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...