Who’s Yer Daddy?: Gay Writers Celebrate Their Mentors and Forerunners

The Four of Them

227 Thomas Glave re­ gard­ ing so much of what they have meant and still mean to me: the world, and more Gor­ dimer But then once upon a time, in that be­ lea­ guered and an­ cient cor­ ner of the world, the brave white woman who loved lan­ guage and sto­ ries and true ­ things (and who in that place where ­ blacks were so ­ loathed never for­ got the truth that she was white) de­ cided not to leave. De­ cided not to leave the coun­ try where the ­ blacks were ­ loathed and in­ deed ­ treated like dirt, or in fact far worse than dirt, and the ­ whites ­ mostly ­ smiled upon it all, de­ spite (or more often be­ cause of ) trun­ cheons ­ cracked­ against black heads in the town­ ships by white po­ lice of­ fi­ cers, and tear gas ­ sprayed by them with­ out care through­ out ­ places like Sow­ eto, ­ places like Boi­ pa­ tong, ­ places like Sharpe­ ville and Ul­ mazi and Im­ i­ zamo Yethu. The brave white woman who loved words ­ didn’t have to stay there in the (es­ pe­ cially for ­ blacks) be­ lea­ guered coun­ try—the place in­ creas­ ingly de­ plored by the en­ tire world—and write about all of it: the ­ blacks­ beaten and tor­ tured in pris­ ons, on the ­ streets, and in their own homes; the ­ blacks and con­ scien­ tious ­ whites ar­ rested and ­ jailed with­ out hope of The Four of Them Thomas Glave 228 a fair trial; the fa­ mous black man who spent more than ­ twenty-five years in ­ prison, ­ beaten and tor­ tured, but who lived to be­ come pres­ i­ dent, be­ loved through­ out the pro­ gres­ sive world; the lies of the govern­ ment about the se­ cret po­ lice; and more, and more, and so much more. She­ didn’t have to stay there in the mael­ strom. And mael­ strom it was, for­ couldn’t they have done to her what some­ one had done to one of the brave white men? To Albie Sachs? ­ Bombed her car or home as was done to him in the neigh­ bor­ ing coun­ try, in Mo­ zam­ bique? Or had her ­ placed under house ar­ rest, as had been done to so many oth­ ers? Pass­ port con­ fis­ cated, ­ citizen’s ­ rights and priv­ i­ leges re­ scinded, tele­ phone ­ tapped? She never for­ got, of ­ course—and never let oth­ ers for­ get—that what­ ever could have hap­ pened to her (but ­ didn’t) would have hap­ pened in a far worse way to black peo­ ple, and did. She ­ didn’t have to stay there and write, stead­ fastly, about us: about black peo­ ple; about black peo­ ple who, as her char­ ac­ ters, were, like her white char­ ac­ ters, com­ pli­ cated; some­ times quix­ otic. Real. In doing so she did some­ thing mon­ u­ men­ tal—mon­ u­ men­ tal, yes—that very few white writ­ ers any­ where have ever done. She was, in truth, one of the very few white peo­ ple who ­ showed me that white peo­ ple ­ really could be more than just white; they could, from time to time, when they did their best, ac­ tu­ ally be human be­ ings. And so if a brave white woman could risk her blood and limbs in that place so ter­ rible be­ cause of what it did to both ­ blacks (in every way) and ­ whites (mostly spir­ i­ tu­ ally, some­ times phys­ i­ cally) and all in ­ between, could I, who also loved lan­ guage, do some­ thing brave as well? Could it be pos­ sible to write the un­ write­ able? Write some­ thing about, for ex­ am­ ple, a man ­ burned alive in Ja­ maica in our time be­ cause he loved—be­ cause he de­ sired—other men? Could one write about men lov­ ing each other but also (lit­ er­ ally) tor­ tur­ ing each other? Write about (but sum­ mon from in­ side, some ­ voices whis­ pered) the tor­ ment of in­ ti­ mate emo­ tional ­ cruelty or the tor­ ment of (while man­ a­ cled in some se­ cret room) feel­ ing ­ lighted cig­ ar­ ettes stuck to one’s tes­ ti­ cles? Could one write about the ­ men-loving white men who hated ­ blacks? About the black men who hated white men or—far...