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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, December 3rd, 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!
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Topic For This Friday, December 3rd, 2010
RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGE
As An Extension of White Privilege
How do you define White privilege? And, of what is it comprised?How is White privilege expressed and sustained? What is religion and what, if any privileges are associated with it?Does religious thought impact SGL people's regard for ourselves and our behavior? If so, how?Who was Constantine? How did Constantine influence Christianity as we know it?What impact has Christianity had on Black Americans?How does the idea of sin impact us?Where does religious privilege extend itself in society outside of the church?Do we have a responsibility as Gatekeepers to influence the church to work through and beyond religious privilege?
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Friday Forum Recap
(Topic Hi-lites From Friday, November 19th, 2010)
CONJURING AN SGL LEXICON:
How We Will Define Ourselves
In the spirit of the second principle of Kwanzaa, Kujichagulia [koo-GEE-chah-GOO-lee-AH] (self-determination), during the most recent Black Men's Xchange-New York dialogue, brothers took up the issue of whether it is necessary or important to define ourselves by Conjuring A Same Gender Loving (SGL) Lexicon
How would you define the SGL community? "I first heard [the term] 'same gender desire'...The word gay was the white man's [homosexual rights] movement...[The term] SGL is about a connection, and a bond, and a sharing of myself with one other person...""It's a different feeling...[It] promotes more of a [dimensional regard]...there's a certain intent behind it...""I like that it is African...it's existence [affirms me]...When I look at it, I see someone who looks like me...[and] it has the word 'love' [for] men [in it]...""Coming here to BMX it felt like I was coming home...At the LGBT Center [the] focus was more on Caucasian gay [concerns]...When I come here, I'm intellectually stimulated...I don't feel [peripheral]...""Desire is passive...Love is active...You have to do something...SGL forces you to ask the question, 'How do I love Black men and women?'...What are the experiences of same gender loving?..."How do lexicons work?"The idea of defining yourself is an important one ...When I was a boy in an all-white school, my aunt said, 'You're not there to represent anyone's experience but your own'...""It's been my effort to get the white voice out of my head...To me, gay is the same as nigger...I profoundly hated myself when I identified as gay...We were the first people on the planet...[So,] we were the first homosexuals on the planet...""Identities tend to inflate...expand...gay can mean more than it did, just as SGL can..."{Facilitator reviews the meaning of the word 'lexicon,' proposing synonyms: "Glossary, vocabulary, dictionary," proposing that, "Language circumscribes the way we see the world and ourselves in it...With the exception of one or two of us here, we don't know our original languages..." [Facilitator reads definitions of 'black' and 'white' in Webster's Dictionary...] "'Black'...'Having little or no power to reflect light...Destitute of light, gloomy, dismal, forbidding...Evil, malignant, wicked, deadly, slanderous, malicious, threatening...'White'...'Very fair...Not intentionally wicked or evil...Not malicious or harmful...free from spot or stain: innocent...Fair and honorable; straightforward, honest'..."} "SGL merges sexual and cultural..."
"A lexicon is someone else's definition [if I didn't create it]...""[SGL is] a community that is based on love...a loving relationship that is supported by love...""[Gay is] part of the white voice, construct in your head...gay is never how I defined my sexuality...""The constant demand to be the same...we have a box...The essential conflict is that we all keep trying to be the same...[freedom] starts from the base of, 'What is my thought?'...SGL expands the plateau...""We have to be careful not to construct a new box...In one sense, SGL can be completely expansive to people of color the world over...[In] every culture there are homosexuals...In some cultures, they've dealt with them quite fluidly...In the Marshall Islands, when they recognize that a boy is going to be homosexual, they put him in a dress and let him mate with males...""What is the utility of identity is vastly different than how it's constructed...The utility of naming is that it allows you to go after resources...Where should we put our identities?..." Is coining a lexicon which distinctly defines our experience an exercise in separatism?"My friend was angry at me for identifying as same gender loving...He felt compelled to tell me that I should not want to name myself SGL...We were not even in America...We were in the DR (Dominican Republic), and he was furious...[He said] I should only want to be LGBT...'SGL is not inclusive,' he said..."{Facilitator introduces the idea of 'hegemony,' which participants define as...} "The domination of one culture by another [such that] the values, politics and ideals of the dominant culture are seen as right and good by all, and alternative perspectives are resisted...""That's the terror for many Blacks...That they'll have to give up their S&M relationship with White people in their heads...I was talking with a Mexican about [the movie] "The Dark Knight" and he was saying how wonderful it was...I said, 'That's not you...You're not in it...""I sat and watched [the movie] "Inception" and [looked around me and saw] a wave of White people watching themselves be able to manipulate reality and shuddered [to think] that we are not included in that myth-making process...""To say that I can't watch that [movie "Inception,"] and see the humanity in it isn't fair...We have to stay away from separatism...""We are separate because we have been separated...""I view us as a powerfully misunderstood segment of the Black army...The Black family has been under attack ever since we came into contact with White people...We are hated...Everywhere we go...""We're all African...Even White people...""I feel there is a danger of being separate...There always