Friday Forum Recap: FREAKY-DIKY - DeCRIMINALIZING HOMO-SEX:

Friday Forum Recap

(BMX- NY Topic Hi- lites From Friday, February 3rd, 2012)




FREAKY-DIKY - DeCRIMINALIZING HOMO-SEX:

A Dialogue with Formerly Incarcerated Brothers



Facilitated by JM Green






In the latest BMX-NY dialogue forty-plus Brothers representing more than twenty geographic regions including: Ghana (West Africa), Cape Verde (West Africa), Brazil, Jamaica, Haiti, Montserrat, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, New Orleans, Missouri, Virgin Islands, Milwaukee, Barbados, Trinidad, South Carolina (Gullah Islands), Georgia, Jersey City, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Harlem considered our cross-cultural perspectives about each other through the following lenses:




Why is it that 99.9% of the time, whether they were in the lock-up for a few months or for a generation, Brothers don't acknowledge having had sex on the inside?


"It's stigmatized behavior societally and culturally...[SGL folk are] a society within a society...In someone who's out [in prison], everyone knows they're out...That's their journey...Inside, organized religions [which,] in many instances are gangs, engage in sex among their members...There are different ways of getting in...[They're] like secret societies...If you're not part of it, they can come down on you like a ton of bricks...In one prison [I was in] they were so entrenched, they had to take the stall door off the last bathroom stall...[In some instances a guy] was situationally gay...Black men don't talk about homo-sex outside of prison... "


"For the longest time I was attracted to people who were in jail...I worked for the Fortune Society and it changed my life..."


"There's a certain kind of Black man I've met...Heterosexual identified [who has said to me] 'The reason I'm trying to get with you is because you're the type who wouldn't tell...To be the receptive partner is okay [for them to have sex with]..."


"My uncles and neighbors who went to jail say they don't acknowledge having had sex with men because it messes up their money flow...They deal drugs...[and] their street credibility is lost if [they're] seen as having sex with other men..."


"When [I] saw men having sex in prison...I never saw rape take place...I heard...A lot of guys said it was situational, but there was emotion involved..."


"Everybody I know was in prison, and they talked...They disclosed [having had sex with men inside]...They talk..."


{Facilitator asks, "Are the men that you're talking about close intimates of yours?...That is, do you think they would disclose to people outside of your circle their sexual experiences in prison?..."} "No [they wouldn't]..."


"The COs were raping guys too...That was part of the culture at Attica...When you're in prison, a cigarette is [worth] a lot...Most of the sex I saw was consensual...The kaleidoscope of beautiful people that were in there was [endless]...People didn't have to force people...[Especially] if you were in good with the CO...He says, 'I don't care what you do as long as no paperwork comes out of it...'"


"You have to define yourself...I earned my respect because I say what I mean, and I mean what I say...People want to try you...You say, 'Okay'...Then you go in the John and duke it out and then they know...The whole Top, Bottom thing...A Bottom who never does anybody else's laundry...and they earned their respect...They weren't 'Bum Bitches'... and 'Slut Buckets'..."


"There are types of heterosexualities and types of homosexualities..."


"In my experience in the military, if someone is perceived as 'soft' they're going to be stepped on...If you let your guard down, you're gonna' be stepped on...[As an attorney] I represented a lot of people [in criminal cases] I kept them out [of jail] mostly..."


{Facilitator says, "Among issues we talk about here include that, a core part of the patriarchy we live in is misogyny...which gives us to devalue women and/or things and people feminine or female-like...It's a destructive tendency we need to be mindful of if we will be free..."}




Who determines what makes a man a man?



"I've heard younger Brothers define themselves by the label, 'Bottom'...I think it's sort of dehumanizing..."


"When I say I'm a Bottom, it's just what I like sexually...What makes you a man is owning up to what you do..."


"We inherit a lot of our definitions...You deviated from this Baptist definition of manhood [in defining yourself as SGL]... [You rejected the notion that] 'You're a fag'...We have a lot of preconceived baggage [to drop]...Everyone inherits the language of their predecessors...One of the things that distinguishes us from [other species] is our ability to speak...[To begin with] the language I use to define who I am came before me...[as part of] Our history and traditions...[Now] what is being, and honest, and true in my life [is that] because I love me, some [other] him doesn't make me a non-man...[And my definition of me] is what I leave for those who come behind me..."


"In many societies manliness was [defined as] the warrior...Even in this country with gangs and being in prison it's still the case...Any time we try to define man and woman outside the biological, you open the door to discrimination..."


"It's not biological...Responsibility makes a man a man or a woman a woman...There are plenty of people out there not taking care of theirs...They're not men...[They're] boys and girls..."


"To [fixate] on the attractiveness of incarcerated men, is to say, a young man going to an ivy league school doesn't look as good [as a prisoner]...Every time we look at someone [and see] strength, stamina, confidence or whatever we admire, it's something [we] are missing [within ourselves]...For me, for someone to honor someone, they have to recognize something [that person has] to honor...So, it's all in our heads...If, to you, responsibility is golden, then fine...[I] Find manhood in whatever moves me, touches me [about a man]...Then we are celebrating what one has instead of some [prescribed] vision..."


"I was told my responsibility as a man was to get married to a woman and fuck her and have children...Obviously that's not my responsibility as a man...[A lot of Black] Men are feeling emasculated as Black women are getting higher paid jobs...as if they're not measuring up...All Black men are having difficulty with defining Black manhood..."


"We determine what makes a man a man...I watched my father...[He was] head of the household...He never neglected any of us...None of my friends have fathers...I did everything by the book... Go to college... Everything he wanted me to do...Not what I wanted to do...The, finally I decided health was not my field...Fashion was...I don't look for validation from anyone [now...But, at the end of the day, I don't look at myself as a Black man, I look at myself as a strong Black woman..."


{Facilitator asks, "Do you feel as if you're a woman inside of a man's body?..."}


"Yes...But, I like my body...I mean I like looking like this...I like what people see when they look at me..."




Does desiring another Brother automatically make a man a non-man?


"[In prison among] out Brothers, one thing that would really, really piss 'em off...You could call 'em a 'homo'...'faggot'...They don't care...[If] You call them a 'chump'...then you got a problem..."


{Facilitator asks, "Is that because the term 'Chump' implies they're pushovers or that they have no power?..."}


"Yes...because then it's like you're saying that they're nothing...or that they have no choice, or no power..."


"I was watching a show about tigers in a circus...And the trainer would open the gate and the tigers came out in a line, and one time the female tiger came out before the male tiger, and that male tiger tore her to shreds...Because she had violated the natural order..."


