260 - Black Poly Pride with Chanee Jackson Kendall and Cheri Calico Roman
Polyamory in the Black community
Chanee Jackson Kendall and Cheri Calico Roman are co-founders of Black Poly Pride, an annual conference that will be taking place this year on June 4th to the 7th in Washington, DC. Black Poly Pride was created to combat the lack of safe spaces for Black polyamorous individuals in other conferences and conventions.
They are also the founders of the Poly Cultural Diversity Alliance, and are passionate about polyamorous education, activism, and outreach, as well as the normalization of it as a relationship style and orientation. Both Chanee and Cheri began as administrators of the Young, Black & Poly online community, which was the first step in the journey of founding Black Poly Pride.
“I am reclaiming the choice my ancestors did not have to live and love the way that I want to.”
-Chanee
Throughout this episode, Chanee and Cheri talk about Black polyamorous history and other experiences within the Black poly community, expanding on:
Their experiences moderating a Facebook group of over 15,000 members.
Differences between spaces specifically for Black folx versus those that are Black-centered but open to all.
Womanism as a response to white-centered feminism and how it has influenced Black polyamory.
Their campaign to include more Black polyamorous stories in Black History Month, as well as throughout the entire year.
Details about Black Poly Pride this year and how to learn more about it.
To get details about the Black Poly Pride Fundraiser March 2020 in Atlanta, email BlackPolyPride@gmail.com. For more information about Black Poly Pride 2020, go to www.BlackPolyPride.com. Follow Black Poly Pride on Twitter and Instagram at @BlackPolyPride, or become a patron to support their efforts at www.Patreon.com/BlackPolyPride.
Transcript
This document may contain small transcription errors. If you find one please let us know at info@multiamory.com and we will fix it ASAP.
Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory podcast, we're talking about black polyamorous history with the organizers of the Black Poly Pride conference, Cheri Calico Roman and Chanee Jackson Kendall. Both Cheri and Chanee started their journeys as admins of online community groups and then went on to become the co-founders of the Poly Cultural Diversity Alliance, where they discovered a lack of black safe spaces and content at conferences and world pride events and decided to fix that problem.
They are the co-founders of Black Poly Pride which is born from their mutual dedication to polyamorous education, outreach, activism, and wanting to normalize polyamory as a relationship orientation. They're planning the second annual Black Poly Pride this year, which we'll be talking about more later on as well as how you can get tickets and what to expect from that. Chanee and Cheri, thank you so much for being here.
Cheri: Thank you for inviting us, yay.
Dedeker: I want to start out by talking about what's led the two of you here today. As we mentioned, both of you started out as community admins for online community, specifically the young, black, and poly group. I think that in this day and age, we've seen online communities really become the bedrock for so many real-life movements and for marginalized groups.
At the same time, I think we've also seen online communities really become the source of a lot of stress and drama, especially for people in your positions, the people who are admining or managing these groups. I'm curious to know what first led you into these communities and what's been inspiring and motivating you also in moving into positions of leadership and admin as well?
Chanee: Well, for me, I know that-- You're right. This is where we really connect with people who are ethically non-monogamous. The Internet has really been a safe space for us to do that. It's like you find your tribe online. Then, for me, the next step was to actually meet these people in real-life to interact with them and make them a part of my life. I think that I found that that cuts down on a lot of the drama online because when you know people in real-life and you can hear things in their voice, you know, "Hey, they're joking" or everything that can be misconstrued comes off way better when you have a real-life person to match up these words on a page too.
Jase: That makes a lot of sense. We are generally, as humans, much better at interacting in person than we are online. We're just more civil to each other as well. I do think part of it is that it can help to bridge that gap because you're like, "I know this is a human, and I can imagine how they might be saying this as opposed to just assuming."
Emily: Not the wall of the Internet in between all of us.
Dedeker: What about you, Cheri?
Cheri: For me, I really believe that it's always worth it, the drama and the hard work, the blood, sweat and tears that goes into this. This is so important because every single time, I typically handle new member entrance into our groups, and so I read the reasons why people are joining. The primary reason people are joining is because they believe there's no community where they live. If there's no community where you live and the only people you can find to relate to you who understand your existence and the way that you love other people is online, then we are the pinnacle of the community, be it even in-person like that's how people find other people in-person is online. It's all worth it to me.
