Speaker 1: Good morning, Keeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Speaker 1: me your Girl, Danielle Moody, recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: it is the first full week of Pride and we
Speaker 1: are continuing our Pride coverage here on wok F all
Speaker 1: month long, bringing you really important conversations on the issues
Speaker 1: that are facing the LGBTQ plus community as well as
Speaker 1: you know how we're staying joyful at a time of
Speaker 1: so many, so many horrendous attacks. And today I'm really
Speaker 1: excited to bring a conversation more local. Right. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of headline national conversations on WOKF, and every
Speaker 1: once in a while, I really want to bring in
Speaker 1: a community perspective, a localized perspective on what we're facing right,
Speaker 1: and the reality is I've brought in two guests today,
Speaker 1: Peter Yacabelli and Steve Arrington, both of whom head up
Speaker 1: respective prides in their states. Peter is the executive director
Speaker 1: of Out Montclair in Montclair, New Jersey, and Steve Arrington
Speaker 1: is the head of Black Pride as well as the
Speaker 1: executive director of the Bayard Rustin LGBTQ Center in Akron, Ohio.
Speaker 1: And just being able to speak with both of these
Speaker 1: men about the work that they are doing and about
Speaker 1: the issues you know that they are facing, from funding
Speaker 1: to recognition, to how to stay hopeful, to how to
Speaker 1: continue to intertwine education, and you know, and understanding both
Speaker 1: within the LGBTQ community, how we understand ourselves during this
Speaker 1: month of Pride, but all year long, and really understanding
Speaker 1: the history of how we got to a place where
Speaker 1: we were having pride in the first place, and to
Speaker 1: continue to intertwine both our present day reality with our
Speaker 1: ancestors that helped to get us to this place. So
Speaker 1: that conversation is a really good one and I hope
Speaker 1: that you all enjoy it. But before we had there,
Speaker 1: you know, I do want to say this with regard
Speaker 1: to just, you know, the news of all of these Republicans,
Speaker 1: you know, announcing their presidency and Nikki Haley, you know,
Speaker 1: using her time with the failing network CNN in her
Speaker 1: presidential town hall to attack the transgender community, particularly to
Speaker 1: attack trans girls. There is no moderate within that bunch.
Speaker 1: They are telling you exactly who they are, exactly what
Speaker 1: they stand for. And when you have someone like Nicki
Speaker 1: Haley use a mainstream media outlet to spread outright lies
Speaker 1: that increase violence towards the most marginalized among us. I
Speaker 1: don't know how the fucking mainstream media gets away with
Speaker 1: referring to her as moderate.
Speaker 2: She is not.
Speaker 1: She is a liar, and she is just as hateful
Speaker 1: as Donald Trump. Just because what she wears traditional feminine
Speaker 1: clothing and wears makeup, we think that what she's not
Speaker 1: as vile and disgusting. I mean, thankfully, you know, what
Speaker 1: Nikki Haley is really doing, like many of the people
Speaker 1: that are in the field right now, is auditioning for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, who remains the heavyweight front runner right now.
Speaker 1: But when you look at even who is in second place,
Speaker 1: which is Aron DeSantis, and the hateful measures and policies
Speaker 1: and climate that he is enacting in Florida, you have
Speaker 1: to think to yourself, is this what we want nationalized?
Speaker 1: Do we want to mainstream homophobia and transphobia, misogyny, racism
Speaker 1: right in our country? Is that what we want? We
Speaker 1: want to go back to the days where these people
Speaker 1: who were forced out onto the margins for their racism,
Speaker 1: for their Islamophobia, for their homophobia and transphobia are now
Speaker 1: just credited with being, you know, just having differing opinions.
Speaker 1: I don't fucking think so, and so I think that
Speaker 1: it's important, as you know, we are watching the mainstream
Speaker 1: media make the same mistakes that they made in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: make them all over again because it's quote unquote good
Speaker 1: for ratings, or as CNN is trying to do, just
Speaker 1: both sides everyone to fucking death. It's really important to
Speaker 1: recognize what is happening, and it is to normalize hey
Speaker 1: right to say, oh, you're okay, it's it's fine. You know,
Speaker 1: you don't know a trans person, So let me tell
Speaker 1: you about this boogie person that I'm trying to create.