"Regarding what makes a man a man...Being a man is more than having a penis...We're judged by our actions...Put us [both as Black men and as SGL men] against some one else, we're going to be judged more harshly..."


"If a man wants to treat himself as a commodity...Wants me to call him a bitch...use him, and spit on him, and throw him out like a can of Pepsi [it's going to be hard to see him as a man]...We have to get off of this White-valued vision of manhood..."


{Facilitator says, "We might also do well to consider why it is...that is, how one might come to consider himself a commodity, as you put it...What might have happened to him that he would be looking for someone to treat him like that?...It helps if we're thoughtful and regard each other as sensitively as we can...We're hard-put to facilitate each other's seeing ourselves differently if we're standing in judgment of each other..."}


"When infants are born they are assigned [a gender] based on their genitalia...Biology does not determine manhood...I was a sissy...I was condemned as the school sissy...I didn't like being the school sissy...I didn't have a father around...So I took bits and pieces of the other guys [to fashion my man-self]...Manhood is something that's very culturally determined...In most cultures there are rites of passage [to help male youths take on the traits their society deem as manly]..."


"We don't know why that male tiger attacked the female tiger...We posses the ability to reason, they possess instinct..."


"[Those of you who have been imprisoned] How did your definition of manhood change from having done a bid?..."


"I had to be more security-conscious because of the stigma...I had to be more aware of everything I did...I reinterpreted or redefined [manhood] for myself...For me, a man means mind...Mentality...It focused me...I didn't just think of it in terms of gender..."





Does love live among Brothers in prison? If not, what's there instead? If so, what happens to that love when they leave and come back to "the real world?"


"[In prison] the intimacy level is like out of control...You know how they say, 'stolen water tastes sweeter?'...'Bread eaten in the dark tastes better?'...Because you're being denied all around [in every facet of your life]...I'm still having difficulty with that...I was in prison for nineteen years...I've so institutionalized myself...PDA...public displays of affection are difficult for me...I'll do it if that's what he wants...[But] There are parts of it that are painful to me...I'm programmed to look down on that...I have to remember that I'm not in prison anymore...I'm like Mis-education of the Negro...Even if there is no back door, I will cut one for myself...I'm in prison inside myself..."


{Facilitator says, "As quiet as it's kept, you are not alone in living in a prison inside yourself...While the institutionalization you've lived under has been considerably more oppressive...to the extent that most of us here are still not wont to publically express affection for the objects of our affection, is as function of the internal prisons we still occupy...the fact that we are still not free...So, you are to be applauded for having the insight to recognize that you are not quite yet home on the way to being fully free, and the courage to be consciously engaged in the struggle to free yourself..."}


"I don't know what love is...but I had a relationship with a dude where we could look at one another and know what the other was thinking...when I came out people said, 'Do you still communicate with 'so-and-so?'...I'm thinking about it...When I first came back, I was moving guns...I was sending him money...This was my way of showing my appreciation for the affection we had...I used to counsel him to stay out of trouble...Now, I'm just working to stay out of trouble myself..."




From whom do we get permission to acknowledge what we really feel?


{Facilitator asks, "Formerly Incarcerated Brothers, I'm wondering if you know of Brothers who have lived lives of unending cycles of recidivism...i.e. going in and coming out of prison over and over again because the only place where they feel as if they can be truly who they are...that is, the only place where their love is sanctioned, or at least, is not roundly condemned, is in the joint?..."}


"They have relationships they consider real in prison...So, they go back...Out here, they feel they are no one...They have no identity...So, they go back...[For some] Just like manhood, womanhood is a state of mind...He's balancing his womanhood with his manhood..."


"You can still be an Alpha woman?...Alpha man?...I'm an Alpha feminine man..."


"I went in and I changed men's perceptions about what is a man...I had people tell me I'm still straight because I'm a Top and I told them, 'I lay down with men, so I'm gay'...If you feel like you're a Bottom, you're no less a man..."


"If you're not going to get validation from outside...You get it where you can..."


"You get permission from yourself...At the end of the day you have to deal with yourself..."


"From personal experience, if I hadn't met the men I did, I wouldn't be where I am now...I met some strong Black men...They put positive words in my ears..."


"Permission...Looking for permission from an absent father...Looking for permission from an absent mother...Finding teachers and professors I admired, but never really feeling satisfied...I came to the point where I decided it was just me [who could give me permission to acknowledge what I feel]..."


"It's really about your personhood...We have to get ourselves to a point where you say, 'I'm okay'...[and] not degrade ourselves...Part of loving yourself is about feeling okay in your own skin...The confidence you find...you may discover you need some more [when you start dealing with other Brothers]...The terms we use...'Bottom'...'Bitch'...are negative...We don't take the time to get to know the person...The human being we're dealing with [before we're flippantly dismissing each other]...I'm delighted to see so many beautiful Brothers here..."


"[People say] I must love myself [before I can love] someone else...When he said manhood is in the mind...Maybe if we discipline ourselves [such] that everyone we see, no matter how they look...We can respect them...It has freed me...[At first] I thought I was doing them a favor...[Always thinking] you are too this, or you are too that...[By respecting people as they are] We are confirming ourselves...The order is reversed...It's in loving others that I find the ability to love myself...If I can love somebody who is really fucked up, then maybe I can love myself..."


{Facilitator says, "That's an interesting notion...Taking an outside-in approach to self-acceptance, on the way to self love, by accepting and loving others for who they are..."}




How can we make it safe to be sexually present and accounted for in the Black community?


"Nations come up with symbols [to empower them]...flags...The gays have a flag...What if we came up with a flag...It symbolizes who you are...going back to the Confederacy...Once they had their flag, they never went back...So, some type of symbol..."


{Facilitator says, "There is an SGL symbol called the Bawabisi, based on West African adinkra symbols...But, a flag is a brilliant idea...we'll commission a flag from a graphic designer among us..."}

BMX- NY Film Screening For This Friday, February 10th, 2012

Black in Latin America - The D.R. & Haiti Facilitated by JM Green Black in Latin America, a new four-part series about the African influence on Latin America, is the latest production from renowned Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The series examines how Africa and Europe came together to create the rich cultures of Latin America and the Caribbean. On his journey, Professor Gates discovers, behind a shared legacy of colonialism and slavery, vivid stories and people marked by African roots. Latin America and the Caribbean have the largest concentration of people with African ancestry outside Africa - up to 70 percent of the population in some countries. The region imported more than ten times as many slaves as the United States, and kept them in bondage far longer. As Professor Gates travels to these varied countries, he celebrates the massive influence millions of people of African descent had on the history and culture of Latin America and the Caribbean, and considers why and how their contribution is often forgotten or ignored.

http://www.facebook.com/events/214877031941721/

PERCEPTIONS OF MY BROTHER: A Conversation Among African-Americans, Africans and Afro-Caribbean Men

PERCEPTIONS OF MY BROTHER: A Conversation Among African-Americans, Africans and Afro-Caribbean Men

Facilitated by GM Green

1. What role do geography, national origin and shared historical events play in how we identify?

2. Is it important to know African American History as a Diasporan countryman?

3. To what extent might our perceptions about differences between us from one part of the Diaspora to the next be shaped by mass media?

