NUBIAN KNIGHTS NETWORK: 2013

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

Friday, June 28, 2013

ROD PATRICK RISBROOK Photographic|Imagery
Official Harlem Pride Vendor
Saturday, June 29th, 2013
12 NOON — 6PM… SEE YOU THERE!

OFFICIAL HARLEM PRIDE VENDOR

@ JACKIE ROBINSON PARK, NYC

ENTRANCE: 148 ST & BRADHURST AVENUE

GOOGLE MAPS

SATURDAY, JUNE 29TH, 2013

12 NOON — 6PM… SEE YOU THERE!

Monday, April 15, 2013

The Kinsey Collection
Where Art and History Intersect
African History & Heritage

We strive to live our life guided by two principals: to whom much is given much is required, and a life of no regrets. We are compelled to give back, so we set about to document the African American experience through original documents, manuscripts, photographs, paintings and sculptures.

Our intention is that this work allows people to develop a deeper relationship to the pieces in our collection that bring African American history to life. Having that connection with the past creates this sense of strength, identity and lineage that is so powerful in each of us.

- Bernard and Shirley Kinsey

VIDEO: The Kinsey Collection Introduction

About The Kinsey Collection...

The Bernard and Shirley Kinsey collection contains a wide range of art and artifacts that bear witness to the multilayered intersections of the past and present. From a curatorial perspective, the correlations of seemingly disparate objects and their historical moments are both purposeful and necessary to form a holistic understanding of the Kinsey's mission. In aggregate, these intersections that are sometimes confrontational become a celebration of the diversity of African and African American experience in the world.

Very little is consoling about the artifacts that are contained in the collection. The context of each piece is complex, giving light to the difficulties of being black, and also, illuminating the brilliance, sometimes tragic, of exceptional people whose contributions add enduring force to the often undervalued collective history of a people.

Buy The Book...

Official Website: www.TheKinseyCollection.com

-
The Kinsey Collection:
Shared Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey
Where Art and History Intersect

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

A Letter To My Same Gender Loving Ancestors
By Louis "Azucar Negro" Farmer

A Letter To My Same Gender Loving Ancestors

by Louis "Azucar Negro" Farmer

(A Guest Nubian Knight's Perspective)

I don’t know you, but I feel your presence.

You, my ancestors, the ones who loved the SAME gender.

You, my ancestors, who often were the ones that possessed the ability to communicate with the dead or offer spiritual harmony to family, tribes, villages, the physical and spiritual world. Yet, able to love the same gender with no questions or frowns.

You were respected, revered, considered sacred, admired, sought after, and most of all LOVED by our people.

You were called many spiritual names by others since the beginning of time, before slavery, during slavery and after slavery: sooth sayer, gate keeper, priest, priestesses, sangoma, elder, mambo, iya, babalao, houngan, mambo, santero, ialorixá, babalorixá.

I feel your magic, power, supernatural abilities, love for nature and animals in me.

Thank You!

You, like your other tribe members, were captured by the so called “God Fearing Europeans” and by our very own misguided, greedy and foolish hearted brothers and sisters.

You also had wives, husbands, boyfriends, a mother, a father, siblings, aunts, grandmothers, grandfathers and clans. How did you keep their memories as you were torn away from them, never to see them again?

You, my ancestors, loved the same gender before the identities to ‘explain’ who and what we are were given to us. Yes, there was a time before we felt the need to identify as
‘Gay’
‘Queer’
‘Homosexual’
‘Bisexual’
‘Transgender’

Some of these words make many cringe, while others celebrate being associated with them.

Some have found solace with the various sexual identities, while others have fallen further into an emotional hell because of them.

You must be shaking your heads while seeing many of us follow more of an often constricted, culturally insensitive and manipulated sexual identity while wandering aimlessly, spiritless and empty seeking approval and acceptance from others who give less than a damn about us, your children.

You, my ancestors were in the bowels of the slave castles, asking yourself, like the others around you “why?”

Both men and women regardless of sexual orientation were raped at the hands of savages who saw themselves as saviors spreading the word of Christ or Allah.

Many of you fought, more died and countless survived the Middle Passage.

How did you do it? How did you deal with a once alive but now dead body chained to you on the ship headed to the new world, as it rotted and gave a toxic odor in front, behind, above and below you? How did you deal with seeing your brothers and sisters die one by one on a ship bound for the new world? How could you stomach the scraps and moldy food given to you for nourishment while smelling feces, urine, puss, blood, vomit and peeling flesh?

How did you my ancestors, handle strange hands touching your body, every crevice being pulled, tugged, pinched, sometimes burned?

How did you keep faith, or did you lose it?

No, you didn’t lose faith because the Orishas and Loas came with you during this horrible, heinous, and soul wrenching trip. Many African Gods and Goddesses wept with you. And many more spirits sank to the bottom of the ocean with the dead Africans thrown off of the ships, as well as those that chose death over slavery, and jumped to the depths of the ocean to be in the arms of Olokun, Yemaya, Mami Wati, Agwe, La Sirine and many more.

My same gender loving ancestors what was it like to be pulled up from the hull of the ship to a new land? I can only imagine what it was like to see a sea of White smiling faces surrounded by angry, sad, sullen and strong Black faces.

How did you handle being forced to worship a God that looked nothing like you? When the Catholic priests threw ‘holy water’ on you as you marched in a line chained to one another and branded, were you confused? What went through your mind as your natural beliefs had to stop or be hidden behind Catholic saints?

