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

Donnie Mclurkin lies at the COGIC Convocation

Donnie Mclurkin thinks he can cure SGL Youth

Watch Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hcRHrTpYh8

Watch Parrt 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3PWB4aDSHU

Watch Part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY_tIkP2BIs

Commentary by John Martin Green

Poor Donnie. Having read a couple of chapters in his book at a Barnes & Nobles year before last, I think it was, I kind of wondered why any would feel it important to respond to something Donnie McClurkin had said about homosexuality. While he does speak to a sizeable congregation, bless his heart, in case you didn't notice, Donnie seems rather deeply disturbed.

It struck me, when I read the fairly flimsily penned episodes, that brother would do well by some intensive therapy. He was traumatized by his rape as a child, and traumatized again by a theology and a culture that damns difference - the very difference which he embodies, no less.

Interesting was his quoting a passage of scripture which tells the reader that he must fear God. That is so bassackwards as to be laughable, were it not so widely held and propagated. In fact, God and fear do not coexist simultaneously. One cancels the other out. Which is why, when even an atheist is petrified, that is, fears for his life, he is apt to pray.

But, Donnie isn't the problem. Theological doctrine which condemns difference is. Be it Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc., et. al. Any theology which constricts or constrains, let alone rebukes or curses people's natural inclinations is a perversion of spirit.

A play within a play within a ritual...

BMX-NY Present a reading of a new play, "A Communion with Kings" by BMXNY member, Dyron Holmes.

About BMX-NY

What Is Same Gender Loving (SGL)?

Fundraiser: BMX-NY T-Shirts

For: Friday, October 23rd, 2009 @ 8 P.M.

The Black Men's Xchange, New York  Present a reading of a new play, "A Communion with Kings" by BMXNY member, Dyron Holmes.   A COMMUNION WITH KINGS is a play within a play within a ritual.  The central figure in this piece is HECATOMB, a word that holds the meaning of "a great sacrifice."  HECATOMB is a living soul who is pure and has never been touched intimately by either a man or a woman.  He is an employee at a box office where a performance of a dance concert entitled, "Kings" is being performed.  The Kings in the play are, BLOOD, GOLD and EARTH.  The play asks the question:   In the complex village of  same gender loving brothers, can divine love be found in the dark and light rituals of sex, identity and "dis-ease?"   HECATOMB How do I protect the part of myself that remains innocent while seeking an intimate partnership that will affirm that part of me?   EARTH Am I still worthy of respect, honor and beauty even after I have been tainted by less than holy sexual experiences?   GOLD Why do I need to give a f*ck about the brothers that I have sex with if none of them seem to give a f*ck about me?   BLOOD Can my sexual manipulation of other men be a good thing?   DYRON HOLMES (Playwright) is a writer, actor and spiritualist. His first play, Brothers of Time, was a winner of the National Young Playwrights Festival.  His plays have been presented at Playwrights Horizons, HERE Theater, Lark Theater, Genesius Guild , New York University, Baltimore Theater Project w/ Brave Soul Collective, The New School, Duke Ellington and Off-Stage Bookstore Theater in London . Acting Stage credits include performances at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Kennedy Center , Syracuse Stage, Joe's Pub/Public Theater, Crossroads Theater, St. George's Theater in London and the Al-Bustan International Arts Festival in Beirut , Lebanon .  Television/Film credits include: Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Job, NY Undercover, The Hurricane and the upcoming film, Order of Redemption.  He is a graduate of Duke Ellington School of the Arts and New York University 's Tisch School of the Arts.  He is the founder of The Peoples Monastery and is presently enrolled in One Spirit Interfaith Seminary and will be an ordained minister in June 2010.

JMG Notes: Monogamy vs. Polyamory, or Polyandry: Creating New SGL Paradigms?

Hello Folks. The following post is from John Martin Green. He asked me to post if for him. In the future look for posts from JMG.


