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The BMX National Gatekeepers  e-Newsletter

OCTOBER  21st, 2011
Black Men's Xchange-National

 
In This Week's Gatekeepers Issue
This Friday's BMX-NY Topic:
CELEBRITY DL: Calling All SGLs
Friday Forum Recap (10|14|11): What's Occupying Wall Street Got to Do with Us?
Upcoming Topics: BMX- NY 2011 Fall Calendar
Community Corner Announcements
SGL Black Heroes:
Richmond Barthé
The Bawabisi SGL Symbol
About The BMX-NY Chapter...
About The BMX-Baltimore Chapter...
BMX Mission Statement
Black Men's Xchange National Gatekeepers e-Newsletter Archive Homepage

 

Want To Browse Our Archive

And Read Any Previous
e-Newsletter Issue?

 
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When & Where Are Our Chapter Spaces?
 
BMX-New York Chapter:
730 Riverside Drive
(@150th Street)*
Suite 9E
Harlem, New York 10031
212-283-0219
Website: BMXNY.org 


*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 & Broadway
GOOGLE MAP
 
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BMX-Baltimore Chapter:

1609 Saint Paul Street*

(Between East Lanvale and East Federal Streets)  

Baltimore, Maryland 21202

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*We are located across the street from the Amtrak train station. Our space is designated by the RED DOOR.Ages 18 and up. 



Time:

6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
(Every Sunday night)


Contact Us

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




=====================


Black Men's Xchange-Baltimore 

1609 Saint Paul Street

Baltimore, Maryland 21202


Email:
BMXnational@gmail.com
Phone:
410-637-3016


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Greetings Brothers!                
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.Welcome To The Black Men's Xchange National Gatekeepers e-Newsletter. This e-newsletter is for the BMX-New York chapter gathering  on Friday, October 21st, 2011.


 

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.       

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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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BMX- New York  Topic  For  This  Friday,  October  21st,  2011 

    

CELEBRITY DL: Calling All SGLs

 

Facilitated by JM  Green  

 

Will Smith 1

Queen Latifah  

 

 

 










Luther VandrossNick Ashford













For years we whispered about Will Smith, L.L. Cool J, Eddie Murphy, Luther Vandross, Queen Latifa, and Nick Ashford: What will it take for us to be able to stop whispering?

Michael Jackson (Thriller Album Cover) 
 
How did you regard Michael Jackson's sexuality?
 
 Malcolm X - Life Reinvention Book
 
Does it make a difference that biographers have cited Malcolm X as having had same sex assignations?
   
 
Does it matter if same gender loving youth have SGL role models?
 
 Harlem Pride [1st Annual] (Lo Rez - LR Edits)-19
 
What impact does the absence of SGL role models have on same gender loving youth?
   
 
What was your family's attitude toward homosexuality growing up?
 
 Black Family (Love Portrait)
 
What is the Black community's attitude toward homosexuality now?
 
 50 Cent (Split Screen)
 
What, if any, connection might there be between Black people's relationship to manhood and our reluctance to embrace sexual diversity?
   
 
How do we inspire the Black family's supporting us in our sexuality?
 
 Diddy & 50 Cent
 
If the answer is not in 'outing' our celebrities, then how do we support our celebs coming in to the community?

Tevin Campbell (''I'm Ready'' Album Cover) 1
 

  

 

 

 

 

Friday  Forum  Recap

(BMX- NY  Topic  Hi- lites  From  Friday,  October  14th,  2011) 


What's  Occupying  Wall  Street  Got  To  Do  With  Us?

   

Facilitated  by  JM Green

  

   Wall Street (Street Sign)

 

Focusing on the emerging Occupy Wall Street Movement, reflecting Americans' frustration with the class warfare in which the middle and working classes are being decimated, BMX-NY participants pondered, 'What's it got to do with us?' through the following prisms Friday:

 

Black Wall Strret Protester  


Is Wall Street guilty of anything, or is it just our imagination?


"We want to be interested in this because [it demonstrates that] the winds of change can come from any direction...the Middle East, Africa...Anywhere..."


"Yes, [Wall St. is guilty] of sabotaging the world economy...they loaned people money to buy homes they knew they couldn't afford...Something seems wrong to me when you bet against the mortgages you sold to people...and Blacks were most affected..."

 

"We don't stand up for ourselves...Nobody's gonna' care about our plight until we do..."


"Not only Wall Street, the pharmaceuticals...There need to be regulations on these entities..."