Chanee: Right. I think it's important to note to that all of those people who think that there's no community where they live, these people live in Philadelphia and Atlanta and New York and Washington, DC, where there's full of polyamorous people. They just don't know how to find them. That realization was really motivating for Cheri and I. As we kept hearing the same sentiments in young, black, and poly, we started doing meetups like we had meetup in Atlanta. We had, I think, two meetups in Atlanta that really showed us how important it was to get people face-to-face.
Dedeker: You're both respectively in Atlanta and in Philadelphia, correct?
Cheri: That's correct. I'm in Atlanta.
Dedeker: Were both of you surprised when you saw the extent to which there is a community in both those places?
Chanee: Well, I personally, I started interacting with the polyamorous community here in about 2014, 2015. It has grown by leaps and bounds in that four to five years. I was surprised when I first started interacting with the community, but it has just grown exponentially since then. I do have that benefit of having a large black polyamorous community where I live.
Emily: Do you think that there was any reason for the growth? Any specific reason for the growth over the last five years?
Chanee: Well, I think that people are realizing that monogamy isn't the only option. I think that some people, other forms of ethically non-monogamous, who have been having open relationships or have been swingers are looking at polyamory as a viable option to continue and look at different ways of relating with people.
Cheri: Where I live, it's so interesting because polygamy is very big. We have a large Islamic community here. When I saw marriages. I always say that my polyamorous home is Atlanta because it took me finding community online and hopping on a plane and meeting the people there in Atlanta who were flying from all over, some of them being from my own city. You're like, "This is a viable community. There has to be other people here." It's just that we're all looking in other places.
Dedeker: I'm curious about why that is. That's definitely something I've also experienced with clients of mine, especially people who are really new to non-monogamy or really new to polyamory, who have that same fear of like, "How am I going to find anybody? I don't know how to find anybody to date or be friends with or whatever." Again, these are also people who are in San Francisco and Portland and all these places on the West Coast where I'm like, I feel like you have to be trying hard to not date someone who's non-monogamous in some of these cities at least. That's what it feels like sometimes.
It is that funny thing where it's like if people aren't presented with the avenues for finding their community that we end up looking in all these different places for it.
Cheri: I think it's because there isn't always a flyer on the door that says, "They're polyamorous here." If we're not wearing our T-shirts, then our gear and things that say, "I'm poly." Then, we were walking right by one another. That's why I think it's super important, and it's still not always safe to present as polyamorous. We don't know who the safe people are. I think that that's why a lot of relationships do start out on social media because you build a rapport with someone and then you are like, "Okay. I know that these are my people." Then, Atlanta was just really great from the very beginning at creating environments for poly people to socialize.
Chanee: I think it's also important to think about the fact that, like she said, there's no universal symbol. I've taken to wearing my polyamory sign on my hand, but everybody doesn't have that. I think back to being LGBTQIA in the '70s and '60s and how they have the different-colored bandanas and how there were subtle ways in their culture that they indicated that they were part of a subgroup, and largely, polyamory just doesn't have that. Unless somebody's polyamory tattoo or jewelry is visible, you just don't know.
Dedeker: Right, yes. We don't quite have the pineapple in the shopping cart
Emily: mention the pineapple.
Dedeker: If that was ever a real thing. I'm always skeptical that that was ever a real thing, but I guess it's just urban legend.
Cheri: I think that's why at our conferences and at our events our swag is never just swag, it always makes a statement because the fact that you're going to wear this and you intend to be out in some way and public about your lifestyle and orientation. It takes a bit of bravery to do that.
Emily: Yes, 100%. Several years ago, I believe it was actually when we first interviewed Ruby Bouie Johnson. Was that Jase and Dedeker?
Jase: No, it was on our episode about Compersion. It was with the director and writer of Compersion.
Emily: Yes, of course, of Compersion, yes. I love that show. It's so great. We were made aware from them just of the Black & Poly Facebook group which is such an impressively large Facebook group. We have this private Facebook group for our patrons, that's getting close to a thousand members. With our admins, it does take a lot of work to manage that. You both are involved in managing Black & Poly, which has 15,000 people, which is just incredible. What is that experience like? What have you learned from it? We'd love to talk about that a little bit with you.
Chanee: Well , it's a constant experience in a group of 15,000 where it's like accepting post just becomes a part of your day. It's like, I accept posts, I respond to text messages. It's just a really fluid part of my day. Then, some days, it becomes half of what I do that day depending on, like we say, sometimes the drama starts and things, the situations require heavy moderation.
