"I'm Not Alone @ the Table" - a benefit

presents:

"I'm Not Alone @ the Table" - a benefit

Saturday, November 19th, 2011 - 7:00pm-11:00pm

Doors open at 7:00pm. Program begins at 7:30pm.

Hosted at:

Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture

53 Prospect Park West

Brooklyn, NY 11215

This benefit seeks to raise funds for the completion of a documenatry, “You Are Not Alone”, in which Black gay men, through their stories, are breaking an inherent taboo of silence in the Black community and speaking out about their struggles with depression: the circumstances which led to their downward spiral, how they lived with it, and more significantly, how they overcame and survived it.

Through Black gay men sharing their stories, they are intent on encoraging other Black gay men who find themselves stuck in a racial, discriminatory and homophobic rut or loop, and who feel powerless and hopeless, that there is hope, that they are not isolated in their experiences, that it is shared by many, and that they could rise above and achieve their full potential.

The benefit will feature food & coffee tastings, a wine bar and cocktails created exclusively by El Dorado Rum, and " beer lovingly provided by Brooklyn Brewery".

Nationally renowned comedienne Tammy Peay hosts/MCs a program of performances by Roderick Young, Diamond Saunders, and Chris Udemezue; with music provided by NYC's best DJs Fred Pierce and Cameron Fitzpartick, spinning from their laptops.

Another feature is a Silent Auction of items from various businesses and individuals including: Charly Dominguez, Lawrence Graham-Brown, Jon Lucas, Kate Clinton, and many others. The auction is led by Kaz Mitchell, Circle of Voices, Inc. If you are interested in donating items for the auction, please reach out to Kaz Mitchell @ kaz@circleofvoices.org

Tickets are $45 per guest or $80 per couple and will include two (2) drinks, if purchased before November 1st.

(TICKETS PURCHASES AVAILABLE ONLINE ONLY)

C.R. Knight: I Hate Being a Sissy

Yeah I said it.  I hate being a sissy! No matter how much we sugar coat it, glamorize it, mesmerize it and fantasize it, it is still the worst.  I've grown to accept who I am, as much as I have tried time and time again to change myself to something more mainstream, but it never works. Its like fixing a leaky pipe with a band aid.  It's a temporary fix.  But at the end of the day, I am still gay!

I can't live my true self out in the open without residing in a major gay city and even then, it is limited to certain areas.  The world doesn't want homosexuals in it. While, there would be a huge missing if we weren't.  Who would do the hair and make up?  Who would decide on the latest fashion trends and fads?  Who would come up with the most creative ad campaigns and music videos?  What a great portion of the world doesn't know is that there is likely a homo making decisions that shape their world. Yet their ignorance allows them to hate.

While I embrace individuality, I hate when gay men do outrageous things drawing attention to themselves making it harder for the rest of the population to breathe easy.  Drag queens, I will never understand.  There is this hunger to dress and act like a woman, but it still gets trapped within a community of misfits who sit around heckling at their bafooned antics.  What's the point?

And then there is that fucked up STD that there is no cure for, yeah HIV that's it.  Whoever created that virus knew that they would soon infect and erradicate a good portion of the gay community.  Little did they know that two timing men, who like a bit more than the traditional vagina monologue every now and then, would dip or be dipped into an infected man and pass it along to his lady friend.  Its all fucked up.  People just don't care.

I just hate being a sissy!

Good Knight!

Depression in Black Gay Men: A Silent Issue

Breaking the silence of depression in the Black gay community

Posted by Antoine on @ 1:40 pm

Article printed from speakeasy: http://blogs.alternet.org/antbern

URL to article: http://blogs.alternet.org/antbern/2010/04/19/breaking-the-silence-of-depression-in-the-black-gay-community/

Speaking out about a taboo subject

By Antoine Craigwell

Nationwide, members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community on Friday, Apr 15, 2010, commemorated a day of silence – vowing not to speak for one 24-hour period as a unified protest action in solidarity with other LGBT and against the treatment members of the community receive from a majority of people. This day of silence was also an occasion to create a crack in the reluctance to speak about depression and its debilitating effects in the Black gay community.

In the Black community, there is significant resistance to addressing depression. Without regard to ethnic origin, whether African American, Afro Caribbean, or African, the cultural belief is that one does not speak his business, especially his personal business about himself, out of the family. Equally, in many Black families, with the emphasis on masculinity and survival in challenging times, including dealing with racial discrimination, speaking out about one’s inner feelings is often regarded as a weakness or a significant flaw, to be strengthen or eradicated, at all costs and by all means. Therefore, many Black gay men are caught in a vicious cycle: it is taboo to talk about what’s bothering him, and if he should try, he would be branded as weak.

A New Jersey-based journalist, Glenn Townes, when he lived in Kansas City, MO, wrote about his own depression, in “Tale of a Wounded Warrior: One Man’s Battle Against Depression” for the Infinity Institute International, Inc., Website, “I still find there’s a strong stigma to African Americans and therapy, particularly for brothers. Tell someone you’re seeing a shrink and they just may haul off and hit you with: “Man, you must be crazy.” But I think it’s just the opposite: Sometimes you’d have to be crazy not to seek therapy.”

To read the entire article click here:

Breaking the silence of depression in the black gay community

Black Men in America as Stressed-Out Strivers

“Through the Night”: Daniel Beaty in this solo show at Riverside Theater.
By ANITA GATES
NYTimes.com

Photo by: Sherry Rubel

“Run, black man, run,” Daniel Beaty says fiercely. “Run to your children — hold them tight.”
It’s not surprising that Bill Cosby is a fan of Mr. Beaty’s work. It brings to life everything that Mr. Cosby has spoken out about in recent years in terms of African-Americans’ taking responsibility for their own lives. And when Mr. Beaty takes up the topic, it’s not a speech. It’s a poem.

