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The BMX- NY Gatekeepers  e-Newsletter

MARCH  23rd, 2012
Black Men's Xchange-National
  The BMX-New York Chapter
~ Celebrating 10 YEARS ~
December 2002 - December 2012

BMX-NY - Celebrating X Years



 
In This Week's Gatekeepers Issue
This Friday's BMX-NY Topic:
Where the Rubber Meets the Road: PTSS and "Homophobia"
Weekend Summit Forum Recap (03|02-04|12): And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going: SGL Folk And The Black Church
Upcoming Topics: BMX- NY 2012 Winter Calendar
Community Corner Announcements
SGL Black Heroes:
Alain Locke
The Bawabisi SGL Symbol
About The BMX-NY Chapter...
BMX Mission Statement
Black Men's Xchange National Gatekeepers e-Newsletter Archive Homepage
 
 

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


*PLEASE NOTE:
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LOCATED ON 150th STREET.
Ages 18 and up. 

Time:
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(Every Friday night, except for our hiatus month in August)
   
Directions: 
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Contact Us

Black Men's Xchange-NY

730 Riverside Drive
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Phone: 212-283-0219

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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, March 23rd, 2012.


 

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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The BMX National Annual Leadership Summit & Retreat 

For Diverse Black Men Who Love Men


In the beautiful California, Wine Country and Coastline,

May 10-14, 2012  

 

 

BMX National Leadership Retreat Flyer 2012 (CC)  

Official Website: BlackLeaderEvents.com  

  

This year's retreat is located one hour north of San Francisco in Guerneville, California. The town is minutes from the famous, Bodega Bay beach coastline and mountain recreation territories.  The retreat will be hosted by the luxurious

West Sonoma Inn & Spa Center, which borders the Russian River.

It's centrally located to dining and cafes.

 

SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE!

 
Date: May 10-14, 2012
Site Location: West Sonoma Inn & Spa
14100 Brookside Lane, Guerneville, CA

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Cost: $300 to $450.00 (Sliding scale)  

 

 

            

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BMX- NY  Topic  For  This  Friday,  March  23rd2012 

 

 

Where the Rubber Meets the Road:

PTSS and "Homophobia"   

Facilitated by JM Green


Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome

What is Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (PTSS)?


How, if at all, might PTSS influence Black people's outlook about SGL people?


What's patriarchy got to do with it?


Is homophobia experienced by gays the same as anti-homosexual attitudes among Black people? If not, How do they differ?


What, if any role have we in changing the Black community's attitude about same gender lovingness?


If we have a role in changing attitudes, how do we overcome our own PTSS on the way to taking up that charge?



 
 
  
           
 

 

BMX- DC Forum  Recap (BMX- National Leaders Summit)

(Topic  Hi- lites  From  The  Weekend of March 2nd - 4th,  2012) 

 

And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going:

SGL Folk And The Black Church   

 

Facilitated by JM Green       

 

Black Jesus - Black Love    

 

 

During a Black Men's Xchange conducted by BMX-DC, as part of a BMX National Leaders Summit last weekend, Brothers weighed in on our relationship to the Black church through the following lenses:

 

Black Jesus with Lox  

 

Is your God a Black God?


"I'm not focusing so much on a color...Jesus is a light..."


"God...in the Catholic Church was never represented as a person...God was [seen as] a light..."


"I broadened my religion...[For me] God is not [any] more Black than [it is] male...Whatever I need my God to look like...mother [etc.]...it does..."


"I was raised Baptist...My father was ...and my mother was half White...What color is God?...My grandmother said, 'Man created race, God created people'..."


"When I look in the mirror, I see a Black man...So, I would hope my God would be Black..."


"Does that not trivialize God...ascribing a color to [it?]..."


{Facilitator says, "Perhaps...But the question has to do with the impact of spiritual and religious imagery on our consciousness...That is, what we believe about ourselves and our place in the universe...Have you ever seen visual representations of God?..."} [Participants answer] "Yes..." {Facilitator asks, "Where?..."}  [Participants answer] "The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel..."  {Facilitator says, "Yes...And, what did God look like?..."}  [Participants say] "A White man..."  {Facilitator says, "Yes...And it might be useful to consider the extent to which, if at all, that vision of God impacted us as Black children or as Black men...While we are all very evolved now...or like to fancy ourselves so...The question involves the notion advanced by the brilliant historian, John Henrik Clarke...Which is that, 'if you worship a God that does not look like you, you are a slave to the one who that God looks like'..."}

 


How does religious thought impact SGL people's regard for ourselves and our behavior?