Speaker 1: Let me make up a story and create this monster
Speaker 1: and then have you, you know, rely on the fact
Speaker 1: that I can just spread lies because we refuse to
Speaker 1: actually leave our communities and get to know each other
Speaker 1: and the person down the street, which makes it so
Speaker 1: easy right for the right wing to be able to
Speaker 1: spread the kind of bullshit that they do. So it
Speaker 1: is really important that we go back to community, that
Speaker 1: we stop looking so far outside of ourselves for the
Speaker 1: solutions to the problems that we're facing. And I think
Speaker 1: that this conversation today with both Steve and Peter and
Speaker 1: the localization of pride and local solutions and community solutions
Speaker 1: is exactly where we need to be, Folks. I am
Speaker 1: very excited to welcome to ook F Daily for the
Speaker 1: very first time. We're doing a duo for our interview
Speaker 1: today during the month of Pride. I'm excited to welcome
Speaker 1: the executive director of the Bayard Rustin lgbt Q Center,
Speaker 1: Steve Arrington, as well as the executive director of Out
Speaker 1: Montclair and Montclair Pride, Peter Yacobellis. Thank you to the
Speaker 1: both of you to making the time to join WOKF.
Speaker 1: And I'll start and I'll direct the first question to you, Steve,
Speaker 1: what does pride mean to you this month of June
Speaker 1: but also under kind of the cloud of attacks that
Speaker 1: the LGBTQ community has been facing over the last year.
Speaker 2: Thank you for that question, and it's a good question.
Speaker 2: Pride means to me something totally different, I think than
Speaker 2: what it is to the mainstream white gay pride community. Being
Speaker 2: African American openly gay man, it's always been a struggle
Speaker 2: and so we have never been involved or one embraced
Speaker 2: by white gay prides. So when we decide to do
Speaker 2: African American black family pride. We're bringing in our culture.
Speaker 2: We're bringing in things that make us rifle. Mostly black
Speaker 2: gay men and lesbian women are in the church choirs.
Speaker 2: We bring it in our food, We're bringing in our house,
Speaker 2: our ball dancers. It's more of a cultural event for
Speaker 2: us than just a party in the park or a
Speaker 2: party on the street. We celebrate our struggles that we
Speaker 2: have as black LGBTQ plus people. We celebrate the good times,
Speaker 2: the bad times. We celebrate our ancestors, and we celebrate
Speaker 2: the term on the principles of Kwansa with is self determination.
Speaker 2: So my pride that I'm celebrating this year is the
Speaker 2: self determination to move forward. And in doing that, and
Speaker 2: during that self determination, we take an assessment of what
Speaker 2: is needed in our community, what are the struggles, what
Speaker 2: are some barriers that we can address. In our pride.
Speaker 2: For the last seven years, we've always gave scholarships away,
Speaker 2: and so this year it'll be ten thousand dollars in
Speaker 2: scholarship so far that we've gave away to some people
Speaker 2: in our community that are trying to struggle to go
Speaker 2: to college. That's a pride event, and we just don't
Speaker 2: have one event. We do three major events across the sections.
Speaker 2: We're going to have a house Mecha Valley, a ball night,
Speaker 2: We're going to have our scholarship luncheon, and we got
Speaker 2: our stone so picnic in the park and it brings
Speaker 2: together through different genres of people across our community.
Speaker 1: Wonderful Steve, thank you so much. And Peter, similar question
Speaker 1: to you with being the executive director of aut Montclair.
Speaker 1: You know, what does pride mean to you, particularly during
Speaker 1: this obviously what is often a celebratory month of June,
Speaker 1: but again under this cloud of consistent attacks that we've
Speaker 1: seen against the community across the country.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it ebbs and flows, you know, like at
Speaker 3: some points in my journey, I've been you know, rioting
Speaker 3: and for pride and advocating and and other points celebratory.