Cheri: I think that what Black & Poly has been really good about is realizing what their purpose is. It's very much a group where you can come into the space and learn. It's a space for education. There are numerous articles that Black & Poly has and provides access to and information. It's a constant and consistent stream of polyamourous education for the black community. That's something that I've had to keep in mind as an admin because Chanee and I, both, we didn't come into Black & Poly believing that we'll be admins on the larger group.
We came on believing that we would just simply be admins and founding members of young, black, and poly. Ron saw that we did such a great job organizing and building of that space that he wanted us to come on-board and admin the larger group as well. That's something that I've had to keep in mind as a young, black polyamorous person, is that there are so many different variations of polyamory and ways to do it. You have to use that mindset when you're accepting post and moderating threads like what crosses the line, what's an acceptable post, what are we presenting to 15,000 people.
Chanee: Right. In that same vein, I very much have to remember to put my admin hat on and realize that Black & Poly was created as a place for people who are new to polyamory to come in and to be able to be compassionate and empathetic to people who just are very new to the lifestyle in comparison with myself, I have been non-monogamous for over a decade. You have to--
Emily: Yes. That's a very interesting distinction, someone who's new versus someone who's very veteran at it.
Chanee: Yes, so I have to put on that hat.
Cheri: It's for everyone I think because even for me, I've never identified as monogamous. I realized that I was polyamorous when I was 12. Coming into a space with that perspective is so different than, let's say, a couple was coming in and they're opening up after being married for 17 years.
Jase: Actually, I would love to talk a little bit more about that because I think this is so universally applicable. This is something that we experience in our Facebook group, you'll see it in the Reddit polyamory thread, you see it in the Black & Poly group. I see this happen where someone will ask something or say something as usually as a newer person, although sometimes not even, but they say something that people go, "Oh, no," either because they said something that was maybe offensive that they didn't know that it was or they said something where everyone is like, "No, no, no. That type of relationship is bad." That's unicorn hunting or that's whatever.
People all pile on and jump all over that person. It's hard, I find if someone helping to run a group had to encourage that like, how do we have that compassion? How do we teach ourselves and also encourage others to be compassionate and educate rather than just think like, "No."
Cheri: I think one of the things that we always suggest is for people to educate themselves and read the room when they come into a space, but this is only because it's not just a responsibility of the person coming in to do this, it's also the responsibility of us as a community to create the same space for people to be open and honest. However, I do believe that there are certain behaviors and activities that can activate or trigger a community. For example, I think the biggest prime example of that would be unicorn hunting.
It's something that we universally see people jumping on others whenever they come into a space, and they're like, "We're looking for a third partner." I would think it's because if you've been in the community for quite some time, you've seen instances where that has gone terribly wrong, and it has affected the lives of people you know, who are close to you or someone who may not be close to you, but you've just beared witness to someone who maybe they moved across countries to be with the couple, and they were left destitute after that.
These are very real things that are happening in our community. I think the people who we may call poly-veterans in these communal spaces, they come in and they're automatically triggered when they see things like that. I think it's realizing that this a very real part of the community and figuring out how to bridge that gap.
Jase: Yes. Something else I wanted to ask about with the Black & Poly Facebook group, something that is very clear about the group. When you look it up, it's very clear that this group is open to everybody and that this is not a group that's just for black people. Over the years that I've been in the group, I've seen several discussions come up about that choice, about like, "Is that really what people want in this group? Should non-black people or specifically should white people be allowed in this group?" What is it?
I know that it's something that Ron Young who created this group has been very clear about like, "No, that's not the purpose of this group. Maybe there are other groups that could be that, but that's not what this group is." I was just curious if you could talk a little bit about the distinction between a safe space that's for black people only versus a space that's black-centered but is open to everybody.
Chanee: Okay, I would love to talk about that. I am of the opinion, just in general, that the creator of a space determines the air in the space. Ron, as the creator of Black & Poly, has decided that this is a black-centered space. I know for me, as an admin, that's something that I hold people accountable for, that this is a black-centered space. But Black & Poly, it is for everyone. I think that there are some things that you can choose to be in a community as an observer, you can choose to be in a community and be supportive, you can choose to be an advocate in a community.
I think, for me, the real test of a person is if they can be a minority in a situation or do you, as a minority, feel the need to constantly bring the spotlight to you? Because black people, throughout history, have always had to be the minority in spaces. Black people have had to desegregate colleges, universities. In 2009, I went to Georgia Tech. I left Georgia Tech in 2009. It's a primarily white institution. There were few enough black people that we could do a march, 1,400 in a group of 14,000. When you look at yourself and you're that small a number, that talks about why we need black spaces, like black-only spaces.
