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When & Where Is
Our Space?
Location:730 Riverside Drive (@150th Street)*
Suite 9E Harlem, New York 10031
212-283-0219
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*PLEASE NOTE:
THE DOOR ENTRANCE IS
LOCATED ON 150th STREET.
Ages 18 and up.
Time:
8:00 PM - 11:00 PM (Every Friday night, except for our hiatus month in August)
Directions:
Take the #1 Train to 145th Street or the M4, M5, M101 or M100 to 149th Street & BroadwayGOOGLE MAP
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Contact Us
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Black Men's Xchange-NY
730 Riverside Drive
Suite 9E
Harlem, New York 10031
Email:
blackmensxchangeny@gmail.com
Phone: 212-283-0219
Official BMX-NY Website:
BMXNY.org
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Africentric Affirmation
Community Links
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Want To Browse Our Archive
And Read Any Previous
e-Newsletter Issues?
Click The
"Bawabu" AFRICAN SGL SYMBOL Above To See The
BMX-NY Gatekeepers
e-Newsletter Archive Homepage |
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Greetings Brothers!
Welcome To The Black Men's Xchange-New York (BMX-NY) Gatekeepers e-Newsletter. This e-newsletter is for the gathering on Friday, September 24th, 2010.
"Bawabu" African SGL Symbol
Brothers, please if you would take the time and tell us about your experience at a BMX-NY meeting. This is a confidential Survey with no names required. We appreciate your time and comments as we continue to try and make your experience at BMX-NY one of true community.
Click Here: Black Men's Xchange-NY Participant Survey
BROTHERS! Although not required, BRINGING A POTLUCK DISH AND/OR BEVERAGE of your choosing would be a generous offering for the repast after the group discussion! Your offering defrays a cost to the organization. Also, end of gathering DONATIONS are also greatly appreciated, too. THANK YOU!
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Topic For This Friday, September 24th, 2010
The "N" Word Redux
Rapper Nas From A Previous Grammy Awards Show
What does Nigga' mean?
Can we really 'take back the power' from the word by adding an 'a'?
How, if at all, might using Nigga' factor into our identity as men?
Might there be a connection between Nigga' and faggot? If so, what is it?
How does Nigga' benefit us?
If there is really no harm in it, then why is a white man's uttering it taboo, or offensive?
How is it we are the only people who
use an epithet coined to dehumanize us as a "term of endearment?"
Should we spark an initiative to
curtail the use of the word in our community? If so, how?
 Hip-Hop's Influence of the "N" Word In
Lilongwe, Malawi (Africa)
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Friday Forum Recap
The OTHER MAN:
How Does Dating or Sexing Married Men
Affect the Community?
(Topic Hi-lites From Friday, September 17th, 2010)
During the most recent Black Men's Xchange-New York dialogue, same gender loving Brothers considered being The OTHER MAN: How Does Dating or Sexing Married Men Affect the Community?
Among issues explored included:
Do we share men with women in the community?
Yes. [But] on a conditional basis...Whether married or single, if you put yourself out there...[then all bets are off...]"
"For most of my life I was very willing to share men with women in the community, but, since I started coming here, I [started to] think, if I'm going to call myself a same gender loving man, I feel I have a responsibility to the community...So, no, I no longer share men...that's new to me..."
"At one time I thought I would be open to an open relationship, but [then] it got to feel too dangerous in terms of the potential for diseases and..."
Are married men off limits?
"I once had a thing with a married man...It was just awkward...I said I would never do this again..."
"I was in the Nickel Bar and took up a conversation with this guy, who, once he told me he was married, I stopped talking to him. The next time I was there, the same man asked if he could buy me a drink, and I took up with him for about seven years...[Towards the end] he invited me up to his apartment...His wife was out...and another man came in, and he started ignoring me [and focusing on the other man]... and that was it...I never saw him any more after that..."
"For a long time I used to ask men if they were married [before agreeing to hook up]...most of the time it was just a one-night-stand...no emotional connection...but I stopped asking...Some men are locked in marriages because of societal pressures...So, in a way, I'm providing a community service..."[Laughter]
"About monogamy...I think it's a lot to expect one person to fulfill all my needs...I'm going into a relationship with one person now because I need to start caring about the person I have sex with...If a man's going to f_ _k outside of his marriage, he's going to f_ _k...For a long time I stopped seeing married men because I didn't want somebody [like his wife] showing up knocking on my door...I've had a little network, three different guys [to take care of] three different needs...Maybe because I'm getting older I'm giving in to what society dictates..."
Under what circumstances might you rendezvous with a married man?