Speaker 3: We've had a lot of change over the last two decades,
Speaker 3: and unfortunately we're in one of these cycles now where
Speaker 3: certain elements in our country are deciding to circle around
Speaker 3: and come on the attack again and try and strip
Speaker 3: us of rights and trying to e raise us from
Speaker 3: curriculum and library books and all of that. And it's
Speaker 3: really quite scary because I think the people who are
Speaker 3: doing it know better, and they're doing it anyway, and
Speaker 3: they're doing it to divide. So Pride for me this
Speaker 3: year is about being a contrast and setting up something
Speaker 3: like Montclair Pride is about contrasting places all over the
Speaker 3: country that are marginalizing and targeting people for discrimination, and
Speaker 3: we want to be the anecdote for that. We want
Speaker 3: people to be welcome here, to be themselves. Our tagline
Speaker 3: is be you be Heard. You're a family friendly event.
Speaker 3: We are a majority people of color event. We're really
Speaker 3: really proud of what we've been able to create here
Speaker 3: in Montclair and like to serve as a contrast related
Speaker 3: to what's going on in so many other places around
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 1: You know, the thing that I think is most important,
Speaker 1: you know, for those people that actually are outside of
Speaker 1: the LGBTQ community, you know, they have often seen Pride
Speaker 1: as you know, an event with glitter and floats and music,
Speaker 1: and don't really understand necessarily the origins of Pride Pride
Speaker 1: being as Peter you alluded to, initially a riot right
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine outside of Stonewall in in New York,
Speaker 1: where I am located, and the importance of the LGBTQ
Speaker 1: community led by black trans women at that time, pushing
Speaker 1: back against police brutality, pushing back against you know, the
Speaker 1: forces that sought to oppress them, and so can the
Speaker 1: both of you speak to and Peter, I'll start with
Speaker 1: you with this one. You know why the his understanding
Speaker 1: the history of pride is important and how you work
Speaker 1: to interweave that with joy and celebration in your locality.
Speaker 3: Well, for me, you know, the symbol and the flag
Speaker 3: has obviously evolved over the years, but the Pride flag
Speaker 3: was a literal signal for safety, especially when I was younger.
Speaker 3: Finding the place in New York City that had the
Speaker 3: flag meant that I could be who I was and
Speaker 3: I would be safe there. And that's really the space
Speaker 3: that I think a lot of us try to create
Speaker 3: with our festivals and our events, is this is a
Speaker 3: place where you can come be your authentic self and
Speaker 3: you will be safe. If you are a cisgender white,
Speaker 3: you know, straight male in America, you really probably never
Speaker 3: have felt unsafe as a result of your identity. Right, So,
Speaker 3: when we see the pushback on pride, people saying well,
Speaker 3: why don't we have straight pride? I do try to
Speaker 3: have a conversation with people around that. I see that
Speaker 3: as an opportunity because I try to assume positive intent
Speaker 3: and assume misunderstanding before something more malicious. And often when
Speaker 3: I do have that conversation with individuals, they don't realize
Speaker 3: that it is about safety, that it is about overcoming struggle,
Speaker 3: that it's about overcoming discrimination and marginalization that we've all
Speaker 3: experienced in our lives. And so I think it's so
Speaker 3: important that we keep things like this going because there
Speaker 3: are constantly, obviously new people who are coming out and
Speaker 3: figuring out who they are, and we need to make
Speaker 3: sure that they have safe spaces to be themselves.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that And see for you, you know again,
Speaker 1: being in in Ohio, being in you know, the Midwest
Speaker 1: region of the of the country. For you, what does
Speaker 1: pride at this at this local level, and black pride specifically,
Speaker 1: you know mean? And why is it important to interweave
Speaker 1: the history right into the content of understanding how pride
Speaker 1: has evolved over the course of time.
