NUBIAN KNIGHTS NETWORK: Tom Joyner Morning ShowTalks About Homophobia in the Black Community

QUOTATIONS OF "BLACK"

"Whenever I use BLACK it relates to some history of Africans in that particular place. It’s the idea of the color BLACK as a metaphor, or as a representation of African-Americans. It’s the notion of BLACK- BLACKNESS - and all its other meanings in relation to the history of race..."

- Fred Wilson

"Most of my fortitude to continue doing the work comes from the moral outrage I feel about the injustices that Black people endure disproportionately daily."

- N. Abdul-Wakil

"In the end, what matters is not skin shade but pan-African consciousness. Loving your complexion, your nose, lips, hair length and texture, no matter what the politics or trends decide, and simply be. That's the problem with us (African folks). We're still learning how to love ourselves. So used to glorifying others and putting others first..."

- Dredlocks Tree

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Tom Joyner Morning Show
Talks About Homophobia in the Black Community

Hey Black Family,

I received this correspondence today in the form of an e-alert from my boy Jair in California.

Just wanted to share the information and the link below to listen to the 6-minute audio clip.

PLEASE NOTE that I had a little trouble getting it to play in my Mozilla Firefox (version 3.5.6) web browser and had to default to Internet Explorer to play it. Otherwise smooth sailing to play it.

Read and listen on...

We'd like to call your attention to a commentary from yesterday's (Tuesday, December 15th, 2009) Tom Joyner Morning Show, from regular TJMS commentator Jeff Johnson.

This brief clip includes commentary on the great lengths some factions went to in trying (unsuccessfully) to prevent Houston's election of an openly lesbian mayor, which leads Jeff Johnson to call out what he sees as a crisis caused by the African American community's

unwillingness to be honest about its own homophobia. The clip is less than six minutes long, but in that time Jeff speaks an awful lot of truth to those that may not always want to hear it.

Everything Im Not Made Me Everything I Am For those that don't know his work, Jeff Johnson is a Washington, DC based journalist, activist and commentator. He is the author of Everything I'm Not Made Me Everything I Am: Discovering Your Personal BEST and is chief correspondent for talk show The Truth With Jeff Johnson.

This clip is an example of the type of dialogue we need - open and honest, and a call to action asking the Black community to "stop being afraid, and start being willing to understand." His willingness and courage in speaking truth to those who may not want to hear it is inspirational, energizing and deserving of our praise.