Victimless Faces
Stories behind the statistics
by Keith R. Green
In 2006, Black gay and bisexual men between the ages of 13 and 29 accounted for more new HIV infections among gay and bisexual men than any other race or age group. And more than half, or 52 percent, of all Black gay and bi men infected that year were under 30 years old.—Black AIDS Institute, Making Change Real: The State of AIDS in Black America, 2009
Oftentimes in our discussions about HIV and aging, we tend to speak strictly to the physical effects that the virus has on the inevitable process of growing older. Rarely do we connect these concepts with the concurrent psychosocial impact, particularly as it relates to those who become infected as very young adults, or even as youth.
The aforementioned data regarding young Black gay and bisexual men is staggering. Not only will a vast majority of this new breed of America’s youth never know an adult life without HIV (and all that comes along with being infected), but they must somehow manage to juggle their status with the everyday struggles of coming into adulthood as a racial and sexual minority. The truth of the matter is that HIV gets compounded by a whole host of other factors.
Hudson
Hudson Kelly may be an extreme example of this, but it is quite likely that his story is a common one.
A native of Flint, Michigan, Hudson was taken from his mother at the age of 18 months due to child abuse issues. His younger sister, who suffered from spinal meningitis, died when she was thrown into a wall by their mother’s heroin-addicted boyfriend, allegedly because she wouldn’t stop crying.
Governmental efforts at keeping families together saw Hudson reunited with his mother when he was in his early teens, only to feel as if he was reliving his early childhood all over again. Though he was not a heroin addict, at least, Hudson’s mother’s new boyfriend stood six-feet tall, 220 pounds, and took pleasure in regularly beating her and her children.
“I got so numb to it at 14, it didn’t matter anymore,” he says matter-of-factly. “My brothers and sisters would just take it, but I was like, ’No!’ My mom even told me that if I would just sit there and take it, he would probably stop. But because I wouldn’t, it was like he had to break me.”
A cousin’s girlfriend recognized the strength in him and allowed Hudson to stay with them so that he could finish high school safely. He went on to college in Ann Arbor and stumbled upon a gay bar. As he says, that’s where he found himself.
A kid of the eighties, he has vivid memories of the many conflicting misnomers that emerged about the virus (many of which still linger to this day). He remembers how President Reagan pushed monogamy as the only sure way to remain HIV-free. He’d heard his uncles and other relatives declare it a “gay disease” that only the “white boys” were susceptible to. He did what he thought he needed to do to avoid HIV. Therefore, when he entered into his first monogamous relationship at 18 years old, with an older gentleman who had recently migrated to the U.S. from Spain, Hudson assumed that he had escaped the risk of being infected with HIV.
For nine years, Hudson lived the life of a prince. His partner, who made a very nice living as an accountant with a large brokerage house, spoiled him with the finest of everything, while at the same time sheltering him from the rest of the world around them. It wasn’t until Hudson began to grow up and come into his own that he started to realize that, outside of this man, he had no life.
In an effort to establish an identity of his own, he decided to join the Navy. His partner warned him that, in doing so, he would find out something about himself that he would not be able to handle. Hudson assumed his mate was implying that, at five feet, four inches tall and weighing 119 pounds, he wasn’t strong enough for the Navy, but he was determined to face that kind of challenge. It was when they pulled him into the little white room after his physical, that his whole world came tumbling down. Being diagnosed with HIV ended Hudson’s plans for life in the military. He later learned that his partner had known that he was HIV-positive all along. He told Hudson that he had contracted it from a blood transfusion while living in Europe, and that his family sent him away to the U.S. A friend would later tell Hudson that he had seen his partner chopping up pills and putting them into a hamburger patty that he was making for Hudson, his fruitless effort at protecting him.
From Michigan, Hudson moved to Los Angeles and then to Atlanta, where he found a welcoming Black gay community where stigma surrounding status was almost non-existent. When he learned that his mother was ill, he left Atlanta to be closer to her, only to realize that not much had really changed in her life at all.
He’s 31-years old now and living in Chicago. “I didn’t start facing the stigma until I moved to Chicago,” he says. “And the racial tension here is so thick that it’s almost combustible. It’s like, ‘It’s okay for you to be here, because we’re not racist and this is not the South or whatever, but just know that we’re not really going to include you.’”