4. What happens when we attach SGL to African or Afro-Caribbean?

5. Does white supremacy differentiate between our different identities?

6. How can we build solidarity across our differences? Should we? Why?


Friday Forum Recap
BMX-NY Topic Highlights From Friday, January 13th, 2012

EDUCATION & BLACK MEN: Moving Forward
Facilitated by L. Jett Wilson

In a new year, new you kind of focus, the men of The Black Men's Xchange-New York pondered our relationship to education in the following questions:

While it's true that 'college isn't for everyone,' what is education for?

"We need to understand who we are...We are natural men...We are very creative...We have the intellectual capability to be leaders...[We need to] have voice..."

{Facilitator says, "Each of those things [you propose about us] is a process...What are the resources needed to take up those processes?...Can you learn without a teacher?..."}
"By us being in this room [with each other right now,] we are learning from one another...We are all teachers...You don't have to be certified...I did a research study on why [Black youth] use the 'n-word'...[For my part] I didn't have role models... All I had were the club scene and Christopher Street..."

"Yes...A lot of thoughts come through this room...I have notebooks full...It kind of reminds me of our African American story...Where we were not allowed to learn to read, but we learned [anyway] and then we advanced ourselves...That's what we have to do [as SGL men]...the education is never going to be for us...My formative development wasn't here, but I wanted to come here to learn because everyone I saw who came [and studied] here were just brilliant..."
{Facilitator says, "Can we change the system?[so that the education is for us?]...Do we want to?..."}

"Yes...Every year in the spring in Harlem, there's a lottery...and hundreds of parents come and wait and see if their kids get picked for charter schools...Vouchers is what give the parents power..."

{Facilitator says, "That's changing how the monies [for education] are distributed...But, the system [under that framework] is the same..."}

"You just made me think...What I could do is take the bibliography we use in the library every year during Black History Month and book-mark it...And, because not everyone reads, make a list of Youtube videos people can go to where people who look like us will be teaching...that's one thing that I can do to change the system...Using the neighborhood as an instructional tool, instead of just having a flat list of sites next to the book you're not interested in..."
{Facilitator asks, "How is it that [on average] two-thirds of Black men don't graduate from high school [nationally?]...The logical next step after high school is college or a career...and more young Black men are in prison than in college?..."}

"All colleges are not for everyone...Back in the 70s when so many kids petitioned to get into City College, they didn't have the right skills...Let's go back to high school......If they don't sit a certain way...or act a certain way...[the message they get from the teacher is] I don't want you here...While they don't say it outright...the grades tell them that...So, let's not just look at the child or the individual...Let's look at what's in the environment...What happens when people are supposed to help you and they don't..."

"Education is learning...When you mention [what] is the reason there are more Blacks in prison than In college...Is that by design?...Yes...When we were protesting [for better education we didn't reallize]...The system works on dollars and cents...The rules are made up to protect the people who set them up...We don't even talk among ourselves...the way we should..."
"I am a school teacher...What [somebody] started saying about, they're taking away school supplies...that is true...The budget has been reduced...And when the budget is reduced [certain items] are going to be cut..."

{Facilitator says, "That's not true...[What get's cut] is a matter of the leadership...the school Principal['s choice]..."}

"The budget has been reduced...So, what's been said about teachers not getting paid...We haven't gotten a raise in three years...[Reading] In the dictionary it says {education is] 'Instruction and training in an institution of learning'...So, it's saying the only way you can learn is in an institution...Some kids learn at different paces...Like me...I can't learn by just having something told to me...I have to see how something works...let me see how you make the bike and watch me make the bike...I work with this autistic kid...You're going to hear about him...He draws...He's already in the Metropolitan Museum of art...We all have different gifts..."

{Facilitator asks, "Where do we find ourselves as a people...As teachers?...Leaders?...Policy-makers?..."}

How would you characterize your educational experience, historically?
When I was in high school, my family was an integrationist family...Everywhere we moved, we were the first Black family in the neighborhood...I used to play hooky...The LGBT Center was Maritime High School...I loved it because it was all-male...My maternal grands' had a school in North Carolina, and [racist Whites] burned it down...My grandfather was rebuilding it and they killed him, and [then] my grandmother had a heart attack and died...In 2004, the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education, I went to a celebration [where they shared that] the first names on the Clarendon County subpoena were my family...The reason for education was economics...The way they did the Native Americans...they could either kill them or let them put them on the reservations where they controlled the schools...We always had our own Black schools...We have to have our own schools...They never educate us...They have no interest in educating us..."

"Everyone can go to college...Not everyone wants to go to college...I was not the smartest kid...I was in the skills program...I got left back twice...It was hard for me to learn...My mom made me sit down and read until I got it...No TV during the week...I had to sit down and read until I got it...[But, in the end] I got a regents diploma..." {Facilitator says, "Let's factor in our experience as Black men and the secret that most of us carried through school..."}

"I went to a Seventh Day Adventist School here in Harlem...not because we were [Adventists,] but because it was a parochial school...It was all Black, and they did a damned good job...I left and went to P.S. 186 and the difference was night and day...I was at the top of the class...Kids were acting out...I didn't have a Black teacher again until [I was in] the military...Now I'm an adjunct...I've learned there are different modes of learning...At 186 I didn't trust what the teachers were teaching...Some people have great memories...Education isn't for everyone, but it is for a lot of people...If they really had an interest, they might do well...But, if it doesn't seem relevant to you...Because of the way I used language, they would say I was either gay or White, which was the same thing as gay in their view...

"When I went to college, it wasn't relevant...I had an aptitude for computer science, and that's what I took...But, they have these core classes...And they certainly didn't have African Studies, except as electives...And there was the money [they were charging me]...I have to go to college and I have to pay for it and I'm not taking anything I want...I had a History course...They were talking about Napoleon...I wasn't in the least interested...[I wondered] 'Where am I in all this?'...The second thing is, I learned better through visual representation...There's the theory about right-brain, left-brain orientation and how Black people tend to be more right-brain..."
{Facilitator says, "Four Brothers have described four different learning styles...In school, we are expected to sit still...be attentive...raise your hand...be polite...these qualities are attributed to White girls...What is education?...People say all the time, 'I'm not religious, I'm spiritual'...So, when I think about education versus learning...the system is not attentive to our needs...and then I'm not being taught anything about myself...Paolo Freire conceived a methodology called pedagogy of the oppressed..."}

"I came by a Baldwin quote in a wonderful book I'm reading which goes as follows, [Reading] 'The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated. The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around. What societies really, ideally, want is citizenry which will simply obey the rules of society. If society succeeds in this, that society is about to perish. The obligation of anyone who thinks of himself as responsible is to examine society and try to change it and to fight it - at no matter what risk. This is the only hope society has. This is the only way societies change.'...So, education is to facilitate our forging an identity...Like self-determination...'I will name myself, define myself, create for myself and speak for myself...As opposed to being named, defined, created and spoken for by others'...That's the challenge for us..."

