During Friday's Black Men's Xchange-New York dialogue, Brothers considered their relationship to spirit in the face of their sexuality from the following perspectives:

Is homo sex wrong?

"No...Cause it feels right...It took a while [for me to arrive at that, but]..."

 
"It never felt wrong for me...It's always just felt right..."

"I'm not okay with it because I grew up in a homophobic home..."

"The act of homo sex isn't wrong...If anybody attacks me for it...I attack back...It's none of your business..."

 "I was thinking back and wondering why did I feel ashamed [about my sex]...Bathhouses...I wonder if it was the circumstances [under which I had sex]...or, because I thought the sex [itself] was wrong...Falling in love was what brought me out of feeling a shamed...When it was done in the right circumstance..."

"It's tough to be able to stand as a same gender loving man...and be able to defend yourself..."

"I think sometimes there is a callous or scar tissue that forms around [something that is stigmatized]...Even the concept that my sex life is private is a reflection of a belief that it's wrong...Heterosexuals have no problem admitting their sex...If it's private...[it's hidden, and that implies that it's wrong]..."

{Facilitator says, "I was thinking back to when our sexuality started forming...Was there a moment when you realized [or first believed] it was wrong?..."}

"My mother took me to a therapist...The conversations [I had with the therapist] were great...He told her, you don't have to bring him here any more...[My mother] didn't like that...Then she took me to a pastor..."

"I knew from the time I was a toddler that I was attracted to males...I was prematurely sexualized by an older cousin one weekend when I was four...The cousin, who I would later learn was fourteen or fifteen that weekend he spent with us...taught me to felate him over the course of the weekend...While I didn't experience it as traumatic at the time...I just remember being thrilled that I had this beautiful creature's complete and undivided attention...The event did trip a switch that I would not be able to turn off for a very long time thereafter...And, one night when I was five...It was bedtime and I was sitting on the bed with my father...My brothers were in the kitchen with our mother...I was looking at my father's penis through his pajamas...And, with my heart racing, I reached over and clutched his penis, asking, 'Daddy, what's that?'...He recoiled, barking...'That's my penis! And, you must never touch another person's penis!'...And, while I didn't really understand what sex was yet...That was the moment I first realized homo sex was wrong..."

{Facilitator asks, "Has anyone ever prayed to have homosexuality taken away?"...  [Many participants raise their hands]..."Questioned whether or not they were cursed?"... [Many raise their hands]..."Been ridiculed by family"...[More hands]..."Out in the street? [More hands]..."What does that do to us?"}

"It depends on how secure you are in yourself...By now, I'm quite secure...As a child, any time I met a boy I was attracted to, I took him home and introduced him to my mother...As I got older, I would learn that it wasn't accepted...[but, I learned better]..."

Is there a connection between spirituality and sex?

"Yes...spirituality is an expression of how you feel connectivity to another person...and also for procreation...Usually someone's sexual habits or sexual life...Persons who are connected to the realm of spirituality tend to have a healthier sex life and less sex...People who are connected to the negative realm of sexuality have more sex and more destructive sex..."

"For me, sex is a spiritual act...a spiritual expression...I used to keep spirituality over here, and sex over here...Once I brought them together, sex was better...It involves how I treat my partner and how I expect my partner to treat me...[We] have conversations about what we will do...how fast or slow...You need to make love to me spiritually...and to my mind, before you can make love to my body..."

{Facilitator says, "That's not the same as being religious[ly] observant...[where there is moralizing about what people do with each other]..."}

"[Spirituality] is not a concrete thing...[It's] another view of yourself]"

"For me, spirituality is essence...There is a Principle or Force by which the universe functions...that flows through all things...That is the essence of all things...Some call it God...or, Yaweh...or, Jehovah...or, Buddah...or, Oludumare...But all relate to the essence...And for human kind, it is the essence of my self...My divinity...Some call it Creator...That part of me that reflects my own capacity to be creative and to create...and I am creative sexually..."
{Facilitator says, "Spirituality is a relationship with that thing...[that] force..."}

"When we talk about spirituality as a connective thing...I'm hearing a lot of ego in people's descriptions...If everybody's so connected, why aren't we all getting married and celebrating our sexuality [wherever we go]...John-Martin talks about how many of us [SGL Black men] are still playing darting eye games with each other out in public...If we're so connected to spirituality...why aren't we all happy, and all getting married?..."

