Join us for our LGBTQ community town halls on May 11th, June 1st, and June 29th.
These conversations are important and relevant to have for members of our LGBTQ community.
To the members of the community that Latin to Kansas City, if they want to give their
voice and want to feel like they are more part of the community, we invite them to
the community meetings that will take place on May 11th, June 1st, and June 29th, so
that they can come and give their voice and their perspective and give their opinions
about how they feel here in the Kansas City community.
What helped my eyes to be open to realizing that racism is still very real was actually
by not dating because racism is real and not having that privilege.
It allowed me to step back when all my friends who are predominantly white are all making
out with some boy whatever and I'm there, standing there, and I'm just watching and
seeing like, you say got like a sore thumb, you really are a minority in a minority.
Not only is when you add the layers, right, race on top of sex, on top of gender identity,
a job of how you present, whether you are passing or not passing, whether you're seen
as present as queer or not queer.
I think oftentimes we see very specific faces, very specific bodies representing various
queer people across the community and time and time again, we see the same bodies over
and over again.
And having that I've been able to really go, okay, so this is what it is, okay, now how
do I maneuver through it, how do I deal with my pain, how do I communicate it, how do I
articulate it well, so that way when I do speak to people who are not people of color,
they can actually receive what I'm saying without being offended because it's not them
that put the system into play, but they can at least go, okay, all right.
Do I feel like I'm treated with the same level of respect as my partner is who is white
when we're together as opposed to when I'm by myself?
Definitely, there is certain people who will acknowledge me when I'm with my boyfriend,
but if I'm not with my boyfriend, they just don't acknowledge me.
I don't know if that's because I'm Mexican or it's just because they don't like me,
but yeah, I think that, yeah, definitely, I do think that people treat me differently
when I'm with my boyfriend than as opposed to when I'm not.
So for me, I wrestle a lot in the place of prayer because of my background and full-time
ministry, thank you Jesus, and I question and I go, hey Jesus, I love you, why?
And then also, you're chosen people who you love, Jesus, they look like them, they don't
look like me.
So you go, why are there more entrepreneurs over there, how do they have the business
savvy, was there a specific gift that was just not given, you know what I mean?
Those are my questions in my alone time in my prayer, in my meditation, I go, okay Jesus,
I don't know how to deal with this, I don't know how to deal with the BS of having to
smile when they go, you're cute for a black guy, well thank you for letting me be a part
of the group today, or you're well spoken for a black guy, well thank you.
Like, first of all, that's okay for you to say, okay, and they're just trying to be nice.
So it's a big, messy swirl of ouch, and if you have those that you're close enough to
that she can say, hey, when you do that, that hurts and they respond well, then you go,
thank you, you felt my pain, you sat with me and we're going to push, don't do it again.
Then you just keep those close and hopefully you have those that will go, hey, don't say
though Jack around Kevin or don't do this, or you know, and I mean that's just it, it's
just ouch, and you keep pushing.
Affirmation.
One of the challenges also too is that I think a lot of folks think that they can have sex
and I don't know how much we're going to edit this out, screw their way out of racism, right?
Black and brown bodies are used in order to say that we're not racist, some of my best
friends are black, you know, some of my boyfriends and girlfriends have been black and brown
and we need to do better.
I think one of the challenges is that black and brown people need to not be given lip
service and not be just seen as tokens, need to be given actual legitimate seats of power,
and part of a quality and part of being an ally is to be able to take a step back and
giving people the space that they need in order to do what they need to do.
So many times people are, you know, the black person, the Latino person, the API person,
the indigenous person, and let's go seek out those communities and that person to serve
on our board and it doesn't look like that.
We need to go in and make sure that those people are represented and part of being an
ally, like I said, is being able to step back, sharing power and not being defensive in that,
being humble and noticing what's going on.