"God was introduced to us as a disciplinary tool...We were taught the sin of Ham...[Which was] Why [Black people] were slaves...[As a child] Any time I had a homosexual thought, I was expecting a lightening bolt to come down and strike me dead...I quickly learned that religion and practice were different...What was preached and what was practiced [were] different...[My seeking as an adult] had led me to a more universal perspective...Buddhist...[So that] seeing you standing before me I could see God..."


"The teachings about the Sodomites [constrained me]...I'm fifty-six and I'm just exploring same gender loving experience for the first time now..."


"When I started discovering the whole SGL thing...[there was] havoc...You realized you've been brainwashed...It's a system that's been designed to keep you [subservient]..."


"What we've been taught about homosexuality is just plain wrong...Leviticus was about cultural customs and practice at the time [the book was written]...Sodom was about hospitality, lust, greed and homosexual rape, not [about] homosexuality..."


"I went to a Lutheran Church...[It's] similar to a Catholic Church...For me, God is a light...God can be seen in the things around me...[God is] an abundance...I've had to relearn the difference between religion and spirituality...They are not the same...Spirituality is the belief in something bigger than yourself...I had to relearn who and what God was...I need that protection from Him...I didn't pray for a very long time...Religion is about hypocrisy..."

 

Black Church Face  


If your religion condemns you, is it really your religion?


"The word religion is from Latin...'re,' meaning to link, or to tie...And, 'gion,' meaning to God..."


"It was a culture shock for me to go to a Black Church...[It was Pentecostal and] I thought it was an act...When I went to Trinity Church in Chicago when Reverend [Jeremiah] Wright was the minister...It was unapologetically Black and unapologetically Christian...He taught that you define that relationship for yourself...And [the church was] SGL affirming..."


"I had two different religions [growing up] COGIC [Church of God in Christ] and Baptist...When I went to the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception and I saw people bowing down to Jesuses that were of their cultures, it blew my mind..."


"In my search...We sang Closer to God...[And were taught] to 'love God with all your heart'...[I] made that my goal...[The absence of affirmation I received in the church] has led me to ask some questions...How could God create a dumb animal?...a dumb person?...a dumb race?...I believe in [intelligent design]...So, the way we are designed...We are perfect..."


"I'm trained as a scientist...[In the] Humanism Campaign, only once did my pastor mention homosexuality...'If Jesus can make [such and such] He can make your limp wrist strong'...I was sort of his star kid in the church...He never really treated me like a kid...I noticed as I grew, one of his close friends was gay...The choir director was gay...[And I couldn't understand how he could condemn homosexuality]...Michael Eric Dyson said, 'We expect in the Black church for people to sing a song of their own demise'...In college I was deeply religious...I got up every morning and prayed with others...I thought I could escape my homosexuality...At one point, I pulled off this religious event...[It was] my very first experience with making an event...And I realized, if I could do that. I could do anything...And I had this convergence about my scientific training...It was at that point that I stopped believing in God..."


{Facilitator asks, "Did that have to do with the church's rejection of or condemnation of your homosexuality?..."}  "Yes...I came by this line about, 'to love God with all your heart,' and [I decided] that's enough for me to worry about...If I'm going to follow an axiom about loving my neighbor as myself, I realized that homosexuality was love and I didn't need anything else..."


{Facilitator says, "Interesting...Well, if you see homosexuality as love...Some would say, that's God..."}


"Growing up non-denominational...[The teaching was] The God in you is the God He gave you...My parents said...You got to find God on your own...I went to Trinity Church too...And It was, Unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian...My religion doesn't condemn me..."


{Facilitator says, "And that's a good thing...But, does your religion celebrate your sexuality?...Earlier today, someone talked of a distinction between tolerance and acceptance...That's an important distinction...But, I submit tolerance is a condescension...And even acceptance is not enough...If we will tolerate mere acceptance in our places of worship, then we still don't know who we really are...Our sexuality is a gift which must be cherished, and indeed, celebrated...so, in closing I ask...Do you think we, as same gender loving men bear a responsibility to go back to the places we have worshipped and change the perspective of the Black church?..."}  [Participants answer]  "Yes..."  