"If you don't have a basis for the first question [Is homo sex wrong?] you're not going to be able to answer the second question [Is there a connection between spirituality and sex?]...For me, yes, it's wrong...We rationalize it...Is sex wrong?...No...It's a form of communication...Is homo sex wrong?...Yes...I don't know why I participate in it...We confuse our happiness sometimes with joy...There's still a void for me sometimes at the end of the day...Yeah, I do...I think it's wrong...I think that, that's why we are here...For me, I think we justify it...And spirituality..."

{Facilitator asks, "What is the void?...Can you describe it?..."}

"[The] void is a lot of difficult things...I grew up with just my mom...So, there's no father figure...And, the males that were around took advantage of that..."

{Facilitator asks, "Was there loneliness in that?"}

"Yeah...If I wasn't lonely, I wouldn't be here [right now]...That conviction [that it's wrong] for me, it's God...He tells me...I let you go out here and do what you want to do, and you still feel [empty]..."

{Facilitator asks, "Do you love yourself?} "Yeah..." {Facilitator asks, "How do you know that you love yourself?"} "Cause I'm still here..." {Facilitator says, "May I offer that the void that you're feeling is a lack of love, and a lack of self-love...As Black men, from the Middle Passage, through enslavement...through  sharecropping, the public school to prison pipeline...we are taught that we are [unlovable]"...[He reads a passage from Sonbufo Some's "The Spirit of Intimacy"..."'In the village homosexuality is seen differently...because all sexuality is spiritually based'..."For me, God is Love...That void is the absence of love...To be alone is painful...A loveless place..."} 

"I was kind of saddened by what you shared, But I can relate to it...I have nineteen journals dating back to when I was in grad school in the nineties...Therapy...I don't believe that [homo sex] is wrong consciously...But then, my boy friend tried to kiss me in public in the store around the corner yesterday, and I was [a little put off by it] like...'Come on Baby'...When did I stop thinking it?...It took a lot of work...When I think of salvation [it's] the complete and total acceptance of myself..."

"I hated myself... I felt a void...My parents told me, 'You're going to hell'...I started drinking...and doing drugs...Last year, I tried to kill myself...I wound up going to a therapist...The therapist said, 'Say it out loud'...[I told her,] 'Miss, I can't say that'...[She said,] 'It's who you are, and until you do, you won't start to heal'...And I finally said, 'I'm a Black, gay man'...My prayer every day was for God to take this cup from me...I'm twenty-eight-years-old...I pray every night...I get everything else I want...Why not this?...Something's wrong here..."

"When I was a boy...After I learned that homosexuality was wrong...or, learned the commonly held belief that homosexuality is wrong...I hated myself because I bought into the lie of my inferiority...I believed the myth that my homosexuality made me an abomination before God...And I was angry at God...I cursed God...I raged at god...Because I believed God had cursed me...And, I raged at Him, telling Him He was going to show me wherefore He had cursed me...And, it took me many years of different processes of self-reflection, including over a decade of therapy with different therapists to unlearn the lie that my homosexuality made me wrong...and that, it was the people who would make me wrong who were wrong...But, before I unlearned the lie, I engaged in all kinds of sex that was unaffirming...As a pubescent boy I began frequenting public restrooms...I now realize, I believed that, if my sex is shit, where better to have it, than in a shit house?...By now, I love myself and respect myself and it is that love and respect of myself that enables me to go out into the community that I love and attempt to assist them in unlearning the lie of our inferiority..."

"I do believe there are different levels of loving yourself...I know I matter...My choices matter...I don't give a shit about what anybody else thinks...For me, I didn't come here for a forum [to tell me] this is how Black people deal with it...I work for the government...When I go out [I see all kinds of people]...White people go through this [too]...questioning their sexuality...I keep doing it, and I don't know why, but I don't think it's a lack of love...God loves me right now more than I do...I want to get to the point where I love me as much as God does...I feel like every time I do this [have homo sex] I drive another wedge between me and God...I've been through a lot of different foster homes...I think of one of my foster mothers as my mother...I asked my mother...'Is it wrong?'...I asked why He won't take it from me...After I have sex, I try to wash the skin off me..."

