Marlon Riggs was an influential documentary filmmaker for both the Black and queer communities in the United States. He was also a poet and an AIDS activist. He finished his last film, Black is... Black Ain’t, from his sickbed shortly before passing away from complications due to HIV.

Riggs eagerly used then-new video technology, combining poetry, music, performance, and documentary to address racist stereotypes. Affirmations is a humorous confession about the desires and dreams of Black gay men, at once tender and political.