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As a child I never knew the strength and magnitude of homophobia until I experienced it first hand. When I continued to experience it by being bullied, and called names, I felt that my tormentors were just stupid kids messing around. When I saw my friends, and then my brother Dijan experience homophobia my views and feelings shifted.
My brother Dijan ultimately died due to the ignorance of homophobia.
I have been looking for my brother Dijan for almost a year. I looked everywhere, always coming up empty handed. I got to a point where I just didn't know where else to look or who to ask.
On Monday March 14, 2005, my sister called me crying and screaming that Dijan died back in 2004! My cousins on my mother's side were tracing their history when they found Dijan's name and all of his information listed on Ancestry.com! I was sick. I was shocked, devastated, and absolutely infuriated that my family was not contacted by anyone.
After my mother's death in 1972, most of my siblings were split up. Some of us grew up with my Grandmother Louella. She always told me that I had other brothers and sisters, the family just didn't know where they were. I was reunited with my Dijan in the summer of 1981. I was ten, and he was fifteen. I was in foster care at the time, and he was in a group home. From that point on, we became the best of friends. He became my strength, my confidant, and my source of happiness while away from my Grandmother. He would ride his bike to my foster home everyday after school. I noticed when he was around, no one called me boy or bull dagger. He tried to protect me. He taught me how to fight!
While in foster care I endured all kinds of horrible things that no little girl should have to face. My brother knew something wasn't right. He promised to protect me no matter what, he also promised we would be out of the system and back with our family. He told me not to worry and that people were just jealous because we were different!
Prior to my twelfth birthday, we both were back in the arms of our family! During my adolescent years, Dijan began to open up and talk about the foster home and group home he was in. He showed me burns on his legs, among many scars and wounds. I wasn't surprised. He talked about how his foster parents abused him physically, emotionally, and allowed sexual abuse from other people in the home. He told me, my sister was the only one in the home who called him by his name. He said they named him faggot, punk and sissy! When he would not answer to it, they would punch or slap him.
During my adolescence, I wanted to come out to Dijan. I was scared and nerves. The strange thing is through the years all of my friends knew he was gay. I didn't see it. I would say that's just my brother, that's his personality. When I finally came out to him, he said "Chile Please, I knew when you were little"! After I came out, my life changed for the better! I went everywhere with him, I learned so much about our people and the gay community. I learned the good and the bad! Where ever he went, I was always with him.
Dijan was so sweet, charming and funny. He had a great sense of humor. I can not remember a time when we are not bent over with laughter. He was always writing poetry to me and our mother. He insisted that I pursue my poetry. He said you never know, maybe it will grow into a career! When I lived with my brother in my early nineties, I found out he was talented and creative. He loved taking ordinary clothes and turning them into something amazing and spectacular! I was proud of him!
The flip side of my brother's creative spark is that he was isolated. He was so alone, and surrounded by pain. He was very aggressive and manly, but timid and in fear of what people were going to do or say to him. Dijan was most afraid of what the family thought of him. He said they always made him feel there was something wrong with him or he was not good enough.
Straight people would call Dijan sweet! I saw him targeted over and over again. I remember people teasing him, yelling that he had sugar in his tank. I hated they way people treated him. I always wanted to shield Dijan, so that his emotional and physical wounds would begin to heal. Wounds caused by his caregivers, and a system that was supposed to protect him. I suppose my love was never enough.
The biggest thing I want the world to know about Dijan is that he was a wonderful man. He was a real man. He was loving and compassionate, but ostracized by everything that is supposed to affirm him. The department of children's Social services, our family, the church, the SGL community and society as a whole exiled Dijan. After his boyfriend Jermaine Stewart died from HIV/AIDS in 1997, I noticed a change in him. He was no longer silly or full of laughter. He said he was tired of being called sissy. He said he was tired of being humiliated, outcaste, invisible, voiceless, and unwanted. He said no one loved him, and that he didn't really like himself. It hurt to see him in such pain for so many years. He wouldn't let me in. I insisted that he was not worthless, a sissy or anything that people had imposed upon him, but he couldn't hear me.
