I watched the fireworks from a rooftop in Hollywood last July, surrounded by men I love, and I thought about the particular quality of silence that falls over a group of gay men when the national anthem plays.

 

It is not disrespect.

 

It is something more complicated: the body bracing itself against a story that was never quite written for us.

 

We are taught, all of us, to feel a swell of pride on the Fourth of July. Independence. Self-determination. The right to pursue happiness on our own terms.

 

But that story has always had missing chapters.

 

This country declared freedom while people were still enslaved. It celebrated liberty while Black bodies were bought, sold, separated from families, and worked to exhaustion. It spoke of equality while women could not vote, Indigenous people were displaced, immigrants were demonized, and generations of gay, queer, and trans people learned to survive by hiding the very parts of themselves that most needed tenderness.

 

So when some of us feel complicated on Independence Day, it is not because we hate joy. It is because we know what it means to be handed a promise and then told to wait.

 

For many of us in this community, the pursuit of happiness has come at the cost of family dinners we were not invited to, jobs we quietly left before anyone could ask questions, hometowns we now visit as tourists in our own childhoods.

 

I think often about the men who write to me after a workshop or session, men in their fifties and sixties who still flinch when a hand brushes theirs in public. Not because they are ashamed. Because forty years of conditioning does not dissolve the moment a law changes.

 

Independence, for us, was never declared once and settled. It has been negotiated in increments: a marriage ruling here, a city ordinance there, a workplace policy there, a fragile sense of safety that still depends too much on which state line, family system, church, workplace, or neighborhood you happen to be standing in.

And we are seeing, even now, how quickly rights can be questioned, narrowed, delayed, or taken for granted. Voting rights are still being contested. Racism still shapes whose bodies are treated as threatening, whose grief is believed, whose history is taught honestly, and whose pain is dismissed as “divisive.” Queer and trans people are still turned into political talking points by people who have never had to live inside the fear they casually create.

 

There is a particular loneliness in that kind of freedom. It arrives unevenly, and it arrives late, and by the time it reaches you, you may have already built a whole architecture of self-protection. Freedom on paper and freedom in the nervous system are two very different inheritances.

 

So what does it mean to celebrate a freedom you have had to win in pieces, in private, often alone?

 

I do not think the answer is cynicism. I think it is something closer to clarity.

 

The fireworks are still beautiful. The barbecue is still good. The laughter still matters. But there is a version of patriotism available to us that holds the contradiction without flinching from it.

We can love a country and still name the parts of it that did not love us back.

 

We can celebrate independence and still grieve the enslaved people who were denied it, the Black citizens who had to fight for the vote long after freedom was supposedly granted, the queer elders who did not survive long enough to marry, hold hands, transition safely, or be seen without shame.

 

This is not an argument for withholding joy. It is an argument for a more honest joy. The kind that does not require us to pretend the road here was simple. The kind that lets a man sit with his discomfort during the anthem instead of performing enthusiasm he does not feel. The kind that makes room for the brother still not out to his mother, alongside the one throwing a party with a rainbow flag on the porch.

 

Independence was never a single moment for us.

 

It is a practice.

 

Something we keep choosing, body by body, conversation by conversation, year after year, long after the fireworks have stopped.

 

That, to me, is worth celebrating.

 

 

 

Brothers of the Desert is a nonprofit organization dedicated to establishing a robust support network for Black gay men and their allies in the Coachella Valley. Our mission is to empower and uplift Black gay men and allies through initiatives focused on philanthropy, volunteer service, mentorship, education, advocacy, and social networking. We aim to transform the barriers that lead to feelings of isolation, disconnection, and inequity among Black gay men.

 

Brothers of the Desert has contributed over $20,000 in scholarships to various organizations within the Coachella Valley. In 2023, it was collectively decided to launch our scholarship program specifically designed to address the unique challenges faced by young men in our community.

 

This scholarship is committed to fostering equity, inclusion, and educational access. This scholarship program welcomes applicants from diverse backgrounds who align with and support the mission of affirming Black LGBTQ+ communities.

 

Recipients receive a $2,000 scholarship award, and recipients may apply for renewal in the subsequent academic year. The funds can be allocated toward educational expenses, excluding off-site housing.

 

Eligible majors include any field of study in a four or six-year program. Recipients of the scholarship are expected to provide bi-annual updates to Brothers of the Desert and will gain membership access, allowing them to connect with their support network for academic and personal assistance. The scholarship awards are outright grant awards. No services will be required as a consequence of receiving the award.

 

Applicants are required to submit an essay detailing their personal journey, including any affiliations with LGBTQ+ and Black focused organizations and the challenges they have faced or continue to face that may pose obstacles to their degree completion. Please explain why you deserve this scholarship, how you plan to use the award, and if you foresee any challenges in pursuing your degree in your chosen field. Additionally, outline some of the goals you have set for yourself after graduation.

 

The application packet MUST include:

1) Completed application form (online or paper)

2) Completed FAFSA form

3) 1 letter of recommendation

4) Essay (Please see Eligibility regarding essay requirements)

5) Transcript (unofficial is acceptable)

 

** Please submit your applications to dshackelford@iegives.org.**

Denisha Shackelford

Inland Empire Community Foundation

For more information, contact Denisha Shackelford, Sr. Scholarship Program Manager at

dshackelford@iegives.org

The Esteem Awards celebrate the changemakers, trailblazers, and community champions who are making a real difference in the lives of African American, BIPOC, LGBTQ+ communities and our allies. Founded in 2007, the awards shine a spotlight on individuals, organizations, and allies whose leadership, service, creativity, and advocacy inspire positive change.