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

Upcoming  Topics:  BMX- NY  2012  Winter  Calendar          

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


Friday, March 30th, 2012
Building A Same Gender Loving Liberation Movement:
A Dialogue w/SGL Sisters
(Facilitated by-  JM Green)


  

        

 

 

 

 Community  Corner  Announcements


The BMX National Annual Leadership Summit & Retreat 

For Diverse Black Men Who Love Men


In the beautiful California, Wine Country and Coastline,

May 10-14, 2012 

  

BMX National Leadership Retreat Flyer 2012 (CC)
Official Website: BlackLeaderEvents.com

    

This year's retreat is located one hour north of San Francisco in Guerneville, California. The town is minutes from the famous, Bodega Bay beach coastline and mountain recreation territories.  The retreat will be hosted by the luxurious

West Sonoma Inn & Spa Center, which borders the Russian River.

It's centrally located to dining and cafes.

  

SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE!

 
Date: May 10-14, 2012  

Site Location: West Sonoma Inn & Spa

14100 Brookside Lane, Guerneville, CA

GOOGLE MAP


Cost: $300 to $450.00 (Sliding scale)    

 

 

  


SGL  Black  Heroes 

Alain  Locke  (1886  -  1954) 

 

 Alain Locke 1

   

 

Alain Locke 2Born Alain LeRoy Locke, September 13, 1886, in Philadelphia, PA; died June 9, 1954, in New York City; son of Pliny Ishmael (a teacher and postal clerk) and Mary Hawkins Locke (a schoolteacher). Education: Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, B.A. 1907; Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, England, 1907-10, B.Litt 1910; graduate study, University of Berlin, Germany, 1910-11; Harvard University, Ph.D. in philosophy 1918. Politics: Republican. Religion: Episcopalian. Memberships: Member: American Negro Academy; American Philosophical Association; Associates in Negro Folk Education; International Institute of African Languages and Culture; League of American Writers; National Order of Honor and Merit (Haiti); Society for Historical Research; corresponding member Academie des Sciences Colonailes; honorary fellow Sociedad de Estudios Afro-Cubanos. 

 

 

Career
Howard University, Washington, DC, assistant professor of education, 1912-17, professor of philosophy, 1917-54; Student Army Training Camp instructor, 1918; Harvard University, Austin teaching fellow, 1916-17; French Oriental Archaeological Society, Cairo, Egypt, research sabbatical,1924-25; Fisk University, Nashville, TN, exchange professor, 1927-28; Inter-American exchange professor in Haiti, 1943; visiting professor: University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1945-46; New School of Social Research, New York City, 1947; College of the City of New York, 1948.

 


Awards


Rhodes Scholar, 1907-10; Honor Roll of Race Relations, 1942. 

 

 

Writings

  • Editor, The New Negro: An Interpretation, A. & C. Boni, 1925.
  • Editor with Montgomery Gregory, Plays of Negro Life: A Source-Book of Native American Drama, Harper, 1927.
  • Editor, Four Negro Poets, Simon & Schuster, 1927.
  • A Decade of Negro Self-Expression, 1928.
  • The Negro in America, American Library Association, 1933.
  • Frederick Douglass: A Biography of Anti-Slavery, 1935.
  • The Negro and His Music, Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1936.
  • Negro Art: Past and Present, Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1936.
  • Editor, The Negro in Art: A Pictorial Record of the Negro Artist and of the Negro Theme in Art, Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1940.
  • Editor with Bernhard J. Stern, When Peoples Meet: A Study in Race and Culture Contacts, Committee on Workshops, Progressive Education Association, 1942.
  • Le Role du Negre dans la Culture des Ameriques, Impr. de l'Etat, 1943. 

 

 

Narrative Essay


Philosophy professor Alain Locke put forth the theory of "cultural pluralism," which values the uniqueness of different styles and values available within a democratic society.


The preeminent African American intellectual of his generation, Alain Locke was the leading promoter and interpreter of the artistic and cultural contributions of African Americans to American life. More than anyone else, he familiarized white Americans with the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s, while encouraging African American authors to set high artistic standards in their depiction of life. As a professor of philosophy, he expounded his theory of "cultural pluralism" that valued the uniqueness of different styles and values available within a democratic society.


Locke was born into a prominent Philadelphia family in 1886. His grandfather, Ishmael Locke, was a free African American and teacher. The Society of Friends (Quakers) sponsored his attending Cambridge University in England for further education, after which Ishmael spent four years in Liberia establishing schools. While in Africa, he married an African American educator engaged in similar work. Returning to the United States, he became headmaster of a school in Providence, Rhode Island, and then principal of the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia.


