Rainbow children over me: parabolic narratives for Sakia Gunn

Cross Currents, Summer, 2004 by Gayle R. Baldwin

Sakia's courage is now projected on all of the youth. One of the effects of the murder is that it has the power to spread the courage of the victim to the community. Although she was murdered because of her courage and willingness to protect the weak, her power to stay strong is now available to all the "rainbow children." In section three (21-42), the author admits her lack of courage. She knows what it feels like to run from those who hate and even use weapons (24-25), but, unlike the LGBT youth today whom she now calls "my rainbow babies" who "sometimes say 'fuck it, I'll stay and fight'" (33), she can only admire their willingness to stand up to oppression. At the same time, she loves them, and appeals to the hearer to love them too. They will enfold you, she tells the reader, if you will let them in their "rough, full, anxious, passionate love" (36). But the author recognizes that acceptance will not come easily. She wishes for a time when there will be no more fear and no more hatred, "... a gathering of young queer babies without the tears, the lost, the questions" (41-42). Sakia's death, even her courage, did not change anything, the hatred, the fear, the longing or the potential for violence.

In the last section of the poem, Anderson gives her final benediction:

    But I want you to know
    That the violence is a lie
    You are precious.
    You are children of spirit
    the many colors of light
    and Sakia now watches upon us all
    A proud passionate ancestor
    guiding and protecting her rainbow tribe (43-50)

Although nothing has changed, and the world is still seen in somewhat gnostic terms, with the children of spirit and light portrayed as resistant to the evil of hatred, Sakia, although unable to change this, "watches, guides and protects." But this help from the watchful Sakia only assures that the "tribe" will go on; it does not suggest that individuals will be rewarded for their courage or be saved from future violence. The promised "protection" is only that Sakia's death and those of others that came before and will surely follow, will not be meaningless.

Is this narrative parabolic? Does it have the power to change the religious imagination? Here is where many other questions intrude, for one of the things we must keep in mind when listening to a text is the complexity of context. I can apply the requirements of my own framework, those criteria of recognition, realization, desire and engagement. But one of the problems of this narrative may be that it does not contain the element of universality perhaps needed to engage any reader. Could it envelop any person, regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation or religion? To put it another way, the narrative must be able to rise above the particularities of context in order to catch the reader/hearer off guard and capture the heart. In the case of this testimony, the appeal seems to narrow itself to the "rainbow tribe." The speaker is deliberately tribalizing the message so that its ability to change the religious imagination is restricted to only a few. Sakia is no universal messiah, but she can raise the hopes of her children who live in an unconverted world, a world where those in power are of the same race and could understand oppression, but do nothing. Could the mayor be moved by this poem? Could someone who is white, privileged, heterosexual and homophobic be moved to change by this narrative? How about the clergy and lay folks in the black church who remain silent and unsupportive of their own gay and lesbian community? Maybe the issue is not universality, but the ability to shock. Does this poem have that shocking quality that could open up a heart? Could such a reader/hearer look to Sakia for the same empowerment that she offers to her rainbow children? Rather than be "parabolic," it could be that the merit of this piece is comfort, comfort that comes not in accepting one's fate or an otherworldly Jesus who is only interested in the afterlife of the soul, but rather the comfort that comes in patience, solidarity and perseverance, the very characteristics that originated in the African American religious community.