AmASSI & BMX-NY Presents The 8th Annual KWANZAA Potluck Celebration

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.

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.