Alain's father, Pliny Locke, graduated from this institute in 1867, then taught mathematics there for two years before leaving to teach newly freed African Americans in North Carolina. In 1872, he enrolled in Howard University's law school while working as an accountant in the Freedmen's Bureau and the Freedmen's Bank and serving for a time as the private secretary for General O. O. Howard, the head of the Freedmen's Bureau. Completing law school in 1874, he returned to Philadelphia to become a clerk in the U.S. Post Office. Mary Hawkins, Alain's mother, was a descendant of Charles Shorter. A free African American, Shorter had been a soldier in the War of 1812 and helped to establish an educational tradition in his family. Mary continued this tradition by becoming a teacher.


Pliny Locke and Mary Hawkins were engaged for 16 years, not marrying until they were middle-aged. Alain, their only child, was born in 1886 and nurtured in an urbane, cultivated home environment. Six years later his father died, and his mother supported her son through teaching. Young Alain contracted rheumatic fever early in his childhood. The disease permanently damaged his heart and restricted his physical activities. In their place, he spent his time reading books and learning to play the piano and violin.


Locke attended Central High School, graduating second in the class of 1902, and then studied at the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy, where he moved up to first in his class. Entering Harvard University, he studied under William James and some of the other leading American philosophers on the faculty. Locke completed Harvard's four-year program in three, graduating magna cum laude in 1907, being elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and winning the school's most prestigious award, the Bowdoin Prize, for an essay in English.


It was a remarkable achievement for anyone, not to mention an African American during this highly segregated era. While many white American scholars were seeking to prove the intellectual inferiority of African Americans to justify racial segregation, Locke became a symbol of achievement and a powerful argument for offering African Americans equal opportunity at white educational institutions.


Continuing his intellectual accomplishments, Locke was named a Rhodes Scholar, the first African American chosen for this distinguished award, and sailed to England in 1907 to attend Oxford University. He studied philosophy, Greek, and Literae Humaniores, receiving a bachelor of literature degree in 1910. From Oxford he moved to Germany for advanced work in philosophy at the University of Berlin from 1910 to 1911.


Europe at that time was the acknowledged center of Western civilization, and Locke's years there proved vital to his intellectual development. His exposure to modern literature, music, art, and dance, along with his meeting many Africans and other nonwhites from around the world, created new perspectives for viewing American society and culture. Racial discrimination, he realized, was a global problem.

 

 

Became an Educator


Returning to the United States in early 1912, Locke was faced with an unusual dilemma. Given his academic training and intellectual experiences, he was more qualified than many white college professors. But because of his race, he was unable to teach at a white college. Yet this same level of achievement set him vastly apart from his fellow African Americans.


Being unusually introspective and perceptive, Locke recognized these limitations. To better familiarize himself with the everyday segregated world of America, he took a six-month tour of the southern states. Witnessing widespread prejudice and discrimination, he decided that only by setting high standards and demonstrating similar accomplishments as whites could African Americans gain respect and equality. By teaching at the college level and promoting African and African American culture, he would further this goal.


That September, Locke was appointed an assistant professor of English at Howard University, an African American college, in Washington, DC. He set about to establish Howard as the country's preeminent African American university, a training ground for African American intellectuals, and a center for African American culture and research on racial problems. But the school's board of trustees twice refused to approve his teaching courses on comparative race relations or African American studies, maintaining that the Howard was a nonracial institution.


Frustrated, Locke turned his attention back to philosophy. In 1916, he received a one-year appointment as an Austin Teaching Fellow at Harvard and began his dissertation under the idealist philosopher, Josiah Royce. Two years later he received his doctorate degree and returned to Howard as a full professor of philosophy. He would chair this department until his retirement in 1953.

 

 

Stressed Blacks' Contribution to Egypt


Locke became one of the leading members of the Howard faculty as well as a major inspiration to the student body and the growing national African American self-awareness movement of the 1920s. In 1924, he took a sabbatical leave to work with the French Oriental Archaeological Society in Egypt and the Sudan. His experiences there, including his presence at the reopening of Tutankhamen's tomb, reinforced his belief in the strong historic and cultural roots of African civilization. Lecturing widely upon his return to the United States, Locke stressed the contribution of Africans to Egypt's multiracial society, the world's first advanced civilization, a contribution not widely acknowledged by white scholars.


