We may as well have been sitting on our own front porch, or behind the doors of a reserved conference room the way we acted. We three went on as if we had all day to arrive at our destination, a sure understanding of what was happening, and the significance of it all.
But it was 2 o’ clock in the morning, Monday morning, and I didn’t know about James or the sexy one whose name I forgot, but I had to be at work by 10 a.m. Less than one hour ago, we were children, playing the way children play when they know no adults are watching. Our bodies were possessed by the funk filling our asses, our loins, our minds and our hearts, pumping at once, like one hot cell pulsing with pleasure. We were inside the spirit in the dark.
A new report by the Williams Institute, a think tank of the UCLA School of Law, finds that there are 1 million black people who identify as LGBT and one of the states with the most black gay couples includes Georgia.
The 1 million figure accounts for 3.7 percent of African American adults, according to the report titled, "LGBT African-American Individuals and African-American Same-Sex Couples."
There are an estimated 84,000 African American people in same-sex relationships with 25 percent of that number living in Georgia, New York, North Carolina and Maryland, the report states.
This slam poetry piece by Shanita Jackson and Dakota Odur is titled "Gay is the New Black" "Civil Rights." It's powerful. Especially the end.
The piece was part of a Brave New Voices competition in 2012.