"You are a by-product of a system you live in...You work for the government?...[You do indeed]...They will arrest a five-year-old Black child and put him in handcuffs to shame him [into believing he's a criminal]...There's a lot of rich White people who start wars and then we have to go and fight them...One thing that helped me was identifying myself...When I dropped Nigga and faggot, I began to know who I really am...Our families need us...Black people are the first people on the planet, which means that Black homosexuals were the first homosexuals on the planet..."

{Facilitator asks, "How many of you...if you care to share it...have ever contemplated suicide?..."} [Around half the room raise their hands.]

"That was my contemplation just two days ago...I don't think it's about healing...It's about learning...I don't think I'm more broken than anybody else...I don't even know if my sexuality is why I contemplated it...I don't feel like identifying that as an open wound for me..."

"You can't fix [our Brother]...You can empathize with him...but you can't fix him...You can say, 'I hear where you're at'...But, whether or not he lives or dies is up to him...The intention is to help...But, the masculinized energy is to fix...My experience of the universe has to be [mine]...I've had sex with hundreds of men, women and a few who are making some decisions in-between...and it was all beautiful, because nobody was being degraded...I do not know the mind of God...I do know that I am an aspect of God...In truth, you are the truth that you seek...Your mission was to come here to be phucked up [so you could work it out and find the truth]..."

"I was like him twelve years ago...I was a closed container...Nobody could tell me nothin...I didn't care how many degrees you had or nothin...[It wasn't] Until I was on my deathbed ready to die that I said...Somebody help me..."

"Like Brother was saying...You can't hear something until you do...The thing is, you do get to hear when you get to hear...Everyone is not going to hear tonight...But don't stop saying [what is real for you]...I didn't see anybody disrespecting this Brother...This is BMX...If you don't expect to hear something about Blackness, and [what is distinct about] our experience...[Then] there's some delusion going on...Just like pro-Black doesn't mean anti-White...We're conditioned to believe that if we focus on what's unique to us, [there's some sort of betrayal being perpetrated]...When we say that we have different experiences than White people have, that's truth...and, if you don't get to that, there's a delusion [going on]...When we speak of homosexuality as wrong...The [question] is...Where did you get that information from?...Where are the facts?...Where did the messages come from?...What's trying to be done to us?...And, who's doing it?..."
{Facilitator says, "Sometimes good work does not feel good, and sometimes, what feels good is not good work...Let's focus on the healing...We can uncover the wound ad infinitum...But, let's focus on the healing..."}  

{Facilitator says, "Sometimes good work does not feel good, and sometimes, what feels good is not good work...Let's focus on the healing...We can uncover the wound ad infinitum...But, let's focus on the healing..."}

At a recent Black Men's Xchange-New York Friday night forum, Brothers focused on Debt as The New Sharecropping System, from the following angles:

Are you intimidated by the whole credit thing? Who benefits?

"When they declare you've defaulted on your school loans, people think it's only on you credit for ten years...That's not true..."

"The difference between rich people [and the rest of us] is that they have access to information [that we don't]..."

"I don't necessarily look at credit as a negative thing...I see it as a way of investing in things...If you use it frivolously, [then it becomes problematical]..."

"Money is still king in this country...Credit only separates the rich from the poor...Don't get scared if you default on your student loans...The company they sell your loan to will buy it at a lower rate...But, if you default on it a third time [that put's you in an unfavorable position]...If you can still make money, [you're in good shape]..."

"[People think that coming into a lot of money would relieve them of financial woes, but] If you could not manage the $300 you were working with before, what makes you think you'll be able to manage a million, if you get it?..."

"The housing bubble started when JP Morgan loaned another bank [money]...They lied about having a surplus and when it came time to pay the note, the bank didn't have it..."

Asians don't buy short-term debt...they buy long-term, because they know you can't pay it, and then they will own you...[Their attitude is] I don't care about my kids or my grand kids...I want my great grand children to own this..."