Locke's return to Howard coincided with a power struggle between the predominantly Black student body and faculty, who desired a more African American-oriented institution, against the university's white president and board of trustees who sought to maintain its traditional nonracial status. Along with several other professors, Locke was dismissed in 1925, ostensibly as a cost-cutting measure. That September, he expressed his views in a Survey Graphic magazine article, "Negro Education Bids for Par," stating that African American education, "to the extent that it is separate, ought to be free to develop its own racial interests and special aims for both positive and compensatory reasons."


A storm of protest by the student body, alumni, national African American press, and fellow academics compelled the board to eventually reinstate him with full pay. But Locke did not return to teach on campus until 1928 with the installation of Howard's first African American president, Mordecai W. Johnson, who shared his goals of creating a predominantly African American university.


These years of temporary release from his academic duties proved to be among Locke's most productive periods. A major contributor to Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life and Survey Graphic, he edited a special issue of the latter publication devoted to the Harlem Renaissance, the flourishing of African American art, literature, and music in New York City during the 1920s. Expanding it into a book and shifting the focus from Harlem to overall African American cultural life, Locke authored The New Negro: An Interpretation in 1925. It was an outstanding anthology of the leading African American fiction, poetry, drama, and essays by himself and others describing the changing state of race relations in the United States.


The New Negro became the symbol of a new era, documenting the social and cultural innovations of the younger African American generation. It contributed to a growing race consciousness, self confidence, and sophistication of an increasingly urbanized African American population. In his foreword, Locke asserted that African American life was "not only establishing new contacts and founding new centers, it is finding a new soul." He compared this movement with similar efforts taking place around the globe in Russia, India, China, Palestine, and many other countries.


Because of his efforts, white critics began to take African American writing seriously, and African American writers saw themselves for the first time as part of a broad but unified literary movement. Most Harlem Renaissance artists sought not only to develop their work into high art, but also to use it as a means to better race relations and American society.


With the success of The New Negro, Locke became the leading authority on contemporary African American culture and used his position to promote the careers of young artists and authors like Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes. He encouraged them to seek out subjects in African American life and to set high artistic standards for themselves. Writing in a Black World essay entitled "Alain Locke: Cultural and Social Mentor," Richard A. Long stated, it is "no exaggeration to say that the Harlem Renaissance as we know it is marked strongly by the presence of Alain Locke, and would have been something rather different without him and the role of mentor which he filled with modesty and elegance."

   

   
In Demand as a Visiting Scholar


When World War II ended, Locke was one of the best known African American scholars in the country. A regular contributor to many magazines, journals, and reference works, he was a member of the editorial board of the American Scholar and, in 1945, the first African American elected president of the American Association for Adult Education, a predominantly white national organization.


As American universities slowly began to desegregate in the North and West, Locke was suddenly in great demand as a visiting scholar. During the 1945-1946 academic year he served as visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. The following year he was a visiting professor at the New School for Social Research in what had become his second home for many years, New York City, and held a similar appointment the next year at the City College of New York (CCNY).


After 1948 he began teaching concurrently at CCNY and Howard. As he neared retirement, Locke reviewed his long career at Howard, proud of his success in using philosophy to stimulate critical thinking among his students, helping to create an African American intellectual elite, and his hard work in transforming a small segregated college into the nation's leading African American educational center. His final achievement was to secure a Phi Beta Kappa chapter at the school in 1953, a major milestone in the history of African American education.
Locke retired later that year and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Howard, a rare expression of esteem for a faculty member. He moved permanently to New York City and continued working on his magnum opus, The Negro in American Culture, a definitive study of the contribution of African Americans to American society. Unfortunately his recurrent heart problems returned in the spring of 1954, causing his death that June. He bequeathed his extensive collection of African art and all his papers to Howard University. His unfinished manuscript was completed by Margaret Just Butcher.

 

 

Sources


Books


Butcher, Margaret J. The Negro in American Culture: Based on Materials Left by Alain Locke, Knopf, 1956.


The Critical Temper of Alain Locke, edited by Jeffrey C. Stewart, Garland, 1983.


Linnemann, Russell J. Alain Locke: Reflections on a Modern Renaissance Man, Louisiana State University Press, 1982.


Washington, Johnny, Alain Locke and Philosophy: A Quest for Cultural Pluralism, Greenwood Press, 1986.


Periodicals


Black World, November 1970, p.87-90.

 

 

BMX-NY's Source: http://www.africawithin.com/bios/alain_locke.htm 

 

  

 

 

 



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 

 



BMX  Mission  Statement

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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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