"When Bush came into office, he got rid of all the regulations...If they're allowed to do whatever they want to do, [what do you expect]...They can offer a $2M mortgage to someone who's making $20K a year...They must turn a profit for their stockholders, and they will do that [no matter who it hurts]..."


"There seems to be some misconception that it's the people's fault...Derivatives...Nobody could explain [what they were]...but [which] involved a lot of fine print...We tend to want to blame the victim..."


"A lot of these regulations were put in place during the depression and were removed by Reagan which led to the financial breakdown in the late eighties..."


{Facilitator says, "Yes, F.D.R. instituted [the Glass - Steagall Act, establishing the FDIC] financial reforms which were designed to rein in Wall Street speculation and prevent another Depression...Ronald Regan first began dismantling those reforms, which led to the Savings and Loan scandal of the early nineties...and George W. continued that assault, ushering in the kind of recklessness that precipitated the financial collapse of 2008..."}

 

Black Job Fair Line 


51% of Black men were unemployed in Harlem before the recession.  Does it matter?


"America is a capitalistic business enterprise which we built...At some point, we fell off that economic train..."


{Facilitator asks, "The construction that America is a capitalistic business enterprise is an apt one...and, it was indeed built on our free labor...but, when you say, at some point we fell off the economic train...are you referring to the Jim Crow, or Segregation era, when we were entrepreneurs by necessity because the only way we could derive many goods and services was by our supplying them?..."}


"Yes...When I was a kid in Harlem, we owned businesses...[Today] we are not business minded..."


"A lot of people think economics is money...Economics is the behavior people enact around money...If we try to equate the economic picture with our condition, we'll miss the point..."


"Twenty, thirty, forty years out, City Planners [as part of] political administrations decide what communities will look like..."


"[The reason Black males in Harlem have been unemployed at 51+% for so long] It's deeper than the economy...It's systemic...Corporate leaders and politicians...The systemic view is this...They put [forth] a fa�ade about basketball [to Black male youth] when they know only about .1% will get there [to the pros]...creating crabs in a barrel...[questing to be] Entertainment [stars]...The rich have so much power [and they] give the impression that you have to be wealthy to be happy..."


"At first, the American Dream was to get a job and provide for your family...Then , they sold us a new American Dream that you have to have it all...We're talking about predatory Capitalism...We were sold a bad bill of goods..."


"Culturally, historically, whenever there's a downturn, we're always the odd-man out...We're still in a system where, if you get good grades, you can get into a good college and get a good job..."


"[A new statistic just released says] Unemployment among 16-29 year-olds is at 55%...the highest since WWII..."


{Facilitator says, "In New York State, only 26% of Black males graduate from high school...In New York City, only 28%...and that's not an accident...And consider the kinds of employment available to people with high school degrees...What is it?..."}


"Mostly in the service sector..."


{Facilitator says, "Right...and manufacturing...the manufacturing base has been shipped over seas..."} 


"There is a great responsibility we have to take [for our children not being educated]...I'm new in Harlem...I listen to how people talk to their children...there's a connection between how people talk to each other and their ability to get jobs...These babies having babies are not educated...and so they can't educate their children..."


"Our problem is, we teach our children to get an education so they can get a good job...Whites teach their children to get an education so they can rule the world..."


"We have to be entrepreneurs...and redistribute the money in our communities...that's what Oprah did...which is why she was able to send all those hundreds of kids to Morehouse and build that school in South Africa..."


"We have so many young Brothers arrested for marijuana possession that the Police Commissioner had to tell the police not to arrest people for small amounts of marijuana...because they couldn't process them all...I remember going to apply for a job and a woman who was conducting the interviews telling us, 'I'm not going to lie to you...If you have any history of arrests on your record, don't even bother applying'...A lot of Brothers just got up and walked out...When a lot of young Black men go to get jobs, that's why they can't find any..."


{Facilitator says, "That's a vitally important point...in municipalities across the country, starting in the third grade, Black male youths' reading and math scores are tracked so that, by the fourth grade, those municipalities can project ten fifteen years hence how many new prison cells they will need to build...It's no accident that when our children hop the trains...which children are sometimes wont to do...that, what happens?..."}


"They're fingerprinted..."


{"That's right, and have criminal records initiated...Likewise, when children get into fights with each other, which children are wont to do...what procedure is now instituted?..."}


"They're taken to jail and put through the system..."