Speaker 2: It is very important to weave the history from which
Speaker 2: we came a lot of the young people that we
Speaker 2: see at our drop in center know very little about
Speaker 2: black gay history. In our facility, we got posters hanging
Speaker 2: all through the facility of famous people who are African
Speaker 2: American that came before us and that were LGBTQ. Audrey
Speaker 2: Lord with a story about who she is, and we
Speaker 2: share that knowledge on an ongoing basis as we talk
Speaker 2: about Stonewall. I'm always sharing with our youth that Stonewall
Speaker 2: was a people of color issue. Stonewall was where we
Speaker 2: stood up to be accounted for. Stonewall is our beginning
Speaker 2: and our pride. Well, they go to visit Stonewall. Now
Speaker 2: it's been regenrified to a white, gay, upscale community. But
Speaker 2: that's our pride, and so our pride is identify as
Speaker 2: Peter said, to struggle and celebrate the struggle. And if
Speaker 2: we don't knowledge the struggle that we have and even
Speaker 2: still going half today and educate the young people behind me,
Speaker 2: they wouldn't know nothing about it because it's not taught.
Speaker 2: Being here in Ohio, being black and gay is more
Speaker 2: than a nocean. I mean to get us to point
Speaker 2: where we got black gay pride and this is our
Speaker 2: seventh year was not embraced at all, and it was like, oh,
Speaker 2: you don't need that. We all together, No, we're none.
Speaker 2: Because when I tell you about my culture that I
Speaker 2: need to bring to the table being part of his pride.
Speaker 2: You tell me that's not pride. So that's my pride.
Speaker 2: It wasn't your pride, and it wasn't accepted, it wasn't embraced.
Speaker 2: So now after seven years, they're coming around and say, oh, well,
Speaker 2: we want to fund you to help you give us
Speaker 2: some money. And I use this analogy when the mainstream
Speaker 2: Pride can raise over two hundred thousand dollars for a
Speaker 2: six hour event, a party in the street for six hours,
Speaker 2: and we have not even raised over twenty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: for a three day event, including scholarships, including Keno speakers,
Speaker 2: including an educational component, and we've never received that kind
Speaker 2: of money. So it tells you right there that there
Speaker 2: is a divide because we go out and solicit funds
Speaker 2: to sponsor our pride just as well as mainstream Pride,
Speaker 2: and we don't get it. We might have an institution
Speaker 2: that would give us five hundred dollars while they gave
Speaker 2: mainstream Pride five thousand dollars, And we see that and
Speaker 2: we keep track of that because it lets us know
Speaker 2: that our struggle is still still relevant at this time.
Speaker 2: So when I hear the joy of pride. What is
Speaker 2: my joy right now? My joy is that we're sustaining
Speaker 2: and we're able to pull off the seventh year. That
Speaker 2: is my big joy, that we're here. It hasn't folded up.
Speaker 2: And I'm hoping that when you know, I'm not a
Speaker 2: young a no more. So, I'm hoping when I leave here,
Speaker 2: that someone steps up behind me and say, let's carry
Speaker 2: this on. Who's going to do the next exect director?
Speaker 2: Be pride, create an institution here in the LGBTT black community,
Speaker 2: something that they can be proud of. I mean our
Speaker 2: dropping center last year, we had five hundred and one
Speaker 2: people just dropped through here. And these eighteen to twenty
Speaker 2: four year olds homeless, subs abuse, and a whole lot
Speaker 2: of mental health issues. So when you see eighteen year
Speaker 2: old people sleeping on your front porch of your building
Speaker 2: facility because they have nowhere to go, there's still a struggle.
Speaker 2: It's still a struggle and there's very limited resources for them.
Speaker 2: So you know, our focus and our agendas are different.
Speaker 2: And as you say, as he said, a white male
Speaker 2: or white female don't even know, don't even know the
Speaker 2: burden that we have to carry so I always amazed
Speaker 2: at that word joy. What does joy mean? If I
Speaker 2: was back in the church, I would say joy, joy,
Speaker 2: deep down in my heart. Oh yeah, it's in my heart.
Speaker 2: But what is that joy? When I leave that church?
Speaker 2: They have to face the reality of racism as each
Speaker 2: and every day when I wake up, you know, I
Speaker 2: go to bed feeling good, and I wake up and
Speaker 2: get back in this work, and somebody is out there
Speaker 2: that is not going to embrace us. So when they
Speaker 2: talk about the overall attitude of anti gayness in Ohio,
Speaker 2: and we got a lot, we got four bills going
Speaker 2: on Ohio now against gays, well you know we have
Speaker 2: those four bills. But I wake up as a black man.
