“Much as whiteness may be said to have arisen as a response to the need for a loyal mass base willing to maintain and defend the practices of slavery and colonial appropriation, one might make the case that heterosexuality has been the essential element in the enforcement mechanism of a modern system of sexual repression that has been crucial to the preservation of the patriarchal nuclear family; an institution that, in turn, has been critical to the development and maintenance of the modern industrial factory system and wage labor.”

—E. Nathaniel Gates


El, Elbert, Nathaniel, Monchan, brother, father, uncle, friend, lover, husband, scorpio, abolitionist, genius, award winner, award inspirer, professor, legal history scholar, verbal sparring partner, ageless sage, cancer endurer, ancestor

El was a Yale Law School gradute, W.E.B. DeBois fellow at Harvard, a founding member of New York-based Gay Men of African Descent (GMAD), a 10-year resident of Japan, a 13-year faculty member of New York’s Cardozo Law School, and 6-year expatriate in Montreal, Canada.

The invasive digital telephone ring repeatedly interrupts the loud wail of the vacuum, which is turned off between calls. English is heard, because Kathy Cleaver is on the other end. Then comes French, avec Jacques Derrida, followed by Japanese... Government eavesdroppers sure got an earful.

Vegetarian Food Poisoning
My pre-departure dedication to El

Selected Bibliography

Sunrise: November 14, 1954
Sunset: January 8, 2006

Gates, E. Nathaniel. “Estranged Fruit: the Reconstruction Amendments, Moral Slavery and the Re-articulation of Lesbian and Gay Identity.” Cardozo Law Review 18.2 (Nov. 1996): 862.