Los Angeles is Burning

Over 25 years ago, I saw a documentary Paris is Burning, capturing the very queer ball scene of New York. I was blown away of these stories of queer people of color living their very best lives, finding families when their own biological families may have shunned them.

The ball scene made famous "Vogueing" which Madonna brought to the mainstream. 

The ball scene continues today. It is performance, it is fierceness, it is church. With shows like Ru Paul's Drag Race, one can see how competitive and fabulous drag queens and trans people can be.  

Recently, I went to the Proud Festival in Downtown Los Angeles.  There was an impromptu Vogueing competition, very much like the kind seen in Paris is Burning.  But it wasn't New York is was smack down in downtown Los Angeles.

I'm sure many of these dancers weren't even born when Paris is Burning was made in the early 1990s. This tradition of mostly black and brown queers is wonderful.  In these videos, you can hear me screaming, Yaaaas!

What makes this more incredible is that the ball scene was usually hidden away, kept in secret ball rooms.  But here we are in downtown LA, all are welcome to witness. In the above video, I love how there's an Asian couple watching.

Being there, among free queer people, there was a sense of the divine--that God or God-like forces were present.  It was truly uplifting.

Black and Brown in Technicolor

I went to two exhibitions recently. Soul of Nation at the Broad and Liberacion at the Village. What struck me was the dazzling colors in the shows.  I was quite touched by it.  Why?

Soul of a Nation

I think it's because the black and brown narrative is often seen through a narrow lens--one usually of struggle and oppression.  However, these paintings offer a different story.  These artists see a multi-narrative.  Black and brown lives are far more complex, literally more colorful than others may give credit for.

Liberacion

I'm a brown man in the world.  In this country, all sorts of stories are thrown at darker skinned people. I found relief in these paintings. The brightness of these paintings reminded me of the brightness this brown man can encounter in his life.

Beloved Toni Morrison

I read Beloved, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby and Sula within two years. There was something about her voice that inspired me.  There was a rhythm and a style in her work that transported me. Her dedication to exploring African American life was a model for how I would explore various communities that I identified with.  

In 1993, when I first started studying writing, my writing teacher Ayofemi Folayan was ecstatic.  

"Toni Morrision won the Nobel Prize!" she said.

"Cool," I said, but I was hiding the fact that I was unfamiliar with her and her work.  If she won the Nobel Prize, I guess I should know who she is.  I started with her master piece Beloved, the tale of a black woman who kills her children rather than have them become slaves. 

I didn't know such story telling could exist.  I became a different person, a better writer because of her. Thank you.