negro sunshine.

 I just want to talk about music. And Blackness. And queer shit.

[negrosunshine]

i miss our connection

that quick season of fleeting feels

shared songs and tender kisses

sweet sex and freeing laughter

floating away

i wonder where you are

and long to ask

how you are

i cherish the memory

where you rest

in a beautiful archive

this love i have

[manufactoriel]

Men kissing under tree, 1977-78, by  Kay Tobin Lahusen

[posefx-teaa]

✨Behind the scenes — Pose S3E5✨

📸: Andrei_Schawartz/ Instagram.

[negrosunshine]

thoughts with negrosunshine.

i fucked this white boy one time. i had the distinct feeling he wanted to hook up with me to get the “Black experience.” he was that real white type. 

so before we got into what needed to be done, i threw on Fela’s “Water Get No Enemy.” you know, to give him the full experience.

[negrosunshine]

@ the shrine.

next person talking to me bout the cruel and unruly nature of Black homophobia

im taking them to the shrine one late sunday night

and child, we gon dance

dance to house music, baby!

chicago house.

oh, that house! talkin bout house music!

we gon get free! they gon come get free with me!

and we’ll move and slide and shuffle through the smoky atomosphere

order a few drinks at the bar

make eyes with the gay bartender (at least he know i know he gay) as he bounces up and down pouring our shots!

grab hands and spin around with the butches breakin on the floor

and femmes for days honey, femmes for days!

femmes of all shapes and sizes. femmes of all genders.

down at the shrine! hip-hop on saturday and house on sunday! 

with that het couple in they sixities looking like they just came from evening bible study, and they shakinnnnnnnnnnnnn, lord jesus they groovin! 

thug muthafuckas in the middle of the dance floor, ‘watch my footwork, nigga’ lookin muthafuckas, and they checkin me out, nigga! they checkin me out!

i saw ‘em, you’ll see 'em.

couples in they 40s, of all sexualities. women in they 30s, ass twerkin, leg in the air, drink in they hand, bet you a drink they don’t spill not one drop!

men like my father, two steppin next to that queen with no shirt, sashaying and twirling like a beyonce back-up dancer.

wallflowers noddin they head, house heads forming circles.

we gon be alrite,

at least on sunday night

[negrosunshine]

i miss chicago. and damn, they took the shrine from us.

[negrosunshine]

untitled. 7.6.16

Sometimes I stare at my skin and smile. Privately. While the rest of the world still seems to fear it. I bask in it. Defiantly.

[negrosunshine]

Bound

there was a Revolution in our kiss. and perhaps now we are depriving the Black world. stealing militant strategy the further we walk away.

[negrosunshine]

10/22/19

I’m determined to make better, closer, deeper friendships with Black queer men. Somewhere along the way I lost touch. At least touch that didn’t lead to fucking. How did everything I identify with, wrote for and with, become so distant? Me, Black and queer, unable to form bonds with myself?

And I reckon with the things I’ve done to contribute to the situation. Fuck and don’t call. Hate on their shine in attempts to hide my own insecurities. Or just general light skin fuck nigga shit. That was me, I’ve worked on me. I’m working on me.

I’ve apologized, (in writing) to my dead friend, my Black queer male identified friend who I outed on some whack ass, I don’t even know shit. I’m working up to apologizing in person, in the real. I’m working on my shit.

I’m saying hi more, I’m hugging more, I’m smiling more at Black queer men in the world. I’m fighting past my pettiness and treating them kindly even when I feel the same hate, the same unacknowledgement, the same fuck shit I use to emanate into our world.

How does one form bonds with folks I’ve actively worked to break? Or is this some mind fuck, fuck nigga, call me because I want some ass post?

No, I want friends. Connections with Black queer men in the real.

[greekcolours]

[oncanvas]

The Boy with No Past, Amy Sherald, 2014

oil on canvas 54 x 43 in. (21.26 x 16.93 cm)

[negrosunshine]

growth?

to the Black boy still in my dream

leave nigga. 

.

.

.

or come to me in the real.

[negrosunshine]

After a secret’s been told, everyone becomes a prophet.

Brit Bennett, The Mothers

[negrosunshine]

Currently reading:

- The Mothers - Brit Bennet

- I Can’t Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I’ve Put My Faith in Beyoncé - Michael Arceneaux

- Heavy - Kiese Laymon

What y’all reading?

[negrosunshine]

In such a state of confinement, I found pop culture to be a saving grace. For many who lack access financially, emotionally, physically, or some combination of the three, pop culture is how we get to access perspectives from outside our bubbles. It helps to inform us of who we are in our present, developing who we ultimately might become. The man I’ve become has largely been molded by the lessons learned from the famous women I’ve obsessed over throughout the course of my life.

Michael Arceneaux, I Can’t Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, and Other Reasons I’ve Put My Faith in Beyoncé

[elijahpeso]

[ificouldlookoutyoureyesiwould]

[negrosunshine]

My Manners

My blackness started out cultural. It was knowing the year 1619. It was singing Lift Every Voice. And it wrapped around me in the 4th grade when I learned about Kwanzaa and ran home to declare we would be celebrating that instead of Christmas. Blackness was my mom laughing, but obliging and searching high and low all around town for a Black candle. It was me wearing daishikis and kentes. I recited Maya poems, and Martin quotes. Blackness was me forced to watch Spike Lee joints and those family outings to see Rosewood and Amistad, though they gave me nightmares. Blackness was my mom allowing me to crawl in bed with her when I feared history. It was me dreaming Black death. My Blackness lived for February. And never allowed me to sag, or curse. My Blackness was confusing. I was taught to always take a stand, but never talk back. To understand authority, but always be skeptical, when appropriate of course. My Blackness was also problematic. It was reading Langston Hughes poems and never knowing he was gay. It was knowing Stockley and Huey teachings, but only knowing the images of Angela and Elaine. Blackness was privileging non-violence, and never knowing Nat, Assata, Kuwasi, or Robert.

Then I suppose I got (more) woke. Still Black, but less hotep, more critical. It was reading James Baldwin’s Fire Next Time, but also Giovanni’s Room. It was holding Eldridge Cleaver in contempt. It was having my ass handed to me by numerous Black feminist on my male centric issues. It was long nights, long conversations, confusion, and long silences with Black women. It was politically charged and paradigm shifting. It was a reckoning on slavery and its afterlife. It was understanding how Blackness shifted all other identity markers and their meanings. Being a Black male meant something different. Being Black and middle class meant something different. Being Black and gay meant something different. It was me having no relationship to prisons, but understanding how the institution shaped my life. It was me living after segregation and away from the ghetto, but being informed by both.

One thing remained the same throughout the shift. Blackness was antagonistic with the rest of the world. That made me angry, and somewhat unruly. And I act out in mundane ways. I don’t hold doors for white people. I don’t say bless you after they sneeze. I lived in Chicago for 3.5 years. I never got up on the “el” for a white woman (pregnant or not) or an old white person. My manners aren’t for them. They can kiss my ass.