Gay Men's Wellness Month

Beyoncé Knowles’s Lemonade video album brings the words of Beyoncé into a visual media and shows the viewer a deeper meaning behind the album. After this video came out many articles came forward analyzing Lemonade. One article, in particular, that was intriguing is Bell Hooks “Moving Beyond Pain.” Hooks starts her article saying that the Lemonade video was created as a money-making, business strategy, but as the text continues the reader can conclude that “Moving Beyond Pain” is actually about African American women, and women in general, standing up for themselves.

Unfortunately, the AIDS-stricken director died before the film was completed. This film operates as a kind of last will and testament for Marlon Riggs. “He bequeaths the idea that rigid

Hugh O’Brien is typically known for his roles in various movies such as Love has Many Faces and The Game of Death. However, many people do not know about his impact on today’s youth including myself. In 1958, Hugh spent a month in South Africa, where he recognized the need for volunteering and leadership in the teens of America and the world. Upon returning, he created HOBY (Hugh O’Brien Youth Leadership Seminar). HOBY is a weekend long seminar for high school sophomores to develop their character, increase their leadership, and instill the desire to volunteer within their communities. In April of 2014, I attended HOBY as a sophomore representative from Marmaduke High School. I was unaware of what to expect from my weekend at HOBY. However, shortly after my arrival, I realized those three days would forever change my life.

Disagreements, anger, and division has taken center stage in America today. Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” and its accompanying visual masterpiece, engulfs the listener and viewer into a true perspective view of culture and effects of society on African-Americans in our community. “Alright” conveys not only a message to African-Americans but to every individual worldwide that the oppression through police brutality, violence, and attempted political power will not leave us helpless or hopeless, but alright or in a satisfactory mental or physical state.

Due to the increasingly negative view of homosexuality in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the LGBTQ community was facing a world altering decision; they could either shrink into the background, and allow the world to continue to draw its opinions based on speculation, or claim the spotlight and allow themselves to be judged based on their own merit. Harvey Milk, “the first openly gay elected official in the United States” (Hope Speech, Commentary) saw a need for an uprising of the latter. When addressing a crowd of his supporters and the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) people in “The Hope Speech” at San Francisco City Hall on Gay Freedom Day in 1978, Harvey Milk uses the I-You/Us-Them relationships as defined by Martin Buber, pathos appeals, and shared experiences to establish an emotional bond with the LGBTQ community. This relationship of comradery and mentorship, deeply rooted in shared values, best prepared the crowd to absorb his message of activism and hope.

In today’s American society, being born black is often life threatening and comes with many struggles and fears. The author Brent Staples visibly demonstrates the presence of black men, in his article “Black Men and Public Spaces”. Staples illustrates to the readers how black men attempt to live their lives as normal as possible, but are unable to because of the fear society has of them. Brent Staples attests to the turbulent lives black men face in society, from their childhood to an adult age. Staples is able to demonstrate the various issues black men face in society with the use of logos, ethos, and pathos.

I attended “Queer Brown Voices Platica” at the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center in San Antonio, Texas, on October 10, 2015. “Queer Brown Voices, Personal Narratives of Latina/o LGBT Activism” delves into the personal discrimination experiences inflicted upon them not only from the population at large but also from within their own Hispanic communities and their struggle to disrupt the cycle of sexism, racism and homophobia. One of the three books editors, Letitia Gómez (Leti), is my sister-in-law. To fully comprehend their fights to survive and be relevant in mainstream America is awe inspiring. Their activism was not only to negate the prejudices but also for equal access to healthcare particularly during the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980’s.

Davies, Diana. Sylvia Ray Rivera and Arthur Bell at Gay Liberation Demonstration. Digital image. NBC. NBC, 6 Oct. 2015. Web. 15 Mar. 2016. .

The struggles not only happen by outsiders for African Americans LGBTQ individuals, but within their own communities. Yet the LGBT movement’s lack of substantive work on issues most relevant to people of color leaves the movement vulnerable to irrelevance and division—and leaves fully one-third of the members of the LGBT community underserved.

“African American communities are populated by men who are too weak and by women who are too strong”. In my opinion, this sentence alone fully summarizes chapter 6 of our Black Sexuality and Health text. It has become a norm in the Black community to suggest that strengthening “weak” Black men is the best way to fight racism and to reverse African American poverty. African American women are constantly viewed as “too strong”, and unwilling to accept help for others including her Black man. The tremendous strength of Black women has caused for counseling to “let” Black men lead and also has led to African American men and women being encouraged to blame one another for economic, political, and social problems within African

The organizers of the event stood on the steps before us. A poet was brought to the front and introduced. He was reading a poem titled “Dig Deep” that he’d written that morning. Silence washed over the crowd when he began. A tenacious passion addressed each and every person listening. The poet’s voice cracked and wavered as tears streamed down his face. My eyes widened when the words “queer black youth” were bellowed into the megaphone. He had given queer black youth a tribute, thanking me and everyone else involved in the community for stressing the importance of intersectionality. I raised my left fist as tears stung at my eyes, silently thanking him for recognizing our efforts. My fist remained up until the last words of the poem were

In a society that separates families from each other, kill children for unreasonable reasons, and incarcerate young adult for a crime they did not commit. This group strived in this kind of environment, instead of becoming weak as a result of this mistreatment, they became even stronger for the sake of future generation. The civil right movement and Black lives matter movement are some of the many weapons used in building this group into a strong and fortified group. The strong sense of togetherness in this community is one of the strongest weapons in overcoming this

Equality Texarkana began very simply trying to stop the backlash that was occurring after the defeat of prop M-130, an anti-discrimination ordinance for Texarkana, Ark. The LGBT community was looking for someone to blame and began disparaging the work done by those involved in trying to save M-130. Jimmy Pope was sitting at home looking through Facebook seeing the negativity being spread and decided he had enough! He started the Facebook Group Equality Texarkana to offer a positive platform for the LGBT community to grow stronger and to support one another. Shortly after the group started, we decided what Texarkana needed was a Pride Event to draw everyone together. A group of people gathered together one afternoon to plan a picnic and they

The project will have three performances. One of the performances will be held at Holman United Methodist Church’s Community Room, which is located in the historically Black neighborhood of West Adams. After the performances, there will be a dialogue between the students in the workshop and the audience. It is our aim to engage the audience in an exchange and expose them to this marginalized group. We hope to shift societal norms and create community building. Community building, within the three different audiences – the Black gay community, Black community, and LGBT community, would allow for the dialogue to continue past the life of the project and create future dialogues, joint collaborations, and greater support for Black gay men. To help with this process, the project will partner with In The Meantime and The Black LGBT Project. Both organizations are meccas where Black gay men can share their stories in an organic process. Through our project, the story sharing will be a more structured

“We’re here, we’re queer, get over it.” In 1990, these words, shouted and displayed proudly on signs waved by the activist group, Queer Nation, were revolutionary. Never, not since the Stonewall Riots, had non-straight, non-cis people been so vocal about their existence and demanded acceptance – something that straight people take for granted on a daily basis. However, in the years since the Riots, LGBT activism has become much more mainstream, no longer whispered about behind closet doors or something to be wholly ashamed of. Gay marriage is legal in all 50 United States, something that has been fought for since the conception of the LGBT movement. In fact, gay couples are routinely being featured on popular television and other forms of media. Some might say that in 2016, the dreams of the rioters in Stonewall have been realized. Marriage rights and the spotlight on nighttime television; equality seems to truly be right on the horizon.