"Insurance teaches you one fundamental goal...Why would you spend your money when you can spend someone else's money?..."
"There's over a million dollars in salaries sitting in this room...And that's if you're averaging on the low end...With every three people amounting to $100,000..."

"The debt is actually worth something...The education loans paid for something...The education has armed you with skills and credentials...Enabled you to work [and earn monies you likely wouldn't have had access to without it]...When I ask, How much are you worth...[I'm talking about] salary, savings...If you sold everything you have...And, don't think about what you can get for it, but, rather, what you want to sell it for...If you were not here tomorrow, someone else is going to value your worth...And, it's not going to be emotional...When you die, your creditors are looking at obituaries...They wait thirty days, and then come after your relatives...How do I protect them without spending [my] money?...Spending someone else's money [insurance]..."

"Three years ago Chase Bank had $25 [billion] in insurance...The life insurance company gives them money at some point...They took the TARP because it was available...not because they needed it..."

"Culturally, historically, we're a 'pull yourself up by our bootstraps,' 'cast your bucket down where you are' kind of people...If I'm still feeling like I'm not worth much...[how do I position myself for abundance?]..."

"Fear works in such a way that I can't recognize things to buy that will actually benefit me...Investing as opposed to buying consumables..."

"We're living in a patriarchal, capitalist, white supremacist matrix...Meaning, rich, white men control the monetary system under which we live...The way it plays out in our lives is that, from the moment we get here, we're bombarded with messages telling us to buy things...Everywhere we look, there are prompts telling us we're worthless and other prompts telling us that, if you buy this, then you'll feel that...If you wear this, you'll be desirable...If you drive this, everyone will envy you...And, fear is the driver behind all the messaging...Think about the evening news...Eight minutes of cascading murder, mayhem and malfeasance followed by ads telling us...Buy this, and you'll feel better..."

"If money is king, credit is god...They don't know your ability so much as your willingness to pay based on your FICO score...In my job, I use FICO scores as a barometer of whether some company is a good risk..."

"Is it a stacked game against Black people?...In the sense that we have systematically been held out of a lot of things [yes]...We don't know the steps to gain access [to wealth]..."

"What credit can leverage...There's a moral judgment connected to credit..."

"We think credit is god...Credit isn't god...It's important to understand systemically who benefits from our not understanding credit...We continue victimizing ourselves based on these perspectives like money is king and credit is god...So, if I don't have either...what does that say about me as a person of color?..."

What's the point of knowing my credit score if I ain't got no money?

"Wealth, in a lot of cases, can be generated if we think past ourselves...For you guys who are younger...You've got all the advantages because you have time...Growing up, I didn't think I'd live past 30, so I didn't prepare...I had cancer...As soon as I was diagnosed, I thought, I'm going to die...My second thought was, I don't have to die now...There was hope...this group represents hope..."

"How many among us have wills?...Living wills?...Health care proxies?..."

"Everybody here loves somebody, and somebody loves them...do you think only of yourself?...Or, past yourself?...Whether I live another day or not becomes irrelevant if you're thinking past yourself..."

"The disconnect is about education...Across the city now they're starting to institute financial literacy [as part of the curriculum in public schools]...The thing I'm concerned about is that, none of the financial literacy is tailored to Black people...It assumes that students came out of middle class homes..."

Is there an average credit profile for SGL Black men?  If so, is it fair, poor, good or excellent?  And, why?

"So what if we're same gender loving [and have no children, most of us]...What if we all took out an insurance policy...It's leaving a legacy...all this work we've been doing with BMX all these years...We're leaving a legacy...BMX can create an endowment fund..."

"Thinking about the previous proposition that there is about one million dollars sitting in this room...there is about three million [or more] dollars sitting in this room..."

How can I develop an easy-to-use, and easy-to-maintain system that helps me keep track of my bills, (cuz late pay and slow pay are killing my credit)?

"How many of us have a personal finance system that is written down?...Here is a simple one-page instrument that I use to track my finances...[He hands one to everyone]..."

What changes can SGL men effect in our families and communities if we are empowered to take individual and group responsibility for our finances?

"One of the reasons a movement becomes powerful is because people begin to recognize their economic clout..."

"I can't conceive of sitting in a church tithing where people are telling me I damned to hell..."