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Michael Crawford over at Bloggernista has a great interview over at his pad and The Bilerico Project, “Wiping Out Anti-Gay Stigma in Black Communities.”
He asked David Powell, director of Anti-Stigma Interventions for Gay Men of African Descent (GMAD) about the NY-based organization's social marketing campaign called Wipe Out!, which targets homophobia in the black community and its impact on black LGBTs and HIV/AIDS prevention work. The goal is to raise awareness and to shine a light on the issues that make tackling these issues challenging in the community.
MC: You focus on a program called “Anti-Stigma Interventions.” How long has the program been active and what are its key goals?DP: Anti-Stigma interventions actually are a series of initiatives to provide individual, group, and community level activities that seek to mobilize support both from within the ranks of Black Gay Men and the larger communities which we remain emotionally and spiritually tied to. You are aware of our social marketing campaign Wipe Out! which includes the Words Kill Too image, but we also have developed an HIV prevention campaign, PnP (‘ProtectnPreserve).
The Wipe Out! campaign started this Spring and continues through 2009, with new additions every year. We are currently running a second campaign on the MTA (NYC subway system) and a third one is scheduled to be unveiled in November.
We provide free training on the components of stigma and discrimination as they relate to Black men with same-sex desire who are (or perceived to be) HIV+ to community service providers, faith-based leaders, and the staff of primary health care and substance abuse treatment modalities. We are also working with a prominent research scientist to develop an intervention for Black men to help them examine and address, with the support of their peers, the effects of stigma and discrimination on their overall mental health and the impact on their decision making processes. Finally, we work in Coalition with local and national organizations to end hate music in all genres of music and create protections for our LGBT brothers and sisters in other regions of the world. More information on all these initiatives can be found at the Project’s website, www.wipeoutstigma.com.
…MC: What are some ways that Black LGBT people can speak out against anti-gay slurs in their communities?
DP: First, we need to take a stand and make a choice not to embrace or support that which does not embrace or support us. It is important that we, like all Black peoples, utilize our dollar, our voice, and our vote to speak out against oppression in all its forms (racism, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia, and ageism). It is very critical for black gays to find ways to become more visible where they live or work. The more visible we are through our everyday lives, the greater the opportunities there will be to change people’s misconceptions of us. It also will dispel the myth that we are ashamed of who we are and would rather live our lives in the dark. Finally, it is important to support organizations like GMAD and the National Black Justice Coalition that exist to raise awareness about the black gay reality and to empower the community to live free of fear and intimidation.
The full interview is definitely worth the click. Check it out.
1 Comment
In Bardstown,KY, where my dad lives (45 minutes southeast of Louisville), there is one very visible gay black man, a waiter named Tony. This is a town of 10,000 or so where most people work in distilleries, tobacco, construction or roofing and you see a lot of razor-thin sinewy guys with boots, knives and at least one item of obnoxious mass-produced Confederate paraphernalia. Tony is like a giant sunflower growing out of a bag of concrete. I don't see anything in the environment that can sustain him. But there he is, openly black and gay. I'm sometimes afraid for him. I hope the rednecks don't do anything to hurt him.I hope other blacks don't either. He may be shunned just as much or more by them, because most of the other black people in Bardstown are living down to expectations and falling into all the negative stereotypes. My black neighbors bascially shout hostile things at one another all day, all they do is yell “nigger” and “motherfucker” at their kids, play basketball, yell at football on TV and get drunk and stoned. If they were either trash and not black or black and not trash, they wouldn't give me an excuse to associate dark skin with low class, but as it is, I'm forced to confront my prejudice every day and don't know what to do about it. I like music and writing and exercise; we don't have much in common. I don't know how to relate to them any better than a bunch of white welders who talk about deer hunting and crossbows and guns and trucks. I wish there were more Tonys, that is, black men who were not rude and foul-mouthed and confrontational, who are just nice to everybody.I have met others like this outside of B-town and am aware that many post here, that you ARE around. I'm just saying that it's easier to find friendly and individualized black men in colleges and cities, and that they are missed in small towns, where everybody seems to go for the lowest common denominator (white men and women included too).