2008 Black Pride Combats Homophobia Through Visibility
By: Colin Murphy - Senior Writer
Erise Williams Jr. has been a part of St. Louis Black Pride since it emerged eight years ago from the B Boy Blues Festival, an intervention program sponsored by Williams and the now defunct BABAA (Blacks Assisting Blacks Against AIDS).
Williams, who serves as the president of the St. Louis Black Gay and Lesbian Pride Committee, admits he couldn’t have envisioned the success of Black Pride, which serves as a resource for the metropolitan African American gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community. Black Pride will host the eighth annual St. Louis Black Pride celebration, which culminates on Aug. 17 with a festival at Kiener Plaza downtown.
“It’s a real good tool in terms of bringing the African American GLBT community together,” Williams said of the Aug. 15-17 celebration. “It has also served as a venue or opportunity for the non-African American GLBT community to work with the African American GLBT community.”
According to Williams, Black Pride has grown from being focused primarily on their August celebration to a year round community mobilization effort. To that end the organization received a small grant this year from Open Meadows to hold community forums targeting lesbians of color.
“We’re constantly looking for other ways to do community mobilization within the African American community beyond the whole pride weekend,” Williams said. “We welcome any input, assistance and involvement not only from the black GLBT community but from the GLBT community overall. I think we all should understand that those issues that we all face as GLBT people are issues we have to face together, not separately.”
One of the purposes of Black Pride is combating homophobia through visibility. Williams points out that while homophobia remains a problem for the entire GLBT community, the impact within the African American community is magnified, in part, due to cultural issues.
“There are some real deep ramifications within our own community in terms of coming out or in terms of identifying oneself as GLBT,” said Williams. “Some of those ramifications can result in ostracism not only from one’s individual family but from the community as a whole.”
Muriel “Blue” Jones, executive director of the LGBT Community Center of Metropolitan St. Louis, echoed Williams’ sentiment.
“Homophobia in the African American community is definitively an issue that is problematic,” Jones said. “Visibility in itself for LGBT people in the African American community is an issue. Unfortunately, religion has been used as a tool to make that even more problematic within the African American community, which is really sad—it’s a beautiful, healing entity, and it’s been used in a negative way.”
Jones asserts that one of the most powerful things a person can do, even if they are not an activist, is be visible.
“That’s extremely powerful to non-queer people and to queer people and to queer people who are in the process of coming out,” said Jones. “It’s an extremely powerful statement that you can give, and I think Black Pride as an organization does that.”
In addition to the individual impact that homophobia has on a person’s quality of life, Williams says it has had a broader impact within the African American community on a variety of levels, from a lack of visible role models to the way the community has dealt with HIV/AIDS.
“After 30 years we’re still seeing a significant impact in terms of new infections within the African American community and a lot of it has to do with the stigma of being gay, especially for men,” Williams said.
Williams pointed to the “down low” phenomenon of married men having sex with other men on the sneak and while not unique to African American men, it has become the subject of much debate.
“Guys on the DL are driven by homophobia because they wouldn’t dare identify themselves as gay because of the stigma associated with it,” said Williams. “And it’s even worse because then you have folks in the media saying that the rise of infection among African American women is a result of black men on the DL. So then they’re demonizing black men again … so it makes it hard for someone to actually come to terms with who they are and celebrate it.”
Jones, who will facilitate a panel discussion on Aug. 16 titled In Search of the Black Gay Agenda, sees St. Louis Black Pride making a significant impact on the GLBT community and in particular on the African American GLBT community—an undercounted and underserved population which is still emerging from the shadows.
“I think that it has made a difference because I think the Midwest is challenging to live in if you are queer,” said Jones. “And when you’re of color, of ethnic background, it can make it even more challenging. So the presence of an entity that addresses those needs in simple visibility, I think it’s a great impact.
“I just hope that everyone comes to Black Pride,” Jones continued. “[To] enjoy themselves, learn their culture and that as an entire LGBT community we have to always remember that all of it is our culture and we need to celebrate it all, regardless of our ethnic background.”
For a complete schedule of events and more information on St. Louis Black Pride, check out www.stlouisblackpride.org
You can e-mail Colin Murphy at colin_murphy@sbcglobal.net.
