My name is Jason Gray . I am a student at the Thorne Institute of Technology. It's a small private college that's like no other school on the planet. I'm a young black man who also happens to be bisexual. This is the only place where I've ever truly felt welcome. Lots of people and establishments claim to accept everyone regardless of race or sexual orientation. Lots of them are lying. That's why so many good people get the shaft in today's world, and not in a good way. I'm originally from Boston , Massachusetts . Yet I'm currently living in a small predominantly black town in Alabama , where tomorrow's young black men are prepared for life in a challenging world.
The Thorne Institute of Technology is a private, accredited, technical college offering Associate's and Bachelor's of Science degrees in forty programs generally geared toward persons of color. It's a historically black, all-male private college founded in 1989 by Edward Thorne, an African-American millionaire and former industrial businessman. Edward Thorne saw that lots of young black men weren't attending college and were going down the path of criminality and perdition. So, he used every dime he had to create the Thorne Institute of Technology. An all-black, pro-male educational institution. He spent the next ten years turning it into the school of his dreams. The result was one of the best damn schools on the planet. Today, the Thorne Institute of Technology is a respectable educational institution. For an aspiring mechanical engineer like me, it's the best place to be.
The Thorne Institute of Technology has sixteen hundred students and a faculty of five hundred people. It's a very vibrant, dynamic place. Young black men from a variety of cities. Some of these guys come from all over the USA , and even Africa and South America . The year I came to the Thorne Institute as a freshman was also the year the school created its first Athletic Department, which resulted in several varsity teams. Sports are important to men, especially black men. If you look at the NBA and the NFL, you will see that some of the best players are young black men. Well, Thorne decided not to let its brothers down. The Thorne Institute of Technology Department of Athletics offered more varsity sports than most colleges and universities around the country.
The Thorne Institute of Technology varsity teams, also known as the Black Racers, competed in varsity Archery, Baseball, Badminton, Basketball, Bowling, Cross Country, Fencing, Football, Golf, Gymnastics, Ice Hockey, Lacrosse, Pistol, Rifle, Rowing, Rugby, Soccer, Swimming, Tennis, Track, and Volleyball. For club sports, we had Sumo Wrestling, Boxing, Equestrian, Squash, Racquetball and Cycling. Twenty one varsity sports and six club sports supported by the Athletics Department. Jonathan Brown, the Athletic Director endeavored to make the Thorne Institute the envy of the world. The college president, Dr. James Luther shared his hope. Both of them were accomplished black men and alumni of schools like Morehouse and Georgia Tech.
I was really loving the place. Finally, a place where a black man could be himself. Most colleges were increasingly feministic, racist and downright anti-black male these days. Black males felt unwelcome, even when they had the knowledge, willpower and financial support to attend college. This school was all-black and all-male. Which is really cool. I wish there were more schools like that in the country, if not the world. I fell in love with Thorne. And it would always be dear to me because it's the place where I met the love of my life. I met Jackson Kane my freshman year. He was attending Thorne and joined the all-new intercollegiate football team. This would be a first in history. An all-black intercollegiate football team ready to take the NCAA by storm. The Thorne Institute varsity sports competed in the NCAA Division One. We had a chance to take on the likes of Harvard, MIT and Princeton someday. Show them what the brotherhood could do. I felt so damn proud it's hard to put it into words.
Back to Jackson Kane. Have you ever seen perfection? I didn't know it existed until I saw him. A six-foot-five, broad-shouldered and muscular, mocha-skinned, long-haired and mustachioed black stud. He was a lineman on our college's brand new football team. If you ask me, he could have been a Hollywood movie stud or a male model. He was that pretty. In a masculine way. I first saw him moving into the dorms with his brother, Lawrence Jackson . I knew Lawrence . He was a tall, skinny, jet-black nerd. The kind of guy who was talking about alien universes and superhuman races like Vulcan, Cybernetic Organisms, Than and the like. Yeah, he loved science fiction. Well, so did I. but I wasn't obsessed with it. I will watch Sci-Fi Saturday and I love those miniseries but I don't quote genetically engineered human dictators from Star Trek movies. No way. Too nerdy for me. Not Lawrence . He was a nerd and he was proud. He was also studying mechanical engineering. He had gotten accepted to Harvard and MIT, but opted to attend Thorne Tech because he couldn't stand going to predominantly white, mostly female schools. He wanted the black masculine experience. I know the feeling. How could a sexy man like Jackson the football stud be related to Lawrence the nerd? Mother nature's a mad scientist, isn't she?
I've never been too much into contact sports. But shortly after nerdy Lawrence introduced me to his brother Jackson , I found myself fascinated by football. Hell, I even went online and read up heavily on America 's favorite sport. I watched football on television. I really got into it. Besides, watching sexy men in motion was a thrill for any gay and bisexual man on the planet. No lie! Jackson was a very friendly guy. He was sexy as hell, too. We got to know each other that semester. Thorne Tech beat Alabama State University's football team and we were going to the Division One playoffs. I really liked Jackson . He was cool. Sometimes, I hung out with him and some of the other football players in town. I didn't look out of place with them. Most of them were over six feet tall and quite large. I was six feet one inch tall and weighed exactly one hundred and eighty pounds. I could be mistaken for a collegiate football player. I never corrected whoever made that mistake. I was proud of myself, my team and my schoolmates. We were all young black men leading productive, driven lives. Living on an all-black and all-male college campus. The only one of its kind in America . Shielded from the anti-male and anti-black sentiment present in higher education. We were the blessed ones.
All that was needed to make my seemingly perfect world even better was a good man by my side. I felt attracted to both men and women in the past. I still consider myself bisexual since I sometimes find myself attracted to women. However, I'm focusing on men these days. I want to make that masculine connection. I didn't have that much luck with women anyway. I've dated three women and one of them was a psychopath, another was a man-hater and the third was a lesbian. If I wasn't gay or at least bisexual, I might have been depressed. Instead, I embraced my masculinity and my sexual side, and other men's masculinities and sexual sides, as well. I wanted to embrace Jackson 's sexual side. But I didn't know if the sexy football stud was heterosexual, bisexual or gay. A sexy man like that had to have someone in his life. The question was, why not me?