Were you angry or did you laugh at the idiot slave masters who had no clue that you were indeed establishing another way to preserve OUR Gods and Goddesses?

I have read many slave narratives that many of you left. Often the meanings about same sex relationships were discussed in secret and hushed tones. When you talked of slavery you probably already felt that discussing being a slave was enough, let alone discussing loving the same gender to a Christian White person recording your experiences.

I know that many same gender loving men were forced to fuck, suck and feed their male masters. Oh the anger I feel for ALL of my people.

I know many of you lived openly in a same gender relationship, living together as a couple. Oh yes, it was documented. Yet, many don’t want to believe it.

How horrendous was it for my female same gender loving sisters alongside with their straight sisters to be treated as cattle, forced to “breed” with and/or marry men. I know that many of you were raped mentally, sexually and physically just like your non same gender loving people at the hands of overseers, masters, mistresses, owners, slave traders and slave catchers.

But I also know many fought, maimed and sometimes killed those that dared to touch you!

What was it like my same gender loving ancestors if you were deemed effeminate or soft by your master and made to be a house slave? You had to have been upset, hurt and angry. But this is not to say that some of you weren’t field slaves too.

How did you, my more masculine male and female same gender loving ancestors, handle often being a field slave because you were deemed to be a stronger ‘buck’ or ‘wench’, when often your ‘lover’ was in the big house, or even working next to you picking cotton?

Are you upset that so many so called Afro centric speakers and writers today dismiss your existence during slavery, minimize your presence or claim that White people ‘made’ you gay? I can only imagine what it was like for you to hold your head up high as you long to be next to the one you love, while being forced to ‘make babies’ with a stranger and not losing your mind when the children are sold away, abused or even killed.

You were clever my same gender loving ancestors when many of you used the bible to free your people. You were called preacher, prophet, minister and other names. Dispensing advice, solace and encouragement to your flock.

Yet, still a slave.

When you ran away with your boyfriend or girlfriend, holding hands in the dark, avoiding the slave catchers with their barking dogs, how did you know to wrap hot peppers on the bottom of your feet and on your clothes to throw off your scent from the dogs pursuing you?

How did you know how to make the Voodoo bags called gris gris to protect the runaways including yourself from being caught?

How did many of you feel participating in slave rebellions and dying for freedom?

My same gender loving ancestors, I have vivid dreams about being a slave. I have visions of being at a camp fire and instructing others what to do as we plot our escape. I have also had dreams of being a slave and sold away as a teenager screaming and begging to stay. I have had dreams of running away for freedom with a blue black muscular man, who loves me with all of his heart, both ready to die for our love and our freedom.

Are you trying to send me a message?

Is it to not……….forget?

I shall not.

I shall not.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Harlem Pride
PETITION: Harlem Needs A Community Pride Center (New York City)

Official Website: HarlemPride.org

Harlem needs A Community PRIDE Center. There are many reasons why this need is evident:

Though home to the city’s second largest SGL/LGBT community outside of Brooklyn, Harlem is without a Community PRIDE Center that serves the needs of the diverse Same Gender Loving and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender community in this area.

There is an expressed hesitancy, difficulty or inability of Harlem’s SGL/LGBT community to travel to other Community PRIDE locations. This is particularly true of the elderly and youth.

There already exists a growing sense of PRIDE and opportunity in our community. A Community PRIDE Center would enable us to tailor programs to the specific needs of our Uptown population.

The long-standing history of Harlem’s SGL/LGBT community should not be forgotten, and the contributions of its current residents should be celebrated.

Please help Harlem Pride continue to the push to bring Harlem its very own Community Pride Center by signing their newly created online petition. Lending your voice to this effort is absolutely pivotal in making this dream a reality.

PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION if you feel that it's time for Harlem to have a Community PRIDE Center.

ALSO, please help spread the word via your social networks.

Thank you,
Harlem Pride, Inc.

PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION

About Harlem Pride...

In 2010, Harlem Pride's founders saw an opportunity to celebrate not just our SGL (Same Gender Loving) & LGBT community, but its role and contributions to Harlem's rich history and thus Harlem Pride was born. Our mission is to promote Same Gender Loving & Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender pride in Harlem and to provide opportunities for networking and communication among its SGL & LGBT organizations and community members. These opportunities are organized for and on behalf of all Same Gender Loving & Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender individuals and groups, and all others who support the struggle for the liberation of these communities. We invite the participation of all, regardless of age, creed, gender, gender identification, HIV status, national origin, physical, mental or developmental ability, race, religion or sexual origin.

The inaugural Harlem Pride Day Celebration was held on W. 119th Street between Lenox and Fifth Avenues, on Saturday, June 26, 2010 and hosted over three-thousand guests. Each year, during the last weekend in June, our pride celebration will consist of a VIP Launch Party on Friday, a Harlem Pride Day Celebration on Saturday, and a Harlem Pride Family Day on Sunday.

Since 2010, Harlem Pride has expanded to include monthly seminars and workshops, social events, and other community outreach activities.

Harlem Pride was incorporated in New York State as a Not-For-Profit Corporation in 2010, and received its retroactive 501(c)(3) tax exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service in 2011. Harlem Pride is a Registered Charity in New York State. All donations are Tax Deductible.