Walking Through The Unusual Door: Identity, Witnessing, and Creating Our
Way To Liberation
In the 1940s, artist and mentor Beauford Delaney encouraged the young Harlem
writer James Baldwin to "open the unusual door." In this time of both unrest and
possibility, heartbreak and breakthrough, writer Max S. Gordon explores what it
means to walk through that unusual door, to be a witness rather than a spectator,
taking one’s power back from being “othered”, the need to change old paradigms of
fear to a new paradigm of inclusion, and how creativity will continue to lead us
forward and transform our lives. This conversation is for those interested in an
honest discussion on race, sexual identity, gender politics and addiction. Through
the use of autobiography and cultural criticism, with a particular focus on his piece
“Bill Cosby, Himself: Fame, Narcissism, and Sexual Violence”, Gordon explores the
connection between racism, sexism, homophobia and class in his work, and the
challenges facing artists and activists in our age.
Max S. Gordon is a writer and activist. He has been published in the anthologies
Inside Separate Worlds: Life Stories of Young Blacks, Jews and Latinos (University of
Michigan Press, 1991), Go the Way Your Blood Beats: An Anthology of African-
American Lesbian and Gay Fiction (Henry Holt, 1996) and Mixed Messages: An
Anthology of Literature to Benefit Hospice and Cancer Causes. His work has also
appeared on openDemocracy, Democratic Underground and Truthout, in Z
Magazine, Gay Times, Sapience, The New Civil Rights Movement, other progressive
online and print magazines in the U.S. and internationally. His published essays
include “Jesusland”, “Whitney Houston: Sister Can't Fly On One Wing”, “I Wish I
Knew How It Feels To Be Free: On ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ and ‘The Help’”,
“Maybe Yesterday But Not Tonight: A Black Homosexual Speaks To Mike Pence”, and
“Bill Cosby Himself: Fame, Narcissism and Sexual Violence”. Max S. Gordon is a
graduate of the University of Michigan's Residential College Creative Writing
Program, where he received several Hopwood Awards, a Roy W. Cowden Memorial
Fellowship, and a James Michener Scholarship to the University of Miami's Writing
Program. He was also a writer-in-residence at Yaddo Artists’ Retreat in Saratoga
Springs, NY. Max is married to his life-partner and lives in New York City.
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Max Gordon
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