The only conference of its kind in North America

Soon I’ll be on my way to Black Beat. A conference I’ve been wanting (and fearing) to attend for five years or so.

http://www.blackbeatinc.org/

I can’t wait to surround myself with black kinksters. To be able to walk into a space where I don’t have to explain so many things about how the wind blows with me or ignore them altogether.

Sometimes I forget that I’m black. And I move through the world as if I have the same rights and am viewed the same as everyone else. Then I remember. Or am reminded.

Although I have been in a place of silence/quiet foro sometime now, I’m looking forward to unleashing myself and not getting sideways/scornful/thank-you-for-being-entertaining looks. Where I am not a minstrel or instantly regarded as intimidating, but where my laugh and my voice match those around me. Where I am not unique.

There’s a good line-up. I anticipate coming back with lots that could be shared. And, perhaps, I’ll even do that. Or perhaps not. Or perhaps I’ll wait to see if there is interest rather than drumming it up. Perhaps I’ll share it with the few others that I know who are like myself but who do not show up int he public venues for all kinds of reasons that, in my experience, don’t interest some.

packing in a luggage controlled world is bound to be a challenge. But I feel less need to ensure that i am turned out in a way that will make me acceptable or desirable. Let’s face it… all it draws is looks and belated comments of how intimidating or scary I am.

To be seen and yet invisible. I suspect it will be like my trip to New York. I looked around at one point as I began my morning and said: “Where do you keep all your white people? Do they need a special pass to travel?” And on the train where for the first time I looked around and found myself SURROUNDED by people who looked like me. I was invisible. Not because I was ignored or tolerated, but because I was of a kind. Unseen. And yet seen as an individual. One who was appraised appreciatively as one of a kind. I felt trust when I was called beautiful because I knew that they knew all kinds of things about me and could move onto what was ABOUT ME.

I now require, after an experience with a butch — which I still tell and which was talked about extensively with my Black femme friends and acquaintances — that all who want to touch my flesh read a specific chapter in “Tenderheaded” called: If You Let me Make Love to You Then Why Can’t I Touch Your Hair.?” The butch who inspired that policy FOUGHT with me about how it was necessary to her eros. I’ve also had an experience where a braid was literally RIPPED out of my head too. There now must be some minimum understanding.

But I know that those at BlackBeat will not have to be taught. I can take precious time an not explain. Short hand through look or word will suffice. I think it will be hard for me to lay aside my basic instincts that have become part of how I move.

And my clumsy attempts to lay them aside in the place where I’m from…? I suspect they will render me a tad odd. And I suspect in that at BlackBeat that I won’t quite fit. Like an ancestor that has returned to their origin not knowing all the fine details of language and culture and comportment…

What to pack? What to leave behind?