"If I had a friendship with someone married, and after a while he started coming on to me, I don't think it's such a big deal...if he's respectful to me and he's respectful to his wife...and I'm not seeking him out...I want somebody who wants me..."
{Facilitator asks: "But, if he's breaching his marriage compact, how is he being respectful to his wife?"}
Would it make a difference to you if you discovered your man was also having sex with a woman?
"I've been in a relationship where my partner slept with someone else...and I was hurt... but then I realized, I don't possess someone else's body...I believe in polyamory...But monogamy involves a complete shutdown... Integrity means, what would we do when nobody is looking...[So,] I don't share [people's mates] unless everybody's sharing...I was in a relationship with a man who [came to me from] a relationship with a woman...then he left me, and went back to the woman...I felt she had a greater power because she could give him children...So, she would always be choice 'A,' and I would always be choice 'B'..."
"I've forgiven people for cheating on me...because monogamy is unnatural...I've had married men come to me because these women...they don't suck their man's dick...they don't suck his nipples...poor fellas...They do that stuff to get him, but then they don't maintain..." [Laughter]
"I don't believe in monogamy...It's not uncommon for African men to have several wives...I ask myself, what is family to me?...Someone who I call a friend with whom I have sex...It is understood that you're going to have sex with other people...Marriage is another thing I don't believe in...The men have girlfriends [on the side]...Do we want to promote monogamy?...How can we be more open and honest about our sexual expression?...I was watching a television show with the female psychologist who has taken the place of the woman who was the popular sex therapist [Dr. Ruth]...and a woman called in and said, "My husband likes to get f_ _ _ed...Does that make him a homosexual?'...The psychologist said, 'No'...."
{Facilitator says: "Where you cite Africans having several wives, you're talking about polygamy...that's a social contract where everyone is clear and consenting about what's going on...You don't believe in monogamy, but if the man you're having a tryst or an affair with is married, he does believe in monogamy, or at least he has professed to believe in it when he stood before his community and vowed to be monogamous...Do you bear any responsibility to the community for participating in the breaching of his commitment?"}
"Also, a few years ago when the incidence of HIV among Black women began skyrocketing, and they came up with 'the down low,' we got demonized for it...and that's not fair ..."
"I found myself at a man's house with a man who's [live-in] boyfriend was at work...I have had sex with men who've had boyfriends...Aside from the whole karmic effect...It's not the kind of footprint I want to put out there...When someone enters into a social contract...When I've participated in breaking [that] social contract, I've felt seedy...like all the stereotypes about homosexuals were true...that, I was perverse, deviant...low...I don't like being secret..."
"Might we be more calloused towards married people because we're not permitted the respect of the [social] contract?...There is a negation of my manhood...my humanity...[in the denial of the right to marry]...that makes us resent the plan [the social compact]...[Perhaps] the best way for me to get back at them is by undermining the plan..."
If you date a married man, what do you, and don't you get out of it?
"Property rights...Bragging rights..."
"Good dick, and good ass..."
"The worst thing was having a man say during sex, 'I love my wife...I love my children'..."
"How can I mentor and be an example to young Black men if I'm crossing lines?...Black manhood is so precious, and so expensive, I feel like I can't [squander it]...If we cross that line, then Willie Lynch has won...If your orgasm is more important than the community, then something is [out of balance]..."
{Facilitator says: [Someone] asked an excellent question earlier, and I think the crux of the matter may lie in everyone's attempting to answer it...How can we create a context within which it's safe for everyone to express all our sexual desires?}
"[By] not being judgmental..."
"By getting to know people...[By] permitting people to be themselves...seeing [them] beyond the [societal expectations]..."
"We have to start with us...Being honest [about our own sexual desires]..."
"If it was more socially unacceptable for people to step outside of their relationships...Like, you have a credit card, and [stepping outside of your relationship] invalidates the card...You have to use another method of payment [to purchase the goods]..."
"There's managing the universe...That's God's job...All I can manage is myself...If I am truthful about my sexuality [I'll be doing my part]..."
"In terms of being the enabler, I don't want to participate, because I'm interfering with your contract..."
"Another way to be Gatekeepers in the community is to be there for our sisters when they have questions...Be honest with them...because they've been indoctrinated too..."