Speaker 2: There's anti blackness every day, So not just for gay issues,
Speaker 2: but every day. And so I do believe that the
Speaker 2: term joy is more of a mental state of mind,
Speaker 2: that we're existing, that we're alive, and that we're well
Speaker 2: and we're celebrating our life. And my young guys work here,
Speaker 2: when I told them about the joy pride, they all
Speaker 2: said today, what joy? After of course they asked me,
Speaker 2: what are you talking about joy? What do you mean?
Speaker 2: Because everybody want to know what's the Joy. It's a
Speaker 2: struggle for us to raise money to put these events on.
Speaker 2: It's a struggle to maintain Wars open. So you know,
Speaker 2: we didn't raise two hundred thousand dollars in six months
Speaker 2: for six Hour Party.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that's I mean, that's an important
Speaker 1: differentiation to make, which is, you know, there has long
Speaker 1: been an issue around the commercialization of pride, right, the
Speaker 1: corporatization of pride in many ways, but that money being
Speaker 1: used to rainbow wash companies who are doing dirt against
Speaker 1: our communities during you know, at night, but taking the
Speaker 1: money by day. What does it mean to you know,
Speaker 1: have these corporations give to the quote unquote mainstream organizations
Speaker 1: while really denying the work of localized organizations that are
Speaker 1: working with whether it's the black queer community, the Lacks,
Speaker 1: the next queer community, what have you. I think is
Speaker 1: a really important distinction to make. I ask about Joy
Speaker 1: because I find, you know, particularly as we see the
Speaker 1: silencing and the erasure that is happening at a national level,
Speaker 1: I have a lot of concern for LGBTQ youth. I
Speaker 1: have a lot of concern and it goes back to
Speaker 1: you know, the beginning of the two thousands, when you've
Speaker 1: heard you know, the campaigns around it gets better, right,
Speaker 1: and this idea that you know, just keep moving, keep pushing,
Speaker 1: have faith right that each generation's responsibility is too better,
Speaker 1: you know, is to better society than the way that
Speaker 1: we found it. And so Peter, I'll start with you
Speaker 1: with this question, which is, you know, what are your
Speaker 1: both your hopes and your fear for lgbtqu at this time,
Speaker 1: and what kind of support do you see that they need.
Speaker 3: Well, I think we're seeing now more comfort with authenticity
Speaker 3: than ever before, and I think that is what is
Speaker 3: scaring the right wing to these crazy reactions that we're
Speaker 3: seeing around the country in terms of just targeting youth
Speaker 3: and their families for discrimination, criminalizing trans healthcare, banning library books,
Speaker 3: banning drag shows. I mean, there is a lot of
Speaker 3: fear that's coming up against I think a lot of authenticity.
Speaker 3: So I do remain hopeful just given everything I'm seeing.
Speaker 3: I was at a show last night for an artist
Speaker 3: named Declan McKenna, who I've never heard of before, but
Speaker 3: who's very popular with the young generation, and most of
Speaker 3: the audience was young, queer people of all colors, and
Speaker 3: it was beautiful to see, and I couldn't believe just
Speaker 3: the way they were a dressed and how free they were.
Speaker 3: And I'd never seen such an assemblance of young people
Speaker 3: like that outside of my and this was just a concert.
Speaker 3: So I have a lot of hope, But at the
Speaker 3: same time, I'm concerned in places like Florida where you
Speaker 3: can't even teach anything LGBTQ related now through twelfth grade.
