RENWL

The original title of this post was Courage Campaign Takes Gay POC Leftovers: Dotes On Negro LGBTs While EQCA Holds Lockdown On Latino And Asian Groups

We actually wrote it on Thursday night, the day after we attended the Los Angeles Black LGBT Network at Catch One hosted by Jeffrey King of the black men’s group In The Meantime. Can we just stop here for a sec. We need to get this out: WE LOVED THE ORIGINAL HEADLINE FOR THIS POST—WE TRIED EVERY ANGLE WE COULD TO KEEP FROM HAVING TO CHANGE IT!

But…sigh— after the events of this entire week we decided that this post really isn’t about how two big white organizations have engaged in carving out the people of color LGBT communities as allies on their behalf; fact is EQCA won that battle hands down as early as July of last year with that Prepare To Prevail hijacking.

This post is about the state of the union of the local black LGBT leadership and activist community and how it’s about to become even worse. And with this post—-and please please please believe us when we tell you there’s not a drop of malice, ill-feeling or bitterness at play here—– matter of fact, we hope we’re writing our own obituary in terms of being acknowledged or even remotely thought of as being a part of that leadership or even a player in the local black LGBT activist realm. The simple fact of the matter is, there’s no place for us—-it’s just not in the cards. And to be honest, we’re relieved. It gets lonely sometimes being the voice of dissention.  We’re tired of the role. And quite frankly just plain tired of the whole convoluted fucked up scene.  It’s too phoney and repetitive. And it’s completely about deal making and ego and most recently these days placating the natives with money—serviced by black folks who don’t live in the black community but work for white organizations with the goal to run the black activist community for the white organizations who are in bed with gatekeeper black politicians—-the same ole same ole.  It’s nothing new.  Might as well rent the movie Claudine for that shit or just move back to WeHo. Nothing new or interesting AT ALL.

Nonetheless it’s been an interesting ride. We’re ready to smudge the walls in the house with some sage we just bought, unplug all of our subscriptions to the equality blogs we read religiously, put it all behind us and start anew. Time to reclaim back our lives. And our sanity. Wish us luck.

Now getting back to Rick Jacobs and his house negroes:

We gotta hand it to Jacobs, he made an outstanding investment in Nii-Quartelai Quartai, his community engagement advisor. Nii-Quartelai has been working hard over the last few months—and how. He actually did something that we’re thoroughly impressed with—-he got Jeffrey King of the black gay men’s group In The Meantime on board. That was the last great hold out and anchor that Nii-Quartelai needed. Or should we say Jacobs needed. We watched with fascinating interest at how Nii-Quartelai attended the In The Meantime meetings almost regularly on Tuesdays at Catch One.  He hadn’t before. But in the last few months suddenly there perked a weekly commitment on his behalf to be there at the meeting. And then—-presto! We read on the LGBT POV blog last Tuesday (cause we didn’t get an invite and Nii-Quartelai certainly didn’t tell us) that Jeffrey was holding this event titled the Los Angeles Black LGBT Network – a “wrap around Black LGBT Group/Think Tank.

Well, when we shared with Nii-Quartelai our knowledge of the event he of course urged us to attend—–that is after we told him we knew about it. So, we went. And we did what we always do—we supported and participated. It was a fun and lively experience. Lots of interesting ideas where tossed around and brainstormed and it seemed that a good time was had by all.

The next day a some of the black activists in attendance went to the Liberty Hill Uplifting Change luncheon that we’d posted about here on RENWL several weeks ago. We weren’t invited as guests nor did we expect that we would be. And we don’t mean that in a catty sense at all. It’s just the reality of it.

You see the Liberty Hill Foundation via Vincent Jones has now become in some respects Courage Campaign’s financing arm for establishing the organization as a controlling player in the black community in so far as social interests and community-based organizations. EQCA on their own had made a clumsy stab at it some time ago—EQCA doesn’t need Liberty Hill to finance their investments. But the deal was, EQCA’s heart just wasn’t into it. They’re just so lousy and weird when it comes to dealing with black people. They really need to do something about that. So yea, EQCA waved some money indirectly at us a while ago. But we saw right through it. And don’t get us wrong, money is always a good thing. But the fact of the matter is, EQCA does not give a shit about black people. We just couldn’t go to bed with those guys for dollars. Oh we’ve been desperate at times. But not that desperate.

