We Must Be the Change We Seek

The past four years have certainly been one for the record books. We have seen the election and inauguration of the first black President of the United States. We have seen gay marriage legalized in six states. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has been repealed and the Executive Branch has decided that the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional and that they won’t represent the government’s interest in cases pending against it.

Even as there has been much success in gay rights, it seems that the gay community of color is headed on a downward path. The level of homelessness in the young gay community of color has increased. The number of HIV cases in our community has doubled. The number of organizations run by gay people of color has decreased and our community is even more fractured than ever before.

We, who are gay, bisexual, men who have sex with men (MSM), same gender loving, or whatever we may call ourselves, must be the change that we seek in the MSM of color community.

To that end, a few of conscious black and latino gay men have come together to create a nonprofit for us and by us. In doing so, we make this promise to ourselves and to the community…

We promise that we will shed all discrimination within the MSM community of color, whether it is towards the young or the old, the feminine or the masculine, the blacks or the latinos, the out or the dl and accept our brothers for who they are.

We promise that we will become a unified front, using our social, political, cultural and financial resources for the betterment of our own community.

We promise that we will be an organization that takes care of our own, and not pass the buck to other people.

We promise that we will serve as an information broker, educating our community on networking opportunities, youth enrichment, life skills, and relationships & love, among other topics.

We promise that our programs will promote better health and wellness.

We promise that we will help develop leadership skills, grassroots advocacy, and empower emerging leaders to make change in our communities.

We promise that we will work with other organizations and support other LGBTQ, SGL, and MSM organizations as we are all in this together and are on the same team.

We promise that we will develop ways to combat racism in the LGBTQ community and homophobia in the POC communities.

We promise that we commit ourselves to learning more about our community to answer the questions, who are we, what do we need, and where are we headed.

We promise that we will do everything in our power to help each other in our community live to a ripe old age.

We promise that we will move with a sense of velocity towards solving the problems in the MSM community of color.

We promise that we will be the change that we seek.