A black-centered space is one that is open to all, and occasionally, I think that there is a need for spaces that are only for black people, only for people of color, only for certain marginalized groups. There's lots of marginalized groups you'll see. I find it interesting that, for instance, if someone says that, like a munch or a polyamorous gathering is for women only or maybe for gay men only or for lesbians only, that's never questioned, but when you separate, when you say that this is for people of color, this is for black people only, that is consistently questioned. You have to ask yourself, why do we question certain exclusive spaces, but take issue with other exclusive spaces?
Dedeker: Yes, that makes sense. Cheri, is there anything you would add to that?
Cheri: I completely agree with those sentiments that Chanee just made. I also think that we as admins take it upon ourselves that because we are telling our community that we intend for this to be an inclusive space, but also a safe space that we monitor, moderate the threads and the posts that are going into the group because we don't want anyone to be activated or racially triggered. We want to make sure that the space is protecting the people that it's primarily intended for. I don't think that we make any apologies about that as an admin team.
Dedeker: Yes. I think that's definitely a challenging thing in running a community or helping to manage or admin a community is you have to be the people who really have to bring that like lack of apology to the table essentially in the decisions that you make in protecting the community, because I think, otherwise, it can be really easy to get blown about by what all these like 15,000 different myriad voices are saying. It does seem to me like it really requires that conviction to stick to those guiding principles for the community, which is tough work sometimes for sure.
Chanee: That portion requires tact, but it also requires courage. That's I think the word that comes up for me when I think about both my work with Black & Poly and my work here with Black Poly Pride, that it takes courage to really stand up and provide for my community what it needs.
Dedeker: Yes, definitely. That's actually a good transition to start talking a little bit more about the work that the two of you do specifically with Black Poly Pride. First, I want to talk about Black History Month, which is this month, the month of February. Black History Month itself has a history. I'm going back to the '20s, has its own certain amount of controversy. As far as I can tell, it seems like the two of you are running probably the first ever public campaign to acknowledge the polyamorous side of black history. Tell us more about the campaign, how people can participate, not just this month, but the rest of the year as well.
Cheri: For us, black is our theme for Black Poly Pride 2020, is Black Polyamory, a Revolutionary Act. When Black History Month was coming around, we really thought as an opportunity to start to collect stories and information about the history of black polyamory because it's something that we oftentimes don't hear enough about. Oftentimes when you go into black polyamorous spaces, we feel as if we are maybe lagging behind the curve for polyamory a little bit. We know that we were there at the beginning, at the forefront of the creation of multi-relating and polyamory.
We just don't necessarily have well documents and accounts of that. It's important for us to find those stories and also talk about what's happening now so that people 10 years and 20 years from now don't have the same issue. That they're not grabbing for straws when they're looking for representation of themselves at the forefront of polyamorous, whether it be legislation or just community and changes in culture. That's why this campaign is super important to us.
Chanee: In conversing with Cheri about the need for us to do this, one of the things that came up for me is that the modern use of the word polyamory. That happened in the '90s, but as much as we all hate to admit it, the '90s was almost 30 years ago.
Emily: Oh boy, that was quite a thing to say.
Chanee: We're looking at 33 years ago. That's important because that is a long time, and it isn't a long time, but it's our responsibility because the reality is that we are polyamorous black history. 30 years from now, we will be what is being discussed when we talk about what was polyamory like in the 2020s, who was leading in the 2020s? How did black polyamory, this Black & Poly group that now has 100,000 members. We are living in the middle of polyamorous black history. It's our responsibility to step up and chronicle that history and make it known that we're here and that because we're black and polyamorous, we are polyamorous black history.
Cheri: I also think something that, to the point that I've run into recently while we're doing this campaign is recognizing the overlap between polyamory and other movements like how we align with the gay rights movement and how that legislation affects people who live polyamorously and how this is not new for any of our communities, it's just the language and the vocabulary that we put behind it and it definitely made me take a step back from this kind of elitist stance that exists in many of our communities regarding language and what we call things, because I see it all the time in our community about how we latch onto words.
I do believe that words and language are important, but definitely put into the spotlight how we may ostracize some people just by latching onto certain terms within our community. It's just been really enlightening in many different ways.
Jase: Yes or even how a community will all try to abandon a term altogether because they're are like, "Oh, well, it got associated with something, so we're going to try to abandon it and move to this new thing." It's just like this constant, I don't know, a constant game of dodging around those. Whereas, I do feel like a lot of people also come at it from this like, "No, we're not going to let people take these things from us. Let's just use it and make it be what we want it to be" instead of abandoning ship anytime some negative association comes about tied to polyamory or whatever.
