My kids are reciting A Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes. They've got it down pat! I love it!
I'm listening to Dr. Yosef Ben Jochannan on You Tube. He's really awesome...because he has so much information about ancient African civilizations from field work, though...you guessed it...he's a little homophobic. Which saddens me. But makes me realize that I've got a lot of fucken work to do in terms of attempting to build bridges between the Africentric LGBT community and the Africentric straight community because...we are one people...and Africentricity, if you haven't guessed...is my thing...and I don't like folks tryna shut me out of my own fucken history. I know that since Africa is the source of all humanity, Africa contained the seed for human diversity and that various forms of sexuality and gender expression have existed on the continent since foever. I know it in my heart...now I just gotta back it up with research. Because I refuse to be written out of history. It was European culture which taught us to hate our bodies and our sexualities in general...I would be wholly and completely unsurprised if it was our interaction with European culture which caused us to hate this natural diversity within ourselves. (And you know how us Black folk love to oppress each other even harder than Europeans ever did once we learn how...) Especially since the record shows that contact with European culture caused many peoples to turn their backs on their ancient practices of welcoming "two-spirited" people in their communities. But who knows. Maybe homophobia originated on the African continent, too. I doubt that we were ever homophobic to the level that so many African countries and regions within the Diaspora are today tho. I really do feel like the intense homophobia and hatred within Africa and the Diaspora are symptoms of the colonialism we are still under. Consensual sex, love between any souls...are truly sacred things whether they occur between two women, two men, or a woman/man pair. It's all about energy flowing between two or more bodies. I stand firm in that belief. I trust my body to tell me what's natural to it.
And plus...Hatshepsut...who later dropped the feminine "t" at the end of her name to become Hatshepsu...was a female fucken pharoah...a female fucken pharoah. This chick went all the fucken way tho...put on the beard...wore the clothing of a male pharoah...had statues made of herself portraying her as a pharoah. How...studly.
And now...the research begins...well, after my nap.
From Alicia Banks' website:
Stolen Women: Reclaiming Our Sexuality, Taking Back Our Lives is an excellent book by Dr. Gail Elizabeth Wyatt. Read it today. It expertly examines Black female sexuality. It is afrocentric and candid. It is written so that it may be as valuable to a teenager as it is to the mother of a teenager. Every sister and every person who loves a sister should read this book.
It is because I love this book so that I am so deeply wounded by the following quote taken from it: “[In Africa] There were sexual practices that were not condoned, such as adultery, rape, incest or homosexual relationships.” No true scholar would ever make any blanket statements about any cultural practices in Africa. Africa is a HUGE continent with HUNDREDS of tribes. Each tribe has diverse traditions and practices.
It is true that some African tribes do not condone homosexuality. It is equally true that some African tribes DO condone homosexuality. It is wrong and homophobically cruel to state otherwise, as Wyatt has done.
I LOATHE this special pseudo-African brand of gaybashing. I was especially repulsed to find it tainting the pages of this excellent book. Sex is an expression of love. Homosexual love is just as natural and real as heterosexual love. No true scholar ever equates homosexuality with pathology. In fact, the overwhelming majority of rapists, pedophiles and adulterers globally are HETEROSEXUAL men.
Homosexuality is ancient and universal. Africa is the First World. The first humans were African. Thus, clearly, the first homosexual humans were African also.
I cannot express the EXCRUCIATING emotional pain of being denied my heritage and homeland because I am a lesbian. It is a brutal act of bigotry that stings my very soul. Gaybashers, like homosexuals, are everywhere. Yet, I have NEVER heard a white gaybasher tell a white lesbian that she is not a true European because she is gay.
Many lesbian women and girls will read Stolen Women. The truth about homosexuality in Africa should not be stolen from them as they do so. They should not be omitted from the legacy of African sisterhood simply because they are homosexual.
I REFUSE to EVER allow anyone to imply that Africa was EVER a heterosexist utopia!!! No such world has ever existed. And, it never will. Homosexuals, like heterosexuals, are eternal.
More.
