Friday July 14, 2006 SGN.org |
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Volume 34 Issue 28 |
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Wednesday, Nov 19, 2008
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The Saga Continues - Bare meat and Harlem |
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| The Saga Continues - Bare meat and Harlem | |
| Gay men of African descent in Central Harlem, New York, was started in 1986 by the late Reverend Charles Angel. An out and open Black Gay man of the Pentecostal faith. I commend the late Reverend for his courage in coming out in the Pentecostal faith which judges, condemns, and preaches hatred against those who hail from the GLBT community and who are different from themselves.
The time for this organization was at that "now" time, when Black men dying in silence from HIV/AIDS, Black Gay youth forced into becoming homeless complete with violence and prostitution stemming from feelings of isolation, alienation and harassment. Black men also suffered from depression and insecurity because of the fear of coming out and not having the support of the Black community. Then, feeling unwanted and uninvited in the so-called Gay community complete with racism, separation, and segregation. These men were not just Black or not just men or not just Gay, they were all three of these elements. In order to create parity for the black Gay community, Reverend Angel and his colleagues took on the role and the weight of community activists to fight the triple threat of AIDS, homophobia and racism through education, advocacy, health, wellness, and social support. The Reverend Charles Angel's number one hope was to empower Black Gay men whom he felt were marginalized by heterosexual Blacks and the White community. Today the group is going stronger than ever with a reported revenue of 1.5 million (2004 tax filing) from government funding and donations. It offers free HIV testing, support group meetings, and outreach services like mobile testing and condom distribution. It also works with another organization to help HIV positive people disclose their status to family and friends. Just Days ago the group got it's wake-up-call from reality via email in the form of an invitation to a Gay Sex Party for Black and Latino men where party favors and party hats weren't allowed. Yes, girls and studs, it was to a Barebacking Party where you'd be asked to leave if you showed up with condoms. This invite to play Russian Roulette with a loaded gun arrived in Tokes Osubu's (Director of GMAD) email weeks before the 25th anniversary of the AIDS Epidemic. Shocked and disgusted, Osubu sent the party's promoter a letter urging him to reconsider the policy with plans to protest the outside the East Harlem building where the party was being held. The party promoter did return a message saying that the party was private, while refusing to identify himself. This will be the 3rd party of its kind with the 54 people being thanked for attending the last HO gathering in the latest graphic invitation. Multiply the 54 people by the last 7 people whom they had sadistically sexed it with without a condom. Between January 1st and March 31st in 2005, Black New Yorkers, who are 26 percent of the city's population, accounted for more than half (52.7 percent) of the city's AIDS related deaths. Blacks also accounted for more than half (52.9 percent) of new HIV diagnoses during that period according to the city's heath department. Nationally, in 2004, the HIV diagnosis rate for Black men was 7 times the rate for white men, the CDC reports. The CDC reports that most infections among all men result from Gay sex. Nearly half of Black men who have sex with men are HIV+, the CDC estimates. Other sex parties are held in New York and other major cities, but typically offer condoms and sometimes encourage safe sex, Tokes and others commented. It's up to the consenting adults to use the condoms or not. "We want to send a strong message to the party promoter and promoters like him that it is unacceptable to the larger community and that we're not all complicit in this behavior. We're not just idle bystanders," said Osubu. "I'm sick of 18-year-olds coming in here HIV-positive. It's got to stop." Osubu and others blame the epidemic, in part, on homophobia, denial, blame and shame surrounding homosexuality. They engender alienation and isolation among Gay men who often end up feeling worthless and sometimes suicidal, they commented. Then let's not forget about those who are living in homophobia, denial, blame, and shame surrounding homosexuality. The so-called straight Brothers who have sex with men but deny that it's Gay sex. I asked it once and I'm asking again. What is it? You are what and who you do! If you're strictly in to men, you're Gay. If you like women and men, you're Bisexual. Lie and lie again, but Black and Hispanic women together represented about 25% of all US women, yet they accounted for 81% of the estimated total of AIDS diagnoses for women in 2004. In 2004 78% of Black women were infected with HIV. When your actions hurt others, it's time to give it up and get your act together. If you're not comfortable with yourself, you can't be comfortable around others and others won't be comfortable around you. If you don't love yourself, no one will love you nor will you let them. I have talked and listened to a good number of HIV+ Black women to get their perspective on things and allow them to vent. Their common dominator is that the men in their lives blamed them for their contacting HIV. One woman's husband not only accused her, he divorced her on the grounds of adultery. He threatened to tell her kids, family and friends about her being HIV-positive if she were to put up a fight about it and contest the divorce. She was also warned in a threatening and demeaning manner not to mention her HIV+ status because people would think that he had it too. He refused to pay child support because the whole ordeal was her fault. He did offer to drive her to the welfare office now that she was a single mother of 2. What a DOG! She knew that he played both sides of the fence because too many effeminate sounding men called the house asking for her husband; who'd go ballistic! This and the fact that he hated Gays with a vengeance but snuck out to Gay bars. This young lady was afraid to get and take her AIDS medications because she didn't want her kids to find out by seeing them in her medicine cabinet. She was in and out of Harborview various times in intensive care with Death standing in the doorway. Common sense finally prevailed and she's now taking her medicine regiment along with eating healthy balanced meals, getting 8-10 hours sleep, and stress management. She's too terrified of becoming involved with another man and is seriously considering turning to a woman to fullfil her romantic needs. The Seattle Times ran an article about women who turn to other women. The feeling is mutual among those who were dogged out by their men. When I was growing up, I was taught to treat women with love, kindness, and respect; which I do to this day. We shared the same goal of getting out of the ghetto -- getting a new mindset from the ghetto mentality and environmental upbringing. To make something out of ourselves and become the person who God made us to be. We broke free from the poverty, crime, drugs, gangs, and discrimination within the Black community. We had hopes, dreams, drive, ambition, and motivation which became a reality. Black women have to fight harder than a Black man to make it in this world. The last thing that she needs is her Black man to make her a statistic in the AIDS epidemic, then, get blamed for it. This nonsense has to stop right here and right now! My mother told me years ago that If I'm embarrassed and ashamed of what I was and the things that I did& I don't have any business doing them. Shortly after this talk, I got into therapy and other self-improvement sessions and seminars that became rites of passage. Everyone wants to be liked and feel like they belong for a sense of self-worth. If you don't add up to your own worthiness, your total of self-worth will be zero and zilch. When you know the truth about yourself it doesn't matter what people think about you. You know for a fact that the things they say about you aren't true. Why vie for the approval of self-righteous phonies pretending to be something that they're not and never will be? Are this people paying your bills? Are they taking care of you? Are they your mother and father? They're just selfish, self-centered, insensitive dimwits trying to hold you back from doing what you want to do. Some people are jealous, envious, and get bent out of shape because you're doing what they refuse to do within themselves which is change for the better. There are those who put down others to make themselves feel superior and above them. Don't give them this control or power over you. True friends encourage and are in your corner, while at the same time, guarding your back. People who put you down aren't in your corner nor do they have your best interests at heart. Just be you! Rise above the fear and ignorance and fight the triple threat of AIDS, homophobia and racism through education, advocacy, health, wellness, and social support. This is the same battle that was started by Reverend Charles Angel in Harlem, the biggest Black Mecca of them all. |
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