On the evening
of December 9, I read about the death of
legendary poet and educator Nikki Giovanni
while searching for something on the Internet.
What a tremendous loss! I thought I was going
to cry.
On November 9,
a month before her death, I watched Giovanni’s
interview on iOne Digital wearing a T-shirt
that said, “I write banned books.” During the
interview, she talked about getting old,
finding joy, and, of course, banned books.
I LOVED Nikki
Giovanni long before I LOVED Toni Morrison.
During the Black Arts and Black Panther eras,
I grew up listening and grooving to Giovanni’s
voice on scratchy vinyl albums as she read her
poems, my favorite being “Ego Trippin’.”
I wanted to
attend Fisk University because she did, hoping
it would make me as smart as she was. At
Wellesley, in my only appearance in a school
theater production, I recited Giovanni’s poem
“All I Gotta Do.” I hear it in my head now and
smile. Nikki’s poem inspired my activism. So,
I fought my own revolution against Black
Church homophobia. I recited Nikki’s poem with
a Brooklyn black girl sass, imagining she’d
have been proud.
In the 2000s,
I was invited to deliver a talk on religion
and homophobia at Virginia Tech. I was
ecstatic beyond belief because Giovanni taught
there. When I met her, I thought I’d faint. I
meant to shake her hand, but instead,
courtesied. I said while bowing my head, “I’ve
been a fan of yours, Ms. Giovanni, since high
school.” She warmly smiled back.
In 2007, I
wrote an article for The Advocate shortly
after the Virginia Tech shooting titled,
“Virginia Tech’s invisible gay angels.” Cho
Seung-Hui, a student at Tech, killed 32 people
and wounded 17 others. I asked the question in
my article, “Why did the LGBT community feel
they had no part in the story of Cho Seung-Hui
and the massacre he wrought?”
Also, I wrote
that when Washington Blade reporter Lou
Chibbaro inquired if there were any LGBTQ
students or professors killed in the massacre
president of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and
Transgender Alliance of Virginia Tech said,
“Some were queer, and others were straight
allies. The GLBT community at Tech grieves in
the same way as others - deeply and as part of
a greater whole... [the tragedy is] not a gay
thing; it’s an everybody thing.”
And because it
is an “everybody thing,” it is precisely why
it is important to know.
Because I knew
Giovanni was lauded for being a first
responder during the shooting, I wrote, “As
with our fallen LGBTQ sheroes and heroes of
9/11 and this never-ending war, many of us in
the queer community, myself included, would
like not only to celebrate our fallen in the
Virginia Tech massacre for being courageously
out of the closet but also to show America
that we too are everywhere in the human drama
of life.
Where I
blundered was with this sentence: “Case in
point: Nikki Giovanni, a neglected and
overlooked heroine in our queer community.”
The backlash
was swift. I received this email: “I work at
Virginia Tech and am openly gay. Your article
on advcoate.com caught
my attention because it quoted my roommate,
the president of the campus LGBTA. In the
article, you write that Nikki Giovanni is an
out lesbian. I do not think that is the case.
I attended Virginia Tech as a student for four
years and have worked here doing public
relations for a year and have heard nothing of
the sort. I was the president of the campus
LGBTA in 2005 and can tell you that, if Nikki
Giovanni is a lesbian, she is certainly not
out. What is the source of your information?”
I cried
throughout this incident. As an ardent fan of
Giovanni’s, I chided myself for knowing well
how LGBTQ+ people live bifurcated lives
between professional and social, but I did not
think at the time if it was possible she was
not “out!” I wrote back, conveying my most
profound apology for any harm my piece may
have caused the community, especially
Professor Nikki Giovanni. I asked for her
email address because I wanted to send a note
of apology.
The school
reached out to The Advocate. I worried I’d
never be able to write a piece for The
Advocate again. However, my editor was
gracious and wrote this: “I get so tired of
people codependently padlocking other people’s
closets, which is what happened in that
instance with whoever called us from Virginia
Tech. It’s also true that Nikki, when I met
her some years ago, wasn’t exactly interested
in confirming or denying. If not for that
experience, I’d have let your piece stand
online.
I wrote
Giovanni an apology letter. I also thought of
sending her flowers, but I realized that
would’ve been over the top. However, I never
heard back.
Love is love,
and I still possess her albums from childhood
and have all her works - spoken and in print
to the present day. From time to time, when I
need a Nikki Giovanni fix, I’ll read some of
her poems or listen to one of my scratchy
albums to hear the lyricism in her voice talk
to me.
I’m glad she
leaves us as a revered LGBTQ+ icon.
May she rest
in power!
