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When & Where Is
Our Space?
Location:
730 Riverside Drive
(@150th Street)*
Suite 9E
Harlem, New York 10031
212-283-0219
GOOGLE MAP
*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
"Bawabisi" 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, November 5th, 2010.
"Bawabisi" 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.
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!
ACHE!
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Topic For This Friday, November 5th , 2010
FEARS: Facing Them, Conquering Them
Fears: Dying, Living, Risking being who we really are, Rejection, Ostracism, Stigma, Not being loveable
What is fear?
What are we afraid of?
What am I afraid of?
Are we afraid to acknowledge and confront racism?
How do we challenge our fear of the stigma around homosexuality?
Are we afraid of being seen as less than men?
Are there any purposeful uses for fear?
What are the benefits of facing and overcoming fears?
Is there an antidote or an opposite to fear?
If there really is strength in numbers, how might we use each other to work through and beyond our fears?
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Friday Forum Recap
(Topic Hi-lites From Friday, October 29 th, 2010)
CRIPS AND BLOODS: Made In America
Friday night The Black Men's Xchange-New York screened Stacy Peralta's powerful documentary film, "Crips & Bloods: Made in America." In the dialogue about the film which followed, participants cited the following perspectives:
["An important insight the film revealed was that] the rationale the gang members reflected for the choices they made was the same as same gender loving men [have experienced in] not being present in the community...there's no option for an acceptable model of manhood... [And] the absence of manhood...""Being spoon-fed hatred daily [by the police and other institutions in the community] resulted in internalized oppression...""The film progressed from things being good in the community, to things being bad in the community... White society had arranged the destruction of the Black community [in such a way] that they no longer had to do it... All of our relationships are arranged so that we will self-destruct... It triggered some new thoughts about where this self-hatred can go...into not seeing any way of being of help to yourself or anyone else...giving up on one's humanity and becoming an animal, as one brother put it...""I was in the service when the Watts riots broke out. Every time I came back from a leave, they thought I was behind it [the rebellions]... The film was so powerful and so accurate..." "Most powerful to me was the idea of choice...and not realizing that you have choice(s)...The absence of equity is what makes theses situations...a sense of hopelessness begins to emerge..."["The film] made me realize how lucky I was when it came to violence and drugs when I was in Rio at 18...I realized that black people didn't steal from each other...There was a code...We came from the same place...We had the same struggle...[Then] a gang came in and stole from everybody...when drugs came in...everything went crazy...[The gang] patterned themselves after Americans...They don't take shit, so we're not going to take shit...""In Morocco the Arabs think that they have power over Blacks...The Blacks are very subservient...The Arabs were afraid of the Jews...The Jews had their own cemeteries, synagogues... everything was intact... I thought, 'What happened to the Black culture?'...We have to go back to the way we used to do it [when we controlled Africa]..."{Facilitator asks: Do you know what happened that caused Blacks to become 'subservient to the Arabs' in Africa?} "You have to remember that the Arabs did conquer and subjugate...When the Arabs infiltrated, they said, 'Submit or die,' and the Arab infiltration weakened West Africa for the European infiltration...""There is something like an action at a distance aspect of racism such that Black people fight amongst each other..."The Willie Lynch Letter And The Making Of A Slave
{Facilitator says: "I think I see what you're getting at, inasmuch as we don't clearly see Whites' involvement in the gang warfare today...The Willie Lynch effect...But, something the film does exceedingly well is contextualize the warfare...showing how we came to be where we are...How, because Black youths were shut out of the Boy Scouts and all other socially sanctioned activity, they formed their own clubs which, with the steady diet of hatred and deprivation became [the ultimate form] of internalized oppression..."}"One of the reasons I avoid gay organizations is because they are gay for gay...There are no gay organizations to end gang violence, or to help disabled people, or help anybody else...Let's form a Black party...""The film made me think of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs...about the need for love..."Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
{Facilitator says: "Yes. The psychologist, Abraham Maslow proposed a theory that all humankind are attempting to fulfill a tiered series of needs...the most basic of which are biological...air, water, food, clothing and shelter, without which we can't survive...the next level up he deemed safety needs, which most adults are only aware of when the proverbial s_ _t hits the fan, like when we smell smoke, or are alone in the house and hear a foreign sound...The next level up are the needs for love, affection and belongingness...That was something the film captured brilliantly...when the young fellow said, I joined not only for the protection, but for the love, unity and family...after those needs are satisfied the individual seeks to fulfill esteem needs...the need for respect of self and respect from one's peers...and the last, or highest level, he suggests is the need for self-actualization...Have you ever done anything that you felt as if you were born to do?...That is the stuff of self actualization..."}"The movie pointed out the systematic killing of our leaders...It seems like we can't protect our leaders...What can we do to protect our leaders?"{Facilitator urges participants to take up the question on the floor...}"Don't let outsiders come in and tell us how to do things..."{Facilitator proposes: "It's a little late for that...four or five hundred years later...While there are a couple of us here who still know our native tongues...Twi, Wolof...most of us don't even think in our native language [let alone remember how we organized our experience]...so, by now, as Cleo puts it, we have the Cato Kalin syndrome...a little white man living on an estate in our minds, rent free, dictating our behavior and our regard for ourselves and each other...What we may need to do along the lines you propose is root him [the White man] out [of our minds]..."}
"What we need is power...Economic, political...start with ourselves...What can I do to improve myself?...my family?...my community?...It has to be[come] endemic...""You strengthen organizations by enhancing roles within organizations...""There is no way to guarantee that a leader will not be killed...You can create movements, so that, when a leader is killed, another takes his place...""Get rid of the negative, defeatist ideas within the community...Intellectualizing defeat...Rather than seeing what Obama is doing wrong, see what he is doing right..."Kwame Nkrumah (Pictured Center)
"The answer is going to be adaptive...the answer is going to be creative...You must increase the capacity of the organization so that the participants within it can become self-actualizing..."
Halie Selassis
 Malcolm X - "Our Freedom Can't Wait"
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Upcoming Topics: BMX- NY 2010 Fall Calendar
(PLEASE NOTE THAT TOPICS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE;
WEEKLY E-NEWSLETTERS WILL REFLECT ANY CHANGES)
Friday, November 12th, 2010CONJURING AN SGL LEXICON: How Will We Define Ourselves? Friday, November 19th, 2010SGL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: If I Were to Start A Business, What Would it Be? Friday, December 3rd, 2010RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGE Friday, December 10th, 2010 YOUTH SPEAK Part II: SGL Youth Concert Friday, December 17th, 2010JUDGEMENT CALL: Are We Overly Critical of Ourselves & Each Other? SUNDAY, December 26th, 2010KWANZAA Celebration Friday, December 31st, 2010 BLUE LITES IN DA BASEMENT NEW YEARS EVE PARTY
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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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About BMX- NY...
THE BLACK MEN'S XCHANGE - NEW YORK (BMX-NY)
was founded in Harlem in 2002 and 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.
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BMX Mission Statement THE BLACK MEN'S XCHANGE (BMX) was founded 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 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.
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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