Cleo Manago

Cleo Manago is an African American activist and social architect who coined the term same gender loving[1] (or SGL) for African descended or black people who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual.[1][2][3] Along with his activism, he is also a blogger and columnist.[4][5] Manago rejects the terms gay, bisexual and lesbian because he believes they are white, eurocentric-constructed identities which do not culturally affirm the culture and history of African descended people.[2][6] Manago is also the founder and CEO of AmASSI Health and Cultural Centers and Black Men's Xchange (BMX).

Early life and other activities

Manago is a native of south-central Los Angeles and began a vocation in social services when he was 16 years of age.[2] He was once a professional musician (a bassist).[7] He is a blogger and has written several articles some of which have been published by Dogon Village.[8] In 2011, he co-authored, produced, directed and starred in the educational documentary I AM A MAN: Black Manhood & Sexual Diversity.[9][10]

Although usually referred to as a "social activist", Manago dislikes the term "activist" when applied to him. He believes black LGBT activism to be "tethered to mainstream white privilege, ideology, and single-focused gay organizations," which he views as culturally dissonant and too limited in scope to be meaningful and beneficial to African-American LGBTQ communities and the larger black community.[2] It has been suggested that he credited the term men who have sex with men (MSM).[2]

AmASSI Health and Cultural Centers

A.m.A.S.S.I. or AmASSI (The African, American Advocacy, Support-Services & Survival Institute) was founded in 1989 by Manago.[2] It aims to end "health disparities, self-concept and inter-group conflict among diverse people of African descent." Since its foundation in 1989, it has become one of the replicated organizations in the United States,[11] making Manago "one of the first innovators in the AIDS movement to provide HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention services utilizing a psychosocial, mental health model that was culturally specific to the African-American identity."[2]

Black Men's Xchange (BMX)

Founded in 1989, the Black Men's Xchange (BMX) is the oldest and largest community-based movement in the U.S devoted to promoting healthy self-concept and behavior, cultural affirmation, and critical consciousness among SGL, gay-identified and bisexual African-descended males and their allies.[2][12]

This organization has chapters in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento, Orange County, Detroit, Denver, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.[2] It has been funded by "the Center for Disease Control's Act Against AIDS Leadership Initiative program. And the CDC positions BMX alongside other legacy community black organization[s] such as the NAACP, the Urban League, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, and American Urban Radio Networks."[2]

Criticism and response

Among certain members of the LGBT community, Manago is regarded as "homo demagogue," contrarian, separatist and anti-white. However, among the same-gender-loving (SGL), bisexual, transgender, and liberal heterosexual African-American community, Manago is viewed as a visionary and "social architect" advocating for a group of people marginalized by the white LGBT community.[2]

Manago view terms such as "gay" and "lesbian" as vestiges of white Eurocentric dominance, and defined "gay" as "the mainstream white (patriarchal) homosexual community."[6]

According to Manago, "In the midst of a need for affirmation and acknowledgment from the "gay" community, same-gender-loving Black people are subject to sexual objectification, discrimination, white supremacist treatment and indifference."[6] The SGL movement also objects to the pink triangle, the rainbow flag and the lambda symbol, which they view as symbols of white gayness, "none of which is African- or black-identified."[6]

Notes and references

  1. 1 2 Editors: Aggleton, Peter; Parker, Richard, Routledge Handbook of Sexuality, Health and Rights, Routledge, 2010, p. 459, ISBN 9781135272883: "[The] neologism ["same-gender loving"] was coined by the black queer activist Cleo Manago (c. 1995) to mark a distinction between ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ culture and identification, and black men and women who have sex with members of the same sex. While scholars continue to use gay, lesbian and queer, for example, and the US Centers for Disease Control, for example, uses MSM (men who have sex with men), same-gender loving has important resonance on the ground, in urban communities in the USA."
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 The Huffington Post, "Cleo Manago: The Most Dangerous Black Gay Man?" by Irene Monroe, February 17, 2012
  3. ↑ Editor: Coleman, Monica A. (contributor: Layli Maparyan), Ain't I a Womanist, Too?: Third-Wave Womanist Religious Thought, Fortress Press (2013), p. 193, ISBN 9780800698768
  4. ↑ "Getting at the Root of Black "Homophobic" Speech" by Cleo Manago, [in] The Dogon Village
  5. ↑ Cleo Manago's official blog
  6. 1 2 3 4 Editors: Rimmerman, Craig A,; Wald, Kenneth D.; Wilcox, Clyde, The Politics of Gay Rights, University of Chicago Press (2000), p. 91-2, ISBN 9780226719986 retrieved July 10, 2015
  7. ↑ "My time with Luther Vandross. ‘Waiting For [Self] Love" July 5, 2005 in Cleo Manago's blog
  8. ↑ Cleo Manago's articles in Dogon Village retrieved July 10, 2015.
  9. ↑ "Explosive New Film featuring Al Sharpton and Cleo Manago Addresses Black Men’s Challenges with Manhood, Sexuality and Masculinity", September 13, 2011 [in] Kick Mag, retrieved July 10, 2015
  10. ↑ Official Facebook page of I AM A MAN: Black Manhood & Sexual Diversit retrieved July 10, 2015
  11. ↑ The The A.m.A.S.S.I. official website retrieved July 10, 2015
  12. ↑ The Black Men's Xchange (Washington, DC Chapter) official website "Mission and History" retrieved July 10, 2015

External links

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