6.30.19

As Pride month comes to a close the African Student Organization at SUNY Binghamton, want to both acknowledge and celebrate the POC LGBTQ+ community. Unknown to many, since the late 1800s, saloons, cabarets, speakeasies, rent parties, and drag balls were spaces where LGBTQ identities were not only visible but openly and enthusiastically celebrated. At the turn of the 20th century during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, a specifically black LGBTQ culture began to emerge. Many of the movement’s leaders were openly gay or identified as having varied sexualities including Angelina Weld Grimké, Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, Wallace Thurman, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, Alain Locke, and Richard Bruce Nugent among various others. In direct correlation with the eruption and evolution of black literature, art, and music, the movement revolutionized discourse surrounding conventional language, social structure, and the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexuality. For decades since, Harlem has continued to be a vibrant site of of LGBTQ art, activism, and culture. Developed out of Harlem's elaborate drag competitions known as "balls", a highly stylized form of dance was born. Between the 1960s and 1980s, Vogue took the neighborhood by storm and the once glamorous theatricality that used to define ballroom culture transformed into intensified contest's or "vogue battles." Using dance, the largely black and Latino Voguers would “read” each other, and those who “threw the best shade” would often be determined the winner. Several competing factions contended with one another to receive trophies and protect their "house's" reputation. In an environment of mutual respect and compassion, creative performances through voguing were used as an outlet for comfort, self-expression and a peaceful means to settle disputes among rivals. To this day, vogue offers a sense of identity, belonging, and dignity in a world that has yet to fully accept and value the lives of LGBTQ+ people across the globe. Facing both racism and colorism in the gay community, and homophobia and transphobia within the Black community, QPOC people often don't have the luxury to feel like, or be themsleves around other members of their own community, so they make supportive, inclusive spaces of their own. Now more than ever, as the crisis of violence against black trans people persists we must reflect on the will and determination of the LGBTQ+ community to not be silenced, for those who continue to fight everyday for gay liberation and trans rights in the face of marginalization and violence, there is no limit to pride month.

6.19.19

Keep In Your Heart The Blood

Remember always the glory days, the dances, the songs, the chants, the rituals, the customs, the people.

Remember times in beautiful Africa, your people. From green forests, golden deserts, to the deepest, darkest regions of Congo and Virunga.

Hear, here in this land. Hear always in your heart the beating of drums, the ancient customs of the Kagani.

Remember always the kings and queens, Tutankhamen, Cleopatra. But do not sit and not remember the dark days.

Keep In Your Heart The Blood.

Blood spilled by those who fought for freedom. The blood of the slave as the whip touches the flesh. Do not be enslaved, be now empowered.

Feel it, taste it, drink it. Gather it in buckets, bathe in it. Bathe your children in it

Keep In Your Heart The Blood - Kristina Kay, 1994

On June 19th, 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, the United States experienced it's second Revolution. 154 years ago to the day, enslaved African Americans were notified of their freedom in Galveston Bay TX by Union troops. Known as Juneteenth, Independence Day, or Freedom Day, this historic date marks the official end of chattel slavery in the United States. In such a uniquely turbulent time in this nation's history, eerily reminiscent of the years leading up to the American Civil War defined by bigotry, division, an violence, now is the time for unity and pride in our roots and strength to persevere in the face of unimaginable suffering. The struggle for equity and opportunity continues, that is why we celebrate Juneteenth because through knowledge and unity we shall be liberated.

6.15.19

While the world is captivated by the 3-1 Netherlands win against Cameroon in the World Cup, the Republic of Cameroon is currently teetering on the edge of collapse. Referred to by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) as the globe's "most neglected displacement crises", over the course of the last six months the Anglophone regions of Cameroon have been rocked by a growing human rights crisis, as government forces conduct aggressive counterinsurgency , campaigns against armed separatist militiamen. Brutal killings and the razing of villages at the hands of security forces have been met with deafening silence from the international community, according to the NRC approximately 500,000 people have been forced from their homes and more than 780,000 children are unable to attend school. Originating in 2016, protests over the increasing use of French in courts and schools in Cameroon's English-speaking heartlands eventually morphed into violence and demonstrations. Once led by English-speaking lawyers, students and teachers, demands for an end to what rebels consider domination from the nations francophone northern regions were met with severe crackdowns which resulted in the incarceration of activists and the shooting of several protesters. As of June 5, the crackdowns have only led to more English-speaking civilians taking up arms against the government. Where is the humanity for Africans?

6.9.19

The Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), a pro-democratic party that led protests against former authoritarian leader Omar al-Bashir, has called for a civil disobedience campaign in response to a violent massacre conducted by the ruling military juta whose paramilitary forces killed more than 100 people including children in a peaceful sit-in, in the capital of Khartoum on June 3. Hailed by many as the worst massacre of civilians since the ousting of dictator Omar al-Bashir, the SPA claim that the dissent campaign will only end when the ruling generals transfer power to a civil transitional authority in accordance with the Declaration of Freedom and Change (DFC). The campaign is intended to boycott all labor and operate as general civil disobedience in hopes of securing a civil state. Wielding machine-gun-mounted pickup trucks, assault rifles, tear gas and clubs, troops fired indiscriminately at the unarmed protesters, beat men and women alike, and set fire to the sit-in's tents and stages. Utilizing violence, the military dictatorship have maintained power through a campaign of terror employing midnight raids, burning people alive, raping women, and mutilating and dumping bodies into the Nile. Sudanese revolutionaries as of now, are still maintaining their pursuit of a civilian-led government as the struggle for free-elections continue. What is the price of freedom ?