Across the Atlantic

Thursday, I saw news of this:

On January 26, 2011 a Ugandan gay rights activist was beaten to death near his home.

It took me back to 2009, when Rachel Maddow completely destroy Richard Cohen on her show (which can be found here). He was the man who was lobbying anti-homosexual sentiments to the Ugandan government through a book he wrote—the government was very close to passing a bill that would’ve led many homosexual Ugandans to their deaths.

Africa, as a whole, is not known to be the most gay-friendly continent. I will confidently say that if you’re gay in certain parts of Africa, your life is in danger.

Approximately 3200 miles west of Uganda is a small West African country that I happen to have direct ties to; Sierra Leone. My parents and family hail from this country that is rich in culture and varying social dynamics.

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world. The country also has one of the lowest life expectancies and literacy rates in the world. To counter these “underdeveloped country traits”, Sierra Leone is ranked as the most generous country in Africa and ranks amongst the top 12 most generous in the world—which is saying a lot for a country that suffered civil war during the turn of the century and is still recovering from the widespread death and destruction. I’m sure many of you have seen the film “Blood Diamond”.

The previous paragraph (sorry about the social studies lesson there!) was to give you a bit of info on the country that I claim as my second home. Needless to say, it’s very different from the US.

Every now and then, I allow myself to wonder what it’d be like if my parents hadn’t immigrated to the US. I allow myself to imagine who I’d be and where I’d be, if I had been born in Sierra Leone. I would’ve grown up, attending all girls’ Catholic schools in Freetown, having my uniforms sown before school started in the late summer. My skin would be darker, my body thinner, and my accent thicker. I probably would’ve had more siblings and I certainly wouldn’t be at Duke—I’d be attending the local Fourah Bay College.

I would also be hiding my sexuality. Despite the fact that the life imprisonment sentence is only for homosexual males, it would still be unsafe for me as a queer woman. There is no legal protection against discrimination, hate crimes go unpunished, and the general public lacks tolerance, acceptance, and/or understanding.

In October of 2004, the founder of the Sierra Leone Gay and Lesbian Association, was found raped and murdered in her office. Since then, the organization has been renamed the Dignity Association—this association has struggled with government support, was refused NGO renewal by the government, and has had fairly low membership (120 people as of 2007).

Living in America, despite the fact the LGBT community here has had so many set backs and so many struggles, I do appreciate how open I may be about my sexuality. My sexuality had always been a difficult thing for me to accept, as a first generation American in my family, and I’m sure that it factors into the somewhat strained relationship I have with my parents. Where they’re from, homosexuality is regarded as one of the worst things you can do (I’m not saying top 10, but it’s up there), and I can see how hard it is for them to shed their old views and assimilate into “American” culture. My parents are tolerant, but not entirely accepting (as I’ll explain in my “coming out story” post, whenever I get around to doing it…)

I’ll end this post here with the hope that there is some discussion of culture and sexuality, especially in the immigrant (1st, 2nd, etc. generation American) population, especially with all the race-talk on the blog recently (because, experiences differ not only for different people, but for different types of people). How much do you think culture or environment affects openness about sexual orientation?

"I can’t recall a recent situation which has made me feel like these words did."

[Ed. Note: Andrea Patiño Contreras, an awesome friend and huge ally, sent this to me to be posted on the blog. We all pretty much knew she was The Greatest already, but it's officialer now? Right? I think that works. Anyhow, sweet post! Thanks for sharing!]

I am currently in Accra, Ghana, studying Cultural Anthropology and travelling around. Over the past week I have been staying at a really nice host family and though transitioning to Ghanaian life from American and Colombian lifestyles has been a little hard, I have finally been able to get used to a lot of the new things I have encountered. Sunday morning, however, I had a very upsetting experience that I thought I wanted to share with all of you.

My host mom, Aunt Vic, is a wonderful old lady. She is very (very) religious and as the head of the house, there are many practices in the house that involve praying, going to church, studying the Bible etc. I am not entirely sure what her denomination is, but it is some sort of Christian charismatic something. I knew that they go to church every Sunday, and I also knew (as I had been told by the other exchange students staying here) that Sunday church, plus school, plus Bible study, would take up to four hours. My roommate and I (none of us particularly religious) had decided we wanted to go to church because we knew it was important for the family and because we were, to a certain, extent expected to do so.

When we arrived we were guided into a crowded room where we sat on our own. The rest of the family members were scattered all over the room. I had known about this service for some days now and I had been preparing myself to be able to be there for four hours and to deal with a lot of things that I knew could upset me. Nonetheless, I was completely willing to see what it was like and I went in with my most open mind.

Though I was feeling absolutely uncomfortable at the beginning, after an hour of singing and dancing to cool-sounding songs about God and Jesus, I started to give in and try to dance and cope with what was going on around me. By then I was happy and thinking to myself what a great time these people have compared to the boring and stiff (no offense) Catholic services I had grown up with. This was a happy party.

However, as the sermon started things started to change. Though I knew I was going to be told that sex is a sin and all that, I wasn’t ready to hear that I should “shut down all the sinful people I know from my life, like those who are lesbians, or homosexuals, or drunks”. When I heard that I felt that my heart was about to explode a little and that I got really red and rolled my eyes and shook my head. I can’t recall a recent situation which has made me feel like these words did. I wanted to stand up and leave but I didn’t want to be a shame to my host family or be rude, especially in a place where I was one of the three white people in the room (an interesting point here as I am considered to be “white” here, while in the U.S. I am never seen as white but Hispanic). Anyways, it felt really bad, but I stayed listening to the rest of the sermon which by then was feeling like pure crap (again, no offense).

Half an hour later, the offering time came. I was too enraged and of course, I would never give money to a place that promotes intolerance and triggers discrimination and damages society in the way in which this sermon was doing it. However, as the only white people in the room we were easily pointed at and we were expected to give something. I just sat there with my roommate and pretended to be indifferent, but people around us were asking and demanding money. Then the minister looked straight into my eyes and asked me where my offering was, and people in the two rows in front me turned around asking the same question. I wasn’t going to give money. Instead of saying I didn’t have any I told the woman in front of me I simply didn’t have an envelope (which all the others were using to put their money in). Bad idea! They brought me one of course. I hid it in my purse and pretended to forget, but ten minutes later the people gossiping in the front row asked me for it.

When I gave it (1 GCD = less than 1 dollar) I simply wanted to cry. I stood there and my eyes got so watery. I didn’t want people around me to think that I was actually inspired by all this. I felt that I completely betrayed myself, all my friends and people I love who support and who are part of the LGBT community. It really felt awful and I was so angry at myself for not being able to say no. There was so much pressure in the church though, but I still think that that is not an excuse for not standing on my feet and stand for my principles. I know it was sort of my small incident, but it really hit me hard. I thought though, that sharing it with you all would be the best way of redeeming myself.