Meanwhile, down here - South Carolina Black Pride
Forgive me for this short post.
I know there is a lot going on in California and with Obama very close to getting the Democratic nomination, but I thought I would talk a little bit about what's going on in South Carolina.
We are three weeks away from the third annual South Carolina Black Pride and things are beginning to hop.
I am secretary of the group (although I prefer the title Prime Minister of Information - eat your heart out, Stokely Carmichael), so tonight, I get to send out over 1500 emails to various individuals.
Big fun.
But I'm looking forward to it for one reason.
A week ago, I was told an interesting story. A certain political official was talking to a group of South Carolina black pastors and she made a point to ask about lgbts of color.
From what I understand, these pastors pulled an Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and said that there are no lgbts of color in South Carolina.
Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little.
They said they didn't know where she could find any.
Of course if they were truthful, these pastors would have invited the political official to their churches and pointed at the usher board, the deacon board, the choir, and in some cases, themselves.
But the fact that these pastors claimed not to know any lgbts of color is a perfect reason to have a South Carolina Black Pride.
We have had two South Carolina Black Prides and over 1,500 folks attended. I have a feeling that we are going to have double that number this year.
And I'm looking forward to it and the repercussions thereof.
There is an intentional wall of silence when it comes to the visibility and needs of lgbts South Carolinians of color.
It's time for that wall to come down.
This is very sad to me because of the similarities i have found over here. For many years i worked in HIV prevention. The aboriginal community in Aus has traditionally had hugely disproprtionate rates of STDs however whn I approached aboriginal leaders they all expressed a "faith" that there were no gay aboriginals. A TG aborigal firend i met during the period explained that is was very dangerous to be openly gay or transgender within her community.
ReplyDeleteI have heard that the black churches in the states are frequently very bigotted in this manner. I would be pleased to hear any explanations that readers may have.