, according to my mother, she had been rather wild, as a young woman. Party girl? Auntie? I could never feature her as a party girl. For that matter, I could never feature her as a carefree, young woman. Because as I knew her, Auntie was heavy-duty into the kind of religion that requires you to endure life, rather than rejoice int it. I guess, by then, she had repented her "wayward party-girl life" and was doing penitence for it. She was Baptist, but she seemed more to me like the stricter type of denominations—all straight and narrow, all grim and granite hard. The in-your-face type of religious person that constantly screams: Repent! Or face the everlasting fires of hell!

I remember the first and the last time I went to church with Auntie. It happened because the person who ordinarily took Auntie to church couldn’t pick her up one Sunday. I had my driver's license, so I had to be in high school then, and Mama decided I’d have to drive over to Alcoa and take her to church that Sunday. Auntie was a Baptist. (Before Mama married Daddy, she was a Baptist, too.) That meant Auntie's church was different from mine. Way different, I soon discovered. Their style of worship service wasn’t what I was used to. My church was Methodist…bland and very, very quiet. Auntie’s church had a spicy flavor. And it was noisy by the standards I was used to. People were saying Amen left and right…talking out loud, responding with a happy liveliness to whatever was being said from the pulpit… whether it be the deacon’s announcements or the preacher’s prayer. At my church, you did not do that.

At my church, the choir sang very "White" Methodist anthems—not music to call up the spirit, nor to clap your hands to. Definitely not music to set your feet adancin’ that holy ghost dance. But here, at Auntie’s church, they moved, so to speak, to a different rhythm. Their music was a little "bluesy." Africa had stepped into the mix and changed things… from the vocal arrangements and the minor key of the melodies, right through the beat taken up by tambourines and piano.

That sunday, the music got people Amening, and rocking. I looked around at the sea of Black people moving like rippling ocean waves. I started to feel a little tense. And I wondered what was going to happen next. Just then, Auntie jumped up, screaming: Oh, Jeezus, have mercymercymercy!

Astonished, I looked over at this little old, white-haired, wild woman jerking and throwing her arms. My mouth, I’m sure, dropped open. For I’d never seen Auntie lose control. I’d never seen emotion sweep her up like a tornado and throw her about like a puppet. Women with nurse’s caps on their heads ran to her with fans and handkerchiefs in their hands. I scrambled out of the way, not wanting to be rolled over and mashed flat. Her shouting set it off. The whole church began to get the spirit and folks started shouting, moaning, screaming, and falling out in the aisles. Because I had no reference point for this kind of church service, for the meaning and history of this ritual in Black culture, the whole thing simply scared me to death. It was not until years and years later that I began to learn, to understand, and not be frightened by something that we Black folks brought across the ocean and cultivated, like precious seed, to see us through on our hard, soul-testing journey in the Americas.

Woman Series: The Color Purple

Copyright 2008-All Rights Reserved

When I identify as a Lesbian, the first thing that people usually want to know is what does your family think? The family. Or your friends. Or some aspect of my community.

These questions come up because people are aware of the social stigma associated with same sex attraction, with love between two people of the same gender. It's a stigma that grows out of socialization that that has trained us to take the attitude that only heterosexism, love between people of the opposite sex, is “right” and valued as good. The questions come up because of "learned" homophobia, the fear of and condemnation of same sex attracted people, both externalized and internalized. Homophobia is an ugly and toxic force to be reckoned with. One that is as destructive as racism, as sexism, as classism. Like the others, it thrives on ignorance and shame, on hatefulness and misinformation.

This past fall 2008 semester I taught an English Literature class. With this course, the instructor gets to choose the material and focus of the class. I decided to do a course I called “Out of the Closet: Literature by Black Lesbian, Bisexual, and Gay Authors.” This wasn’t the first time I’ve taught it. It’s always interesting. The students learn about writers and their characters—about people who have, more often than not, been “disappeared” out of literary courses and academic study. They learn, through the work of talented and distinguished authors, about what life is like, really, when you are bisexual or transgendered or lesbian or homosexual. They learn and I learn—as an author, teacher, and human being.

The first novel we discussed was The Color Purple.

One of the major themes that Alice Walker’s novel explores is love. Love across the spectrum or continuum of what humans know as love. Love between family members, between women as members of a sisterhood, love between men and women, and love between two women. Intimate love. What society would call Lesbianism.

It’s obvious that there is a deep relationship going on between Shug and Celie; they openly sleep in the same bedroom, the same bed with each other. To complicate matters even more, Shug would be labeled Bisexual because she sleeps with men…with Albert, Celie’s husband, and has children by him, as well as with Grady, for another. Another major theme, then, is sexuality…Bisexual and Lesbian sexuality.

And just what is the community’s, the family’s reaction to this relationship between Shug and Celie? In the novel, you might expect to find some family or community reaction, or homophobia, to Lesbianism, but the author does not explore the community’s reaction. Religious, community and family censure in the form of social stigma and homophobia does not come into play in this novel which is set in the early 1920’s in rural Georgia. The author does not explore it directly. What about internalized homophobia? That is self-hate, self-loathing because you are same sex attracted, because you are a same gender loving person. Well. The two Lesbian lovers don’t suffer from it. Shug certainly does not, nor does Celie.