Cheri: Trust me, I've had many battles over the word unicorn in plenty polyamorous spaces. I think that one of the beautiful things about polyamory is it opens you up to change your mind.
Dedeker: Yes, definitely. You mentioned about looking at how other movements have influenced polyamory today and black polyamory today and specifically as part of your ongoing polyamorous Black History Month campaign, you released an Instagram post that was specifically about womanism which was the movement that formed in response to white feminism. I'm really curious to hear more about, what can you tell us about how the principles of womanism have influenced the polyamory movement today?
Cheri: I authored that post, and it took a lot of digging, primarily because again, we come into that space of trying to trace the history of words and when did certain movements start. At the root of womanism was this desire to fully embrace the freedom and autonomy for black women. The reason that they separate it from feminism is they didn't really fully receive the support that was necessary in the feminist movement, and they also experienced this run in where as a black woman, a large portion of our identity comes from our relation to our family and this ideology that black men are our brothers.
In feminism, it was very much burning the bras down with men. We're not interested in anything that has to do with masculine energy, and I think womanism, due to our race, we found it necessary to assert ourselves but not separate ourselves from the men within our community. That wasn't something that we were able to put on the table or able to do.
We needed everyone on the same page when it came to what our issues were regarding race because that was still a primary issue even when feminism was in the mainstream and really coming to light and growing.
Chanee: Modern-day black polyamory is essentially rooted in womanism, right? Because there are so many other forms of ethical non-monogamy. Ethical non-monogamy being that umbrella term and then with polygamy and polyandry and all other different types, but polyamory asserts that, essentially what's good for the goose is good for the gander. It asserts that women have the same right and desire to seek the kind of relationships that they want and that are satisfying to them. Essentially, it really, as a modern-day polyamorist, womanism is really essential to our ideals.
Cheri: Yes and the ways in which it works away from the patriarchy that exists, and I think that within modern-day polyamory, we are growing more and more into our own as women and opening ourselves up to say, "I want multiple male partners. I don't want to just be in a triad," which is something that's new because in the media, that's typically what we're seeing. We see the three pairs of white feet underneath the sheet, and we are so much more than that as a community.
Dedeker: If I have $5 for every time, whoever took that picture must be rich at this point.
Chanee: Kill it with fire.
Emily: Exactly. Get rid of it. We also do not like it.
Jase: Oh man. What you were just talking about, I think is so interesting because I remember, for me, I guess this would've been back in 2004 or something like that, maybe 16 years ago. This was before I knew about polyamory, before I'd become aware of any of this stuff, but I remember, I was in Chicago, and I was listening to The Tavis Smiley Show on NPR, and he was doing this story about, I feel like this was about in Chicago, but it was about the black community and multiple women dating the same man. This was put out as this is a thing that's very normal in the black community here or it's very common, I guess.
They were talking about why, and the reason that they came up with for it on this show was this idea that, well, there's not enough good black men to go around, so women are finally sharing them. Looking back on it now--
Dedeker: What? Jesus Christ.
Jase: I know. I had forgotten about this until just recently, and I remember listening to this thing on the radio, on a program hosted by a black man too, giving this story, and being like, looking back and going, "Gosh," the way that patriarchy seeps even into the way that we would evaluate something is so pervasive, and I think that's why what you're doing and polyamory being tied to womanism is so important because it's like, "No, maybe that's just what you happen to see when you were looking at it because--
Chanee: Right. The reality behind that, of course, is that women, that black women are dating multiple black men because that's necessary in order to be happy and have all their needs met. You're right, patriarchy seeps into everything because it's so pervasive in our society and in our cultures. It seeps into everything and you have to be intentional about fighting against those patriarchal views. Like you said, even within our own community, we are constantly attacked by those bullshit patriarchal ideas.
Cheri: I think something that we bump up against oftentimes in the community is this question comes up a lot whenever we talk about triads and unicorns and the one penis policy. People always ask, "Well, what about women who choose to only date women and who only choose to be in OPP situations?" I think what we find ourselves weighing, at least for me, is the ideal of egalitarianism and what that means for me because I currently don't have any male partners, but for me, on post, I don't necessarily go on threads, and I'm like, "Yes, I won't date more than one man because for me, it's important for the women around me to have the freedom to date multiple men."
