Rufus Wainwright performs; Charity fund raiser a success

By Sr. Correspondent, .Antoine Craigwell,
Photos by Jason W.Gibson

(New York, NY) - More than 500 people gathered at the Chelsea Art Museum for the Ali Forney Center's annual celebration: A Place at the Table.

Beginning with a tour of the Center's drop-in facility, a few doors down from where the reception was held on Oct 5, the Museum, a ultra-modern triple-level space exhibiting contemporary art, most of which were large mural type abstracts in bold splashes of color; was the locus for cocktails, a silent auction and tastings provided by celebrity chefs from eateries around the city, and awards.

Chair of the AFC Board of Directors, Kyle Merker, said that despite the problems with the economy, AFC is scheduled to open a new homeless shelter facility in Astoria, Queens, which would increase by 58 their overall bed capacity.

 

above: AFC Exec. Dir. Carl Siciliano  below: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Every night, he said, there is a list of more than 125 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young people waiting for beds. He encouraged everyone to raise funds for the Center, by hosting house parties and asking friends for donations. Honored with awards, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Councilor Lewis Fidler, co-chair of the Council's Health Committee, for their work and commitment to serving and advancing the cause of relief for the city's homeless LGBT youth. Introducing the honorees, AFC Executive Director Carl Siciliano said that Quinn and Fidler have together been instrumental in securing more than $500,000 from discretionary funds. To applause, he added that many of the young people living in the Center's transitional houses are already enrolled in college.

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Singles out LGBT youth as most in need

By Sr. Correspondent, Antoine Craigwell

(New York, NY) -In remarks congratulating the Ali Forney Center (AFC) for their work among homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth, at their annual fund raiser, "A Place at the Table," Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the formation of a commission to address homelessness among youth in the city.

Speaking to an audience of more than 500 on Monday, Oct 5, which included City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, City Councilor Lewis Fiedler, co-chair of the Council's Health Committee, and the Commissioner of the Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) Jeanne Mullgrav; Bloomberg said that he was establishing a commission to look into and address the needs of homeless youth in the city, especially those who are LGBT. "Today we have launched a new initiative for runaway LGBT youth, headed by DYCD Commissioner Jeanne Mulgrav, and we're working with Christine Quinn and Lewis Fidler to keep the poison of homophobia from infecting others," Bloomberg said. According to a press release from the Mayor's office, the Commission "is charged with devising strategies to address the unique needs of LGBT youth before they run away, to provide homeless youth with both shelter and the support they need to live independently, or to help them reunite with their families when appropriate."

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By Sr. Correspondent,  D. Kevin McNeir

In part one of this story entitled "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" we reported on the recent rash of middle-school students who have taken their own lives as their only perceived means of escape from excessive bullying. Now as prayer vigils, tributes and community discussions abound, the real question remains "what prompted these young children to commit suicide and what can be done to prevent future tragedies for other young adults?" In this second part of our story, we look at what's being done on a national level and share surprising statistics about teen suicides.


 

Media mogul Oprah Winfrey, known for having the "Midas Touch" and launching not only careers but bringing controversial issues to the forefront, took on the topic of "bullying and youth suicide" on her popular talk show earlier this week.

And with the tragic deaths of two 11-year-old boys, Jaheem Herrera and Carl Joseph-Walker, along with three others several months ago in Illinois, parents, educators, politicians, health providers and the general public are beginning to realize that our children are facing life-threatening dangers in their schools and communities.

Besides asking for advice from leading psychologists, Winfrey interviewed both mothers of the two boys who committed suicide after enduring what one professor of psychology has labeled, "sexual bullying." In other words, the boys were harassed, teased and taunted with sexually-themed words and innuendos. Additionally, it has been reported that Herrera was teased because of his ethnicity.

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Anti-gay slurs and physical attacks linked to increase in youth suicides

By: D. Kevin McNeir

In the popular fairy tale "The Three Little Pigs," the big bad wolf "huffs and puffs and blows the house down." But in the real world, the wolf seems to have donned the costume of a young boy (or girl), verbally and physically harassing his victims with malice and premeditated thought. Now, with a sudden increase in suicides among children nationwide, concern has grown about the reasons for the rise in bullying and the assumed lack of support for and intervention on behalf of those who continue to be terrorized.