{Facilitator says: Then, it would seem we've arrived at a consensus that, the best way to make it safe for everyone to be free to express our desires is by mustering the courage to acknowledge our own desires [in the community]..."}
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Community Announcements
16th Commemoration of
THE MAAFA
Featuring The MAAFA Suite... A Healing Journey
September 13th - 25th, 2010
ST. PAUL COMMUNITY BAPTIST CHURCH859 Hendrix Street(Between Linden Blvd & Stanley Avenue)Brooklyn, New York 11207GOOGLE MAPRev. David K. Brawley, Senior Pastor Rev.Dr. Johnny Ray Youngblood, MAAFA FounderKim D. Jones, Administrative CoordinatorYvonne L. Hildmon, Fiscal CoordinatorThe MAAFA Suite...A Healing JourneyDirected by Michele Hawkins-JonesPerformances:September 20th, 23rd and 24th at 7:00 P.M.Ticket Prices
Orchestra Sanctuary Seating: $50.00
Mezzanine Sanctuary Seating: $30.00
TRAIN TRAVEL:
#3 Train To Van Siclen Avenue
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SGL Black Heroes
The Legacy of George Washington Carver
 From inauspicious and dramatic beginnings, George Washington Carver became one of the nation's greatest educators and agricultural researchers. He was born in about 1864 (the exact year is unknown) on the Moses Carver plantation in Diamond Grove, Mo. His father died in an accident shortly before his birth, and when he was still an infant, Carver and his mother were kidnapped by slave raiders. The baby was returned to the plantation, but his mother was never heard from again.Carver grew to be a student of life and a scholar, despite the illness and frailty of his early childhood. Because he was not strong enough to work in the fields, he helped with household chores and gardening. Probably as a result of these duties and because of the hours he would spend exploring the woods around his home, he developed a keen interest in plants at an early age. He gathered and cared for a wide variety of flora from the land near his home and became known as the "plant doctor," helping neighbors and friends with ailing plants. He learned to read, write and spell at home because there were no schools for African Americans in Diamond Grove.
From age 10, his thirst for knowledge and desire for formal education led him to several communities in Missouri and Kansas and finally, in 1890, to Indianola, Iowa, were he enrolled at Simpson College to study piano and painting.He excelled in art and music, but art instructor Etta Budd, whose father was head of the Iowa State College Department of Horticulture, recognized Carver's horticultural talents. She convinced him to pursue a more pragmatic career in scientific agriculture and, in 1891, he became the first African American to enroll at Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, which today is Iowa State University.Through quiet determination and perseverance, Carver soon became involved in all facets of campus life. He was a leader in the YMCA and the debate club. He worked in the dining rooms and as a trainer for the athletic teams. He was captain, the highest student rank, of the campus military regiment. His poetry was published in the student newspaper and two of his paintings were exhibited at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago.Carver's interests in music and art remained strong, but it was his excellence in botany and horticulture that prompted professors Joseph Budd and Louis Pammel to encourage him to stay on as a graduate student after he completed his bachelor's degree in 1894.
 Because of his proficiency in plant breeding, Carver was appointed to the faculty, becoming Iowa State's first African American faculty member.Over the next two years, as assistant botanist for the College Experiment Station, Carver quickly developed scientific skills in plant pathology and mycology, the branch of botany that deals with fungi. He published several articles on his work and gained national respect. In 1896, he completed his master's degree and was invited by Booker T. Washington to join the faculty of Alabama's Tuskegee Institute. At Tuskegee, he gained an international reputation in research, teaching and outreach. Carver taught his students that nature is the greatest teacher and that by understanding the forces in nature, one can understand the dynamics of agriculture. He instilled in them the attitude of gentleness and taught that education should be "made common" --used for betterment of the people in the community. Carver's work resulted in the creation of 325 products from peanuts, more than 100 products from sweet potatoes and hundreds more from a dozen other plants native to the South. These products contributed to rural economic improvement by offering alternative crops to cotton that were beneficial for the farmers and for the land. During this time, Carver also carried the Iowa State extension concept to the South and created "movable schools," bringing practical agricultural knowledge to farmers, thereby promoting health, sound nutrition and self-sufficiency. Dennis Keeney, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, writes in the Leopold Letter newsletter about Carver's contributions:
Carver worked on improving soils, growing crops with low inputs, and using species that fixed nitrogen (hence, the work on the cowpea and the peanut). Carver wrote in The Need of Scientific Agriculture in the South: "The virgin fertility of our soils and the vast amount of unskilled labor have been more of a curse than a blessing to agriculture. This exhaustive system for cultivation, the destruction of forest, the rapid and almost constant decomposition of organic matter, have made our agricultural problem one requiring more brains than of the North, East or West."