If that is my choice, I believe everyone should have that choice to define and decide who their sexual partners are, but we have to watch, are we judging other women for doing it? Are we putting women down for doing it? Are we constantly showing up in the media or on threads to-- We call it the pick-me culture where it's like women are on the side of men and misogyny and patriarchy but they don't necessarily know it. Women feed into that as well.
I think we've definitely seen this more so in the media with shows like The Handmaid's Tale which is something I always bring up when I talk about this, about how women can move patriarchy and misogyny forward even more so than men by buying into it.
Dedeker: Yes. It's something where it's like sometimes, I feel like women can be such a vehicle of patriarchy and such a vehicle of our own oppression. I think, yes, like you said, to an extent where many of us don't even realize it.
Emily: Even those who call themselves staunch feminists, they still often will move forward the patriarchal message, I think.
Dedeker: If I think about it, I don't think it's necessarily something where I can point at women who do these things and say like, "You're bad and you're terrible and you're awful" because if you think about it, that pick-me culture, I think it's the result of the fact that we really do incentivize people who hold up patriarchy.
It's like if you happen to be the unicorn or if you happen to be the perfect bi-babe who happens to be only interested in one man and is happy to have sex with women in front of your male partner, that's highly incentivized with male attention and so, of course, that incentive is there to carry that forward, which is messed up, but it's part of the bigger system at play that keeps the well-oiled machine of patriarchy still running.
Jase: Yes. The thing I always want to say in response to those people who are like, "Well, my female partner is mostly just interested in being with other women." I'm like, "So then why do you need a policy?" Why do you have to make that rule because if that's true, why would you have to control her at all? Let her do her thing.
Chanee: I always ask, what if she changed her mind? If your partner deciding to be with someone of the other sex or the same sex would make your relationship end, then it is in fact a policy, right? If you feel like you need to dictate someone else's behavior, then you need to really reflect on your relationship and what is it built on. Is it built on freedom and autonomy or is it built on rules and policies?
Jase: Yes. All right. We want to get back to talking more about this Black Poly Pride event coming up and some things about that, but first, we're going to take a quick break to talk about our sponsors on this show. This is actually something I wanted to share with our listeners because I was telling someone this recently, and they were surprised by it. Of the advertisers who do reach out to us about advertising on this show, we turned down more than half of them, so I do want you to just think about that for a second, take a moment, checking them out does actually help us. It helps us keep this show going, and we hope that you get something out of it too. We'll see you in a sec.
Emily: All right. Let's shift back to talking about your event, Black Poly Pride. You talked about this, some, before, it is in Washington, DC, in June of this year, 2020. You talked about this a bit, but what inspired you to create this event? Because it is just a ton of work, I'm assuming, to do something like this. Really what was the driving force behind making it a reality?
Chanee: It was an accident.
Jase: Did not expect that
Chanee: We have a funny conception story about Black Poly Pride. Our intention was to host a young, black, and poly pool party during Poly Dallas Millennium in 2019. We wanted to attend Poly Dallas Millennium, and Cheri and I, we were on the heels of some very successful meetups that we had done in Atlanta. We got a lot of support from the community in Dallas. They came to Atlanta to our meetups. We were like, "Well, we're going to return the favor. We're going to go to Dallas, throw a party, and attend the conference." We were so ready to go.
Then, because of what was going on in Ruby's personal life, she canceled Poly Dallas Millennium 2019, so then we were like, "Well, are we still going to throw the party?" Because we were super hype. We had gotten the Dallas community ready for our party. We had started making plans, and so we were like, "Okay, cool. We're going to still throw the party." I'll let Cheri tell the rest of the story.
Cheri: Chanee and I are admittedly what we would call extra.
Cheri: We said, "Well, if we're going to throw a pool party, we might as well do brunch on one of those days and maybe we'll have a workshop." At the same time we were planning this, Ron Young, the founder of Black & Poly, had come to me and talked about how he was pushing forward an initiative to have Black & Poly in all of the WorldPride Parades. Historically for me, the way that I identify with Pride Parades is a little different.
I live in Philadelphia, and we have WorldPride, but we also have Black Pride Parades. That was something that I had never experienced or saw were black polyamorous people in the Black Pride Parades. That was born out of a need for a safe space at WorldPride because even in our efforts to be inclusive, sometimes we fail.
I went to Chanee, and we were talking about planning this weekend already, and I said, "Why don't we-- This initiative is happening, Black & Poly is going to be in all of these Pride Parades. Why don't we have a weekend, ask the WorldPride to celebrate black polyamory?"
