One For The Others

Dear Y'all,

You've run everything but the NAACP, GLAAD, and several reservations in the Midwest since your great-greats stepped off the right kind of boat in the 15th Century. You'd do well to show a little humility in the weeks and months to come while we indulge our urge to gloat a little and to thank your Jesus that one of us made it.

No, we at After Therapy are not African-American, but we are equally Other. We stand on the outside of society and look in at folks who have things we aren't allowed to touch and that we should refrain from wanting. We sit outside hospital rooms while our partner's family makes decisions as though we hadn't shared twenty-some years with the man in the bed. We tend to weddings - hair, makeup, flowers, gowns, music, cakes, catering, decorating and planning - like the house niggers of old who worked in houses they could never own. We know that every day on the job could be our last because of who we love - or who we'd like to love. And in a majority of our nation, there is no legal recourse for it.

We can be laughingly denied an apartment, a job, public accommodations and simple dignity because our nature defies the norm. And our only recourse is to pack a briefcase full of cover stories. As the First Lady-To-Be said during primary season, "People who love you tell you... wait..."And we got it. Because we've been lovingly urged to wait on things that most folks are born into.

Barack Obama's election is one for the Others and those tired of waiting. History will report whether our brand of Other was bettered by his service. But we understand this moment intuitively. Like we understood Judy Garland, Harvey Milk and Cher. It's a DNA thing.

It will be a moment for the memory book when, in January, we can look through the White House windows and see an Other looking back with that million-watt smile. "Wait" gives way to "Next!".