Hold Tight Gently (57 page)

The establishment by the OutWrite Conference of an award in JB’s name caused considerable controversy. In 1992 Dorothy Beam, at Essex’s urging, rescinded her permission to use her son’s name. In an extended explanation for the action (the 5-p. transcript is in ASSC, and a 1-p. summary, dated March 1992, in EH/WJSC), Essex cited the fact that “no input was sought from the Black gay and lesbian community” and that the titles nominated failed to include any of the books published in 1991 by black gays and lesbians, but did include two Alyson publications (Sasha Alyson had sponsored the award).

15
. To work with Isaac Julien, Essex spent two weeks in London in August 1989; Julien was “a marvelous host” and Essex had “an excellent trip” (EH to Barbara Smith, August 18, 1989, BSP); Frank Broderick interview with EH, n.d., JBSC; Karl Bruce Knapper, “Raw, Fresh, Soothing, Unnerving,”
Bay Area Reporter
, May 30, 1991;
Publishers Weekly
, May 10, 1991; Jim Cory review in
Windy City Times
, March 21, 1991; Jim Marks review in
Lambda Book Report
, May–June 1991; interview with Ron Simmons, May 2009; Isaac Julien to JB, May 27, 1987, JBSC; and in
Brother to Brother
: Walter Rico Burrell, “The Scarlett Letter, Revisited,” diary entry for February 9, 1989; Assotto Saint, “Hooked for Life”; Craig G. Harris, “The Worst of It”; EH, “Looking for Langston: An Interview with Isaac Julien”; Ron Simmons, “Tongues Untied: An Interview with Marlon Riggs” and “Some Thoughts on the Challenges Facing Black Gay Intellectuals”; and Marlon Riggs, “Black Macho Revisited: Reflections of a Snap! Queen.” The typescript of the Riggs essay is in JBSC. EH’s essay on Welsing is entitled “If Freud Had Been a Neurotic Colored Woman: Reading Dr. Frances Cress Welsing.” It originally appeared in the radical gay Boston publication
Gay Community News
(February 25–March 3, 1991) and was then reprinted in EH,
Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry
(Plume, 1992). For a critique of EH’s Welsing essay, see Dwight A. McBride, “Can the Queen Speak?” in
Black Men on Race, Gender, and Sexuality
, ed. Devon W. Carbado (New York University Press, 1999).

16
. Phillip Brian Harper, “Eloquence and Epitaph,” originally published in Harper,
Writing AIDS
(Columbia University Press, 1993); Elinor Burkett,
The Gravest Show on Earth: America in the Age of AIDS
(Houghton Mifflin, 1995), 186; Harlon L. Dalton, “AIDS in Blackface,” originally published in
Daedalus
, summer 1989. Both essays are reprinted in Bull,
While the World Sleeps
.

17
. EH to Barbara Smith, December 20, 1990; EH and Dorothy Beam to Barbara Smith, March 14, 1991, both BSP; Don Belton, “Gay Voices, Gay Lives,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, August 25, 1991; see also Phil Harper’s review in
Gay Community News
, June
9–15, 1991, in which he finds “the structure of
Brother to Brother
. . . tighter and more cohesive than that of
In The Life
.”

Chapter 6: Drugs into Bodies

1
. Susan M. Chambré,
Fighting for Our Lives: New York’s AIDS Community and the Politics of Disease
(Rutgers University Press, 2006), chap. 5. For a fuller analysis of how the
New York Times
treated AIDS up through 1989, see Douglas Crimp,
Melancholia and Moralism
(MIT Press, 2002), p. 137, fn. 15.

2
. Douglas Crimp with Adam Rolston, “Stop the Church,” originally in
AIDS Demo Graphics
(1990), reprinted in
While the World Sleeps
, ed. Chris Bull (Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2003).

3
. Duberman diary, June 1, 1989, in my possession (though I’ve published this entry in Duberman,
Waiting to Land
(The New Press, 2009), 64–65.

4
. Deborah B. Gould,
Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight Against AIDS
(University of Chicago Press, 2009) esp. chap. 4; Jim Eigo, “The City as Body Politic/ The Body as City unto Itself,” in
From ACT UP to the WTO
, ed. Benjamin Shepard and Ronald Hayduk (Verso, 2002).

5
. Crimp with Rolston, “Stop the Church” and “Seize Control of the FDA,” originally in
AIDS Demo Graphics
(1990), republished in Bull,
While the World Sleeps
.

6
. Darrell Yates Rist, “The Deadly Costs of an Obsession,”
The Nation
, February 13, 1989; follow-up responses, including my own, are in the issues of March 20 and May 1, 1989. For another instance of exasperation over the Rist piece, see Crimp,
Melancholia
, 144–45.

