Our dear friends Susan and Cindy Brittain are heading
out of town on a new journey.
The
Chestertown community of their friends are holding a
Farewell Open House
WHEN: Friday the 9th of January, 2015 at 6 to 9 PM
WHERE: 101 N. Cross St., Chestertown, MD 21620
Emmanuel Church Hall
Live Music and Light Fare
will be provided to accompany your farewell wishes.
If you would like
to contribute a beverage to share, please bring them to the beverage table.
If you would like
to share your musical gifts, please bring along your voice or instrument.
Philip Dutton and the Alligators will be on
hand to get the music started.
We
know some of our generous guests may want to bring a send off gift. We gave
this a lot of thought and simply request that you help us lighten our load, and
appreciate that you consider only gasoline gift cards and/or a note/photograph
for the road.
Absolutely no "things”
Snow
Date Plan: Sunday 11 January 6 to 9 PM
call 443 480 3138
(Linda Dutton) for a voicemail message if the snow date is on.
So....what else is cookin? There are soooo many ideas and opportunities available to us in 2015. We have a great year ahead!
As a follow up to recent vigil held in Chestertown, I want to share the article below. It was shared with me by our friend Doug Rose. Here is the background...
Representing PFLAG Chestertown, I was proud to participate in organizing and speaking at the Vigil held in Fountain Park on Friday December 5, 2014. My decision to participate using our PFLAG Chestertown Chapter name was made without time for discussion. This article from the Huffington Post explains why “my gut” felt it was the right thing to do as an LGBT advocacy organization.
I want to acknowledge the support of the Unitarian Universalists of the Chester River (UUCR) as well. Their social justice work is important locally. (They provide our chapter meeting and resource library space.) The use of their Standing on the Side of Love.org banner and the information it shares on the corresponding website is non denominational. It is a visible tool offered to our community by UUCR for anyone or group who would like to borrow it.
You will see it when you attend the annual Chester Valley Ministerial Association (CVMA) MLK 7 AM Breakfast in Rock Hall on Monday January 19th. Tickets are still only $10…buy them at the door, or call Carolyn Brooks at 443 480 0128 for more information.
In next week's email I will update you about several more local opportunities for building friendships and socializing while we continue to work together for healthy and safe communities on the beautiful Eastern Shore. Read on....
Writer, educator, and activist
Founder of The Counter
Narrative Project. Writer and activist, interested in the intersections of
race, gender,and sexuality. Follow me on twitter: @CharlesStephen2
An Open Letter to Mainstream LGBT Organizations That Have
Remained Silent on Black Lives Mattering
Posted: 12/16/2014 8:59 am EST Updated: 12/16/2014 8:59 am EST
Many
Americans seem to only remember one of the two namesakes of the 2009federal hate-crime bill signed into law by President Obama: Matthew Shepard.
Similarly, many Americans also seem to only remember the bill as the Matthew
Shepard Act. However, this abbreviated mention conveniently leaves out the
other person for whom the act is named: James Byrd Jr.
Shepard was a white, gay college student who
was brutally assaulted by two homophobes near Laramie, Wyoming,
and died six days following the heartrending attack. His death now haunts our
collective consciousness, reminding us that hate against LGBT people might
surely mean death.
James Byrd Jr., on the other hand, was a
Black man from Texas.
Byrd was ruthlessly murdered by three men, two of whom identified as white
supremacists. His ankles were chained to the back of a pickup truck, and he was
dragged approximately three miles along an asphalt road in Jasper, Texas. In the process,
his head and right arm were severed from his body. His torso was eventually
left in front of a cemetery that mostly contained the bodies of other Black
people. Whereas Shepard was murdered because of his perceived sexual identity,
Byrd was killed because he was Black.
Why
did we feel the need to write this open letter to mainstream LGBT organizations
with a reference to the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes
Prevention Act? Why have we felt the need to point to the failure on the part
of the American populace to rightly acknowledge the atrocities that ended the
lives of both namesakes? Because it illuminates the dangers of focusing on one
type of identity-based violence -- the violence that impacts LGBT people --
while willfully ignoring the police and vigilante violence that impacts Black
queer- and trans-identified people, as well as all Black people: Mike Brown's
bloodied and lifeless body was left on a hot Missouri street for 4.5 hours; the
world bore witness to video clips of Eric Garner uttering his final words,
"I can't breathe!", as a police officer choked him to death; Marlene
Pinnock was brutally pounded by a white, male police officer on a highway in
the middle of the day; and Black trans women like Erycka Morgan and Islan Nettles, and many whose names we do not lift up,
continue to be viciously attacked and killed.
We can no longer sit idly by as you,
mainstream LGBT organizations, center your movements and advocacy work on some
within our varied communities but not others. We are no longer OK with the
mainstream LGBT organizations among you who signal your complicity in
anti-Black violence through your loud silence and deliberate ignoring of the
types of systemic, institutionalized forms of anti-Black racism that negatively
impact Black queer and trans people (and all Black people), disallow Black
well-being, and deaden us.
And
while there have been some awareness and recognition of the fact that
anti-Black racism materializes in ways that stifle Black freedom and lives, it
is insufficient for LGBT organizations to merely acknowledge these horrific
events. The morally courageous thing to do is take action. And organizations
like the Audre Lorde Project, the Anti-Violence Project, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and INCITE! cannot do the necessary intersectional
work alone.
We are calling for a bigger commitment and a
more radically inclusive vision from LGBT organizations. We are calling for an
agenda and a commitment to combating racism as forcefully and unshakably as
your commitment to standing against homophobia. We are calling for a new,
multivariate LGBT agenda that acknowledges and advances recognition of the
humanity and suffering of Black people. We are calling for an agenda that not
only expresses awareness but demonstrates, through tangible actions, a value
for Black life. And should you not, we can only conclude that Black lives do
not matter to you.
Movements are not built on the backs of the
most vulnerable in the service of the needs and whims of the most privileged.
Movements are built and succeed when they begin at the most marginal of spaces
-- always evaluating who's positioned in the center of power and always
ensuring that asymmetrical power relations are corrected so that we might exist
in a more equitable society.
Some of us within the LGBT spectrum are
Black. Our lives matter too.
MORE:
Stay safe and warm everyone...LD