"The purpose of education...You get education to get the job...Or, is it about self-realization?...While college may not be for everyone, it's a good damned jumping off place..."
"I heard people say college is not for everyone...They usually wind up dropping out of high school..."

"We shouldn't encourage our kids to believe that [college isn't for them]...We should encourage them that there are no limits to their intelligence...The people who do go to college, on average do much better...Most of us will not be Jay Z or Steve Jobs who can drop out and become a billionaire...Napoleon was the one who went to Egypt and started teaching that Egyptians were White...So that, all history is connected..."

Is there anything you could learn that might help you to be a freer, more empowered same gender loving man?
"I wanted to come here because I think it's important to bridge the generations...There's stuff I want to learn from you, and there may be stuff you can learn from me too..."
{Facilitator says, "You talk about bridging the generations...You are twenty...Even for me, [a different generation] we are oftentimes in the prison of our own minds...When we talk about systems, we're talking about schools, libraries, media...Change starts with self...When you think about [one's] world view, where does that world view come from?...When we talk about formally changing the system, [that] leads to assassination...[Some questions we have to ask ourselves are] Whose developing curriculum?... Why?...What is their agenda?......There are many teachers...Time is a teacher...When I speak to you, you are teaching me..."}
"You can learn a lot from great civilizations...They taught their history...{This Brother] was saying his core curriculum was not allowed to be African History...That's where we as same gender loving men come in...If you believe Mis-education of the Negro is real, we don't need to go back...We need to go forward...[and insist] 'I don't feel this [African History] should be an elective...this should be part of the core curriculum..."

What, if anything, should SGL youth be taught to prepare them for success?
"What we can do to prepare SGL youth...I've been studying LGBT History...there was a guy who helped Martin Luther King, and he was gay...You have to teach yourself [so that] you can show them that there is another way of life beyond the clubs and voguing...[We] were part of the Harlem Renaissance...In the groups we normally go to we talk about HIV and all this relationship stuff all the time...But, at the end of the day, do we really know anything about ourselves that is empowering?..."

"You go to college 1) to get an education, and 2) Society demands that you get an education...When I was in high school my parents sent me to an Afro-centric community school...Uhuru Sasa...what I gained from that was a sense of self-worth...[I have questions about] the Teaching Fellows [Program]...the whole idea of Cathy Black coming in [as Chancellor] and the mistakes Bloomberg keeps making...It's a joke...We need to teach our own children...The Jews have their own schools in addition to the Department of Education..."
"I was thinking about that Baldwin quote yesterday and it occurred to me that being an American African, you mission, should you choose to accept it, is to puzzle together an identity...Create an integrated, actualized self from a fragmented...partial self...I'm determined to find out which part of Africa... which cultures my ancestors are from...Because education and self-determination are connected...Education is to help us fashion our identity...

Friday  Forum  Recap (BMX- NY  Topic  Hi-lites  From  Friday,  September 9th,  2011)