7
. John-Manuel Andriote,
Victory Deferred
, rev. ed. (2011), 222–23; Chambré,
Fighting for Our Lives
, 127–29; Gould,
Moving Politics
, 285–86; Crimp with Rolston, “Stop the Church,” 171–77.

8
. Gould,
Moving Politics
, passim; Maxine Wolfe, “AIDS and Politics: Transformation of Our Movement,” originally an October 6, 1989, speech—an edited version is in Bull,
While the World Sleeps
.

9
. Jennifer Brier,
Infectious Ideas: U.S. Political Responses to the AIDS Crisis
(University of North Carolina Press, 2009), esp. chap. 5; Elinor Burkett,
The Gravest Show on Earth: America in the Age of AIDS
(Houghton Mifflin, 1995), chap. 6; Wayne Turner e-mail to me, January 28, 2013 (EH had no involvement with ACT UP/DC).

10
. EH, “Family Jewels,” in
Ceremonies
(Cleis, 1992), 119; Robinson as quoted in Andriote,
Victory Deferred
, 195; Brier,
Infectious Ideas
, 163–71, 184 (Agosto).

11
. Celia Farber, interview with MC,
Spin
10, no. 1 (1994); Gould,
Moving Politics
, 282 (Shilts), 334, 340, 346, 348, 363 (Saunders), 374–83; Harlon L. Dalton, “AIDS in Blackface,”
Daedalus
, Summer 1989. JS criticized TAG, as well as Project Inform, on the grounds that it was “collaborationist”—that is, sat “on all these committees with industry and government representatives” (Sean Strub, “The Good Doctor,”
POZ
, July 1998). The paragraphs from “As yet . . . to climb” are essentially taken from my
Waiting to Land
(The New Press, 2009).

12
. Louis Grant, “Open Letter” of January 4; MC to CRI Board, January 11; Grant to MC, August 10, 17, September 11, 12, 29, November 1, December 26, all 1989, all MCP; Grant to Board, January 4, 1990, MCP; MC, “The Finale,”
Genre
,
December 1993; Gregg Gonsalves to MC, July 27, 1993; MC to Gonsalves, August 19, 1993, both MCP. Burkett,
Gravest
, chap. 7 (women); MC’s
Speech as Grand Marshal of the Gay Pride Rally, 6/29/91
(“brutal”), DVD, courtesy Dworkin; JS to Paula Treichler, December 27, 1989 (“romantic”), JSNYPL.

13
. MC, 3-p. memo to Board of Directors and Staff, May 10, 1989, MCP; MC to Judy and Sam Peabody, February 27, 1989, MCP.

14
. MC to Mathilde Krim, April 30, 1989, MCP;
PWA Newsline
, January 1989; MC to Bill Case, July 30, 1989, MCP; MC to Editor,
Time
, June 24, 1989, MCP. Mathilde Krim basically supported amfAR financially for at least the first year and a half of its existence. At some point JS, having been made to feel unwelcome as a result of his opposition to the notion that AIDS would soon spread to heterosexuals, resigned in frustration (JS interviews with Sean Strub, SSJS).

15
. Multiple interviews with Richard Dworkin;
Bay Area Reporter
, April 13, 1989;
Bay Times
, May 1989;
The Advocate
, November 21, 1988; Effie Pow, “The Flirtations Tantalize,”
The Ubyssey
, February 14, 1991; “Untied Inspirations,”
Network
1, no. 3 (December 1990);
Outweek
, March 6, 1991; Cliff Townsend to me, April 13, 2013.

16
. Ron Simmons, “An Interview with Marlon Riggs,” 11-p. typescript, [1990?], SC; Thomas Avena, ed.,
Life Sentences
(Mercury House, 1994) 265.

17
. EH to Gittens and Zalbowitz, May 7, 1990, SC; phone interview with Jim W. Marks, March 5, 2013;
New York Times
, June 25, 1991;
Gay Community News
, February 25–March 3, 1990;
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
, July 16, 1991; Isaac Jackson, “An Open Letter to the Black Gay Community on Loving Black Men and ‘Sleeping With the Enemy,” 5-p. ms., SC; for a more recent critical view of
Tongues Untied
, see John Champagne,
The Ethics of Marginality
(University of Minnesota Press, 1995), chap. 3—but see, too, the persuasive reply, particularly regarding EH, by E. Patrick Johnson, “ ‘Quare’ Studies, or (Almost) Everything I Know about Queer Studies I Learned from My Grandmother,” in
Black Queer Studies
, ed. E. Patrick Johnson and Mae G. Henderson (Duke University Press, 2005); Chuck Kleinhaus and Julia Lesage, “Listening to the Heartbeat: Interview with Marlon Riggs,” UC Berkeley Library,
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/RiggsInterview.html
; Avena,
Life Sentences
, 258–73; Kobena Mercer, “Dark and Lovely Too: Black Gay Men in Independent Film,” in
Queer Looks: Perspectives on Lesbian and Gay Film and Video
, ed. Martha Gever, John Greyson, and Pratibha Parmar (Between the Lines, 1993), 238–56.

