"Pussy on High"

Hey, this is Bobby.  So the other day I was trying figure out how I could retain my masculinity without ever breaching the acclaimed hairy grounds of fairer kind, and after sketching out my feelings on my unfortunate vaginalessness, I realized how really meaningless are the norms of sexual achievement imposed on us by ourselves and our peers.  And just to clarify, when I say "us" I mean Ehhv-ver-y-bo-day.

The text reads:

"Looking at this and trying to convey the feeling that the pussy is the goal, the golden standard by which if you are a man you must live, trying to show that it is a serious rite of masculinity, I realize it's hard to convey these guys as anything but smiling idiots because that's just what they are; smiling idiots who've named their recreation serious and real and meaningful.  It's just a disguise for men prancing around a giant pussy in a cup."

In summary, we are all individuals with the right to want what we want and not to be criticized if these wants do not fall within the norms of societies.  Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, whatever is relevant to you.

Meet, Discuss, & Eat

Pride & Color meetings: Wed 8pm in Basement Common Room of Morris Pratt @ Amherst College. See you next week!

Campaign Feedback and Ideas

Hopefully most of you have been able to catch sight of one of our elusive "there is no normal" table tents or posters.  If so, good job!  They only seem to stick around for a short while before a staff member or student runs off with them, presumably for personal use.  (If you don't know which posters I'm speaking of, look below in previous post.)

We need to find a way to continue the campaign successfully without having to spend large sums of money on replacement posters.  Start thinking of ideas, and we will discuss them, along with general reactions to the campaign and anything else that is on your mind on Wed-nez-day.  As incentive to attend, we will be serving PIZZA and refreshments.  So, in summary:

MEETING TOMORROW, WEDNESDAY DEC. 8, AMHERST COLLEGE, MORRIS PRATT DORMITORY: "THERE IS NO NORMAL" IDEAS AND REACTIONS, PLUS PIZZA.

Until then, stay warm, and good luck with work! Only a couple of weeks left...

Harold's Interview

Video Archive Project:

Beginning this fall, Pride and Color will begin working on multiple outreach campaigns. One such project/campaign will be a video archive of GLBTQ racial/ethnic minority life experiences. The above video is the first in this archive. It is an interview of Harold Aarons, an alumnus of Amherst College and a self-identifying "homo-flexible" racial ethnic minority from New York. We hope this video -- along with others to come -- will serve as a source of information and affirmation for GLBTQ REMs throughout the US. We hope you enjoy this and please lookout for more to come.

"Aruarian Dance" - Nujabe
"Horn in the Middle" - Nujabe
"Golden" - Jill Scott
"Kunomi" - Nujabe

NO NORMAL CAMPAIGN

Objectives:

• "WE ARE GLBTQREMS AND WE ARE HERE TO STAY!" 
• Affirm variance in sexual preferences and gender identities
• Challenge the heterosexual normative specifically in minority communities
• Challenge the tendency to view GLBTQ identities as a western-white-middle class phenomenon
• Emphasize what we all already know: there is no normal.

Images by: Ajamu, Zanele Muholi, TokyoMango, Affinity, & PositiveNation 

About Pride & Color

Mission statement:
We believe in the existence of a community specifically for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transsexual, and Queer Racial/Ethnic minorities (GLBTQREM), as a means for realizing the GLBTQ long-term goals of acceptance and freedom of self-expression. To this end we commit ourselves and endeavor to bring about such a community through the following means, including but not limited to: peer mentoring programs for secondary and post-secondary students; community building exercises to nurture communal solidarity among secondary and post secondary GLBTREMs; and conscious raising campaigns in order to raise greater awareness about GLBTQREM issues.

Regarding Pride & Color:
We conceive of Pride and Color as a GLBTQREM organization seeking to accord a degree of self-expression to GLBTQREMs comparable to GLBTQ Whites (GLBTQW) from middle and higher-income backgrounds. We do so out of a belief that the differences in the degree of expression between groups are directly related to differences in racialized experiences and habits of behavior. For the sake of all GLBTQs struggling for equality, we believe it is important to acknowledge the limitations of individual racialized experiences and attempt to understand them better. Recognizing the sometimes significant discomfort between racialized individuals in GLBTQ groups, we also believe it to be a valuable resource, offering an alternative social space for the purpose of building unity among GLBTQ community. We think this will enable not only more genuine solidarity between the broader GLBTQ community and the numerous sub-groups within this demographic; but also greater self-expression and self-confidence. We hold these as beliefs and endeavor to address what we perceive is a failure by the GLBTQ community to acknowledge the importance of race, culture, ethnicity, nationality, etc on sexual identity and therefore on sexual expression. We expect that through Pride and Color GLBTQREMs will have a space for greater self-expression, as well as greater opportunities to interact with like GLBTQREMs, and as a result will be less prone to alienation. In addition we believe that such a community lessens the need for “DL” or “closeted” lifestyles, which we believe stem from a fear of being ostracized; a fear that a community for GLBTQREMs could lessen. It is important to emphasize that we neither condemn nor work to eradicate DL or closeted lifestyles, so long as such lifestyles are adopted out of choice as apposed to necessity.


Objectives for 2010-2011 Academic Year:
(1) Promote Pride and Color within both within the five college community and local community.
(2) Alumni-network for GLBTQREMs
(3) Gather and upload GLBTQ REM for upcoming video archive website
(4) Weekly community meetings
(5) Design and implement at least one conscious raising campaign on each five college campus

To get added to list-serv, contact us at [fivecollegepc@gmail.com].

Meetings are every Wednesday @ 8pm 

Morris Pratt Basement Common Room at Amherst College