African-Centered  Rites  of  Passage For Same Gender Loving Men [Part II]            Facilitated  by  JM  Green         At Friday's BMXNY dialogue, in consideration of the fact that the 5 major African rites of passage involve birth, adulthood, marriage, eldership, and ancestorship, Brothers looked at where we are in relationship to those rites of passage, or their absence...            What is a rite of passage? "Life transitions..." "[They] allow us to share some of the pain we've experienced...traumas...[They] allow us to learn lessons from [those experiences]..." {Facilitator says: "Rites of passage are culturally-based rituals designed to facilitate members of the community through the different phases of our lives in order to take our rightful places within, and deliver our respective gifts to the community..."} "I had a rite of passage when I received my name at an LGBT Kwanzaa [gathering]...Until now, I didn't even realize I had a rite of passage...I was 18 and had just come out...I was a new-bee...They kind of took me under wing...even though my family had forsaken me...It was a rebirth...I am more secure [now]...They allowed me [to be who I am]..." "There is a connection between entitlement and rites of passage..." {Facilitator says, "Do you mean we are entitled, as members of the culture or community to be supported by the community through the transitions from one phase or stage [of life] to the next?..."} "Yes..." "We're conditioned not to feel entitled to be acknowledged and affirmed as the men we are..."   In the absence of rites of passage specifically geared for men who love men, do we value our lives differently? "In the absence of ceremonies or protocols to acknowledge our coming into our manhood, how do we value our selves?...46% of all Black men who have sex with men are HIV+...Sometimes, we drink the Koolaid [internalize and act out anti-homosexual attitudes]..." "We definitely need rites of passage so that we can feel the confidence others display...We should also feel privileged..." "I had some wonderful teachers...I had rites of passage...They all groomed me so I can be the person I am...When African Americans look at the White person [and compare] ourselves, we may devalue ourselves...We do face negative things...[But,] sometimes, when you focus on the negative, we can miss [our accomplishments]...I remember coming out [and] people telling me not to do this and not to do that...But, I did what I felt to do [and I turned out just fine]...We did have rites of passage..." {Facilitator says, "If you had had a coming out party, that might have been construed as a rite of passage...Cotillions, debutante balls, a.k.a. coming out parties, for instance, are rites of passage to facilitate upper-class girls from childhood into womanhood..."} "One of the benefits of rites of passage is that it gives you a voice...The prom is a rite of passage..."     New Jersey's S.T.E.P. (Striving Together Equals Progress) Program  Takes Boys Through The Passage To Manhood  -   Link:  To Kill a Lion, Become the Lion:   The Need for Rites of Passage Programs Can rites of passage specifically designed for SGL youth prime them for roles of responsibility in the community? "When I first came here [to BMX-NY] at twenty-four, I met brothers who  helped me realize not to keep the healing process...the information [to myself,] but [to] pass it on to SGL young people whose minds are crying out for something...I passed the message without fear...I realize I've been groomed for that in these spaces...BMX and ADODI...which is why I keep doing the work...Hearing that brothers and sisters are taking their lives...it gives me chills..." "We're not entitled to anything...We only get what we fight for...[when I was a boy] a White man showed me some pictures of nude men in the Bible and told me nothing was wrong with me and that let me know I was okay..." "For this thing to be really practical, there needs to be some community effort on behalf of SGL young people like scholarships...something tangible..." "I think [it's] empowerment as distinct from entitlement [that rites of passage give us]...Empowerment may lead to a sense of entitlement..." "As a Black man, there are many rites of passage I have never experienced and probably never will...Like the prom...Who are you going [to go] with?...A girl?...you know that whole trauma..." "[A rite of passage] acknowledges your acceptance into a community...And with that, there comes a set of roles and responsibilities [you will be expected to observe]..." "Rites of passage refer to a life span...from birth to transition...In Africa [there are] rituals that have been practiced for thousands of years...thousands of years...that have been honed down...As Africans, we're people oriented...In an African-centered rite of passage it's about, 'I see you'...I just came from the Carolinas where everybody said, 'Hi...How you doin?'...The fact that you are is the entitlement...[In the city] a lot of times we don't acknowledge that we are...That's the remnants of slavery...Being a man and manhood have nothing to do with being heterosexual or bisexual or SGL ...Rites of passage are to build people's character...[and to remind us that] I am because we are...It took thousands [and thousands, and thousands] to make me..." "[The idea of] a sense of entitlement was something that was hard for me to hear for a long time...I am not there any more...Rites of passage are in stages...One is taking off, and one is a landing...[One is about] I see you and I acknowledge you...Whatever it is you are, go ahead and do what you have come here to do...[such that] little girls who were bar mitzvahed will know that a man is supposed to bring them a diamond ring when they want to marry her...In Africa, there are circles of men in which they let you know what you can do...How far your muscles can flex...That is the nest...The landing is, 'you dare dream of yourself doing something we never envisioned you doing?...The landing is your responsibility [to yourself and to the community]...This trust that I have in myself [that I can observe my purpose]...This faith...The reason [why] it is very important for us to be here and do this work..."    Are there rites of passage that could ease the transition of growing older in the SGL community? "I'm in an anti-aging program...I [revel] in the things I don't know..." "Often times, when SGL people come out, they're kicked out of their families...Are there [rites of passage we can create to support them?..." {Facilitator says, "We have among us people who have studied rituals including indigenous rituals, with whom we are going to create rituals to honor ourselves and facilitate us through the phases of our lives..."} "We do have rites of passage...Even if there is not one in the room, we learn to focus on White people...That's a rite of passage...If we don't contrast ourselves to them, we are seen as strange...That's a rite of passage...Another is [always] remembering we were slaves...Bullshitting ourselves is another rite of passage...[In fact,] slavery made our lives easier...When [all] you have to [do is] get up, go to the field and come back, life is easier..." [Facilitator says, "Those social patters you refer to like contrasting ourselves to white people are dysfunctional adaptations many of us have learned as a function of our enslavement, but they are not rites of passage...For rites of passage, not only would we not feel so compelled to contrast ourselves with others, but we would have a clearer sense of what we're here for, and a stronger sense of community by which to support each other's doing what we're here to do..."} "I was confronted in a circle and had to name my ancestors...[I] had to name seven to nine generations...I was stumped...I had bought into the idea that, because we were slaves there was no way we could know who our ancestors were...But, it was also because I felt shame about the little family tree I did know about...[But, you can] begin a rite of passage by finding out how many generations [you can identify]...A reason [we] don't want to talk about it is shame...[But,] you have to acknowledge [there are people] beyond yourself...I got initiated this year in Nigeria in Ifa...It was life changing..." "African Americans are not ungrateful...We achieved what we did through blood, sweat and tears...By giving up our lives...Slavery is not necessarily over...The mental aspect...It's not over...If I am talking about slavery [it's] because it's indelible...it's not over...I am going to compare Black and White...They're different...Look at the life spans...They're different...They [take for granted] things we're denied...I am going to compare Black and White..." "If you say that African Americans are ungrateful, you've been duped because you've been trained to see yourself as 'other'...Contrasting ourselves with White people [is a waste of energy] life is not fair...Whoever told you life was fair was lying to you... Slavery is not indelible...stamped on us...Entitlement is looking at the stamp and saying, 'No'...Entitlement is being clear about what is and moving forward..." "There's a lot of misplaced anger..." {Facilitator says, "Also, no doubt, the result of the absence of rites of passage...which again, is why, moving forward, we are going to conceive rites of passage by which we will acknowledge each other, each other's gifts and facilitate each other towards identifying and giving our gifts"...}

17th Commemoration of THE MAAFA

17th Commemoration of THE MAAFA
Featuring The MAAFA Suite...Healing Journey
September 12th-24th, 2011br Brooklyn, NYC


Hat tip to: Big Rod at Nubian Knights Network

From the BMX NY EDITORIAL PAGE

Gay = White =  Short-Circuit to Effective Black HIV Prevention

by JM Green 

Considering the fact that nearly half of all Black men who have sex with men in New York are HIV infected, and that this trend is on the increase, perhaps it’s time we recognize what is not working about such prevention strategies as have been deployed among us thus far. Key to developing effective strategies for stemming the tide of HIV/AIDS in the Black community is overcoming our apprehension to acknowledging Black male homosexuality, commonly referred to as "gay." We have long known that the epicenter of the incidence of HIV/AIDS in the Black community is among Black men who have sex with men (BMSM) and BMSM who also have female partners.  As it happens, there are still many more BMSM who do not identify as gay than there are who do.  Hence, the necessity of coining the term in the first place. 

 As a result of the literal and figurative emasculation of Black men, manhood is a precious and fragile commodity in the Black community.  At the heart of all the struggles Africans have waged for freedom in America from abolition and manumission, to desegregation and Civil Rights, to Black Power and Black Consciousness, has been the call for our acknowledgement as men. Intensifying our anxiety about manhood is the patriarchal American context in which manhood is valued in terms of power, aggression, domination, and which is undergirded by misogyny.  By and large, Black men have been out of the power and domination loop for some time now.  And, as a function of internalized white supremacy, where aggression is concerned, we generally tend to reserve that behavior for each other. Misogyny prompts disrespect of women.  Regarding homosex, where a man would have another man as would a woman, those men are deemed even less worthy of respect than women.  In this environment, the anxiety about manhood is heightened exponentially among Black men.  

Our collective anxiety about manhood has created the shame, guilt and fear around homosexuality which has for too long kept us silent about the much deadlier threat of a pandemic which is still infecting and killing us at an alarming rate. Discussions about homosexuality, which in most people’s minds is synonymous with gay identity, and which many Black folk see as “White,” make the topic threatening in multiple ways. In turn, we rarely get to HIV/AIDS.  And, even when we do, the topic is rarely considered multi-dimensionally. It is time we muster the courage to face our fears and create safe spaces within which we critically examine anti-homosexual dispositions in the Black community as a precursor to dialogues about effective means of stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS. 

