A discussion on how the "Black Lives Matter" movement incorporated the LGBT community became a widely encompassing meditation on the nature of community itself Feb. 19, as activists from myriad backgrounds gathered to ask what justice looks like for LGBT African-Americans.
The forum, "What is Justice for the Black Same Gender Loving and Transgender Communities?," came at the end of Black Treatment Advocates Network's three-day conference on the State of Black AIDS in Chicago at University Center, 525 S. State St.
Journalist/Commentator Keith Boykin said that it was important to regard the motto "Black lives matter" as both a movement and a hashtag. He visited Ferguson during the unrest there in 2014 and considered the motto to exemplify "hashtag activism meeting on-the-ground activism. When I see what's happening there now, and what's happened because [the unrest], I'm inspired by it."
Writer Darnell Moore said he considers the motto to be an "iteration of the Black power fist … This is in a tradition of liberation."
He added that much of the activism that sprang from Ferguson was almost organic, noting, "These weren't people who went to a training in Tennessee and learned to be professional organizers. They saw a dead body lying in the street for four hours and got angry."
Moore and Boykin both considered the possibilities about how "Black Lives Matter" might inspire new leadership for Black activism, but philosophy professor and activist Jackie Anderson implied she was not much impressed by the movement, which she suggested did not go far enough to consider and tackle entrenched racism head-on.
"I don't even know what a damned hashtag is," she joked, adding that racism had impeded efforts at community between white and Black LGBTs. "Our problems are not the same … Race is always there. That's the one we can't get around."
Myles Brady of Howard Brown Health Center noted that many Black LGBTs had felt left behind by the larger LGBT community's long preoccupation with marriage, adding that it felt like, "They were just trying to get that last privilege that they didn't have."
Kim Hunt of Affinity Community Services said that, for her organization, "Marriage equality was an economic issue. Our households tend to be very poor. None of us is just about one identity."
Moore cautioned that communities can be "othering—they become entities that need fixing."
That's often apparent within the context of dysfunctional family dynamics or in the realm of some Black churches, according to Hunt, who added that a key goal for the community should be more engagement in public policy at all levels, especially given that numerous progressive goals are threatened by budget and governmental issues.
"If we don't [engage] at this particular moment, we've lost," she said.
Other panelists included Precious Davis of Columbia College; M. Shelly Cooper of Loyola University; Aymar Jean Christian of Northwestern University; and activists Keith Green and Damian Denson.