And similarly, it became very clear over the last few months that Courage Campaign was working on their own game plan for the black community. And they’ve succeeded. Once the legwork with Karen Bass’s Community Coalition organization done by Nii-Quartelai Quartey was finished he turned his attention to the black LGBT activists scene letting all and one know that big money was to be had—-Liberty Hill’s.  And man those cats herded themselves in like sheep headed back to the barn after a long hot day in some hilly meadows. In the process Rick Jacobs and his organization has lost all credibility as far as we’re concerned. The only thing he achieved was doing what EQCA originally wanted with local LGBT blacks. And we’re not even sure that EQCA  didn’t just look at the expanse of it all and decided, bleh,  not worth it.

So that’s kinda’ where things stand in relationship to the African American community here in Los Angeles and LGBT activism. If there was a chance to instigate a true grassroots marriage equality movement in the hood it’s dead now. And we have to say while we were very impressed with the enthusiam we witnessed at the Black LGBT think tank, very little energy or vibe was felt in terms of building a political platform for LGBT civil rights. Now we’re not saying that wouldn’t shift at a future time, but the way it sounds that’s not the priority right now among many of our African American LGBT leadership peers.

We’re saddened by that because our take on it all is that this is where the real emergence of community begins. We saw it happen during the devastation of the AIDS crisis of the ‘80s and ‘90s. There was no HRC, EQCA or LA Gay and Lesbian Center back in 1981. It was just raw emotion—people who’d been thrashed  and beat down by death, untold loss and fury. Out of that emerged what we know recognize as the gay political caucus.  It all emerged out of the nakedness of gay pain and loss. A similar thing can be said about the black civil rights movement. All it took was a group of people to agree that the time had come to stand up for what was right. They had nothing but themselves. And in the end they had the world. Everything else followed. This entire country is still feeling the ripple effects of that movement.

It is our most deepest and heartfelt belief that if black LGBTs stand together and VISIBLY take on the homophobic teachings and preachings of the black church, if we stand up every time a black politician endorses another who stands in the way of equality for all simply because of religious blindness—-and we do this again and again—every time there’s an opportunity to do it—–we believe there is no doubt that the HIV infection in the black LGBT will drop. There is no doubt on our behalf that if we stood up in such a way more and more blacks who live a dual existence or in the closet altogether would come out.

That’s what courage does—it builds self-esteem, it treats mental health, it attracts the resources necessary to create a physical fortress for the people. It puts the food in somebody’s mouth. It creates a roof over someone’s head for the homeless. It gives a powerful and unstoppable voice to those who were previously shut down mute, broke back and silent with fear. Courage can instigate our black ministers—the ones who quietly support us to rise up and preach the gospel of God’s real and true love and how it makes room for everybody and how his congregation must embrace their same gender loving brothers and sisters and daughters and cousins and uncles and aunts—and fight side by side with them.

That’s what courage does. As our dear grandmother NaNa often reminded us when we fretted over a uncertain possibility—-“Boy, in man’s world some things are possible. But in God’s world EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING is possible. Turn to God and quitcha worryin. You will get what you need.”

True courage lives in the realm of God’s world. People you can walk on water with it. Ask us how we know.

Unfortunately that is something that Rick Jacobs, his house negroes and Liberty Hill’s checkbook don’t know anything about. How sad they are on a mission to infect and reinfect our community with that ignorance.

Outside of Jeffrey King—because we love him dearly and his unyielding commitment to the community is a mission of life—-we sincerely hope none of the people mentioned here make the self-sabotauging mistake of coming on this blog challenging any of what we’ve said. We’ve been pretty gentle in this post considering all that we know and would hate have to lay it all out. We’re not on anybody’s payroll or waiting for a response to somebody’s grant application.

So therefore we have allegiance to no one.

We’re going to keep renwl.org active for a few more weeks then we’re going to shut it down. There’s really no need to continue on this journey any further. We know more than we ever hoped, wanted or needed to know about gay politics and so on. However, we want you to keep a look out for our new blog titled A Two Piece And A Biscuit. org (atwopieceandabiscuit.org). We’re so excited about it. It’s been in the planning for a few weeks now. We want to expand on engaging the entire black community—cool white folks too—on what’s happening and what not. And talk about fun stuff as well—music—the haps—-high tech gadgetry—consumer concerns, dope clothes and tips—arts ‘n’ culture stuff—and some politics now ‘n’ again as well. Okay, who are we kidding—we’ll be talking about politics a lot—just in the broader sense. Not just LGBT politics anymore. So all and all it should be a fun mix. We miss talking about music and stuff. There’s a big part of our being that’s been sorely neglected this past year. Time to give it the attention and love it deserves.

God bless all of you. And thank you so much for reading renwl.org. All and all it’s been a fun ride. Bumpy. But fun.

In solidarity and God’s grace and love to you all,

~Derrick

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