Speaker 3: I mean, we're not even talking about the Don't Say
Speaker 3: Gay bill through third grade that was passed over a
Speaker 3: year ago, and now we're talking about you can't talk
Speaker 3: about it through high school. That's scary, right. Luckily streaming content, television,
Speaker 3: all those stuff, you know, but what's next, Right, That's
Speaker 3: my concern is this kind of censorship and shaming and
Speaker 3: if the people pushing it get even more power than
Speaker 3: they already have. And the consolidation of media assets in
Speaker 3: the country, you know, with media markets being consolidated in papers,
Speaker 3: and television stations and radio stations all being owned by
Speaker 3: two or three companies, is very, very very concerning to
Speaker 3: me what the goal there? And I think most alarming
Speaker 3: is the effort by conservatives to take over school boards
Speaker 3: and affect and change curriculum because that we're seeing cuts
Speaker 3: across a lot of issues, trying to deny the Holocaust,
Speaker 3: talk about slavery and a completely different context and taking
Speaker 3: it completely out of context and erasing LGBTQ people. So
Speaker 3: I'm scared for all oppressed people because I think we
Speaker 3: just are going through this cycle like humanity doesn't seem
Speaker 3: to learn the lesson. Ever, you can go back one
Speaker 3: hundred years ago and look at the world and the
Speaker 3: debates and the conversations and the discrimination and targeting that
Speaker 3: was starting to happen one hundred years ago, and here
Speaker 3: we are again. Yeah, it's scary. So we all have
Speaker 3: to have each other's backs too. I think that's the
Speaker 3: most important thing, is that we're looking out for each other.
Speaker 3: We're trying to understand each other, where we're coming from
Speaker 3: each other's life experiences, and having each other's backs, because
Speaker 3: once they come for one of us, they're coming for
Speaker 3: the rest of us.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is one hundred percent true.
Speaker 2: And Steve for you.
Speaker 1: You know, again, with regard to the pressures and the
Speaker 1: reality that LGBTQ youth are up against, you know, how
Speaker 1: do you think those that are listening, you know, those
Speaker 1: that are able to attend, you know, and go to
Speaker 1: your center in Ohio. What what can people do to
Speaker 1: be of better allies, to be a better support to
Speaker 1: LGBTQ youth.
Speaker 2: Uh? You know, that's a good question. But before I
Speaker 2: talk about what they could do to be a better
Speaker 2: ally and support, I have to address my youth that
Speaker 2: come here. They lack knowledge, they lack awareness, and we're
Speaker 2: all we have a Wednesday dinner here every night and
Speaker 2: it's all about some subject on the table. One time
Speaker 2: we were talking about Rosa Parks and one of the
Speaker 2: guys said, well, you know, that wasn't real. That really
Speaker 2: didn't happen. And I said, it didn't know me, Steve,
Speaker 2: that didn't happen. And I'm like, well who told you that? Well,
Speaker 2: I learned that in school. I don't believe none of
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. This is an openly gay man
Speaker 2: telling me that. As we explore things like that, there's
Speaker 2: a whole lack of knowledge that are young people coming
Speaker 2: here with even from voting resil to vote, to get involved,
Speaker 2: the knowledge level is not there. The identity about who
Speaker 2: they are in this struggle of being gaged during these
Speaker 2: suppressed times is not there. We have four House bills
Speaker 2: at state Senate now that is trying to erase us
Speaker 2: and to get them involved consciously to address those issues
Speaker 2: and say let's go to the state's capitol with the
Speaker 2: other people on the charter bus and protests. Is like
Speaker 2: why and I'm like, oh wow, So that there is
Speaker 2: where I'm focused on. They need to come and get involved.
