Cliff Jones: mending the scars inside
“The thing that holds us back most is the way oppression has
been internalized.”
For Jones, that is what activism is all
about. Changing the practices o f oppression
outside, in the world, and healing the scars o f
oppression inside, in the heart. Letting the
anger ride outward, letting pride fill the hurt
places.
Jones discusses all this in a quiet, consid­
ered voice, sitting on a futon couch in his
stocking feet, his eyes intent. Behind him is a
bookshelf, its contents a testament to wide
ranging literary tastes—Roots next to the New
Oxford Annotated Bible next to the Physician's
Desk Reference.
opportunities for gay and bisexual men to
access a discussion about safer sex. We had a
great workshop at the City (a gay underage
club) that targeted gay youth. We had a
couple workshops with the Bisexual Commu­
nity Forum.
“We started talking about the barriers to
practicing safer sex. We started looking at the
content of the information we were giving out,
whether it was relevant or whether it was an
irrelevant, scientific perspective and we
needed to translate it into what was happening
in people’s lives.
“I certainly don’t think AIDS has brought
the gay community together. The community
has responded to a crisis. But before AIDS,
the community was organizing politically. We
didn’t need AIDS to bring us together. We
were together, and we were moving in a
direction. AIDS has been a detour that we had
to face.
“In terms of AIDS and racism, what we see
in Portland and what we see around the
country reflects the racism in the gay commu­
nity. I don’t see people tackling racism.
“I see the white gay community self
absorbed by AIDS. People of color within the
gay community are the most disenfranchised
related to AIDS. There’s not a mandate that
one can rely on that there will be broad based,
culturally sensitive HIV education and
services.
“There’s not enough trust, there’s not
enough vision, there’s not enough access. It’s
like...a house burning down. And instead of
putting out the fire every place, you put out the
fire in the central, majority area. And the
comers are left burning.
liff Jones has large hands that rake
the air while he talks, as if he were
pushing aside a thicket before each soft spoken
word. In the clearing, there is room for anger,
sadness, hope.
"As education coordinator I learned that
CAP is a very important organization in this
community and that the staff and volunteers
there really struggle. People grow and stretch
themselves a lot.
“ I learned how to work with people and
depend on people. I learned a lot from people
with AIDS. I learned how petty so many
things seemed in life, and how easy it is to
focus our attention on petty things rather than
look at people, look at our lives, enjoy our
lives, figure out what’s important to us and go
for it.
"I learned a lot about sadness.
"A combination of things made me leave.
One is that I had an opportunity to go back to
my previous work, which I loved. Also, at
CAP there was so much work to do, and my
own work addiction compelled me to be there
too much. And the grief I was experiencing
was real hard. I needed the space to step back
and really feel the loss of people and think
about my own life.
“I feel proud of having done outreach to
gay and bisexual men of color, of having had a
couple events that brought black men together
to talk about the impact of AIDS on our lives
and to look at safer sex.
"We started experimenting with advertis­
ing, various kinds of workshops, creating more
“Maybe you throw some spare water,
whenever you get some spare water. But
there’s just a little. So the comers, the
disenfranchised people, are still burning. They
just keep burning. And then maybe when the
fire’s out in the central area, there will be some
water for them. If there’s anything left.
“At Legal Aid I’m a government benefits
advocate. I give people information about
welfare, food stamps, Medicaid. I teach a
workshop on empowerment and advocacy,
which I love.
“I work four days a week now and I’m
watching how over committed I get. I’m
catching up with my life. I’m gardening ,
visiting friends. It’s amazing; CAP just sort of
took my life over. So I’m catching up. It’s
wonderful.
"CAP needs a lot more money and a lot
more people. Since I left there. I’ve been in
meetings where people have criticized CAP.
It’s so easy. But what CAP needs—what the
community needs—is for every critical
comment the speaker should spend ten hours
in a constructive way.
“I saw Dick Gregory (black activist,
commedian, and former presidential candidate)
back in 1977 and he had a profound impact on
me. He said, look at what this culture and this
society has taught you about race, about
education, about economics, about black
history. Why would you trust anything unless
you did an analysis of it and decided that it
made sense?
“He speaks the truth in a very humorous
way. His message about diet and taking care
B Y A N D E E
H O C H M A N
Uiff Jones spent a year and a half
inside the AIDS crisis and came away
with grief, with gratitude, with fierce respect
for the dying and their caretakers.
As education coordinator for the Cascade
AIDS Project until early this year, Jones
worked hard to bring CAP’S services and
information to gay and bisexual men o f color.
More important, he tried to bring a message of
empowerment.
Now he has come home to the work he
loves, as an advocate fo r Legal Aid. Jones’
clients need welfare, need Medicaid, need a
gentle tour guide through the bureaucratic
maze. Mostly, they need a sense that change is
possible, a chink in the layers o f prejudice that
have convinced them they’re no good.
C
C
of ourselves is a political message about
empowerment. He talks about the develop­
ment of how we eat and how much of it is
based on economics.
“Racism is a human issue. There are
challenges for people of color and for white
people.' When 1 talk about racism I want to
talk in a way that’s empowering, that makes
people say, aha, I understand that, I want to do
something about that. Rather than in a way
that makes people heavier, more hopeless,
more helpless.
“My perspective about humans is that the
thing that holds us back most is the way
oppression has been internalized. The way, as
gay men and lesbians, we go around thinking
that were not good. We haven’t cleaned up
how we were hurt.
“The content of racism is taught to people
of color and we believe it about ourselves.
That holds us back as much as or more than
anything that’s happening externally. For me,
the task is cleaning up my internalized
oppression—all of those ways that I’ve been
conditioned to fit like a cog in the wheel and
not make trouble.
“Those issues of internalized oppression
are issues of self doubt that keep me from
making connections that raise questions—do
they like me, am I smart, can I figure this out,
can I be safe in this situation, arc people going
to react violently toward me?
“Violence towards gay people, towards
people of color, is real. But the internalized
racism somehow interferes with clear thinking
about safety. It makes sense to be aware of a
threat of violence, but it doesn’t make sense to
be paranoid about that threat.
“Internalized racism gives the message that
there’s a reason, that being a person of color is
a reason for the violence. There’s some way
that healing from the internalized racism gives
clarity about all of that; if there is violence,
you take it on directly and expect to be able to
solve it rather than accepting it as a way of
living.
“It’s thé internalized racism that conditions
me to accept less than the very best for myself.
“It’s a struggle figuring out what I have to
do in my life so I can heal from the internal­
ized racism. That’s really the central chal­
lenge for me as an activist. Because outside
that internalized stuff is complete power,
complete self-awareness, being able to go up
to anybody and talk to them about the way it
should be and bust through the myths.
“Racism isn’t good for white people or
people of color. In the myth that someone
benefits from oppression, someone gets
targeted as a ’bad person’ and someone gets
targeted as a ‘good person.’
“But in getting targeted as the ’good person,’
the discussion is still not focused on us as
humans. You still don’t get to look at who you
really are."
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