I believe the author’s depiction of these two women argues against social stigma, homophobia, and internalized homophobia. Celie and Shug’s behavior, their attitudes about themselves and their love affair, their personal values and view of God and the world defy the negative… the internalized homophobia, the stigma, the ugly light that some would cast on a same gender loving relationship.

What’s valuable to me about this novel, about teaching it, about reflecting on its themes of love and of sexuality is this: I see Walker’s characters as open doors that invite us to walk out of one place and into another where we examine old ideas and redefine others.

The novel invites us to question: What are our philosophies, ideas, beliefs about what we call God? What is love? What do we value about love? Is it possible that God is love only when it comes to heterosexual love?

The novel invites us to rethink and reshape ideas that some believe are engraved in stone. Celie and Shug ask us, as readers, dare us to redefine our whole notion about love—what it looks like, behaves like, what we think about it, and our attitude toward it.

Love, Walker suggests, is the most precious thing. No matter what package it comes in. I agree.

Testimony- Part 3

Copyright 2008-All Rights Reserved

Eventually, I found Jewel’s Catch One—the premier West Coast bar for Black people who were “in the life”. At the Catch, for the first time, I saw Lesbian women and Gay men, and Transvestites gathered under one roof. And that was an eye-opener. For my experience, thus far, had never incorporated a whole culture of sexually diverse people—and even cultures within that culture. Put plainly, I had never seen groups, crowds, of Black folks like me in a public space who weren’t hiding their sexuality. It was a new and fascinating experience to be in the Catch. Evansville had nothing public like this—nor did Knoxville when I was growing up. In early 1987, it was Henry, a bartender at the Catch, who told me about this church for Gay people and that the minister was a Black, Gay man who was “out”. The name of the church, he said, was Unity Fellowship Church. An “out” Black, Gay minister? How daring could you get? I was intrigued.

And so I went. I went guided there by Spirit at the end of a long, long journey. And for the beginning of another one. When I walked into the Ebony Showcase Theater, I saw 20 or 30 people there seated on old, folding chairs; some I knew from the Catch. The place was bare-bones, tattered and worn. There was a small stage with dark curtains that looked a bit shabby. On the stage was a beaten-up podium. Angie Vaughn, who had been leading a ritual called “Testimony”, asked us to stand and welcome Reverend Carl Bean, the minister. He came out from behind the curtains and that was the first time I laid eyes on the person that Spirit had sent to change my life—and the lives of a whole lot of other people. He was wearing a plain black robe –a rather short man of indeterminate age, with a round face, whose eyes and mouth were smiling.

I can’t recall the details about that first church service, yet I remember the feeling I came away with. It was like coming home. It amazed me. And I went back the next Sunday and kept going back every Sunday because I knew without a doubt I had found a place where I didn’t have to hide who I was. I didn’t feel like an outcast, like an “odd duck”, or like I had to be perfect. An important part of the liturgy of the service was the Affirmation, and every week, Reverend Bean told me, and all of us, that God made us, loved, accepted and wanted us just as we were. That we were Spirit’s divine offspring. That we—whether Homosexual, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, or Heterosexual—we were not a mistake—not some monstrous perversion, not some flawed piece of trash. That God is love and love is for everyone—not just a few. That God makes no difference between us and straight folks, or White folks, or rich folks. I found myself weeping silently during the Affirmation. It was like a healing balm to all of us, like a salve that helped to staunch the bleeding and close the wounds we harbored deep inside ourselves.

I was beyond excited. I just had to tell one of my friends back home about Reverend Bean, the church, the sense of belonging and community I had found. I told Judy that we didn’t have to feel shamed anymore because we were Lesbians. I told her that God loved us and we were not mistakes and that we didn’t have to be afraid of what other people thought about our sexuality. And I told her I was coming out to my other friends in Knoxville and my aunts (who were my late uncles’wives). Now that was going to take courage. But I wasn’t afraid anymore. And I didn’t want to hide any longer. When I told the aunts and the friends, they said it didn’t matter to them. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather. Here I was prepared to be berated and ostracized. I had steeled myself for it. What I got was a lot of love and acceptance. That taught me that you can’t predict outcomes and to trust Spirit’s guidance.

I looked forward to going back every week, not only for the Affirmation and sense of community, but for the sermons! Although I felt let out of the cage, I didn’t grasp, at first, that I had been oppressed through the theology of religion. I knew I was being set free when Reverend Ban challenged us to interpret and think about the ideas in the Bible. He was “teaching” us in his sermons. Really teaching us. That alone threw me into the heights of delight. Here was a preacher who actually taught something—not someone who just expected you to swallow his Sunday morning “lecture” without thought or question. Reverend Bean expected us to actually “read” the Bible verses along with him as he focused on them during the sermon. He exhorted us not to be intimidated by Fundamentalist, literal readings of the Bible, and he preached that we should not to be afraid to consider that the Bible was not inerrant. What’s more, he characterized Jesus as a rebel, a paradigm-shifter, and a radical thinker—and backed it up with evidence from the text. I didn’t know then that Unity was a church of Liberation Theology. I hadn’t a clue what that was; nor did I realize that I was hearing the ideas of Progressive Christianity, but I knew a rebel and a sure-nuff radical when I heard one in the pulpit. I was thrilled and I was smitten. Spirit had finally led me to what I was reaching for all those years ago in Baptism class. You couldn’t have pried me away. I decided to become a member and did so on July 19, 1987.