Cheri: So, it went from pool party to conference in about a week.
Dedeker: Wow. That's some turn-around.
Emily: It's quite a shift. Is there still going to be a pool party involved?
Chanee: Well, we actually did have a really awesome pool party . Yes, 2020, we'll still have a really awesome pool party. PolyPOOLooza is going to be a staple of Black Poly Pride. We did have our pool party, but it turned into a three-day conference as well. Now that, we told everybody during the planning, we planned it, so we didn't start planning until March. We planned last year from March until, what? Like a week after
Jase: Wow.
Chanee: This year, we told everybody. We were like, "We're going to just say inaugural right now." We don't know if this is ever happening again. We're going to have to see how it goes, but we committed at the closing ceremonies for the inaugural Black Poly Pride. We committed to doing it again.
Cheri: We definitely committed to doing it again, but I think that what really happened for us last year is we realized how much of a need we were actually fulfilling for the community because it turned into this transformative space, not only for people who were new to polyamory and coming in, but when the educators and people who are typically flown out to conferences to educate about black polyamory and the black polyamorous experience are like, "Wow, I had an amazing time. I learned something new. This is completely different than any conference I've ever been to before." I think Chanee and I turned to one another and were like, "Wow, we can't not do it again."
Emily: So good.
Jase: Yes.
Dedeker: Now, you're committed.
Chanee: Right. Cheri and I, both, we are not in-public criers, but we spent the entire conference being moved to tears. We were like, "Oh God."
Emily: “That’s amazing we have to do it again.”
Cheri: We had an opening, the conversation with the co-founders, Chanee and I, and Evita Sawyers moderated that conversation and we were sitting there, we were talking to her. She asked me a question, and the floodgates just opened, and I'm sitting in front of a room of 60 people just crying. But it was such an experience that I want everyone to have.
It's so different to go from being online, chatting with people on threads and then seeing them in person, because every other time, I had ever seen Evita, we had been at a party.
That's why we think Black Poly Pride is so different because it's one thing like we'll go to a party together and we'll have fun, but we never really had a chance to have these deep heart-opening conversations face-to-face. When we got the chance to do that, it was like my emotions were just all over the place. I think everyone was so open to that after seeing the co-founders be so open with their feelings and their emotions and being vulnerable, it led to the entire weekend being a vulnerable safe space.
Chanee: Right. That culture of vulnerability and a familial vibe is something that we are trying to, that we're committed to and dedicated to having be a focus of Black Poly Pride. Every single Black Poly Pride from here on will, no matter how large we grow, we're committed to keeping that air of vulnerability and this familial spirit so that it always feels like coming home.
Dedeker: Wow. That's really moving to hear about. For this second annual Black Poly Pride taking place in DC, still a pool party, maybe still some crying, what else should people expect from the second go-around?
Chanee: Well, we will be bigger. Last year, we were symposium style. This year, there will be at least two classrooms going on concurrently. We're expecting some serious growth. That's something that we're looking forward to. We're going to have some new speakers, new topics. We're putting a focus on workshops and lectures that have never been given before anywhere else. We got the new, new and the exclusive. That's something to look forward to. I think it's just important to remember that we do put a very heavy focus on balancing out the emotional heavy lifting with some hardcore partying.
Chanee: It's very important to us. It's kind of a microcosm for us of how we view polyamory. Sometimes, you get so caught up in the Google calendaring and the emotional processing and the boundary conversations that you forget that you're supposed to be enjoying yourself and having a good time. Black Poly Pride is a reminder of this is what life is supposed to be like.
Jase: That's awesome. I love that.
Dedeker: I like that. I'm going to write that one down because I like that one for the Instagram also, which -
Emily: Go for it. Go for it.
Dedeker: -emotional processing with hardcore partying. Words to live by, if I’ve ever heard them, especially, I think, people who are polyamorous for sure.
Jase: This event sounds really cool, and I did want to clarify, are white people invited to this event too? What's that? I know we talked about that earlier with the Black & Poly group, but what's that deal with this?
Cheri: White people are invited. Last year, what was really fun is Tikva Wolf, Kimchi Cuddles actually did a comic for us about how inclusive Poly Pride is meant to be. It is definitely meant to be a space where we centralize blackness and our culture and our experience, but we invite everyone to come and witness and learn and to be in our space, but to not take up space is what we say, because I think that those two things are very different.
We want to be inclusive, but we also want the space to still maintain its purpose, which is to make sure that black voices are being heard, are being brought to the forefront and for black voices to talk about other things than diversifying white spaces.