At least week’s Black Men’s Xchange-New York we took up the topic,

Monogamy vs. Polyamory, or Polyandry: Creating New SGL Paradigms? 

After defining the terms, polyamory and polyandry, both of which involve relationship practices extending beyond individuals having a single mate, with the consent of all involved, participants shared their perspectives on those relationship models and others they’ve attempted or considered.


Among the most interesting outlooks espoused included the idea that:  

With all of the relationship structures cited (including polygamy), with the exception of polyandry, the central figure is male, such that, operating in a patriarchal society as we are, there is a power dynamic in those configurations that favors the man.  As same gender loving (SGL) men, these might well prove ‘win-win’ situations for us.

Other participants shared that their reasons for attempting or considering relationships extending beyond monogamy include:
Because men, both by nature and nurture, have been socialized to be sexual ‘conquerors,’ in monogamous relationships there is frequently clandestine sexual activity afoot which threatens the monogamy.
Examples along these lines included mentions of real and proverbial church ‘Pastors’ whose spouses, even as they marry, know they are entering tacit polyamorous relationships.


Some of the reasons proposed by participants that alternatives to monogamy might loom as hopeful for SGL folk included:
The anonymity observed in internet sexual hookups, and in more traditional covert sexploits can be spiritually, if not literally, deadly.
With marriage counselors, churches and all the other institutions in society buttressing the maintenance of their monogamous unions, the divorce rate among heterosexuals still hovers upwards of 60%.  SGL people, with little or no institutional support, and more often, negative sanctioning for our mating from those same institutions; and having, like all other men, been socialized to be sexual conquerors, might spare ourselves of “The Myth of Monogamy”* through the creation of our own mating structures.




* “The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People” (Hardcover)
by David P. Barash Ph.D. (Author), Judith Eve Lipton (Author) "Anthropologist Margaret Mead once suggested that monogamy is the hardest of all human marital arrangements..."

A Fond Farewell by Andy M. Saunders

Michael Jackson was a Black man born in America. He was a son, brother, uncle, cousin, nephew, father, recording artist, entertainer, businessman and humanitarian. Much negative press has been published about his life, and certainly he lived his whole life in the public’s eye. However, it is not my place to judge unless I've walked in his shoes. I love Michael’s spirit and I thank my higher power for having been alive at this time.

My first Jackson 5 record, a 45 r.p.m., was “Dancing Machine.” I was 11 or 12 years old in the 5th or 6th grade attending Piney Branch Middle School on Maple Ave., in Takoma Park, MD. My music teacher, Mrs. Davies encouraged a few of my classmates and myself to create a dance to the song. She also insisted that I choreograph the piece, which I did. Life was so limitless at that time. The Jackson 5 and their success said to me that I could be and do whatever I wanted to. I still remember bits and peaces of that dance some 36 years later.

Michael, you've gone much too soon, but the legacy of music you left us will live on and thrive for generations to come. My hope is that, at my own passing on to the ancestors, I have touched just one person’s life in a way that changes them for the better, and that that starts a ripple outward mostly in the Black community where our men need so much support to be and do the great things that people like you have shown us we can do.

I would like to take this time and space to say to Michael Jackson a fond farewell, and to the Jackson Family, including his children that The Black Men's Xchange-New York., (http://www.bmxny.org), send our heartfelt condolences at this time of loss in your life. We are affected greatly by his death as we were, are, and will continue to be, by his work. Rest in peace, Michael Joseph Jackson.

I Loved Michael, But, I Don’t Think he Did by John-Martin Green

We've lost Michael. Michael, the seventies singing prodigy who grew into the most visionary musical performer of our generation. Michael, who scaled untold heights of popular culture, rewriting the record books. Michael, who sang and danced his way into the hearts and souls of men women and children the world over.

