RESOURCES
- Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde
- The Days of Good Looks by Cheryl Clarke
- Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
- Black on Both Sides by C. Riley Horton
- Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
- Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta
- HoodWitch by Faylita Hicks
- The Terrible by Yrsa Daley-Ward
- Trumpet by Jackie Kay
- Loving Her by Ann Allen Shockley
- The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson
- The Summer We Got Free by Mia McKenzie
- UK Black Pride: Europe’s largest celebration for LGBTQ people of colour
- LGBTQ Freedom Fund: Posts bail to secure the safety and liberty of individuals in U.S. jails and immigration facilities
- SNaP Co: Building a Black Trans Futurist Framework for practical abolition as the way to liberation
- Voix Noire: For Black children, single women and Marginalized Genders (MaGes)
- Black LGBTQIA Therapy Fund: Funding therapy sessions for Black LGBTQIA+ folk
- Audre Lorde Project: LGBT+ People of Color center for community organizing, focusing on the New York City area
- The Okra Project: Bringing home cooked, healthy, and culturally specific meals and resources to Black Trans People
- Colours Youth Network: Supporting young people of colour to explore and celebrate who they are
- House of GG: Creating programs, services, and resources for Trans and GNC people
- BreakOUT: Seeks to end the criminalization of LGBTQ youth to build a safer and more just New Orleans
- Black Visions Collective: Shaping a political home for Black people across Minnesota
- Black Trans Femmes in the Arts
- gal-dem: A UK media publication committed to telling the stories of women and non-binary people of colour
- Black Protest Legal Support UK
- Black Trans Travel Fund
BLM / PRIDE TAROT CARD
OUR STATEMENT
3rd June 2020
Black Lives Matter. And yes, it's an LGBT+ issue. It's not (only) because white LGBT+ people regularly profit off of Black culture. It's not (only) because we owe Pride, and many of the rights some of us have today, to Black and Latinx queers. It's because queer lives are black lives... and white lives and brown lives and so on. Black Lives Matter cannot be separated from the LGBT+ community because black lives exist within the LGBT+ community. So we want to reaffirm that House of Pride stands with the BLM movement. But just because House of Pride is an LGBT+ organisation, it does not mean that our solidarity of the Black community is contingent on sexuality / gender identity.
To be perfectly clear, for those in the back, All Black Lives Matter. But we must be conscious of the multiple modes of oppression faced by qtpoc, and stand with the most marginalised in our community, namely Black trans women. Black Trans Lives Matter. Black Queer Lives Matter. Say their names: Iyanna Dior; Nina Pop; Monika Diamond.
House of Pride is a new organisation. We believe the way we have operated has always considered & consulted qtpoc. However, we are continually open to learning. Come and talk to us if you think we've made a mistake, or could do better. We vow not to be defensive, but to listen, and to participate in the conversation.
We are fully aware of the historic and contemporary white-washing of the LGBT+ community. Many of our followers have the privilege to switch off the television, "pause" from social media, and disengage from the issue of systemic racism around the world. If you are "tired" of reading about Police Brutality, Racism, and White Supremacy after just a few days, imagine living it. As an organisation that focuses on queer women and non-binary people, House of Pride wanted to use this statement to give thanks to the Black LGBT+ women and non-binary people who consistently do the work.
Roxane Gay. Angela Davis. Indya Moore. Lady Phyll Opuku-Gyimah. Patrisse Cullors-Brignac. Janet Mock. Tanya Compas. Chloe Davies. Azure Antoinette. Char Bailey. Laverne Cox. Angelica Ross. Janelle Monae. Blair Imani. Miss Major. Amber Hikes. Mj Rodriguez.
To our white followers: listen to these voices and more, but don't look to them to always answer your questions. Go out and find the answers yourself. Try not to add to the already prevalent issue of emotional labour placed on people of colour, especially on Black women.
Since House of Pride's inception, we have made it our goal to centre qtpoc at the heart of our events and community building. Not just a hashtag, not just during Black History Month, not just including diverse voices reactively. We don't make vacuous public statements of solidarity because it will help our image. But we know those that do - even in the LGBT+ community. We're seeing a lot of lip service from brands who have discarded people of colour when they became inconvenient to them; from companies who did not support their Black employees when issues of race were reported; from organisations that had no interest in listening to Black voices.
We want to assure our Black followers, our followers of colour, that we are not just there for the algorithm. We are not just there during the riots. We are not just there to honour Marsha, Sylvia and Stormé once a year...because their activism did not start and stop at Stonewall. And yours should not stop here either. We're here always. And moreover, we're not just here for you - we are you. Our leaders, our team, our family, our advisors, our contributors, have queer people of colour front and centre. We always will.