Thank You For The Fire, Mr. Biko

"You can blow out a candle,

But you can never blow out a fire

Once the flames begin to catch

The wind will blow it higher"

Peter Gabriel - "Biko"

Oh, today was filled with another vain attempt to try to keep me from what I need to do for my community.  Lori, whose "fluid sexuality", tries to join us when it is convenient, then throw us to the wolves if it suits her fancy, has a real problem on her hands.  Sex rules her life with drugs, but when she can't find firm ground to stand on, here or there, hetero or homo, she tends to look to others around her to justify her actions. You see, I've no problem with either sexuality or anything on the spectrum, I have a problem with being persecuted for it, then raped into submission.

So rather than take the path that Lori and possibly Missy and Jeffrey laid out for me tonight, I'd like to show you my intellect instead of how I do informant work.  Yes, folks, I use this blog as a weapon against lies and injustice too.  That's what every written word on here has been about, for me.  It took time for me to understand and accept my community, but when I did, I loved every single part of it...black, white, gay, bi, straight, fluid, trans or whatever you love...because in the end, love will still exist long after I am gone.  I don't need to take a path of hate.  I need to continue on the path of love, it's where I've walked my entire life.

So, Stephen Biko, who was he and why is he so important that people write music about him?  Why is he standing in statue in East London, South Africa and nobody is tearing him down, like we do here in the United States.  It's because some men are so  purely good that a statue is the least that humanity can do for him.  This is Stephen Biko...African legend, but a man of moral conscience.  A family man that left behind a wife and many children to serve a purpose that would change their lives forever.  It's an easy concept, we live by it here in the United States too, "All Men Are Created Equal".  Sound familiar?

"Staring down the barrel of the gun of White South Africa," as a song goes, Stephen Biko did not flinch.  He did not back down and was tortured to death in Police Room 619, (ironically the same area code of San Diego where this crime has reached an epidemic level). The shooting that changed my life forever, took place in area code 619, downtown San Diego, blocks from police headquarters.  Ironically, the beating I took from Lori and her brother at Steven Frey's home, was just a block from law enforcement's head quarters.  I think I might write a song called "Police Room 619" for this irony, because it gives meaning to the words, "invisible to law enforcement", when a crime is committed against a gay man.

I should, in no way, compare myself to such an incredible historical figure like Mr. Biko, though I would be honored just to learn more about him, as would many people. I think we would agree that skin color and sexuality should not disqualify our equality.  You see, though I am not like Stephen Biko, he is a lot like me.  That's the spark. The wind of controversy, blows it hard until there is flame then an explosion. That's the firestorm that overtakes the mountain top because nothing can stop it.  Oh, I am not Stephen Biko, I am his student.  He teaches in death better than most do in life.

Let me inspire you with song. I want to add that Stephen Biko gave rise to great men like Nelson Mandela's life.  Though both men fought for the same thing, one died in police custody, so the other could live to spread the message.  You have to admire the courage of the first man down, what he does for others can not be denied.  So this is "Biko" by Peter Gabriel.  It will tell you all you need to know.  Play it before reading on.

