CLARIFICATION APPENDED

In order to raise awareness of lesser-known racial issues concerning the queer community, the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) has organized Harvard’s first-ever Race and Queerness Week.

The series will include nightly events this week that focus on the intersection of race and sexuality issues.

“These are dialogues that may not be in the forefront in issues regarding identity,” said Katherine E. Smith ’10, who is the public relations chair for BGLTSA.

Visiting Lecturer on Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Michael Bronski said that this separation is due in part to the historical division between gay rights and race issues.

“If you look at the gay liberation movement, it’s essentially been a white middle class movement, and because of that it has not dealt with issues that are vital to lesbian, gay, and transsexual people of color,” said Bronski, who gave a lecture entitled “The Queer Movement and Race” in the series’ opening event on Monday night.

Last night’s event featured Lisa Pic-Harrison, who is co-chair of the Somos Latino/as Coalition, a non-profit organization that represents and serves the LGBT Latino/a population in Massachusetts. Pic-Harrison discussed Latino and Queer Issues after a film screening of “On the Downlow,” which tells the story of two gay Latino men.

Tonight’s panel will present the personal experiences of six students from different ethnic backgrounds who all identify with the queer community. On Thursday night, spoken word performer Kit Yan will read poetry addressing the topic “Asian and Queer Identity” at Café Gato Rojo.

So far, students who have attended this week’s events said that they were pleased to see these issues addressed together.

“All of the issues are usually separated. It’s not how we live our lives,” said Eyenga Bokamba, a student at the Graduate School of Education who attended last night’s event. “We all have sexual identities; and we all have racial identities. We just live in a very compartmentalized culture.”

While student organizations such as Fuerza Latina and The Queer Asian Forum are also sponsoring the event, the Black Students Association (BSA) declined involvement.

According to BSA’s public relations chair Sarah Lockridge-Steckel, the BSA chose not to sponsor the week’s activities in order to focus their attention on Black History Month events.

“We do support the dialogue that is happening,” she said.

However, other students involved in the black community said that the BSA should have sponsored the series.

“It’s detrimental to the entire community to not support such a unique event,” said Emily A. Owens ’07, a member of the Association of Black Harvard Women (ABHW).

“[BSA] should be more careful and critical about how they implicitly include and exclude certain groups from their community,” Owens added.

Kaya N. Williams ’07, who is a member in both BSA and ABHW, said she thinks BSA should have reached out to all of its members.

“I would hope for the future that they would be more aware of the various different minorities in the community,” she said.

CLARIFICATION
The Feb. 21 news article "BGLTSA To Hold Awareness Week" did not fairly represent the debate over the Black Students Association's decision not to support the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance's first-ever Race and Queerness Week. The article should have disclosed that the two BSA members criticizing their own group's decision were also members of the BGLTSA.