Making Change: A House of Our Own

Latex now works with ballroom legends like Omni to put on events such as the Harlem ball during Black Pride NYC--one of a couple dozen black-specific gay pride festivals around the country. Omni was among the MCs at the 2001 event, where he and other house leaders drove home the event’s overt community-building theme. Giving off attitude, or “throwing shade,” is part of the fun at any ball, but the MCs at the Pride event cut the competitions off whenever they became too negative, reminding performers of their common bond and constantly slipping in messages about positive self-images and HIV prevention.

Omni hopes a documentary he and filmmaker Wolfgang Busch have produced, called How Do I Look?, can similarly offer positive reinforcement for the ballroom scene. I remember seeing Madonna’s 1991 film, Truth or Dare, for the first time when I was about 16 years old. She referred to her black and Latino gay dancers (who inspired her hit song “Vogue”) as being “emotionally crippled.” Later that year, I saw Paris Is Burning, which introduced mainstream America to drag balls, and it nearly convinced me of Madonna’s truth. Omni wants his film to set the record straight. “Paris is Burning created a lot of misconceptions about the ball community,” he complains.

The film has generated a lot of buzz, having been screened several times this fall both in New York and at Cleveland, Ohio’s Black Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

He and Busch also want to use the film as the cornerstone of a larger community-building project. “This is more than just a documentary,” says Busch. “It is a tool to showcase our talents, bring the ballroom community together, gain artistic--and human--respect, and provide hands-on training to people in the ball community.” Proceeds from the film will go into community organizing campaigns and, not insignificantly, to pay the artists for their contributions.

“We are setting up a college tour around the country to have panel discussions, exhibitions, talk about HIV/AIDS awareness, transgender and sex education and how we can empower the artists in the ballroom subculture,” says Omni.

The houses’ ability to subtly reach their members is one of their greatest organizing assets. The stakes are high: One 1999 study found that nearly a fifth of 15- to 22-year-old black gay and bisexual men in New York City are HIV positive, and that nine out of ten of them are unaware of their status. Stats like these keep outreach workers who found an audience at the Christopher Street piers up at night, wondering what has happened to youth like the young man I watched perform that night in 1999. Maybe they will all someday be ball legends. But unless we find them someplace to truly call home, we may never know.

Kenyon Farrow is a freelance writer in Harlem and an advisory board member of FIERCE!, a queer youth advocacy organization.