ORGANIZING ON THE GROUND FOR BLM: A GAY MIXED BLACK AND MEXICAN PERSPECTIVE (original) (raw)

Latinx talk, 2020

Abstract

Now, I am a 34-year-old adult living in Appleton, Wisconsin, a majority White town in middle America. Focusing on my sexuality at the expense of my race is a luxury I can no longer afford. The police killings of cis and trans Black men such as George Floyd and Tony McDade, as well as the murder of Latina US soldier Vanessa Guillen and Black woman Breonna Taylor, have weighed heavily on my mind. When Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man, was shot several times in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin (two hours south of where I live), the racism directed towards Black and Latinx people was inching closer and closer to my doorstep. I knew the time was now that I needed to fight for change, but how would my identities and experiences as a gay, mixed Black and Mexican man from El Paso, TX impact my organizing on the ground in Appleton, Wisconsin? My experiences in EPT shaped me into becoming the man that I am today, they gave me the compassion and understanding as well as the knowledge necessary to collaborate on a Pride Black Lives Matter protest in a way that was inclusive to all of us being harmed by systems of oppression while still focusing on the plight of Black lives in the U.S.

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