How Much Sorrow Can You Stand?
There’s a story I haven’t commented on here yet, probably because it hits close to home in many ways, and because I’m still trying to come to terms with what it means in the first place. Fortunately, others have ventured forth where I wasn’t yet ready to tread. That’s one of the things I appreciate about being part of a community. There are others who can find their voice when I have trouble finding my own. There are others whose strength is at the ready, when my own seems to be waning.
But now I can, and I have to, speak about the murder of Rashawn Brazell, because at some points in my life I have been Rashawn Brazell, and because there are yet so many more. If we don’t speak for him, and them, who will? Who will speak for us?
Detectives in Brooklyn are working hard to apprehend the killer of Rashawn Brazell, a 19-year-old gay Bushwick man, whose dismembered limbs were discovered in a Brooklyn subway tunnel last week.
Investigators from the Brooklyn North Homicide Squad and the 79th Precinct have teamed up to solve a crime so gruesome in nature that some veteran investigators say it is the most ghastly homicide they have encountered, particularly in the way the at-large killer left a trail of body parts across the borough.
…Speculation has arisen that the killer may be a gay man, in part because police have not classified the grisly murder as a hate crime, but also as the result of several leads that police are following.
What’s unsaid in the article is that the killer may not onl be another gay may, but another black gay man. One of us may have killed one of us. Black men killing other black men is sad enough. But something in this story paralyzed a part of my voice for days. It was easier, less painful, to focus on the smaller orbit of my life—family, home, and work—than to consider that two more of us, perhaps in reaching out for a soft word and maybe an even softer touch, found death instead. Physically in one case, and spiritually in the other, for if another black gay (closeted? conflicted?) man killed Rashawn Brazell then he most certainly killed a part of himself, perhaps even finishing a long slow soul killing begun in the bossom of his own family or community of origin.
And finding my voice I find it only capable of lamentation (”Not again!”) and questions (”Why?” and “How long?” and “What to do?”). What’s there to say when one of us kills one of us? I know I’m not the only one with questions. Where is/was Rashawn’s family? Did they know where he was? Or case? Where was his community? Where were we? Where was I?
And in a world where ther are battles on so many fronts, where does one take the fight first? In a world where conservatives are courting our families and communities to turn their backs on us? When some in our own families and communities don’t even think of us as “God’s children,” let alone their own? At a time when one of the president’s judicial nominees is a black woman who believes that our families trivialize family bonds?
Where do we take the fight, when we’re too embattled in fighting for our own lives to see that fighting for each other’s lives is fighting for our own? How do we fight when we can’t even search for love or even a moment’s tenderness—in which, perhaps, to forget the all the sorrows mentioned above—without risking our lives? How much sorrow can you stand before you stand outside yourself, and hate what you see as the cause of that sorrow? How much sorrow can you stand before you want to kill the cause of it?
How much sorrow can you stand, and still have strength to fight?
March 11th, 2005 at 8:17 pm
There’s a part of me that understands what you are saying about another Black Gay man killing another but then I thought about the how I just said the other day how I didn’t understand how a Gay White man so easily call a Gay Black man a Nigger. I was shocked when I heard the story retold to me.
I guess what I’ve realized is what I’ve known being Gay really has nothing to do with what kind of person you are, or what you believe in or whether you’re evil or good.
YOu’re story sadly proves that we are just like everyone else.
March 12th, 2005 at 12:23 am
How much sorrow can you stand, and still have strength to fight?
Yes, and how to stay open, to keep feeling, when it cuts so deep? I have been advised, and have advised myself, to avoid the news for my own sense of hope and balance — but what happens to the world when/ if those who care turn away?
March 12th, 2005 at 3:11 pm
I’m a little disturbed by the fact that because it has not been classified as a hate crime, people are speculating that the perp may be gay or African American or both. We know that gay people are victims of violent crime just like anybody else, and just because we’re gay and a crime victim, it doesn’t automatically follow that it was a hate crime.
But of course, I am only commenting on the specific facts you present here for this case. All of your feelings and concerns are not only valid, but we cannot turn away from them so easily. I wish I knew where to find the answers. The only thing I can say is to keep doing exactly what you’re doing right now. Keep on providing a small light of reason and sanity through your example and in the visible example of your family. Your son will soon become one more man who can pass your values to the world for another generation.
March 13th, 2005 at 2:13 am
Grisly Discovery Was A Black Gay Man
Remember those limbs that transit workers found a couple of weeks ago in a Brooklyn subway tunnel? It looks like they belonged to a…
March 25th, 2005 at 2:22 pm
I don’ t know how else to extend my sympathies to any survivors of this tragedy. I am not of color, but I am gay, and my life partner and I lived in the Cobble hill section of Brooklyn before moving upstate 3.5 years ago — if there is anything we can do — contribute to a reward fund, say a prayer (we are Wiccan, but we do pray) or listen to a survivor who needs someone to talk to, we would be glad to do it.
With personal regards,
Reynolds C. Jones (and Jonathan Marc Fox)
you may reach Reyn at radagast_23@yahoo.com
April 5th, 2005 at 10:03 am
I want to thank everyone for their response pertaining to my son death.
I lost my best friend this person took a part of me that can never be replace my reason for going on and having the strength to do so is to bring my son killer to justice and to have him at peace then and only then will I allow myself to break down until then I will keep going and I hope the community will keep going with me.
April 5th, 2005 at 6:00 pm
Desier, you have my deepest sympathies. I cannot begin to know the pain you must be going through. My thoughts and prayers are with you.
April 5th, 2005 at 10:00 pm
Desier, I just wanted to thank you for stopping by my blog and commenting. I honored that you did so, and I want you to know that you and your family are still in my thoughts. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one either.
April 6th, 2005 at 11:32 pm
I wanted to think everyone for keeping my nephew memory alive .
I want to also state as long as the killer is still walking amongst us
I would like everyone to keep up the fight until we find my nephew
murderer
May 10th, 2005 at 8:00 am
I would like to once again thank everyone for there support and to let you that I refuse to let my son muder go unsolve because as much as I hate to say it I know a friend did this and I want that person to pay not for just to the fact that this person took my son life but the fact that this person had no problem doing it.