{"And, what is it that public middle and high school children are met with at the entrance to the buildings?..."} 


"Metal detectors..."


{"They say it's to prevent guns from being brought into the schools, but what other possible ramifications might the metal detector searches upon entering the institution have on our children?...It's preparing them [psychologically] to be criminalized...and to be treated as criminals...And for this subtle priming, including actually establishing criminal records on many for infractions which have heretofore been [and in other locales are still] treated as mere social transgressions common to youth...many, many Black men are deemed unemployable for having criminal records..."}


"I don't think the 51% unemployment among Black men in Harlem has anything to do with Wall Street...It's systemic racism...It's not Wall Street..."


{Facilitator says, "They're connected...When we remember, as someone has said, that American Capitalism was built on our free labor...and that, shortly following the end of Slavery came the Industrial Revolution in which the public education system was instituted to train workers to produce and buy the products manufactured by the economy...and that, with automation, the manufacturing base has been outsourced...and that, at the same time, the capitalist imperative is to 'buy,' 'buy,' 'buy'...such that, everywhere in the environment all day every day of our lives are imbedded messages stoking and playing on our fears in order to get us to buy things to make us feel better...no matter whether we can afford or really need any of the stuff...By now, much of the slack of the disappearing manufacturing base has been picked up by the prison industrial complex...The prison, of course is the new plantation where they still get our labor producing goods for free...Is slavery legal in America?"}


"No..." "No..."  "No..." "Of course not..." 


{Yes it is...The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution states that, 'There shall be no slavery nor involuntary servitude except where one is convicted of a crime'...What does that mean?...It means that, once you have been convicted of a crime, yo' ass is a slave...and that is the law of the land to this very day..."}


"52,000 manufacturing plants have closed in America over the last decade..."


"I'm happy to see that the majority of the people who are Occupying Wall Street do not look like us...We've had the German Shepherds turned on us, and the [water] hoses, and now the people from 'the big house' are saying, 'Wait! I can't get a job!..."


"All this 'isms' are connected..." For anyone who wants to dismiss this movement, or believe the protesters have no clear vision, I did some research, and on their website, they list their demands as follows:

 

1) Restoration of the living wage...

 

2) Institute a universal single payer healthcare system...

 

3) Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment...

 

4) Free college education...

 

5) Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same [time] bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand...

 

6) One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now...

 

7) One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants...

 

8) Racial and gender equal rights amendment...

 

9) Open borders migration. Anyone can travel anywhere to work and live...

 

10) Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system...

 

11) Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now!...

 

12) Outlaw all credit reporting agencies...

 

13) Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their 'yeah' or 'nay' to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union..."

 

Wall Street - NYSE 


How do Wall Street's financial policies impact our community?


"Greed is an insatiable appetite...Black people are imprisoned because of greed...Corporations support politicians who keep us cordoned off in communities where we [have carrots dangled in front of us to keep us scrambling for material things]..."


"What do you mean 26% of our kids get through school?...We should be outraged...We should be occupying someplace..."


"I was in education...Education was always important to my family...My paternal grandparents were killed...They [Whites] burned down the school [for Black children] and my grandfather set out to build it back up, and they killed him...and my grandmother had a heart attack...They've always tried to keep us from being educated...We have to control our own education..."


"Why aren't we mentoring them?...It should be a normal thing for us to mentor...If a sister is having trouble with her son, we should be there to step in and help..."

 


What, if any, changes would you like to see come out of this process?


"Free health care, free higher education, and socialism..."


"When Jerry Brown was Governor of California [the first time, he saw to it that] all you had to do was be a citizen of the state and you went to the State College for free..."


"[I want to see] more Black businesses, more young people learning trades, and empowerment seminars..."


{Facilitator asks, "How might we reasonably expect those outcomes if we're not there to press for them?"}


"What we should do is ignore the 99% thing and get vouchers so that our parents can control the schools...So that, instead of going to the schools they want us to go to, the money goes to the parents to use in whatever schools they want to send their children to..."
"What we should be concerned about is [that] the fraudulent practices among these people be exposed and that they be held accountable for them..."


"If you are not part of the 1%, you are a part of the 99%...I would like to see some dialogue between some Black organizations about what we want to come from this movement...How are we going to repair racist practices that have prevented us from higher education?..."


"[I want] the bailed out companies [to be held] accountable for not having created jobs and bi-partisan oversight committees..."

 


Should same gender loving men be present in this protest?