He’s found refugee in volunteering with Test Positive Aware Network, and his image and story are currently being used in the organization’s citywide prevention campaign called SmartSex (an adaptation of the Community Promise model).
He recently completed the agency’s treatment education program, and is planning to get more deeply involved by going back to school for a degree in social work or human resources. He also maintains a Yahoo360 blog, which has chronicled his journey with HIV.
Raymond
Raymond Berry became the man of his household when he started working at the local White Castle at the age of 16. His parents had split when he was 10 or 11. What little support his father provided after the separation wasn’t enough, and had to be supplemented through welfare assistance. When Raymond became old enough to work, his father cut him and his two sisters off altogether.
“It felt like he thought he had been trapped in marriage, but that he didn’t really want to be bothered,” says Raymond. “And I took it personally, thinking he didn’t care about me. I just associated him with money, as a provider, and he barely did that.”
Raymond feels that being abandoned by his father has greatly influenced the relationships that he has had with other men since.
“He conditioned me to believe that men leave when you need them, and that maybe I needed to do something to make them stay,” he says. “Whether it’s to give money or sex or be submissive, I believed that I needed to do something. I couldn’t just be myself. There was something that I needed to give beyond me, and so I was wearing this mask that kept changing.”
Although he’s known that he was somehow different since the crush he developed on another boy in the third grade, Raymond has never told his family that he is gay. Deeply rooted in the Black church, they kept it the secret that everybody knew, but nobody would talk about, until they were forced to.
While working to earn his bachelors degree in fine arts at the University of Chicago, Raymond came down with what he thought was a cold that he could not shake. He went to the emergency room and was admitted with a diagnosis of pneumonia. When he confided in the doctor that he was gay, an HIV test was immediately ordered.
“Though I wasn’t expecting [a positive result], I certainly thought about the inevitability of it,” says Raymond. “I had been tested before and I was negative, so that became my excuse to go right back out there and do whatever I was doing. I didn’t see that as a sign from the universe saying, ‘Okay, you’re negative, slow down.’”
“For my family, it just kind of confirmed every stereotype that was associated with my lifestyle,” he continues. “And when my twin sister came to pick me up from the hospital she asked me, ‘With all that we know, with all that you know—how could you let this happen?’ And I didn’t know what to say.”
“I was a little bit sad, a little bit confused, and a little bit angry,” he says. “But I don’t think I dealt with it until I started writing about it.”
“With all that we know, with all that you know, how could you let this happen?”Though he endured extreme loneliness from lack of a solid support system following his diagnosis, and admits to contemplating suicide on more than one occasion, Raymond credits his ancestors with pulling him back from the brink of death.
“I believe that I was put on this Earth because the ancestors chose me to continue what was started before me. Essex, Marlon, Joseph, and Melvin. They chose me. It’s almost priestly. I have work to do. I have to try to prevent this from happening to anyone else.”
Raymond went on to obtain a masters degree in fine arts and, at 29, is currently in Chicago teaching a college course on African American literature. His first book, entitled Diagnosis, is being published by Vintage Press and will be available July 1st. It is a collection of poetry that chronicles his physical, mental, and emotional journey after being diagnosed.
“I convinced myself that I am not supposed to have a personal life,” he continues. “I don’t date. I’m not sexually active. If one day that person comes along, cool. But I’m not looking for it. I haven’t been sexually active since 2004, and I haven’t dated since 2005.
“I can honestly say that I am stable,” he says. “I’m not going to off myself, although I think I already have. Not necessarily physically, you know, but anytime you shut down, you lose those socialization skills. You punish yourself by thinking that you are not worthy of relationships. But how do you come to the realization that you’re worthy or deserving of them?”
Against the odds
Compared to many, Hudson and Raymond are success stories. They have each, in their own way, faced the combined, destructive forces of childhood abuse, homophobia, betrayal, stigma, self-judgment, and on top of all of that, HIV. But both have found purpose and value in their lives. Both will one day, no doubt, become part of the class of “elders” that others who contract the disease in their youth will look to for help, guidance, and inspiration.