I am torn about his departure. It strikes me that he left us a long time ago, actually. His retreat may have begun as long ago as the time of the infamous Pepsi commercial twenty-five years ago at which point he was said to have commenced his addiction to pain killers. Having been alcohol and drug addicted myself, I can attest to the fact that, when one is so afflicted, one is not really present. Perhaps it began a few years before that, with his first plastic surgery.He was clearly a genius - a tortured genius. It frustrates me when I think about the extent to which, brilliant as he was, he seems not to have wanted to be who he was. It vexes and perplexes me that, with unfathomable resources and access to information - including African and African American History, all manner of progressive spiritual restoration models, and the best psychological support services the world has to offer - this uber-gifted man seems never to have opted to heal himself - to deliver himself of the self-hatred by which so many of us are stunted. For even a little of the incalculable psychological support of which he might have availed himself, he may not have had to remain psychologically trapped in boyhood.

While it is likely that the adults with whom he surrounded himself may not have been wont to challenge him to seek out help for fear of being dismissed, I can’t imagine people like Quincy or Stephen or Diana being so cowered. Was there nobody pulling his coat? Nobody at all? If so, that’s a tragedy.
Writers have conjectured about Michael’s changing his appearance so radically so as to remove any traces of his father from his appearance. While he may have harbored some antipathy for his father, I think it’s safe to say he learned his relationship to manhood and to Blackness from his father. His desire to escape the bonds of manhood and Black manhood were so intense that he went to extraordinary lengths to transform his physical self into something else. On a Larry king show one night this week, film director, John Landis told how, in approaching him to direct the Thriller video, Michael told him, 'I want to become a monster.' Before his final departure, he would seem to have come very close to achieving that goal.

Black Gay Pride? by Kweku Nicholas

The latest Black Men’s Xchange-New York dialogue with hetero sisters drew into stark contrast the position of the burgeoning Gay Liberation Movement with the position of Black homosexuals in relationship to our Civil and Human Rights.

When he was asked about the difference between the terms gay and homosexual, facilitator, John-Martin Green explained that, "The term gay was founded on European symbols and iconography to launch a self-determination movement for white male homosexuals. Homosexual, on the other hand, is a clinical term, indicating biological wiring."

"The extraordinary success of the Gay Liberation (self-determination) Movement can be seen in that, a distinction needs to be made in the first place," Green added. "The triumph of the Movement is made clear in the current struggles being waged across the nation for dismantling of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ military policy, for recognition of same sex headed families in the census and, of course, for marriage equality."

"When watching news coverage of the hundreds and in some instances, thousands of protesters demonstrating around these issues," Green said, "with rare exception, we see a sea of White. For our part, homosexual Black men are still playing darting eye games on trains and in other public spaces where we cower in the face of our attraction to each other, for fear that the object of our attraction might reject, or worse yet, revile us publicly."

Green’s point is valid. Most of us don’t feel entitled to our sexuality even at this late date. By and large, Black people still lack a sense of entitlement to the rights and privileges of citizenship, as evidenced by our apathy in the face of countless instances of disrespect dealt to us. Among the few areas where heterosexual brothers may actually feel some entitlement is around their sexuality. To the extent that this is true, it’s ironic, since the sense of sexual agency came from stereotypes of Black men about our so-called sexual prowess.

If we, as Black people need an awareness of our entitlement in order to stand up for our citizenship rights, we Black homosexuals need such a sense of entitlement even more in order to pursue the rights which are still denied us. And these include the right to acknowledge our very existence in our communities.

During the forum, hetero and homosexual participants spoke of our urgent need for authenticity and honesty in all our affairs towards achieving ownership of ourselves, and of forging processes to learn to love ourselves. This last is most important of all. When I love myself, I am most likely to be true to myself, and risk honesty when I express my needs, including my admiration of and attraction to my brothers. The key is in recognizing who that self is. Another index of the success of the gay liberation movement is in the numbers of White gays who feel free to crusade for recognition of their right to love each other.

