BMX National Photo Collage Header
Black Men's Xchange-National Special Edition e-Newsletter
~ Tuesday, February 21st, 2012 ~ 

BMX National Logo (transparent)

Have you seen this Huffington Post article yet? (see below)


There's been a lot of press lately and internet activity resulting from Cleo Manago's comments about the GLAAD/Roland Martin debacle.  The article below, written by renown African American lesbian activist, scholar and public theologian Irene Monroe is in the Huffington Post, one of the most popular news sites on the internet. Huffington is strongly considering doing a full article on the work of the Black Men's Xchange.  This would be major exposure for the organization, which politically would be very helpful to our sustainability. We need your help.

Our request is that you read the article, then leave a commentary on how you feel about the article, and tell 10 friend to do the same thing.  This part is essentail. The more comments, the more apt Huffington Post. is to do a BMX full article.

Your comments are needed ASAP.



BMX-National
BMXnational.com

1300 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Suite 190-617
Washington, DC 20004

Phone: 1.888-472-2837
 


Cleo Manago: The Most Dangerous Black Gay Man?

Cleo Manago is despised by some in the LGBTQ community. Descriptors like "homo demagogue," contrarian, separatist, and anti-white are just a few that can be expressed in polite company. But to a nationwide community of same-gender-loving (SGL), bisexual, transgender, and progressive heterosexual African-American men, Manago is the man, seen as a visionary game changer and "social architect" focusing on advocating for and healing a group of men that continues to be maligned and marginalized: brothers.

"Without an understanding of the deep hurt that Black men have around issues of masculinity and their role as a man, you can't hope to eliminate anti-homosexual sentiment in Black men," Manago wrote in his recent article "Getting at the Root of Black 'Homophobic' Speech," in which he castigates GLAAD for demanding that CNN fire Roland Martin for misconstrued homophobic tweets. "There has been no national project to address the psychic damage that White supremacy has done to Black men. But there is always some predominantly White institution waiting, ready to pounce on a Black man for behaving badly."

Unapologetically Afrocentric in his approach in addressing social, mental, and health issues plaguing communities of black men, Manago has created a national study on black men (the Critical Thinking and Cultural Affirmation (CTCA) study) and has built two organizations that, for more than two decades, have had national recognition and have successfully secured millions of dollars in funding: AmASSI Health and Cultural Centers, and Black Men's Xchange (BMX).

Manago's CTCA study is a culturally informed, preventive health strategy that addresses positive mental, sexual, and community health, encouraging self-actualization, cultural empowerment, and responsibility. CTCA has been in practice since 2002.

As the founder and CEO of AmASSI Health and Cultural Centers, Manago was one of the first innovators in the AIDS movement to provide HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention services utilizing a psychosocial, mental health model that was culturally specific to the African-American identity. AmASSI has been in practice since 1989.

Manago is the national organizer and founder of Black Men's Xchange, the oldest and largest community-based movement devoted to promoting healthy self-concept and behavior, cultural affirmation, and critical consciousness among SGL, bisexual, and transgender males and their allies, with chapters in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento, Orange County, Detroit, Denver, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Black Men's Xchange has been funded by the Center for Disease Control's Act Against AIDS Leadership Initiative program. And the CDC positions BMX alongside other legacy community black organization such as the NAACP, the Urban League, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, and American Urban Radio Networks. BMX has been in practice since 1989.

A native of south-central Los Angeles, Manago began a vocation in social services at the age of 16. While many would call him a social activist, he does not like the term "activist" applied to him, because he considers black LGBTQ activism tethered to mainstream white privilege, ideology, and single-focused gay organizations, which he views as culturally dissonant and too limited in scope to be meaningful and beneficial to African-American LGBTQ communities and the larger black community.

To many in Manago's community and beyond, he's an unsung hero greatly misunderstood and intentionally marginalized by LGBTQ power brokers. Manago would contest that one factor contributing to his marginalization was the debacle between him and Keith Boykin during the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March. In commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March, the Nation of Islam (NOI) decidedly chose one LGBTQ organization over another, and that decision highlights much of the political, class, and ideological differences in the African-American LGBTQ community at large. Keith Boykin, the founder and then-president of the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), an African-American LGBTQ civil rights organization of which I was then a board member, was dropped from the event, but Cleo Manago was not. Both men had much to bring to the 2005 Millions More March, but Manago mirrored the fundamental sentiment of Farrakhan's theology -- a conscious separation from the dominant, white heterosexual and queer cultures -- and he'd spoken at the historic 1995 Million Man March. In an open letter Manago emailed around in 2005:

BMX knows the Nation of Islam (NOI). It's an independent black organization not funded by the HRC or any white folks. The NOI does not, nor does it have to succumb to White gay press laden, black homosexual coercives who want to ram a white constructed gay-identity political agenda -- that even most Black homosexuals reject -- down their throats. Over the years, several members of the Nation of Islam have been to BMX. As some of you may know, almost 10 years ago BMX co-sponsored a very successful transformative debate on Homosexuality in the Black community with the Nation in L.A.