The last time I saw Dijan was at a family dinner in December of 2003. At first Dijan absolutely refused to attend. He said he was uncomfortable and tired of hiding himself to make them comfortable. When he finally did show up, he was different. His eyes were different. His eyes looked as if he could no longer hide his agony. I just grabbed him and hugged him a hard as I could. In my last few conversations with him, he said he didn't know how to be anything other than who he was, and the world hated him for it! He said, "I am a man regardless of how I love"! In our last conversations, I realized Dijan's years of constant grief had finally broke his spirit.
To this day there are still a few people in our family who refused to understand why he was in pain or the magnitude of pain. They refuse to look at the fact that they are the catalyst of Dijan's pain, self-hate and isolation. The fact is, the reaction of the family, his schools, churches, and homophobia itself created a climate of fear, isolation, and powerlessness. He felt helpless his entire life. There were so many people who were constantly critical of him, showing him no compassion. I clearly remember people talking about how he homeless and worthless. They said he couldn't keep a job, and that he was probably on drugs. I remember years ago, he was beaten up in West Hollywood. A family friend's response was, well if he wasn't prancing a around like a punk, that wouldn't have happened! I heard so much judgment and condemnation, but no one offered help, encouragement or love.
All my life I have used myself as a tool to educate people concerning the issues of homosexuality, homophobia, and all things that oppress us. I wish I could have saved my beloved brother from whatever took his life. Ultimately Dijan constantly felt a sense of separation. He felt an internalized homophobia. Consciously or unconsciously Dijan felt unworthy, intern allowing the world to determine his destiny. I believe he suffered a spiritual death long before a physical one. Ultimately I don't know what happened to Dijan. However I do know that self sabotage, depression, suicide, HIV/AIDS, alcohol and drug abuse are all completely preventable if the person is shown acceptance, understanding, compassion and love.
Homophobia is a devastating virus that dehumanizes, and exiles people. Victims of homophobia are then cast out by their loved ones, literally thrown away. They result of this is, the exiled person wants and needs to feel loved and wanted. They need to feel human, feel human touch and compassion. Thus comes sexual promiscuity....I need to feel! The flip side is many abuse drugs to eliminate the pain of not being accepted. Drugs are used to feel numb to the anguish caused by living ostracized from those they love.
I had been searching for Dijan for about two years. I found my beloved Angel on May 11, 2006. Dijan died of AIDS on May 25, 2004 alone at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital. Dijan is why I continue to write and spread the message of prevention, awareness, treatment and the socio-economic circumstances that perpetuate this disease. In all of my efforts to save our people, I could not save my Beloved Brother Dijan. But just maybe by writing this, someone somewhere will get the knowledge and spread it!
It is our responsibility to know who we are, where we've been, and pass that information on to the next generation.
In closing I believe racism and homophobia is the ultimate ignorance. I also believe violence only breeds more violence. Education is our greatest tool to fight ignorance. Homophobia must end. It should not be the norm. It should not be tolerated. Homophobia's venom has destroyed many lives, including the people who experienced it. Any form of homophobia, internalized or not, is a disease that must be healed. Homophobia is the ultimate ignorance that we as a nation must fight together.
Since March14 2005, my family and I have been back and forth to the coroner, the registrar's office, Social Security, and now the Health Department. It has been confirmed through the Social Security death Index, that there is no mix up, or the wrong person. We waited for more than a year to receive his final records or vital statistics from the Health Department. I think one of the most painful aspects of this is we didn't know what happened to my beloved brother. According to people I have spoken with, the vital statistics from the health department will fill in all the blanks. At this point, I want to know where Dijan's remains are so that I can give him a proper burial.
Let us prevent another persons exile and and even death by stopping homophobia in it's tracks.
Azaan Kamau of Azaan Kamau Media
http://www.azaankamau.webs.com/
azaankamau@gmail.com
Please check out my new book Got Homophobia at http://lulu.com/
We must save our youth by any means. Bullying and homophobia should not be tolerated!
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