Getting The Language Right: HIV and Healing in Young Black America

Getting The Language Right: HIV and Healing in Young Black America from American Truth on Vimeo.

GENDER ROLE CONFUSION The Adoption of Hetero-normative Gender Roles in SGL Relationships

GENDER ROLE CONFUSION
The Adoption of Hetero-normative Gender Roles
in SGL Relationships

In a BMX-NY dialogue about heterosexual gender role-play

within same gender loving relationships Friday night,

participants took up the issue from the following standpoints:

How, if at all, do notions of 'Top' and 'Bottom' influence our behavior in sexual and/or romantic relationships?

"As opposed to gender roles, [I think what happens] is a kind of sex-typing...People do tend to sex-type themselves...They choose a type [of sexual characteristic, and stay there]...It's a distortion where people type themselves and get stuck...I look for relationships where people can play out emotional, romantic [more fully expressive] relationships...[People take on] fetishes...frocking (grinding)...[They] take on a 'Top' and 'Bottom' thing..."

"People do or want what they want, and they shouldn't be condemned for it..."

"I don't believe people are born hetero or homosexual...I was born a Top...For as long as I can remember, I've always liked a man who was slightly effeminate...Just like women fake orgasms, if I was to let a man top me, I would have to fake the funk...My older brother is gay...As a boy he was very effeminate...He suffered a lot of abuse for it...There are people who've made me feel less than a part of the SGL community [because of my staunch Top orientation]"

{Facilitator says: "A century ago, Freud proposed that, when we are born, people are polymorphously perverse, meaning babies have no sexual object...Anything can arouse them...The gender of the source of the stimulation makes no difference...It's the touch, in an of itself that it sexually stimulating...But, a few years ago, there was a report that scientists had finally discovered a homosexual gene...And, [as it happens] homosexuality runs through all living species, which might seem to indicate that some of us are homosexually wired at birth..."}

"'Tops' are devoid of emotion...'Bottoms' tend to be emotionally expressive...There seems to be a power-play issue with 'Tops' and 'Bottoms'...'Tops' are supposed to be aggressive and 'Bottoms' submissive...I don't have to have anal penetration to have satisfaction with another person..."

Does calling each other "Girl," "Miss Thing," "Miss Honey," etc., secure or obscure our sexuality?

"I have permitted myself to be f_ _ked sometimes...and I know another brother from Ghana who [because he liked to get fucked] wanted me to identify [our friendship] as sisters...I told him, no...I'm a man whether I get f_ _ked or not...It's not about sisters or wives or whatever you want to call it..."

Do 'alpha' brothers naturally tend to attempt to dominate their partners?
"I was in the service...And this was before Don't Ask, Don't Tell...There were all different kinds of ways that people were being discharged for being homosexual...It was dangerous...and [for me] there was shame, and there was pain, and there was pleasure [with the first man I had sex with]...Next was a boxer, and he used to punch me a lot, and then [he] f _ _k me, and I liked it...He would always say, he was going to protect me...But, I didn't need him to protect me..."

"A nineteen year old turned me out...[when] I was twenty-eight...He had been [sexually] abused...Men had 'bitched him out'...I had just started participating in BMX [in California] and learning about being same gender loving...I have always dealt with a man as a man...respected a man as a man... And I turned him [the nineteen-year-old] around, and made him start respecting himself...[teaching him to] not let older men manipulate him...I have been with men who ran the relationship... People thought he was the 'Top'...There is a certain fundamental respect I treat a man with...There are certain men who allow themselves to be debased in a relationship..."

{Facilitator asks: "And does that tendency to allow themselves to be debased in a relationship make them like women in your mind?"} "No." {Facilitator asks: "If a man likes to be debased sexually, does that make him less of a man?"} "No, not necessarily... A little S&M in a relationship is its own thing."

In your relationships with men, do you tend to behave as either, 'the man,' or, 'the woman?' If so, how does that play out?
"When I came out at sixteen, those roles ['Top' & 'Bottom'] didn't exist...I played those ['man,' and 'woman'] roles and the roles affected me adversely...I became more connected to the roles than to the person(s)...I wasn't connected to the person or to myself, [instead] I was connected to the assigned role..."

"I worked in a sexual dysfunction clinic...There was a gay couple, and they were trying to decide if they were going to split because one of them was a confirmed 'Top,' and the other, who had been content to be the 'Bottom,' had decided that he wanted to 'Top' sometimes...And the other one said, 'My masculinity won't tolerate being 'topped'..."

"I always [just] wanted to be loved...[It didn't matter how...]"

"A fear of intimacy and vulnerability keeps coming up in being a 'Bottom'...It's an emotional thing...If I'm going to share that [my anus,] there's an emotional attachment..."

{Facilitator says: "That's powerful...You just reminded of a time when I made the decision not to be penetrated anymore...As a youth, I'd been wonderfully sexually ambidextrous...But, there came a point when, following having been penetrated, it occurred to me that I felt wounded as I moved through the world ...And, I sort of was, I mean my anus was tender, raw even...And, not because of rough sex...Even when I was steeped in self-loathing about my sexuality, I didn't permit anyone to be abusive during sex...But, I remember for a day after, and sometimes for several days after [being penetrated,] feeling this woundedness, and feeling vulnerable and deciding, 'I'm not going to put myself in a position to feel this [vulnerability] any more'...And it was decades before I did it again..."}

"What other 'Bottom' or 'Top' behaviors did you do beyond the sex [is the question]?"

"I was just imitating what I thought people did...what my parents did...I was just playing [at] what I thought a man did..."

{Facilitator says: "Thank you for [sharing] that...That's the point of this dialogue...Because most of us never had same gender loving relationship roles modeled for us before we attempted to mate with each other, to court each other, the only examples we had were our parents and/or other heterosexuals, and the fact of the matter is that, because heterosexual relationships in a patriarchy are frequently grounded in misogyny, those relationship models aren't even healthy for heterosexuals...I remember a recurring dream I had as a small boy in which I dreamed I was a woman...In one dream I remember vividly, I was a woman standing on a windy hilltop, and a handsome man was holding me and kissing me, and I was blissfully happy...I was an adult for many years before I understood that the reason I dreamed I was a woman was not because I wanted to be a woman, but because I knew that I was attracted to men, and had already learned that the only acceptable way of having a man's love was by being a woman..."}

"Everything we do, we put a construct around it [and that's limiting...]"