As a queer separatist organization, many LGBTQ African Americans applaud BMX for being unabashedly queer and unapologetically black. But the terms "queer" and "gay" are not descriptors Manago and his organization would use to depict themselves. That would be "same-gender-loving," because terms like "gay" and "queer" uphold a white queer hegemony that Manago and many in the African-American LGBTQ community denounce. As a matter of fact, he takes credit for having coined the terms "men who have sex with men" (MSM) and "same-gender-loving" (SGL).

To some in the LGBTQ community, Manago is a dangerous demagogue. But to tens of thousands African-American brothers and generous funders, he's seen as a brother driven with a dream. And he's perhaps dangerous because he's effecting change.


About Irene Monroe...

Irene Monroe
A native of Brooklyn, I am a graduate from Wellesley College and Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University, and served as a pastor at an African-American church before coming to Harvard Divinity School for my doctorate as Ford Fellow. I write The Religion Thang, for In Newsweekly, now called New England Blade, the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender newspaper in the New England, Faith Matters for The Advocate Magazine, The Bilerico Project, Black Commentator, and Queer Take, for The Witness, a progressive Episcopalian journal, and Black Commentator.


As a nationally renown African American lesbian activist, scholar and public theologian my writings have appeared in the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, the Bay State Banner, Cambridge Chronicle, and Metro News. My award-winning essay, "Louis Farrakhan's Ministry of Misogyny and Homophobia", was greeted with critical acclaim. I have also been profiled in O, Oprah Magazine, and recently CNNs Paula Zahn Now, and "CNN Headline News."

I was profiled in the Gay Pride Episode of "In the Life TV" were the segment on me was nominated for an educational Emmy. I have received the Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching while being the head teaching fellow of the Rev. Peter Gomes, the Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church at Harvard who is the author of the best seller, The Good Book. I am in the film, For The Bible Tells Me So, an exploration of the intersection between religion and homosexuality in the U.S. and how the religious right has used its interpretation of the Bible to stigmatize the gay community, and am profiled in CRISIS: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social, and Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing up Gay in America that was just released in September 2008.

My website is www.irenemonroe.com


B
MX Mission Statement 


BMX Logo (Black)

THE BLACK MEN'S XCHANGE (BMX) was founded in 1989 by activi  s t, writer and behavioral health expert Cleo Manago, as an instrument of healing and empowerment for same gender loving (SGL) and bisexual African descended men. The mission of the Black Men's Xchange (BMX) is to affirm, heal, educate, unify and promote well-being and critical thinking among Black people - 18 and up - diverse in sex uality, class, culture and philosophy.  Black Men's Xchange (BMX) conducts activities that promote healthy self-concept, sexual health, constructive decision making, and cultural affirmation among same-gender-loving (SGL), bisexual and heterosexual Black populations. BMX affirms and educates Black men (and the community at-large) while providing tools for self-determination, community responsibility, self-actualization and the prevention of health threats (e.g. HIV, isolation, substance and other addictions, and mental instability). BMX creates an environment that advances Black culture and involves identifying and unlearning ingrained anti-homosexual and anti-black male and female conditioning.

  

BMX is built on a philosophy that embraces same gender loving experience as intrinsic to everyday Black life.  Integral to BMX's approach is the understanding that, in order to decrease internal and external anti-homosexual thinking, and demystify differences around diverse ways of living and loving Black people must engage in supportive dialogue with each other and the community.

 

At BMX 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 (SGL).

 

The Term Same Gender Loving (SGL)... 

 

READ MORE...  

 

   

BMX-NY MMM Photos 11
 
The Black Men's Xchange-New York And Our Allies
At The
 Millions More Movement (MMM) In Washington, DC
(
October 15th, 2005)



The Bawabisi SGL Symbol

Bawabisi SGL Symbol (Partial Transparency)

The SGL symbol, the Bawabisi, is inspired by Nigerian Nsibidi script and West African Adrinkra symbols. The two facing semi-circles represent unity and love. The figure has been split symmetrically in half to suggest parts of a whole that mirror each other. Dots are often used in Adinkra symbols to represent commitment and pluralism. The split and dots, with the addition of color, suggest the concept of gender. The circle encompassing the figure reinforces the idea of connectedness despite duality, suggesting the idea of two-spirited. 



Join Our Mailing List!