"I would like for BMX to make a presence down there [in Viscotti Park]...I have been so frustrated...A Black squigee man was arrested...I want us to demand [that] the demonization of Black men be stopped...Demand that banks lend money to Black businesses...Stop funding corporate attacks against unions...For them to see Black homosexuals standing up on behalf of the Black community will be powerful...A lot of blame has been put on Black parents for not raising their kids well...But there has been little discussion of the forces that impede those parents...that derail those Black kids...The power of being present [cannot be underestimated]..."


"If we're going to go down there, then let's do that in Harlem [too]..."


"We had a conversation about political alliances, and sometimes the people you align with, you don't necessarily share all goals with, but [you] have some common interests...There was a point during which the Gay Liberation Movement worked with the Panthers...[and there was a point when] the biggest contributors to the NAACP were Jews...We have to build political alliances with these people [in this movement]..."


"BMX-NY has been good about building alliances...like last summer with the National Action Network and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in the community forum for the Black community on manhood...That was handled very well..."


{Facilitator asks, "Who among us wants to go down and join the protests at Zuccotti Park?..."} (aka Liberty Plaza)  


All but two participants raise their hands.
{Facilitator says, "Fine then...we'll go..."}

 

  



 

 

Upcoming  Topics:  BMX- NY  2011  Fall  Calendar          

(PLEASE NOTE THAT TOPICS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE;
WEEKLY E-NEWSLETTERS WILL REFLECT ANY NEW CHANGES)

              

 

Friday, October 28th, 2011

I Am Who I Say I Am: The Dilemma of Drag Queens

(Facilitated by Anthony Truly)

 

 

Friday, November 4th, 2011

Rock the Vote for What?: Is There An SGL Political Agenda?

(Facilitated by Anthony Truly & Cleo Manago)

 

 

Friday, November 11th, 2011

Sons and Godsons in the SGL Community: Mentoring SGL Youth

(Facilitated by Chad Franklin)

     

 

Friday, November 18th, 2011

Seeking Approval or Self-Acceptance? 

(Facilitated by JM Green)



BMX-NY WILL NOT BE MEETING FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 25th, 2011

 

 

Friday, December 2nd, 2011

Film Screening: "Miss HIV"

(Facilitated by JM Green)



Friday, December 9th, 2011

Valuing Our Lives as Black Men: A Dialogue with Hetero Brothers  

(Facilitated by Cleo Manago)

 


SEE EXTENDED CALENDAR...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Community  Corner  Announcements

Saturday, October 15th, 2011 - Sunday, November 27th, 2011



Stanely Bennett Clay (b&w headshot)
Stanley Bennett Clay

presents 

 ARMSTRONG'S KID
 
Armstrong's Kid (poster)


A homosexual schoolteacher (Stanley Bennett Clay) is falsely accused of child molestation by his best friend's fourteen-year-old son and spends nearly a year in prison before the truth is revealed. Eleven years later the now-grown accuser (Thandiwe Thomas De Shazor) seeks forgiveness, resulting in an evening of turmoil, revenge, regret and shocking revelations.


Three time NAACP Theatre Award winner, Six time Drama-logue Award winner, and Best Actor Image Award winning novelist, playwright, actor and filmmaker Stanley Bennett Clay makes his New York theatrical debut after nearly forty years as a celebrated fixture of Los Angeles' black and gay theatre with the production of his "Armstrong's Kid."   

 

 
Written, Produced, and Directed by Stanley Bennett Clay

Executive Produced by Chas. Floyd Johnson


Length: 1 hr 30 mins
Intermission: None
Seating: General Admission

 

Roy Arias Theater  
300 West 43rd Street (@ 8th Avenue)
5th Floor
New York City, NY 10036

  

New BlackFest, The (logo)


SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23rd, 2011   

    

New Black Plays and Playrights

    


Annie Bosh is Missing 
by Janine Nabers

A family is swept into their own storm of violence and misunderstanding when Annie Bosh, a young bi-racial substance abuser, returns home to Houston in the midst of Hurricane Katrina aftermath.  This controversial new play explores recovery, identity and the upper middle-class community.        



Time: 2PM

Location: The Shabazz Center/Audubon Ballroom
3940 Broadway
(between 165th and 166th Streets, Upper Manhattan)

Suggested Donation:  $5 at door


 

 

 Carnival
by Nikkole Salter

Three young men board a plane for Rio De Janeiro for a taste of the good life:  sun, fun, and, of course, women.  However, things take an unexpected turn and the three men find themselves in a situation that will change their friendships and lives forever.  This hilarious yet poignant play takes a look at sexual tourism and the often fragile bond of friends.

