By Marke B
Bring Black Back to the Castro !! from STOP AIDS Project on Vimeo.
Does the title of this post shock you? It shocks me and I wrote it! That's because, if you've visited our faery-tailed gay wonderland of late (like, the past 30 years), you may have noticed a somewhat shocking lack of color on the streets and in the bars. Well, StopAIDS has been aiming to remedy that with OUR LOVE, a pretty rad outreach program to black gay men, which celebrates its 10th anniversary with, what else, a party this Sunday afternoon at the Cafe called Church -- drinking, dining, dancing, and general carrying on are on the menu.
OUR LOVE has been bridging the gay color gap with a number of cool things, including a roaming Blackout party, the last installment of which (viewed above) took place at the new Toad Hall -- an interesting choice, if anyone remembers the history of controversy between owner Les Natali and some members of the black gay community. Also: an upcoming "Black Men of the Castro" 2010 calendar, and a soon-to-be-launched social networking site for gay African American men, tentatively called Welcome to My Neighborhood. There's also a "procott" planned (as opposed to a boycott), which will bring masses of African American gay men to visit business in the Castro. Plus: A mess o' more.
"What does all this have to do with stopping AIDS?" I asked Jason Riggs, the deputy director of StopAIDS. "What we've found from years of study is that bisolation and depression are huge factors in HIV transmission," he told me. We're trying to make contact, and connect people more to their own communities to lessen that sense of isolation."
Why the Castro, though? Many queers like me don't even go there not so much because of its heterogeneity -- although that's a big factor -- but because it's so, er, gross. "The people I've talked to have a lot of different perspectives about that," Riggs replied. "Which is what we're encouraging -- different perspectives. But most say that they realize the Castro is our symbolic and functional gay neighborhood, and there's no reason any gay person should feel excluded from that."
Personally, I've been encouraged at the increase of Asian, Latino, Middle Eastern, and even black faces that I've seen on the few occasions I've ventured into the Castro's nether regions. Compared to the '90s there's certainly some more mix going on. Does it come even remotely close to replicating the actual ratios of people of color in the gay community? Not a whit. So bring on the black men, I say, and let's keep it up.
Now, what about queer women?
CHURCH
Sun/25, 1pm-5pm, free
The Cafe
2367 Market, SF.
More info here
www.stopaids.org
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