I love talking to younger transpeople when I have the time to do so. One of those opportunities came yesterday when I received a call from my friend Tona. After catching up on what had been transpiring in our lives since the last time we talked, our conversation over the next two hours focused on various issues affecting the African descended trans community.
One of the issues we discussed was networking. We both lamented the fact that white transpeople do a far better job of networking (at least from where we sit) and pulling each other up than we do in the African descended trans community.
We are in the second month of a new decade, and if we are going to exit the end of the 2K10s in better shape as a community than we entered it, some fundamental things about the way we do business in the African-American trans community must immediately change.
One of them is the networking issue that Tona bought up. We have a tradition in the African descended community we need to go back to of 'each one, reach one, teach one.' That needs to happen ASAP.
Trans elders like myself need to pair up with younger transpeople in the African American trans community and make it a point to pass down our history and accumulated knowledge to people who are serious about uplifting the community and helping it move forward. I and others also need to do a better job talking to our trans elders about the history they have experienced as well so that we can pass that down to the younglings.We also need to forcefully call out the shady African descended trans people, sellouts, scam artists and borderline criminal elements in our community that do shady crap.
We are already laboring under an image handicap, and some of the things the shady people do are counterproductive to us building a positive image as African descended trans people, establishing trust-based working relationships with each other and our cis allies. The calling out process also extends to cis people who mischaracterize our lives inside and outside the African American community.
We must begin doing our own political lobbying for our community and our issues. It's painfully obvious we can't leave that to others as we have done over the last 15 years. While some of the white-run trans organizations may try, they don't have knowledge of the unique issues inherent with being an African descended transperson, nor are they rushing to be fierce advocates for them as evidenced by the lack of diversity in their organizational structures.
When it comes to fighting for respect and fairness in our African-American family, that job is our and ours alone to do along with our cis allies.
And finally, those of us African descended transpeople who are serious about doing this work and uplifting our community need to just ignore the naysayers and get busy doing what we need to do to make this a better world for all of us.
It's Triple V for victory time. It's time we fought for our human rights within our own African descended family, within the overall trans community and our country.We come from people who have made a way out of no way, and it's time we emulate our forefathers and foremothers in standing up for our human rights and building a community we can be proud of.
It is past time for the sleeping giant to awaken. Up, up you mighty African descended transpeople.