 

Time: 5PM

Location: The Shabazz Center/Audubon Ballroom
3940 Broadway
(Between 165th and 166th Streets, Upper Manhattan)

Suggested Donation:  $5 at door


 

 

Homage 2:
 The Great Adventures of Slick Rick
 by Shaun Neblett
 

 

This original play comes out of the spirit of Slick Rick's classic album. In the play two siblings discover what really happens when "the world is yours," an affirmation that Slick Rick imprinted on hip-hop culture in 1988.   

 

  

Time: 7:30PM  

 

Location: The Shabazz Center/Audubon Ballroom
3940 Broadway
(Between 165th and 166th Streets, Upper Manhattan)

Suggested Donation:  $5 at door


 

 

If you haven't DONATED  to The New Black Fest, please donate today. Every penny counts.

Let's do this TOGETHER! 

 

Please visit our website for updated info on  

the 2011 New Black Fest.


 

 

New BlackFest, The (logo)

 

 

 

 



SGL  Black  Heroes 

James  Richmond  Barth�  (1901  -  1989) 

 

 Richmond Barth� 1

  

Born in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi in 1901, Richmond Barth� moved to New Orleans at an early age. Little is known about his early youth, except that he grew up in a devoutly Roman Catholic household, he enjoyed drawing and painting, and his formal schooling did not go beyond grade school. From the age of sixteen until his early twenties, Barth� supported himself with a number of service and unskilled jobs, including house servant, porter, and cannery worker. His artistic talent was noticed by his parish priest when Barth� contributed two of his paintings to a fundraising event for his church. The priest was so impressed with his art that he encouraged Barth� to apply to the Art Institute of Chicago and raised enough money to pay for his travel and tuition. From 1924 to 1928, Barth� studied painting at the Art Institute, while continuing to engage in unskilled and service employment to support himself.

 

 

Richmond Barth� 3 (Supplication, Mother and Son) 

Supplication, Mother and Son 

 

 

Richmond Barthe (Boxer Sculpture)Even though he mainly studied painting, Barth�'s talent as a sculptor was recognized by his fellow students and local critics in Chicago. In 1928, he put on a one-man show that was sponsored by the Chicago Women's Club. He eventually moved to New York City, locating his studio in Greenwich Village and creating art - and socializing - with central figures of the Harlem Renaissance, including Langston Hughes, Alain Locke, Augusta Savage, and Carl Van Vechten. While he rejected the circumscription of his art within racial boundaries, his most well-regarded work had a strong racial content. Feral Benga and African Dancer, the latter of which was purchased by the Whitney Museum of American Art, celebrated the black body and African culture, while The Mother contemplated the horrors of lynching. Of particular inspiration to Barth�'s art was the black male body, a reflection of his comfort with his homosexuality, according to one of the foremost scholars of Barth�. 

 

Richmond Barth� 2 


Barth� continued to create sculpture well into the 1960s, some of which was commissioned as public art. He sculpted an American eagle for the Social Security Building in Washington, D.C. and a bas-relief for the Harlem River Housing Project. In 1949, the Haitian government commissioned him to create monuments to the revolutionary leaders Toussaint L'Overture and Jean Jacques Dessalines in Port-au-Prince. In addition to spending time in Haiti, Barth� lived in Jamaica before returning to the United States and settling in southern California. He died in 1989. 

  

Richmond Barthe' Harlem Renaissance Sculptor  

Website:

Richmond Barth� Exhibition: Harlem Renaissance Sculptor

(Click The Image Above To View Exhibit)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    
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.





About  The  BMX- NY  Chapter...
 
  



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.

BMXNY.org 

 



About  The  BMX- Baltimore  Chapter...
 
  
Young BMX-Baltimore Bruthaz 1


THE BLACK MEN'S XCHANGE - BALTIMORE was founded in 2008 to provoke critical thinking; to teach Black men how to unlearn internalized oppression, and to give Black men the tools to deal with these issues. Ages 18 and up.

  

 



BMX  Mission  Statement

BMX Logo (Black)
THE BLACK MEN'S XCHANGE (BMX) was founded in 1989 by activist, 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 sexuality, 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) 
 
 

 

 





 
 

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