In fairness, many of us are overwhelmed by financial challenges. Most of us aren’t so well off as to be concerned about the joint property and inheritance rights that come with a marriage contract. We suffer disproportionate morbidities: Black men who have sex with men currently account for half of all HIV/AIDS cases, Black men are disproportionately incarcerated, and we are afraid of being further stigmatized. It’s small wonder that we tend to sit on the sidelines of the struggle for our human rights.

If we are really proud of being gay, that is, if we are empowered by gay as acknowledgement of at least some facet of our personhood, we should be out there like the throngs of protesters at the demonstrations across the country, proudly proclaiming our attraction to and love of each other in our communities. While there are undoubtedly things we share in common with White gays and homosexuals of other backgrounds, in order to achieve our freedom, we have to do what Jews and Japanese and countless other groups have done, and honor our own cultural uniqueness. When an artist, focuses on the specific, he renders the universal. Similarly, an identification of our sexuality that honors our Africanness may provide the pride in our sexuality that will allow us to fight for all the other aspects of our lives.

PREVENTION INTENTIONS by John-Martin Green

Over the past few weeks, I participated as an audience member in two town hall style meetings on HIV in the Black community. The first, at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, and the other at the Gay & Lesbian Center billed as, The State of Gay Black Men. The panel discussion at the first event, was moderated by AIDS Budget Action Coalition Director, Manuel Rivera, and included Dr. Monica Sweeney, Assistant Commissioner of the New York City Health Department's Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control. Panelists spoke of how the incidence of new infections is raging among Black and Latino people and how we must secure a greater share of the one-billion-plus dollars which are being allotted to HIV prevention in New York City each year. We must also hold each other to account, they said, for how those dollars are spent.

The most salient perspective issuing forth from that panel came from Dr. Sweeney in response to a woman who proposed that HIV is being put in condoms to destroy Black people. Dr. Sweeney urged the small grassroots audience peopled by HIV fatigued, stigma-phobic, conspiracy theorists, among others, that, “We think of HIV as if it existed in a vacuum. It doesn’t. The discrimination part, including poor education, poor housing, and job discrimination – all those happened before HIV. If we think of HIV in the context of health disparities; obesity, heart disease, stroke, arthritis; we have all of them, and the conspiracy part was not around HIV, it happened way before [HIV] based on the policies in the US around race issues.”

Oddly, when broaching the subject that 50% of the new HIV infections in NY are among men who have sex with men, Dr. Sweeney said, “However we shouldn’t talk about men who have sex with men, because there are a lot of men who have sex with men who are not HIV+. Another panelist, who identified as a heterosexual HIV+ man about to turn fifty, cited stigma as a challenge in fighting the disease but insisted that we oughtn’t waste time talking about whether men are having sex with men because, “If they’re having sex with anyone, they’re at risk,” he insisted.

I proposed to the crowd that that gentleman was right about stigma being a serious challenge in the fight against HIV but that, “we have to talk about the fact that there are many Black men who love men. We are the most stigmatized people on the planet. Those stigmas include the issues of manhood and sexuality. Sexuality exists on a continuum. We have to create spaces in which to talk about those issues. Not talking about it is killing us. There is also a stigma around the identification, ‘gay,’ which is seen by many Blacks as a White thing. Many Black men who love men will not go to venues where gay identification and HIV are the bywords to receive service. In conceiving culturally competent prevention models, this fact must be taken into account.”

At the Gay & Lesbian Center town hall, the audience expressed frustration over People of Color in Crisis’, and NYS Black Gay Network’s being defunded, and Gay Men of African Descent looking as if it is moving in the same direction in the face of administrative and fiscal underperformance.

I suggested that the crisis facing us extends beyond administrative and fiscal mismanagement. “The problem,” I proposed, “is that the prevention and wellness models being employed to assist Black people are invalid. If we are in earnest about more than just keeping our respective organizations afloat, and really seek to help stem the tide of HIV/AIDS among other morbidities plaguing us, we should convene a think tank to explore alternative culturally competent prevention models, and conduct our efforts on behalf Black people in centers in our own community,”

Here’s to hoping we come together along these lines.