
[originally published in German under the title "Außer mir vor Angst" in the November 2008 issue of FRONT Magazine]
The text on the signpost in the graphic reads, from left to right and top to bottom: "Hope - Enthusiasm - Fears - Skepticism - Anticipation - Victory"
These days, as a gay African-American living in Los Angeles, I am constantly asked by friends at home and abroad how I feel about Barack Obama’s run for the presidency and the May decision by the California Supreme Court legalizing marriage between same-sex couples. “Aren’t you excited?” they wonder. “Aren’t you just thrilled to death?”
And it’s getting worse every day. Every time something amazing happens, like Obama’s pitch-perfect closing speech at the Democratic convention or McCain’s cynically misguided choice of running mate, somebody calls me up or stops me on the street to see if I’m filled with enthusiasm to be an American at this historic moment.
Why wouldn’t I be? On Wednesday, November 5, I could wake up to a world in which the United States has elected its first black president and the citizens of my state have affirmed the right of gay people to marry. Two things that they said would never happen, at least not in my lifetime. Why wouldn’t I be thrilled to death?
Actually, I’m scared to death.
I want very much to let myself get wrapped up in the excitement of these days, but I just can’t give in to it. The results of the last two presidential elections left me numb, drained and despairing about my fellow citizens and the integrity of our electoral system. I just don’t believe in a happy ending anymore. Or more to the point, a happy new beginning.
Early in the current race, I supported Hillary Clinton’s bid, not just because I considered her a stronger candidate, but because on some level I felt that a white women (even one of the most divisive figures in American politics) had a better chance of winning the election than the Black Man. And as far as the California ballot referendum is concerned, there’s a part of me that believes it could torpedo Obama and the Democrats. All those energized conservatives throughout the state who will come out to say no gay marriage could just as easily say yes to McCain-Palin. And since this is one issue about which Obama, like so many of his fellow liberals, remain shamefully cowardly, that angry little part of me would think: “Serves you right.”
Oddly, I’m reminded of how scared to death I was in another November, in 1989, when I’d been living in Berlin for the greater part of a decade. Then, as now, something was about to happen that was not supposed to occur in my lifetime. Then, as now, I left the country to escape the growing hysteria--as I write this letter, I am spending seven weeks in (of all places) Berlin, as the two American political parties convene to approve the vice presidential candidates, cement the party platforms and start smearing dirt. But I will be back in the States in plenty of time for the final month of the campaign and the inevitable denouement. In December 1989 I fled to Lanzarote and watched the first gesamtdeutschen Silvester from a safe distance on Spanish TV. The difference between 1989 and 2008 is that then I was scared of facing the end of the life I had come to know; now I’m scared of facing a continuation of the life I have come to know.
But just for a moment let me put my fears aside and imagine a Democratic victory, an end to the nightmare of the last eight years. On November 5 I will get drunker than I ever have before (and that’s saying a lot). I will be smashed until Barack Obama’s inauguration on January 20, 2009. When he becomes our next president, I’ll be totally, absolutely, undeniably thrilled.
But I’m not there yet. We’re not there yet.
SCARED TO DEATH
November 4th is a fateful day in America, especially in California. US actor Paul Outlaw is gay, black...and torn.