Sometimes an artist like Peter Gabriel can put it into words far better than I ever could.  He had the wisdom to point out how this blog works...it connects people to the problem. "When I go to sleep at night, I can only dream in RED.  The world outside is black and white, with only ONE COLOR dead."  In our limited situation, which is what the police must think, rainbow IS the other color.  That means everyone.  Believe in the power of raising your fist in solidarity and the strength of Stephen Biko.  His message burns bright in the heart of the LGBTQ community.  May the winds of change blow the spark into a flame that burns down the walls of oppression at the hands of the evil woman that built them.  May her every idea smolder to flame until there isn't one mind that can be convinced that she was right to do this.  May God bless all of us in the meantime.
There are a lot of similarities that I like to draw with the Biko situation in South Africa, if you will allow me.  I know that seems a bit pretentious of me, but as I've said, I have him IN me.  That was his point.  Like Christ on a cross, the message was eternal for all people.  Great men die for their beliefs, but the do so knowing that the message can't ever expire when it is love at the heart of everything.
The message when I got to Palm Springs, after the stalking and shooting in San Diego was clear.  Comply, don't make waves, you can't do it, Lori is too powerful and entrenched.  That doesn't apply to me.  It never could.  I'm a leader and I don't ever allow someone to disagree with me to the point of physically beating her opinion into my skull.  She's taken a lot from my family.  A life.  Money.  Reputation. Careers.  Husbands. Fathers. Boyfriends.  Girlfriends.  One thing that she will never take is my love for all of you.  She can't.  It's eternal.
I can feel your love.  I know it's there.  It warms me on cold nights. It makes my fingers hit this keyboard every single time I think about it.   Every letter typed with the hope that words will suffice where a broken skull once laid.  Most people don't understand the power of words and intelligence until they do something extraordinary.  They inspire the greatness of others.  They awaken the sleepy.  They move you to tears then action.  Stephen Biko didn't have the internet, he had a voice and he had his news articles published under a pseudonym, "Frank Talk".  Isn't that what we are having here too...some frank talk?
You all know that I wrote many diaries of my experience leading up to then after my attack in my sleep.  I knew it was building and I knew that Lori and Brian have a history of violence.  How could I not?  They gave me this disease in 1987, that was surely meant to kill me.  An encounter twenty years later, after years of perfecting how to get away with it, Lori entered that home with the idea of killing a dream.  She didn't go there to have a conversation, she only entered when she was sure I couldn't defend myself.  Isn't that what happens so often these days, people take a gun to a conversation, expecting there to be progress?  Come on folks, we aren't that naive?  As my friend Alicia sings, "We're not dumb and we're not blind."  We, bigger than the police community, talk.  If the police think that they are the only "group of people" that share their problems, then they don't know what a community of gays is.  We talk too.  Though it seems that on the outside the PSPD seeks acclimation from the gay community, the REAL community is offended by the mere suggestion.
They've surrounded themselves with LGBTQ people that have no idea what Lori has done and think that makes them "friends" of our community. Isn't it hypocritical of the police to be implanted and take these awards in the first place? As the song goes, "It was business as usual in police room 619.  I am often reminded that these people may not know what has transpired, but that doesn't make it right.  There is a long history of the police and the gays here...not a good one either.  Law enforcement is also a business, it seems the business of the police has gotten to be more important that protecting and serving.  The word "budget" is one that police chiefs are well aware of.
This is why, when I was severely beaten and went to the emergency room that I was denied services and wasn't attended to by the police or the hospital.  A previous police chief went to the Palm Springs City Council and told them the police didn't believe my story because I'd waited a month to report it.  The absolute truth is that I reported to the Emergency Room less than one week after the beat down.  They didn't respond but had my information that entire month before I called them and told them, I wanted to report this for the second time.
The interview was so shabby and so poorly done that the American Civil Liberties Union wrote a letter on my behalf about what transpired in 48 hours of the police taking a hold of this case.  I was jailed and transported naked wearing only a towel. No charges were filed for the arrest, but was arrested again less that ten hours after that.  That was the beginning of understanding what the gay bashing really was.  It was the way the police and Lori were going to handle someone that stood up for himself.  Any one of them could have seen that I'd just reported the rape at the same home...but not one decided to inquire about it.  Nobody ever came to my aid.  The message to our community is very clear.  If you are gay, raped by Lori and say something, we will eliminate you with false arrests and jail.  I was covered with a spit mask and humiliated.  Christopher had his blood stolen from his body while shoved to the ground with a knee in his back.  All the while Lori is telling us that this is what happens to you when you file a police report or think you are going to cross me.  That's the message to all the gay men in our community.  "You don't equal a real person...you will be eliminated."
To make matters worse, Lori secured videos of these two incidents, though I am sure there were many many more.  The walls of the jail cells of the Palm Springs Police Department are wet with the tears of hundreds of gay men that never should have been there.  The blood on the floor of the victims in their own beds written off as some kind of perverse "gay thing" that makes me shiver with discontent.  There isn't anything going on in our bedrooms that isn't going on in the homes of these police officers, we're just "different".  We've come so far to be sent back to the starting line, it feels like we are in a different race than others, but we aren't.  The cries of the oppressed echo all across America right now, but we finally have a chance to do something for all of us.  Talk about it. Show it. Scream for it everywhere people are.  "We found her.  We know what this is.  We won't allow you to ignore it any longer or use us to silence ourselves."

The oppressors use the minds of the oppressed against each other and this is a crime of mind reading, I like to think of it as mind rape.  For it is the control of a person's thinking that Lori seeks without their permission.  It's better than a shackled man for her, there are no locks on his throat, they exist in his mind.  That's more difficult to erase than anything else.  When one steps away from the "system", bullets are fired and gay bashing begins. The cycle repeats itself out of poverty and desperation from these men and women that have seen too much and paid far too high a price.  You don't break a man from the outside in, in our case it's from the inside out.  Your mind is her playground, she abuses you in the bathroom.  When you leave you feel dirty, molested, angry and most of all, helpless.  I'm not going to let you believe that we are helpless, we aren't.  That's a game she plays with all of you.  Helpless exists out of apathy and blackmail.  If Lori isn't focused on you, she'll leave you alone.  Has that ever really happened?  It's a farce.  A lie.  What she's done to each and every one of these people she's infected, is try to control you.  When that doesn't work, she sends out the police to do it for her.
What I want to be certain that gets across here is that this is FOR YOU.  Every single word of it is FOR YOU.  Tor stand on a soap box and scream at the top of my lungs isn't the way I do business.  I think about my approach with everyone, but the fire of Stephen Biko and others is what burns in my heart and mind.  It's a passion.  I knew I had one for something all my life.  A drive and a determination to see justice done.  Fortunately for me I was thrust into a situation early in my life because if I hadn't seen it for myself, I might not believe that it exists.  I can assure every single black man, gay person and all minorities it DOES exists, but it doesn't do so in a vacuum.  You have to find it.  You have to seek it out.  You have to get it in your mind that I won't accept this kind of behavior in my life or the lives of my community silently.
I don't care if you pray for me or call me on the phone to tell me to keep going, I will assume that you do and make certain that I never stop.  It isn't about the accolades, it's about the progress.  If I really needed the approval of everyone to write, there wouldn't be a word on this blog.  Instead there are way over 7,000 posts dedicated to justice.  Our justice system, no matter how many flaws it has, is still the finest in the world.  It needs to be overhauled to include people as is mandated.  If one person does not get justice, then we all lose a piece of our dream.  How many pieces do they have to take from our minorities before the dream dies?  Is it even possible?  I can't believe that it is, you should decide for yourself if Stephen Biko was right or wrong.  Your decision is tied to me in ways that you could never understand...it is at the heart of the crisis and it is here in America where it doesn't belong.  I am simply a man, a person.  I count for one man on this Earth.  I need you to count for yourself.
When you realize what is at risk here if I fail, understand that it will only grow with my death.  I put myself in this position because we needed a people's champion.  Biko, by the way, means "people".
Please don't give up on us.  We matter.