has to be an opposing team...There is a danger of the division...""What is the danger of me, as a Black man, separating myself from White people?...Everything in this society is White people talking to themselves about themselves...Maya Angelou says, 'I speak to the Black experience, but I'm always talking about the human condition'...I want to be separated from this idea of Black as bad, Black as evil...""It's about clearing a cultural, a spiritual and eventually, an economic space [for ourselves]..." "Empowerment...The reason many of us come into this space is because we want to hear our stories and see ourselves...""We come with that humanitarian ideal and they push it right back in our faces...""When I forget that I'm Black, they have a very nice way of reminding me...So, I'd better think of Black as good...""I've been researching blogs...Living Out Loud with Dorian [is one]...I do find it really odd as White men use SGL...How do I tell them it's a Black thing?...""I say, 'Oh, what, is your experience being marginalized as a person of color?'...Raising consciousness through critical thinking...The only way you can do that is through [sharing] our experience...It has to be reinforced through [repetition]...You own it through political activity...Through all the ways that hegemony is advanced..."How can we create a bigger, vaster, truer and more vital picture of our lives and ourselves with words? "Think about the potential emancipatory effect of SGL...White people is not the pinnacle of people working together...Here there is an opportunity for us to improve...Where we are acting fairly is by developing an empowering identity that lets people see another way of being fair...We have to do myth-making...That's what movies are...""New York has three China Towns...Three!...They are not trying to be White people...If you can't read the sign on their door, you might get your hair cut when you go in to buy some fish...As Africans with a Diasporic history we have to remember [our original values and ways of being and doing and saying...]""When you set about creating a lexicon, there is a price...People won't like me...""The hegemony has taught you, 'Don't separate'...That we're all together is bullshit...But, it helps to control you...Even the notion of fairness is fallacy..."{Facilitator says, "It's not about White people... It's about us conceiving a vocabulary that empowers us...That reflects us as powerful and good and beautiful and possessed of infinite possibilities... We have to make some new myths...It's about us remembering who we are...That is the point of why we come together...That is what is meant by paradigm shifting...healing and empowering ourselves...Once we have done that successfully, then we can help our brethren and sistren do the same..."}
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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 NEW CHANGES)
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
Benjamin Banneker
 | | Image Credit: Maryland Historical Society |
Benjamin Banneker -- author, scientist, mathematician, farmer, astronomer, publisher and urban planner -- was descended from enslaved Africans, an indentured English servant, and free men and women of color. His grandmother, Molly Welsh, was an English dairy maid who was falsely convicted of theft and indentured to a Maryland tobacco farmer. After working out her indenture, Welsh rented and farmed some land, eventually purchasing two African slaves whom she freed several years later.In violation of Maryland law, Welsh wed one of her former slaves, Bannke or Bannaka, said to be the son of a chief. Their daughter Mary also married an African -- a man from Guinea who had been enslaved, baptized as Robert, and freed -- who took Banneker as his surname upon their marriage. In 1731, they named their first child Benjamin.Young Benjamin grew up in Baltimore County, one of two hundred free blacks among a population of four thousand slaves and thirteen thousand whites. He was taught to read by his grandmother Molly, and briefly attended a one-room interracial school taught by a Quaker. He showed an early interest in mathematics and mechanics, preferring books to play.At the age of 22, having seen only two timepieces in his lifetime -- a sundial and a pocket watching -- Banneker constructed a striking clock almost entirely out of wood, based on his own drawings and calculations. The clock continued to run until it was destroyed in a fire forty years later. Banneker became friendly with the Ellicott brothers, who built a complex of gristmills in the 1770s. Like Banneker, George Ellicott was a mathematician and amateur astronomer. In 1788, with tools and books borrowed from Ellicott, Banneker nearly accurately predicted the timing of an eclipse of the sun, discovering later that his minor error was due to a discrepancy in his expert sources rather than a miscalculation on his part.In 1791, Banneker accompanied Major Andrew Ellicott to the banks of the Potomac to assist him in surveying the new federal city that would become the nation's capital. A notice first printed in the Georgetown Weekly Ledger and later copied in other newspapers stated that Ellicott was "attended by Benjamin Banneker, an Ethiopian, whose abilities, as a surveyor, and an astronomer, clearly prove that Mr. Jefferson's concluding that race of men were void of mental endowments, was without foundation."In 1792, Banneker published an almanac, based on his own painstakingly calculated ephemeris (table of the position of celestial bodies), that also included commentaries, literature, and fillers that had a political and humanitarian purpose. The previous summer, he had sent a copy of the ephemeris to Thomas Jefferson, along with a letter in which he challenged Jefferson's ideas about the inferiority of blacks.Between 1792 and 1797, Banneker published six almanacs in twenty-eight editions. He continued to live alone, selling off and renting his land, then giving the rest to the Ellicotts in exchange for a small pension. He died in 1806. On the day of his burial, his house and its contents (including his clock) caught fire and burned to the ground.
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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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