Elvert Xavier Barnes Photography . Writings . Ads
Eariler in the week while staying with my other at his place in Wilton Manors I'd take pictures of Ft. Lauderdale's architecture focusing on some of the same locations that I'd captured when he and I had gone down in September 2004 for an exhibit at the Stonewall Library & Archives. On Saturday morning I'd take the Greyhound bus from Ft. Lauderdale into Miami Downtown and then a metro bus to South Beach and in the process snap a few cityscape shots along the way. And then but as I'd walk along Collins Avenue en route to the Surfcomber Hotel which is where I'd spend the afternoon capturing the Manhunt's Pool Party and as I'd pass the many hotel and motels along the way I could not help but reflect on ... 10 years ago ... almost to the day when along that exact same stretch I, for the first time, had visited South Beach during time which I'd focus on neon signs, photographically.
And had I expressed my concerns in 2005 or spoke of my reflections from10 years before and as I had done in February 1995 my concerns as well as I would simply have been dismissed. And, yet, but when I now reflect on my visit to South Beach in February 1995 it represents one of the 10 defining moments of my life. And the very concerns that I had spoken of then which, of course, were simply dismissed not only would prove to be the very center of my expereinces in 1995 but would also be the case in 2005. And though I am still being told that what had occurred 10 years ago much which my other now claims to have little or no memory of and, in 1995, insisted was just by chance nothing about any of it could possibly have ever been simply by chance. Nor ever simply dismissed. And as I walked along Collins Avenue 10 years later, in 2005, a 'feeling of doom' came over me.
Just before leaving my apartment for the airport on Tuesday mornng of 1 March 2005 I'd grab Hunter Thompson's book "Songs of the Doomed" from my bookshelve. Which I had purchased some years back but had never finished and, therefore, on the flight down would resume reading. Having admired his work since the summer of 1978 when I had read "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" Thompson had committed suicide the week before. Once at the airport I'd observe folks positioning themsleves around me the way they always do when I travel on planes or trains. I'd jot down in my note pad "Had I Been White". When the plane landed at Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood at 12:30p on Tuesday, 1 March a sunken feeling would come over me that was not unlike the feeling that I had expereincecd on a Friday night when he plane landed at the Miami Airport in February 1995. And then moments later when I'd meet my other at the baggage department he, all glassy eyed said, "I almost did not come to pick you up. I was busy smokin' with a Cuban guy that I met at the hotel.'
I never liked the fact that whenever whites travled anywhere or socialized with me they always had to be 'high' because such premeditated actions on the part of white men not only will attract attention to me but as a statement of power indicates their right to use drugs when associating with black men.
Once at my others in Ft. Lauderdale I'd come across Tim Wise's book 'White Like Me" which I was under the impression was to have been mailed directly to me in WDC but apparently was sent to Richard's in Ft. Lauderdale instead. So, for the next few days when not out taking picutres and somtetimes late into the night I'd read 'White Like Me' which speaks on some of the exact same issues as I in my project 'Had I Been White'. But, in the case of Tim Wise, it is from the perspective a 35 year old straight white Jewish man whose expereinces with white priviledges are not unlike those of my white partners nor my closet white friends. All whose right to do, deal and traffic drugs, priviledges, and prosperity derive from the oppression and suppression of and discimination against me.
And as I walked along the side of the building with a heavy bag on my shoulder but not as heavy as the burden that as a black gay man I've to carry knowing that everything that should have been over the past few days had not been a feeling of doom would come over me. And when I'd observe two folks who live in the building 'waiting just for me' just as there had been several 'waiting for me' at the airport in Ft. ?Lauderdale hours before when I'd head back to WDC I'd say "I'm not your nigger."