18
. Kleinhaus and Lesage, “Listening to the Heartbeat”; Avena,
Life Sentences
, 267;
Gay Community News
, February 25–March 3, 1990; EH, “Choice,” 6-p. typescript, BSP; EH, “Standing in the Gap,” FGAF.

19
. “Where We Live: A Conversation with Essex Hemphill and Isaac Julien,” in
speak my name: Black Men on Masculinity and the American Dream
, ed. Don Belton (Beacon, 1995); Darren Lenard Hutchinson, “ ‘Claiming’ and ‘Speaking’ Who We Are,” and Earl Ofari Hutchinson, “My Gay Problem, Your Black Problem,” both in
Black Men on Race, Gender, and Sexuality,
ed. Devon W. Carbado (New York University Press, 1999); Keith Boykin,
Beyond the Down Low
(Carroll and Graf, 2005), 216–17, 255–56; Robert F. Reid-Pharr,
Black Gay Man
(New York University Press, 2001), chap. 8.

20
. EH’s 1990 speech at OutWrite was printed as “Does Your Mama Know About Me? Does She Know Just Who I Am?” in
Gay Community News
, March 25–31, 1990; Chuck Smith, “An Interview with Essex Hemphill,”
Vanguard
, August 23, 1991.

21
. EH, “Why I Fear Other Black Males,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, September 7, 1990; Cathy J. Cohen,
The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black
Politics
(University of Chicago Press, 1999), 101–11; EH, “Deliberations,” 7-p. transcript, EH/WJSC.

22
. Ted Roulette interview with EH,
Thing
, n.d., SC;
Los Angeles Times
, January 14, 1989;
Outweek
, March 6, 1991;
Network
1, no. 3 (December 1990), SC.

Chapter 7: Stalemate

1
. Jennifer Brier,
Infectious Ideas: U.S. Political Responses to the AIDS Crisis
(University of North Carolina Press, 2009), chap. 5; Deborah B. Gould,
Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight Against AIDS
(University of Chicago Press, 2009), chap. 7; Steven Epstein,
Impure Science: AIDS, Activism, and the Politics of Knowledge
(University of California Press, 1996), chap. 8.

2
. MC, “Wading into the Deep and Messy Water of Sex in the Age of AIDS,” 31-p. typescript, [1990? 1991?], MCP; multiple interviews with Richard Dworkin;
O Boys with Mike on Franklin
, DVD, October 16, 1993; and
MC on the Charlie Rose show Nightwatch
, DVD, March 27, 1989, both RDP. Gayle Rubin’s essay is in Carole S. Vance, ed.,
Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality
(Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984). MC also cited the seminal
Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality
, ed. Ann Snitow, Christine Stansell, and Sharon Thompson (New Feminist Library, 1983).

3
. The situation would later change somewhat. After the introduction of protease inhibitors in 1995, which for many made AIDS a “manageable disease,” there was a notable increase in “bare-backing” (having unprotected anal sex) and a substantial debate about the reasons behind it. For more details, see Gabriel Rotello,
Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men
(Dutton, 1997); Walt Odets,
In the Shadow of the Epidemic
(Duke University Press, 1995); and my review of the Rotello book in
The Nation
, May 5, 1997, reprinted in Duberman,
Left Out: The Politics of Exclusion
(Basic Books, 1999).

4
. Gould,
Moving Politics
, chap. 6; Duberman diary (in my possession). A number of books and anthologies have memorialized artists lost to AIDS; see, for example, Philip Clark and David Groff,
Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers Lost to AIDS
(Alyson, 2009). Five of Essex’s poems are included, along with work by several of his friends—Craig G. Harris, Assotto Saint, and Donald Woods.

5
. MC, “Statement of Michael Callen,” Bethesda, Maryland, June 4, 1992, 4-p. transcript, MCP; multiple interviews with Richard Dworkin; MC, “A Farewell to Smarm, Swansong,” 6-p. transcript, MCP; JS interviews with Sean Strub, SSJS.

6
. Martin Duberman, “Masters and Johnson,” in Duberman
Left Out: A Political Journey.

7
. EH to Barbara Smith, August 27, 1991, enclosing the exchange of letters (August 20, August 24) in regard to the
Book World
controversy and his letter of August 17, 1991, to Phill Wilson, BSP. In a note to her in 1993, Essex was still employing the brief, vague phrase “my health is good” (EH to Barbara Smith, March 3, 1993, BSP). Since I found no reply from Phill Wilson in EH’s papers, I sent him the relevant pages about Essex’s charges in order to give him the opportunity to respond. But he’s chosen not to.