 

The sudden rash of middle-school students who have taken their own lives, presumably as their only perceived means of escape, began in February in three cities in the state of Illinois: Chatham, Evanston and Chicago. Then on Monday, April 9th, as was previously reported by GBM News, an 11-year-old Massachusetts boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, hung himself after enduring bullying at school, including accusations that he was gay - despite his mother's pleas to the school to address the problem. Now, with the most recent suicide of yet another 11-year-old boy, Jaheem Herrera, a fifth-grader at Dunaire Elementary School in Atlanta's DeKalb County, more parents are coming forward reporting cases of their own children being bullied as well, and along with community leaders, teachers, and principals, all are asking what can be done to stem the tide. In the case involving Herrera, it has been reported that his mother, Masika Bermudez, has hired an attorney to address what she says was an inadequate response from school officials. She reportedly had complained several times about the bullying her son had endured, including one incident during which he was allegedly choked in the boy's bathroom. Herrera had been accused by his peers of being "gay" and a "snitch."

DeKalb County's district attorney, Gwendolyn Keyes Fleming, in an unprecedented move, has even gotten involved. And while the DA has yet to open a formal investigation, investigators have been dispatched, according to Fleming's spokesperson, and they want answers. But it seems to be too little too late for the five young children who saw no other option to the ending of their torment than to end their own lives. Gwendolyn Keyes Fleming "The US Department of Health is clear on this issue - bullying is a serious public health issue for young people and it is not a rite of passage," said Eliza Byard, executive director for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). "And we need to be clear - we are not talking about reciprocal teasing or a conflict situation. Eliza Byard

These cases appear to the expression of one person seeking to express power over another. Both the bully and the bullied child need adult support and help. And it has been proven that bullying has long term effects on both parties in terms of academic outcomes, emotional well-being and future life prospects - and it thus requires our attention." It would be presumptuous for readers to jump to any conclusions or to pass judgment on the parents or school officials involved in the cases cited above. But what does seem to be crystal clear is that there is an increasing problem that will surely only grow worse unless rational minds come together in a concerted effort to provide solutions.

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New York  April 9, 2009 -- An 11-year-old Massachusetts boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, hung himself Monday after enduring bullying at school, including daily taunts of being gay, despite his mother's weekly pleas to the school to address the problem. This is at least the fourth suicide of a middle-school aged child linked to bullying this year.

 

Carl Joseph Walker-Hoove, 11, killed himself at his home on Northampton Avenue in Springfield on Monday.

Carl, a junior at New Leadership Charter School in Springfield who did not identify as gay, would have turned 12 on April 17, the same day hundreds of thousands of students will participate in the 13th annual National Day of Silence by taking a vow of silence to bring attention to anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) bullying and harassment at school. The other three known cases of suicide among middle-school students took place in Chatham, Evanston and Chicago, Ill., in the month of February. "Our hearts go out to Carl's mother, Sirdeaner L. Walker, and other members of Carl's family, as well as to the community suffering from this loss," GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard said. "As we mourn yet another tragedy involving bullying at school, we must heed Ms. Walker's urgent call for real, systemic, effective responses to the endemic problem of bullying and harassment. Especially in this time of societal crisis, adults in schools must be alert to the heightened pressure children face, and take action to create safe learning environments for the students in their care. In order to do that effectively, as this case so tragically illustrates, schools must deal head-on with anti-gay language and behavior." Two of the top three reasons students said their peers were most often bullied at school were actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender expression, according to ''From Teasing to Torment: School Climate in America,'' a 2005 report by GLSEN and Harris Interactive. The top reason was physical appearance.

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By Antoine Craigwell, Sr. Correspondent

(New York, NY) - David, Dexter, and Mike (names changed to protect their identities) are three young men with stories, who like many people gravitate to New York City, as moths to a flame, in search of their dream, fame and fortune, or a new life. What does a young Black gay man do, where does he go and to whom does he turn, when he finds himself homeless in a big city?