Carver died in 1943. He received many honors in his lifetime and after, including a 1938 feature film, Life of George Washington Carver; the George Washington Carver Museum, dedicated at Tuskegee Institute in 1941; the Roosevelt Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Southern Agriculture in 1939; a national monument in Diamond Grove, Mo.; commemorative postage stamps in 1947 and 1998; and a fifty-cent coin in 1951. He was elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in 1977 and inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1990. In 1994, Iowa State awarded him the degree, Doctor of Humane Letters. In recent years, Dr. Carver has also been recognized by being named to the USDA Hall of Heroes (2000) and one of 100 nominees for the "The Greatest American," series on the Discovery Channel.
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BMX- NY's Mission Statement
 THE BLACK MEN'S XCHANGE - NEW YORK (BMX-NY) was founded in Harlem in 2002 as an instrument of healing and empowerment for same gender loving (SGL) and bisexual African descended men. We create an environment that advances cultural affirmation, promotes critical thinking, and embraces diversity. Affirming ourselves as African descended people is strengthening. The focus on critical thinking involves identifying and unlearning ingrained anti-black and anti-homosexual conditioning. We recognize and celebrate same gender loving men as diverse in sexuality, class, culture and philosophy.
BMX-NY is built on a philosophy that embraces same gender loving experience as an intrinsic facet of everyday Black life. Integral to BMXNY's approach is the understanding that, in order to decrease internal and external homo-reactionary thinking and demystify differences around diverse ways of living, loving and being, same gender loving, bisexual and transgendered Black people must engage in supportive dialogue with each other and the community.
The Black Men's Xchange-New York And Our Allies At The
Millions More Movement (MMM) In Washington, DC
(October 15th, 2005)
We believe that self-determination is crucial in achieving success toward healing and empowerment. We understand that our cultural and experiential uniqueness requires a uniquely focused and precise approach. Affirming strategies born out of our own experience is powerful; hence, the adoption of the terms, Black, African American and Same Gender Loving.
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About BMX- NY...
THE BLACK MEN'S XCHANGE - NEW YORK
is a gathering for same gender loving (SGL) and bisexual Black men to powerfully and respectfully address issues that impact their lives, and to connect with one another in a positive, affirming, nurturing and transformational environment. Ages 18 and up.
The Term Same Gender Loving
The term Same Gender Loving (SGL) emerged in the early '90s to offer Black women who love women and Black men who love men (and other people of color) a way of identifying that resonated with the uniqueness of Black life and culture. Before this many African descended people, knowing little of our history regarding homosexuality and bi-sexuality, took on European symbols and identifications as a means of embracing our sexualities, including: Greek lambdas, German pink triangles, and the white-gay-originated rainbow flag, in addition to the terms gay, and lesbian.
The term gay, coined as an identification by White male homosexuals in the '50s, was cultivated in an exclusive White male environment. By the '60s, the growing Gay Liberation movement developed in a climate largely excluding Blacks and women. In response to this discrimination, White women coined the identification lesbian, a word derived from the Greek island, Lesbos. The Lesbian movement, in turn, helped define a majority White movement, called feminism. In response to the racism experienced by women of color from White feminists, celebrated author, Alice Walker introduced the term womanist.
The term womanist identified women of color concerned with both the sexual and racial oppression of women. In this spirit of self-naming and ethnic-sexual pride, the term same gender loving(SGL) was introduced to enhance the lives and amplify the voices of homosexual and bi-sexual people of color, to provide a powerful identification not marginalized by racism in the gay community or by "homophobic" attitudes in society at large.
As gay culture grew and established enclaves in San Francisco, Chelsea, Provincetown, Key West and other territories, Blacks especially, were carded and rejected from many establishments. Even today Blacks, Latinos and Asians often appear in gay publications and other media solely as potential sexual objects. Ironically, gay rights activism was modeled on the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements initiated by African Americans.
In the years since the advent of the Gay Rights movement many Black SGLs have found scant space for the voices, experiences and empowerment of Black people. Additionally, the rigid influence of the Black church's traditionally anti-homosexual stance has contributed to attitudes that repress and stigmatize Black SGLs. The lack of acknowledgment and support in the Black community has shunted multitudes of same gender loving African descended people to the White community to endure racism, isolation from their own communities, and cultural insensitivity.
The high visibility of the white gay community along with the absence of illumination on same gender loving experience contributes to the tendency in Black communities to overlook and ridicule same gender loving relationships as alien or aberrant. The SGL movement has inspired national dialogue on diverse ways of loving in the Black community. The term same gender loving explicitly acknowledges loving within same-sex relationships, while encouraging self-love.
The designation, same gender loving has served as a wake up call for Blacks to acknowledge diverse ways of loving and being, and has provided an opportunity for Blacks and other people of color to claim, nurture and honor their significance within their families and communities.
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