Chanee: To back up my co-founder, what I always say is that Black Poly Pride is for black people, people who love us, and for people who understand the need for a space like this. If you understand why we have Black Poly Pride, come on, come emotionally process, come party. If you have questions, you may have more work to do before entering the space. There are loads of books and online references that you can look into, check out Love's Not Color Blind by Kevin Patterson. I am hereby declaring that that is required reading for any white person entering the space.
Emily: Absolutely.
Jase: I think we called it required reading when we talked about this book on our show too.
Emily: We did. It's unbelievable.
Dedeker: I think there's a consensus there.
Cheri: Yes. I think that the combination of our experience with white attendees last year, we were laughing and joking about our pool party, our PolyPOOLooza, but last year, we had our pool party at a historic Texas-shaped pool and when we arrived, we had some attendees that, we didn't know who they would be, they just bought last minute tickets and there was a group of white people waiting for us when we arrived. They were like, "Black Poly Pride?" and we were like, "Yes."
Cheri: The space was predominantly white. Everyone except for us who was there at the pool was white. We arrived during open hours, and they would eventually close. But the way that that experience went for us with having white people arrive, stand with us in the space of a moment that is very emotionally relevant to the experience of Black Poly Pride 2019 to arrive. We're a group of 75 plus black people getting off of a bus in Texas and arriving at this pool.
Chanee: It's important to know that we party bused to this
Cheri: We party bused. We bused to this pool, and we arrived, 75 plus of us getting off of this bus and entering into historical pool where we were once not allowed to swim or be. The people who were there waiting for us, who were white, stood with us in that moment and they weren't afraid to be in that moment with us.
Chanee: Yes. It was the most startlingly visual representation of holding space that I have ever seen because they were literally holding our space. We did face discrimination while we were there. They were not happy to have us there, but it was very important that the people who joined us, who I hope are listening to this podcast, their presence was so important because they picked up the air and the feeling and they said, "Well, we're not going anywhere until you all leave. We are staying here with you." That was just another thing that made me and Cheri cry honestly, added to the pile.
Dedeker: The note that I would like to end on, the two of you mentioned this a little bit earlier on in the interview, but when we were all emailing back and forth in preparation for the show today, I saw that in your email signature was that phrase, "Black Polyamory: A Revolutionary Act." I notice that that's a recurring theme on the site for Black Poly Pride, is that fact that being black and poly and proud is in itself revolutionary. I would just love to hear both of your thoughts a little bit more on that.
Cheri: I believe that being black and polyamorous is definitely a sociopolitical stance. It affects the ways in which we show up in the world, and it is a revolutionary nuance that seeps into the way that we do life overall. I am excited to grow and learn and experience with our conference attendees, how that permeates for us as a community at large because we experience it individually.
Chanee: For me, I live every day and I stand not knowing that historically black people did not have the choice of how to love and how to set up their families. Historically, when we were brought to this country, our families were separated, and we did not have the ability to say, "This is the way that I want to love." For me, being black, polyamorous and proud is revolutionary because I am reclaiming that choice that my ancestors did not have to live my life and to love my people the way that I want to.
It's important to me to honor that choice, and honestly, my hope is that one day, polyamory will be boring. That polyamory will be normal, that we no longer have to talk about it as this radical thing and that instead is normalized as revolutionary, as a revolution that happened, and now, we're at a place where that's in the past, and now, we're moving on.
Jase: I love that. That's such a cool note to end on. Black Poly Pride coming up in June, 4th through the 7th, in Washington, DC. It sounds super cool, and I hope that our listeners are able to go to it. Can you tell us where people can go to find out more about that and get tickets and things, but then also, what if they can't go, how can they support?
Chanee: Okay. Well, you can find all the information that you need to register for Black Poly Pride at www.blackpolypride.com. Just click on registration, and it'll take you there. You can also click on the Host Hotel, that will give you a link to book your rooms. You can find us on social media all over the place at Black Poly Pride, we'll come right up. If you can't come, you can go hit the registration link and hit a note to donate. We do take your donations in any amount, $1,000 to $10,000. We can use it and would appreciate it. You can also look us up at www.patreon.com/BlackPolyPride and commit for as little as $3 a month to support us on an ongoing basis.
Jase: Awesome. Yes. Actually, we are planning right after we get off this call to go and pledge ourselves to Black Poly Pride and Patreon.
Dedeker: We've already done it. I'm 10 steps ahead of you.
Emily: Wow, Well done, good job. Well done.