 

When 26-year-old David, usually called "Bama," not a familiar for Obama, but because he's originally from the gulf coast city of Mobile, AL, arrived in New York City in Jul 2008, he stayed for two weeks at a friend's apartment. As that living arrangement wasn't permanent, he was forced to leave. Being Black, gay and HIV positive, Dominic spent the next several months on the streets, sleeping where ever he could find a warm dry place. After staying at a transitional homeless shelter in the Bronx where he waited for placement in a more stable environment, he was placed in a permanent residence and is looking for a job. Dexter, also 26, is originally from St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. He came to the city in 2000 and has been going to Sylvia's Place, a homeless shelter for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth run by the Metropolitan Community Church of New York (MCCNY), since 2003. According to Dexter his relationship with the shelter began when he was released from jail after being incarcerated for three years for weapons possession, withholding information and harboring a fugitive, who at the time was his partner. For 23-year-old Mike, who arrived in New York in December 2006 from Charlotte, NC, ostensibly to find love, the experience of being homeless was an eye-opener.

"I wanted a relationship that was different to those I had in Charlotte, but I quickly discovered that the men here and there [back home] were one and the same," he says. Mike's story is similar to many who come to the city - arrival at Port Authority, and initial temporary living arrangements - staying with a friend, her husband and children for two weeks. But, unlike the others, he chose, rather than had to be asked, to leave his friend's apartment because he wanted to adhere to his promise to stay with her for a specific time, not overstay his welcome, and was concerned about continuing to impinge on their family life.

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By Sr. Correspondent, Antoine Craigwell
Photography courtesy of Lucky Michaels, Sylvia's Place

(New York, NY) Sitting opposite me in a subway car as the A train rolled through a tunnel in Brooklyn was a light skinned Black young man, seemingly between 17 or 19-year-old, dressed in New York's black uniform: black sweater, black jacket, and black cargo pants, with black boots. 

It was Thanksgiving night about 11:30 p.m., and the temperature outside was close to freezing. Feeling satisfied and thinking of sleep, I was returning home from celebrating the holiday with my family when I was roused from my near sleeping state by the sound of conversation cutting into the hypnotic clickity-clack humming of the subway's wheels on the rails.  The young man who was seated in a side facing seat had asked another young man in a forward facing seat, for a dollar. The young man looked over in my direction asking me if I spoke Spanish.  Replying that I did, he asked me again what was it that the young man in black was asking, I enquired and translating from Spanish to English and English to Spanish, that the other young man didn't have any money. At which point the young man in black proceeded to shared with me his night's misfortune.  He said he had recently moved to New York from Philadelphia to take a job which didn't work out, and had been asked to leave the place where he was staying. With no family and no place to go, he was trying to understand and to stitch something together for himself, if only for that night.

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By Victor Kerney

The news is not good for LGBT teens. A study: Shared Differences: The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Students of Color in Our Nation’s Schools found that LGBT kids of color are experiencing overt prejudice and considerable negative peer pressure.

More than four out of five students within each racial/ethnic group, reported verbal harassment in school because of sexual orientation; about two-thirds reported harassment because of gender expression.   At least a third of each group reported physical violence in school because of sexual orientation.

More than half of African American, Latino, Asian and multiracial students  reported verbal harassment in school based on their race or ethnicity.  Native American students were less likely than other students to report experiencing racially motivated verbal harassment. The study found that about a quarter of African American/Black and Asian/Pacific Islander students have missed class or days of school in the prior month because they felt unsafe. Latino, Native American, and multiracial students were even more likely to be absent for safety reasons – about a third or more skipped class at least once or missed at least one day of school in the prior month for safety reasons. Native American students experienced particularly high levels of victimization because of their religion, with more than half reporting the highest levels of verbal harassment, and a quarter experienced physical violence.

It's scary to see our youth going through the same mess we went through . The harrasment, violence and abuse needs to stop. Change must come for next generation's sake.

By Carlos Sadovi

The organizers of a proposed high school aimed at gay and lesbian students said Wednesday that they dropped the plan from a vote by the Chicago Board of Education after realizing a revamped version failed to mention sexual identity.