"'Top' and 'Bottom' is a white gay construct..."

"If we're going to relate to the idea of gender roles on a spiritual level...[Take] Yoruba [for example]...gender roles involve energies...for you [the brother who always knew he was a Top], Shango or Ogun might well be your godheads...for someone else, Oshun might be...and the energies are not fixed...[a man can have a female godhead and visa versa]..."

{Facilitator says: "Yes, this is vital. 'Top' and 'Bottom' are linear, dichotomous, Western constructs...Like black and white; either, or; Top & Bottom...[in particular,] implies a status relationship, a power dynamic wherein one part is below, is less than the other...And because that power dynamic is based on a patriarchal, misogynist heterosexual model...the relationship is wanting fluidity...As African [descended] men we have the potential to be all manner of things to and with each other...To be, both-and [as opposed to one, or the other]...That is part of what gives us the capacity to be Gatekeeprs, [shamans, and the like...]"}

"I've pretty much avoided men because of this [very] conversation...Last week I had a dream about a woman, and she was naked and she said, 'Let's have sex,' and I said, 'Okay'...I've always thought of myself as omni-sexual...I've had sex with every gender...and it's all been joyous...If we're constantly constructing each other into a box...Men, women, bisexuals, trisexuals, parks, baths...and then, we want to opt out of the box...[it's crazy-making]...[Sex] It's a joyous thing [that shouldn't be strictly circumscribed...]"

What might 'healthy' same gender loving relationship roles look like?

"More affirmation."

"More love."

""Equality."

"Removal of the word, roles."

"Passion."

"Consensual and mutual respect."

"Acceptance of all his and your sides."

"Whatever floats our boats."

"Being real in the role you play."

"Conscientious listening."

"Vulnerability."

"Nurturing."

"Communication."

"You have to make the baby, so to speak...You have to do something [together] that consummates the relationship...You have to create something together that gives you a reason to stay together and grow together."

"Avoid assumptions."

"Patience."

"Support, encourage and champion each other."

"Fortitude."

"Create an SGL manual."

23 Year Old SGL Author Jonathan W. Jones


Jonathan W. Jones Reference Link

Amazon.com Book Link

Friday Forum Recap
(Topic Hi-lites From Friday, October 1st, 2010)

How Wrong Is Long? Why We Can't Wait

In a Black Men's Xchange-New York dialogue
about the Bishop Eddie Long scandal Friday night,
participants looked at the story from the following perspectives:

If the allegations against Bishop Long are true, what crime(s) have been committed?
"I don't believe BMXNY is asking that question...That man set up an academy [to attract young boys]...He targeted those boys...without fathers...and financed them...and their mothers...He told them, as part of their spiritual training, they must have sex with him...He bought a house where he isolated them...He said [to his congregation,] 'The price for homosexuality is death'...What he did is evil..."

"We have to be very careful...We [Black men] have to prove ourselves innocent in the face of assumed guilt [as opposed to the 'innocent until proven guilty' standard that is applied for White men]..."

"As an educator for a long time, knowing there is no place in the curriculum, and there is no safe space...[And no] support groups...Homosexuality is still treated as an illness...and safe space...has to be created by interested people..."

{Facilitator asks: "And, who are those 'interested people?'}

"Parents, and teachers, and counselors...and... us..." {Facilitator says: "Yes. It's our responsibility...and it's high time we took it..."}

"There are a large, large, large number of same gender loving boys...and they are boys, because they are 17, 18, and 19...They're very vulnerable because they don't know...having their very first sexual experiences...Older men taking advantage of them...[and] you don't see them because they're in these pockets...cut off..."

"There's another group of young same gender loving youths [who are] even more tragic because they don't make it to college...They're thrown out of their homes by their parents at sixteen and seventeen..."

"One thing we can do is lead by example...Be proud of our sexuality...And, we can do a letter-writing campaign to some same gender loving artists...because you know they're there [hiding]..."

Bishop Eddie Long

Does any part of this situation speak to the absence of Black fathers?
"Two of the boys have said, 'It wasn't brutal [the way Long treated them]'...and that they still loved him...I was molested by an older man at fifteen...It was my rites of passage into the life...An older man [molested me]...People said, 'You must have consented to it'...If it comes out that he's guilty [Bishop Long]...So many other men are guilty..."

"Bishop Long, before he sexualized them, made them financially dependent on him... and, when they refused him, withdrew financial support from them and their families...He targeted them...As a prerequisite to admission [to his academy] he had the boys fill out a psychological profile...He isolated them...One boy said, He made me a slave...What he was doing was not same gender loving...It wasn't loving at all...It wasn't a rite of passage...It was pedophilia...It was slavery..."

Raymond Chase
(19 Year Old SGL Brutha Commits Suicide
On Wednesday, September 29th, 2010)

"Why is a rite of passage always looked on as something positive?...It's not...It wasn't for me...Along with pedophilia and abuse, there are also moral crimes...He has stood up and preached hate to thousands of people...This behavior drives people into the closet...and to suicide...Raymond Chase and two other teens this week alone...And we talk about the [burgeoning HIV] sero-conversion rates among Black teenagers..."

{Facilitator says: We tend to think of rites of passage as positive events because we know that part of what ails us as Africans in America is having had those cultural processes stripped of us...But some rites of passage are traumas...Have you ever heard of a trial by fire?"}

"I was about nineteen or twenty...and he was in his early forties... and he took an interest in me, and was nice to me...He was married...He had had a [commitment] ceremony with another boy...[while he was married]...and he'd fallen out of interest with the other boy...[At one point] his wife approached me and said she'd heard a lot about me...She told me that his relationship with me was inappropriate...I had had an intimate [sexual] relationship with my father...I thought it was consensual, because he hadn't raped me ...[I was fifteen]...But there's still manipulation going on... I thought I was in control...I'm almost twenty-eight now, and it's taken me all this time to see how wrong [what he did to me was...]"

{Facilitator says: "Thank you for sharing that...That took a lot of courage...The fact is, people would be surprised at how much a part of many of our narratives premature sexualizing by molestation is...And that is the point of our taking up this issue...It is our responsibility to voice the traumas that have injured us...[In order] to stop people's conflating homosexuality, which involves biological wiring, with pedophilia, which is a psychological disorder..."}



If potential pedophiles can be protected, how do open homosexuals qualify for the Black Church protection program?
"I've worked in middle schools where the children were the most sexualized group I have ever seen...They were having sex parties because they'd been sexualized...Adults preyed upon the students...We don't know how to value our sexuality [because our sexuality isn't valued] so we don't know how to call it rape...[As a teacher] I have a lot of power in that [class]room...It takes a lot to maintain a moral center...not to lose control in that room...This is the price of power...They [teachers and preachers] are going to follow their will, whether it is dark or light...It erodes Black men's mentoring [of] young Black men...We keep demonizing homosexuals..."