Speaker 2: A lot of them don't even want to come out
Speaker 2: of the to the gay pride because they feel like
Speaker 2: someone may see them. And I'm okay, but this is Ohio. Now,
Speaker 2: we talk about allies. What can our allies do?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: I work with a lot of cistender black folks in
Speaker 2: this city, and I let them know that our needs
Speaker 2: are great. I let them know that if you can
Speaker 2: help us, do that. If you want to sponsor a
Speaker 2: Wednesday dinner, do that. But I always got to approach
Speaker 2: them in a way that you can do this, please
Speaker 2: help us. They're not lining up at the door, even
Speaker 2: though they know what we're going through, even though they
Speaker 2: know we've been suppressed and marginalized. They're not lining up
Speaker 2: at the door. And we're in Ohio at one of
Speaker 2: these little Bible belt places. So that has a major
Speaker 2: impact on how people receive us. You know, I even
Speaker 2: had a young guy a couple of weeks ago. Wait, mister,
Speaker 2: you know we're gonna go to hell. I said, well,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to hell, you know, but if he
Speaker 2: has if they had two years old, oh, if that's
Speaker 2: his consciousness, it's that his mindset. Even though he just
Speaker 2: said it so easily, it tells you there, we have
Speaker 2: a damaged person in hand. And if we got that
Speaker 2: one damaged person that has that little mindset, then we
Speaker 2: have another one and another one. So the first thing
Speaker 2: we need to do is have our allies to rally around,
Speaker 2: to help educate, to help mark awareness about who they
Speaker 2: are and be proud about who you are. And I'm
Speaker 2: constantly preaching that we are somebody we can make a change,
Speaker 2: and we're doing it. Ten years ago this center and
Speaker 2: even existed here in the city, no one even believe
Speaker 2: it was gonna get off the ground. It might be
Speaker 2: a small change, but it's a big change over the
Speaker 2: period of time and the history of people that we impact,
Speaker 2: And so I think it's important for us to uplift
Speaker 2: them and bring in allies in that can focus on
Speaker 2: our issues, be political allies that they be state representative,
Speaker 2: federal representative and support us as we turn around and
Speaker 2: support you because they do want our votes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred, one hundred percent. For those people who
Speaker 1: would like to get involved, who would like to attend
Speaker 1: your events, who would like to visit the center, Peter,
Speaker 1: you first, and then Steve, please tell folks how they
Speaker 1: can get connected, how they can follow, and how they
Speaker 1: can participate.
Speaker 3: Thank you again, and thanks for having me. I think
Speaker 3: it's important to mention that my organization does do year
Speaker 3: round programming. So we do a big Pride festival, which
Speaker 3: is great, and that's once, you know, one day in June,
Speaker 3: but we do year round programming for teens, for seniors,
Speaker 3: for families, for trans individuals, and so we're really proud
Speaker 3: of that. So they can get information on all of
Speaker 3: our programs as well as Pride at Outmontclair dot org.
Speaker 3: Outmontclair dot org.
Speaker 1: Okay, wonderful, Thank you Peter and Steve.
Speaker 2: Yes, we as well do all year round programming. We
Speaker 2: have a housing program for youth between eighteen and twenty four.
Speaker 2: We provide rent assistance. We can provide deposit and two
Speaker 2: months of rent for them if they're homeless. We also
Speaker 2: have a transitional house that has four people in it
Speaker 2: right down, one lesbian and three gay men, and we
Speaker 2: provide them shelter. They stay there for six months. We
Speaker 2: do stabilization program, get them a job, get them in school,
Speaker 2: get them off the streets. And for our pride and
Speaker 2: our food bank here. We have our clothing bank here,
Speaker 2: our HIV testing, our COVID testing that we do here,
Speaker 2: and our anti violence group. We have a high number
Speaker 2: of violence among our community and so we were funded
Speaker 2: to do anti violence and we just got funded from
Speaker 2: Centerling to do mental health referrals, so we're doing that
Speaker 2: as well. But to contact O us to just go
Speaker 2: to OHIOAAC dot org, Ohio aac dot org and it
Speaker 2: pulls up our site, it pulls up all our instagrams.
Speaker 2: And I do have some young people here that do
Speaker 2: the social media thing. As I told them, I know
Speaker 2: nothing about birth and no baby, so they do that
Speaker 2: quite well. They get up and they do all of
Speaker 2: that because it's not that's not in my genre seventy
Speaker 2: years old. So they do that, and you can reach
Speaker 2: us through our social media and OHIOAAC dot org.
Speaker 1: Okay, Peter and Steve, thank you so much for making
Speaker 1: the time to join wokp Thank you both for the
Speaker 1: work that you are doing in your respective states and regions.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it. We will make sure, folks that
Speaker 1: you are listening that you'll be able to connect in
Speaker 1: the show notes area and the episode description. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Peter and Steve really appreciate you. And happy pride to
Speaker 1: both of you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Danielle, Happy pride.
Speaker 2: M hm.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, dear friends on wokef
Speaker 1: as always power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fun