(end Part 3)

Testimony- Part 1

Copyright 2008-All Rights Reserved

I was raised as a Methodist—not C.M.E., not A.M.E., not United Methodist—just vanilla-plain Methodist. My mother’s adopted father was a Baptist preacher, I’m told, and my father’s father was a Methodist preacher. When they married, my mother joined Vine Avenue Methodist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. When I was born, I was christened at that church and was made a member when I was an adolescent. I didn’t want to join the church, but I was expected to. I registered my protest with my mother but I knew that I was captive to my family’s reputation (my parents were teachers), and to the expectations of the Black community. In that era, the fifties, good little middle-class adolescent girls were taught to conform to and expected to tow the line set by community values. I could see that my protest was in vain, and so I grudgingly went to the baptism preparatory classes that were supposed to teach me about being a church member.

I can’t remember a thing I was supposed to have learned about the Methodist canon or liturgy. The dominant impression I remember of the classes is that they were painfully boring, and you were not to ask any questions. Only occasionally were questions invited, and then only the most insubstantial were welcomed. That was not a situation that I could thrive in because I was a Black girl who always questioned everything. The church adults frowned on this, and probably tried to get my mother to stamp out this annoying characteristic. She didn’t. Frankly, I don’t think anyone could have. I still ask questions today and think that people who don’t ask questions are dangerously conformist, dependent, non-thinkers.

Later, after I had done my duty and joined, I encountered only one adult church member who was willing to listen to and answer my questions, and who actively encouraged us teenagers to ask them. She was Leontyne Kelly, the wife of one of the many ministers who pastored our church. This was, of course, before she became the first woman bishop, I believe, in the Methodist denomination. Unfortunately, the Kellys didn’t stay with us long.

And so, it was back to Sunday school lessons heavy on men I felt no connection with who lived light-years ago in the past—Moses and his tablets, Joseph and his coat of many colors, David besting Goliath with a stone. It was back to Sunday morning sermons preaching dogma which never even mentioned what was happening in Montgomery after Rosa Parks wouldn’t get up—sermons that never characterized Jesus as the radical boat-rocker, and liberator, who came with new messages of love and freedom, messages which mostly didn’t conform with the theology in the Hebrew’s Torah and the letter of their laws. No, we didn’t get any of that.

We also didn’t get any fire and brimstone preaching on Sodom and Gomorrah, the sin of homosexuality, lesbianism, transsexualism, or bisexualism. If we had, I think I would’ve remembered because I knew for sure, by the time the hormones kicked in (around 7th grade)that I didn’t want to be with boys, that I liked girls. That I was "funny, as they used to say in the street vernacular. On that taboo subject, no preaching at my church, and for sure, no questions entertained by anyone in Christendom, as far as I could tell. That kind of sexuality was a grievous sin. Heterosexism reigned. Amen. Case closed. I promptly went into the closet and tried to make myself comfortable.

Through the public school years, I learned to equate not only my Methodist church, but all organized religion with people who conformed unquestioning to the rule of the majority; with people who never walked their Jesus talk; with people who couldn’t explain why I liked girls and why that was supposed to be wrong if God made me; with people who were silent on contradictions in the Bible, and where the story of Adam and Eve came from when there was nobody, at dawn of human beginnings, who was writing down words to convey ideas.

By the time I finished my undergraduate degree, I had tuned out, turned off, and dropped out of organized religion.(I had also begun, though I didn’t know it then, my twenty-seven year journey into alcoholism.) On the trip home from my Indiana University graduation, I told my parents I wouldn’t be going back to our church. By then it had been relocated and renamed Lennon Memorial after my uncle Frank gave a huge sum to the church with the provision that its name recognize his long-dead son. Moreover, I told them that I would never again—on my own—join another church. I’m sure they were saddened as well as aghast at my announcement for they were very active church members. I’m sorry they didn’t live to see me become a member of Unity Fellowship Church, Los Angeles.

My mother died when I was a first year student in grad school and my father remarried. After I got my Master’s at I.U., I moved to Evansville, Indiana . Those were the days when I was drinking every day, closeted and desperately trying to be heterosexual. Maybe I hadn’t been preached at and damned to hell for being same sex attracted, but I’d gotten the message loud and clear in every other way that I’d better hide my true nature. So I began to play the straight role. While my friends—those straight and those not—got married, I found a way, without really being aware then of what I was doing, of avoiding the marriage trap. I’d find myself “attracted” to men who were already married or about to get married. Then, I could conveniently “fall in love” and be in a relationship that could never go down marriage lane. It worked. But at a price.

(end Part 1)