{Facilitator says: {["We keep demonizing homosexuals] Because, in the shame we've internalized about our sexuality, we don't talk with the community about the continuum of sexuality...about sexual diversity, let alone [about] sexual pathologies...So, many in the community tend to conflate pedophilia with homosexuality..."}

"My sisters would say [to my nephews] 'Don't let nobody touch you,' but they still want you to be surrogate fathers to their kids...Sexuality hasn't always been a common [theme] in America['s discourse]...Pedophiles become who they are for a reason...Nothing happens without a reason..."

"I've always been attracted to younger, effeminate men...When I was in my forties, I sought men in their twenties...At the church just recently, I put up two young men in an apartment...I made a pact [with myself] that I would always contribute to their moral and personal growth...That's why this thing with Bishop Long is so offensive to me...There's love here, respect here, growth here...As I've gotten older the [age] line [of my consorts] has gotten higher..."

"As a[n honorable] Black man, you can't get involved with young hustlers [because having been sexualized] is the very thing that hurt them..."

What makes Bishop Long's 'flock' so intent upon his innocence?
"The African American church is a very complex institution because, not only is it a cultural institution, also, people are linked with it...When you've been taught [the bible]...had it pounded into your head...you believe it...It becomes a part of your fabric...[So, when someone comes and challenges the authority of those who've done the indoctrination] It makes you question your faith...People don't like to have their core shaken..."

"[It's because of] Cognitive dissonance...The ability to ignore the pink elephant in the room...To teach a Black child...Showing them pictures of a White Jesus...For a Bishop to stand up in the pulpit talking against homosexuality [while practicing homosexuality in private involves a psychological disconnect...]"

"Religious privilege [is] an extension of White privilege...Double standards...The ability to be ignorant and depend on other people to bring us along...Some of it is just the ignorance that goes along with religious privilege...'We don't have to know the difference [cause we got God]'...The church [rails against homosexuality but] doesn't even touch pedophilia...Have we had bad religion?...Yes..."

"There is a double standard...I don't have to think [about the possibility of his guilt]...Like O.J. Simpson...Black people couldn't [do that, they think]...Denial..."

{Facilitator reads a definition of Denial: "'Denial is an unconscious coping mechanism that gives you time to adjust to distressing situations...But when you stay in denial, it can interfere with tackling life challenges...Denial is a common type of defense mechanism that occurs in reaction to a trauma or perceived threat...'"}

"We got away from our moral compass because we have a hidden sexuality around which we don't have to account for how we have sex...They're easy to mock, those thirty-thousand congregants, about their denial...I can trick anything below the age of twenty-five because I have that power of the privilege of my education...He groomed them because of a lack of fathers..."

"It's dangerous to paint [Long's] congregation with the [broad] brush stroke of denial...Among those thirty-thousand congregants...They are thinking, he [Long] is going to come up against attack...'We expect our father to be tested'...'There is a God, and God will not be mocked'...It's not just that church, it's [all churches]..."

{Facilitator says: "You are right about broad brush strokes...Denial is not all that's going on...There's a historical basis for what's happening here...} "What is it?" {Facilitator says: "It has to do with repressive Victorian sexual values, which America has only begun challenging since the sexual revolution of the sixties...But, the Victorian era, lest we forget, was when enslaved Africans were liberated...[And] While we achieved physical freedom, we're still playing psychological catch-up along several lines...including [around] sexual abuses that were regularly visited upon enslaved African men and boys when we didn't own our bodies...They used us as sexual objects of abuse and of pleasure, just as they did our women...And denial is a coping mechanism that we've engaged for far too long about that stuff...which is why we have to intervene now..."}

"Hebophilia...[Is] An adult's sexual predilection for teen-agers, as opposed to small children...[and is what may have happened with Bishop Long]...I work with youthful sexual offenders...There was one young man who [was a hebophobe, and, in working with him] because space was provided for him to acknowledge and become comfortable with his [homo]sexuality, he was able to find an age-appropriate same gender loving relationship and acknowledge that he had been wrong [in sexualizing young males]...and develop a moral compass..."



What, if any, is our stake, role and/or responsibility as same gender loving, freedom fighting Gatekeepers in this issue?
"Bishop Long's church is part of a movement called, 'Muscular Christianity' in which there are large numbers of down low men...As opposed to T. D. Jakes' church, which is considered 'Soft Christianity'...I attended one of the muscular churches in Georgia where the pastor was known to be a DL homosexual, and [at one point] the pastor looked at me and said before the congregation, 'It's good to see you...But, I don't want you to mess with any of my Sissies!'...And everybody laughed...I said, 'No, I didn't come here to mess with you'...And that shut him up...We need to walk up in there and sit down in that church and challenge Bishop Eddie Long..." [A group consensus forms around the notion.]

"There's a BMX chapter in Atlanta..."

"Especially on the heels of Raymond Chase killing himself [this week]...How many other youths are out there..."

"There is an open and affirming church [in Atlanta]...We can craft a statement from BMX to Eddie Long..."

"We can invite Bishop Eddie Long to come and pray with us..."

{Facilitator says: "Great... Our focus isn't reactionary...We can do a press release, alerting the community that we are coming to help the community heal in the face of this trauma... ..."}

Raymond Chase (A Gatekeeper)
SUNRISE: 1991 To SUNSET: September 29th, 2010

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• Bishop Long scandal silver lining: Abused black men won't stay silent (thegrio.com)

BMXNY FALL 2010 CALENDAR

9-24

The ‘N-WORD’ REDUX

10-1

BUILDING A SAME GENDER LOVING LIBERATION MOVEMENT: Dialogue w/ SGL Sisters

10-8

MAKING ROOM FOR RETURNING BROTHERS: A Dialogue w/ Formerly Incarcerated SGL Brothers

10-15

GENDER ROLE CONFUSION: The Adoption of Hetero-normative Gender Roles in SGL relationships

10-22

LOVE’S CONTRADICTIONS

10-29

FEARS: Facing them, Conquering Them

11-5

CRIPS & BLOODS: MADE IN AMERICA: Documentary Screening

11-12

CONJURING AN SGL LEXICON: How Will We Define Ourselves?

11-19

SGL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: If I Were to Start A Business, What Would it Be?

12-3

RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGE

12-10

YOUTH SPEAK Pt. II: SGL Youth Concert

12-17

JUDGEMENT CALL: Are We Overly Critical of Ourselves & Each Other?

12-26

KWANZAA

12-31

BLUE LITES BASEMENT NEW YEARS EVE PARTY