Support & Moving Forward

Today I attended the Spring Fling fundraiser put on by Astraea at Soul Folk's Cafe. The Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice is an organization that gives money to support disenfranchised gender and racial groups within the lesbian community. Per its newsletter, "The Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice works for social, racial and economic justice in the U.S. and internationally. Our grantmaking and philanthropic advocacy programs help lesbians and allied communities challenge oppression and claim their human rights. Astraea events happen year round, coast to coast. From house parties to donor briefings to joint events with other LFBTI {sidebar: I'm still trying to figure out what the "I" stands for"} organizations, there are many ways to participate in Astraea events."

I could only stay for the last hour and I missed ALL the performers and the food apparently, but it was a very well attended event and it's always great to see a multicultural grouping of women. I saw some faces I haven't seen in a minute and met some new ones. Robin Roundtree was performing with her band when I made my exit and they were jammin'!

It's always really wonderful to see women pull together for a philanthropic effort. Too often we overlook the community action events to find the next party not realizing a.) that they can sometimes be one in the same and b.) sometimes one cannot exist without the other. For instance, Astraea is a financial contributer to Sistahfest. The more support Astraea gets today helps fund a memorable Sistahfest in September. Money's not falling out of the sky these days.

In other news, I finally watched The Green Mile a few days ago. I read the script about a year before the film was produced. Once it was released, already knowing the plot and irritated over Stephen King's insistance on making every black character in his stories slow, illiterate yet "magically delicious" irked me enough to not watch the film until just recently. Netflix is a beautiful thing.

The Magic Negro said something that struck me, though. Without giving anything away, he utters at one point: "He killed them with they love".

Pardon my stream of consciousness, but I couldn't help paralleling that phrase with what's going on with this new white conservative/black clergy love affair that's going on behind the scenes. The black church is and always has been the cornerstone of the black community. Our love for the Trinity, Our God, and Our church is unparalled. Our devotion to our "God" or "Allah" is unshakeable and our religious leaders have always lead our communities: Rev. King, Jr., Rev. Sharpton, Rev. Jackson, Honorable Minister Farrakhan, Minister Malcolm X, etc. Unless you're blind or stupid, you know that if you want a word out to black people, the most effective way to do it is through the church or mosque which explains why white conservatives are courting the black church so aggressively. The problem is, separation of church and state aside, they're dividing a community and justifying it with faith. "If you really love the Lord, you'll vote against gay marriage"?? Um, okay.

Doesn't it stand to reason if God's love is unconditional then so too should our love be for him? Unconditional love lends itself the expectation of not having to supply prove of that love. If any of our lovers had proclaimed "If you loved me, you would..." how many of us would have raised an eyebrow? Then how is that so many of our black congregation find it necessary to prove their faith by making a concerted effort to speak and act out against gay marriage?

I don't know, maybe I think too much...

"He killed them with they love"