[It's Pride, at least here in NYC. In honor of that fact, I
am posting here an article that Comrade Google suggests is not otherwise
available on the Internet. It appeared as one of a stunning roundup of pieces
by Black LGBTQ writers in The Advocate in one issue in the 1990s, under the irresistible
title "Black Out."
By me, they should all be online, but I am posting this one for obvious reasons. It is by Alycee Lane, then a grad student at UCLA. In it she discusses what the Black Panther Party had meant to her—as an elementary school "baby dyke" in Buffalo and then later as she learned about Huey Newton's famous speech in which he welcomed the women's and gay liberation movements and called on the BPP to work with them. That was in 1970 when the modern queer movement was first erupting in all its Stonewall-fueled glory—and when many other self-styled revolutionary and socialist organizations shied away from it, or adopted appallingly homophobic stances.
There's a lot about our history to be learned from this short piece, and there's always a chance that it won't be up at Fire on the Mountain forever, so if you agree with me on its importance, I encourage you to save it and to make sure others have access.]
By me, they should all be online, but I am posting this one for obvious reasons. It is by Alycee Lane, then a grad student at UCLA. In it she discusses what the Black Panther Party had meant to her—as an elementary school "baby dyke" in Buffalo and then later as she learned about Huey Newton's famous speech in which he welcomed the women's and gay liberation movements and called on the BPP to work with them. That was in 1970 when the modern queer movement was first erupting in all its Stonewall-fueled glory—and when many other self-styled revolutionary and socialist organizations shied away from it, or adopted appallingly homophobic stances.
There's a lot about our history to be learned from this short piece, and there's always a chance that it won't be up at Fire on the Mountain forever, so if you agree with me on its importance, I encourage you to save it and to make sure others have access.]
The Black Panther Party And Gay Liberation
By Alycee Lane
I really wanted to be a member of the Black Panther Party
when I was younger. I imagined myself one day galvanizing the other kids in my
neighborhood in Buffalo, N.Y., and conducting a righteous raid on that one
house I passed on the way to my integrated school—that horrifying white house
that donned, hatefully, a sprawling banner stained with the curse WHITE POWER.
Yeah, I was going to conduct a righteous
raid. I figured this was the Panther thing to do, especially since I had seen
the brothers walking proudly with their guns, policing the police, who were, in
my young opinion, somehow connected to the curse.
In spite of their guns and "baaad black man"
attitudes, it never occurred to me to feel intimidated by or afraid of the
Panthers. For they never failed to greet me with love—"Good morning,
little sister" and "How are you doing in school? Making those grades?
Learning about your history?" I simply wanted to be with and be like them.
I didn't know about the Panther
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