“Through the Night,” which Mr. Beaty is performing with his signature wit, grit and piercing lyricism, is a thing of beauty. Now in a limited run at the Riverside Theater in Morningside Heights, this drama has been described as a look at what it means to be black and male in the United States today, but its deepest meanings transcend race and gender.

Mr. Beaty’s work could be compared to many solo shows in which a performer portrays multiple characters, but his method is different, at least in this play. “Through the Night” has a clear-cut, linear plot that takes shape smoothly and artfully, and builds to a real-life crisis with a jolt of magic realism.
The black men in “Through the Night” are striving, and that is taking its toll, even on 10-year-old Eric, who is determined to develop a magic formula for his herbal iced tea. His father, Mr. Rogers (whose neighborhood is Harlem), is trying desperately to make a go of his health-food store, but people, it seems, would rather clog their arteries with so-called soul food.

Mr. Rogers’s one employee, Dre, is fighting the temptation to use drugs again while he waits for his first child to be born, praying that the baby will, unlike its parents, be H.I.V.-free. Eric’s pal ’Twon has won one battle — he is graduating from high school — but is struggling for the courage to go away to college in Atlanta, to a world that is foreign to him.

’Twon’s mentor, Isaac, a music-industry executive, works long, stress-filled hours, but puts almost as much energy into hiding the reason he’s 40 and unmarried. His father, a successful minister with a congregation of 10,000, is fighting for his life. He weighs 300 pounds, is diabetic and joins Overeaters Anonymous, but still wants creamy, chocolaty HoHos in the middle of the night.

Women are not seen that often, but they are a vital, cherished part of the men’s lives: Mr. Rogers’s long-gone mother, who cleaned offices to support her children (“I never saw you dance”), for instance, and his wife, who toils at a salaried job so her husband can keep his store going. And Mr. Beaty’s gifts are such that when female characters do speak through him, his demeanor and posture change in astonishing ways. I could swear he suddenly has breasts, but maybe that’s a trick of Jacqueline Reid’s lighting design.

Read the entire article here: Black Men in America as Stressed-Out Strivers

“Through the Night” continues through May 23 at the Riverside Theater, in Riverside Church, 91 Claremont Avenue, at 120th Street, Morningside Heights; (212) 870-6784; www.theriversidetheatre.org.

Notes from Nathan: Unstable

had an epiphany this week that a great many of us sex craving, entrepreneur driven, socially handicapped, attention seekers are unstable.  Well, in some way at least.  Some control theirs better than others but we've all been a little off at some point in our lives.  Have you ever been walking down the street and just wanted to chop off someone's head or trip up an old lady because she was walking too slow?  Don't deny it.  Have you ever wanted to disappear?  When asked which superpower they would want to possess, most people reply with... INVISIBILITY.  Secretly, people wish they were someplace else or not here at all.  I've felt that way numerous times in my life and I consider it to be some form of depression.

I go in an out from day to day wondering why on earth I am having to work so hard to get to that next level, wherever that is.  Many of us say that we want it, but aren't aligned with getting it.  I know that depression isn't the best topic in the world, but I feel that when we ignore it, it festers.

There are days when I just stare off into the sky wondering what life is like up there.  People talk about heaven and what we hope it will be like.  What if there is no heaven?  Will that make us all unstable then for believing in something that never existed?  Sorry for the sidebar.  My attention span sucks sometimes.  Attention deficit disorder (ADD) plagues a good portion of the population, especially with so many things craving our attention or us theirs.  Between Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, sex sites, fan pages and a host of other social networks, how can we not be unstable?  What would our lives be like if we were all just handcuffed away from our gadgets?  How long could you survive in a straight jacket?

One great way for me to get over my depressed state of mind is to regain my focus on what's important to me and the people who love me.  Things are heating up with my broadcast endeavors.  My producers and I have a major announcement coming this summer.  We are in talks with a company that wants to put us on national television.  Details will come to you as they come to us.  We are sooo excited!

I lightly touched on depression and being unstable.  My mission was to spark a dialogue.  Bring it up the next time you are with a group of people, you just might help someone get it out in the open.  See, I feel better already, just writing this post.

Happy Thursday!

Me -N- My Gay Son with Lady D

 

1.  Do you think music can influence sexuality?  Hmmm, this is good question.  I think there is music with sexual under- and overtones, which can influence sexuality.   It is unfortunate that some music promotes promiscuity, degrades women and promotes crime and violence.

2.  We have had conversations about suicide.  How does it make you feel knowing that sexuality is the trigger for wanting to no longer be alive?   It really saddens me to think that because of one's sexuality, suicide would be the final out.  Not wanting to live any longer as a result of not being accepted, no one to talk to, no one to love you, seems so painful.  If we as a society would learn to mind our own business, we wouldn't have to concern ourselves with other people's sexuality.  God has the final say in ALL life and death.

3.  With what you know now, what would you have done differently in order to raise me to become a better man.  If I knew what I know now, I would have enrolled you into a mentoring program; especially after your father passed.  I would have pushed you to continue to get your college education. I think the urgent need for positive role models to mentor the youth is a must in this day and time.  It's not enough to have a man present in the household,  that man should have a positive and nurturing influence in your children's lives.

4.  Did you have gay friends growing up?  I may have had some and didn't know.