 

Brothers of the Desert is honored and excited to be awarded: National: Outstanding Service Social Services/CBO: Brothers of the Desert.

 

Eleven individuals and four organizations will be honored at the nineteenth annual Esteem Awards on July 18th in Chicago. This milestone reflects our ongoing commitment to recognizing and celebrating the contributions of community members. It also highlights the positive impact these awards have in affirming community leadership and service, ensuring that every voice is heard and every effort acknowledged. 

 

For more information on The Esteem Awards LGBTQ+ & People of Color Epiphany Arts Foundation go to https://theesteemawards.org

 

Brothers of the Desert members meet monthly to discuss recent and upcoming events, share updates on the organization, celebrate our accomplishments, and have an opportunity to connect with new and existing members.

Palm Springs, CA, 92262 

 

Join us for our Monthly Members & Allies Lunch at El Taco Asado!

Both members and allies are welcome to attend (Cash and Carry).

RSVP with DavidMaurice.Jones@gmail.com before July 10, 2026.

 

Brothers of the Desert is excited to continue our monthly discussion group called Barbershop: A Black Gay Men’s Space for Honest Talk About Wellness, now in our second year!

 

Building upon the tradition of barbershops in Black communities, the discussion group is designed to encourage open and honest conversation. The meetings are welcoming a spectrum of Black men, gay, bisexual, transgender and nonbinary. The wellness topics discussed are diverse, ranging from dating and intimacy, aging considerations, how we get and offer support, and exploring our identities as Black men.

 

The group meets the second Tuesday of each month from 5:30-7:00 PM. There is no charge to attend. We begin with a meet and greet with dinner that begins at 5:30PM and the discussion group starts at 6PM. The group is facilitated by Stuart Huggins and Will Dean.

 

To register to attend the meetings email: willdean.boardmember@brothersofthedesert.org

Mark your calendars and start planning your Harlem Renaissance-inspired attire—this will be the event of the season!

Brothers of the Desert is curating a sumptuous evening featuring:
✨ Delicious cuisine
🥂 Choice beverages
🎶 Spectacular entertainment that will have you dancing the night away

 

📅 Date: December 31, 2026 - 5:30P to 10:00P
📍 Venue: DoubleTree Golf Resort, 67-967 Vista Chino, Cathedral City, CA 92234

 

Coming Soon: Traveling from out of town? Hotel booking information will be available soon. Be sure to reserve your room early!

 

We can talk about sex more easily than we can talk about sobriety.

 

That sentence might make a few people shift in their seats, which is usually how I know we are getting close to something worth saying.

 

In many queer spaces, especially spaces created by and for men, alcohol and substances have often been woven into the architecture of connection. We meet at bars. We flirt with a drink in hand. We dance until the room gets blurry enough for our inhibitions to relax. We use a little something to feel freer, braver, sexier, less alone, less self-conscious, less aware of the old ache we carried into the room.

 

For a generation of men who were told their desire was shameful, altering the mind was sometimes the only available bridge to the body. I understand why it became tradition. I am less convinced it should stay one.

 

For many of us, queer nightlife was not just nightlife. It was refuge. It was church, family reunion, therapy waiting room, mating ground, and emergency shelter all at once. The Sunday Funday that started as a joke and became a load-bearing wall in someone's week. The bar was often where we first saw ourselves reflected back with possibility. It was where desire had a place to breathe. It was where some of us found language for who we were before we had the courage to say it in daylight.

 

So this is not an argument against pleasure, celebration, dancing, cocktails, or altered states. I am not here to wag a finger at anyone’s margarita. God knows our people have survived too much to be lectured out of joy.

 

But I do think we need to ask a more honest question:

 

What happens when the thing that helped us survive begins to keep us from feeling fully alive?

 

Sobriety is controversial because it interrupts the script. It asks what connection looks like without the soft blur around it. It asks what flirting feels like when we can actually feel our nervous system. It asks whether we know how to be in a room with other men without performing ease, desirability, confidence, or cool detachment.

 

That can be terrifying.

 

Because sometimes the drink is not just a drink. Sometimes it is armor. Sometimes it is permission. Sometimes it is the thing that lets us touch, dance, kiss, talk, cry, hook up, or finally say the thing we have been swallowing all night.

 

And sometimes, without it, we discover how much tenderness we have been outsourcing.

 

There is also a quieter cost we rarely name: the friendships that only exist inside a particular haze, and the strange grief of realizing some of them may not survive outside it. I think of the men who get sober and find their social calendar suddenly empty, not because anyone meant harm, but because the architecture of the friendship was built on a substance neither of you examined too closely. That kind of loss does not get a memorial. It just gets absorbed, quietly, into the work of staying clear.

 

I have deep respect for anyone choosing sobriety, sober curiosity, moderation, or simply a more conscious relationship with substances. Not because it makes them morally superior. It doesn’t. But because it often requires a kind of courage this community does not always know how to celebrate.

 

The courage to be awkward. The courage to leave early. The courage to say, “I’m not drinking tonight,” without turning it into a TED Talk. The courage to build intimacy slowly, clearly, and without chemical assistance.

 

Maybe the next frontier of queer freedom is not only sexual liberation, political visibility, or chosen family. Maybe it is also learning how to be with ourselves and each other without needing to disappear first.

 

Not everyone needs sobriety.

 

But all of us deserve spaces where sobriety is not treated like a mood killer, a judgment, or a personal inconvenience.

 

Because real community should have room for the man ordering tequila, the man ordering soda water, and the man quietly figuring out which one he needs tonight.

 

That, too, is belonging.