Paula Gilovich, a member of the brain trust behind the Social Justice High School's Pride Campus, said members of the group decided to withdraw its application after the school's new mission statement shifted from being about gay students to a more generic "haven where students can feel safe and valued for who they are."

 

"There were various communities that put a great deal of pressure on the proposal and on the design team and on the city and on the Chicago Public Schools to change it," Gilovich said.

Gay rights activists supporting the school's focus on gay and lesbian students blasted both the team pushing the plan and school officials for giving in to public and political pressure and scuttling the plan.

"I feel the political pressure that has been placed on the design team from the mayor's office on down to shelve it, to scuttle it, to remove it from consideration is an outrage and a disgrace," said Roger Fraser, a retired teacher and gay activist.

Since it was first introduced, the plan has garnered national attention. It was widely supported in several public hearings, but Mayor Richard Daley said the school, which had been designed for gay students but would accept all students, should not segregate.

Gilovich vowed to return next year with a revamped proposal.

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Cyndi Lauper's song names NYC LGBT homeless youth residence.

By Antoine Craigwell

(New York, NY) While debates and protests intensify over California's Proposition 8, and the marriage and constitutional amendments nationwide, there is a project in New York City addressing the issue of homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth.


 

After attending a forum on homeless LGBT youth and hearing a number of these young people speaking of their experiences living on the streets and the horror stories they had encountered while in the Department of Homeless Service shelters because of who they are, an idea popped into the head of Colleen Jackson, executive director, West End Intergenerational Residences.
"I knew there had to be something that could be done, but I also knew that another shelter was not the answer," said Jackson. In May 2007, while organizing a fundraiser and honoring 1980s superstar Cyndi Lauper, Jackson discussed with Lisa Barbaris, who for several years was a volunteer with West End and is Lauper's publicist, about the True Colors tour and how one of the tours addressed the plight of homeless LGBT youth. Through the connection with Barbaris, Lauper and Jackson discussed providing housing for the "kids."
Cyndi Lauper		Colleen Jackson
"I looked at her [Lauper] and it all came together in my mind, real permanent housing and I knew this would really work. This I knew how to do and with Cyndi's commitment, though we haven't started building as yet, she has been promoting it," Jackson said. True Colors Residences is permanent housing for homeless LGBT youth, named after Lauper's song "True Colors:" "… I see your true colors/shining through/I see your true colors/and that's why I love you/so don't be afraid to let them show/your true colors/true colors are beautiful/like a rainbow."

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Permanent Supportive Housing for Homeless LGBT Youth Aged 18-24

Supportive housing - permanent, independent, affordable housing in which comprehensive on-site services are available, is the City, State and Federal solution to helping vulnerable populations live independently in the community. Yet, despite research indicating that more than 35% of all homeless youth in NYC self-identify as Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender, there is currently no permanent supportive housing in the City for this population. West End Intergenerational Residence seeks to address this issue by creating the True Colors Residence, a new construction with 30 studio apartments and program space on 154th Street in Central Harlem.

Residents will have apartment leases and will be responsible for paying affordable rent based on income. They will receive ongoing job readiness and placement assistance to help them obtain employment suitable to their skills and interests. Other on-site services will include life skills coaching and assistance with budgeting, education, health issues, nutrition, and basic independent living skills, along with counseling as needed for mental health or substance use issues.

True Colors Residence is a collaborative effort conceived by West End's Executive Director Colleen Jackson, musical artist Cyndi Lauper and her manager Lisa Barbaris to provide quality housing and support services to 30 homeless LGBT youth who are often ostracized even within the homeless community. Ms. Lauper and Ms. Barbaris are strong supporters of West End and will have an ongoing supportive role with the project.

OUR PARTNERS

• Gay Men of African Descent
• Rehoboth Temple
• Metropolitan Community Church of New York
• Hetrick Martin Institute
• William F. Ryan Center
• LGBT Community Center
• Palladia

BACKGROUND ON WEST END INTERGENERATIONAL RESIDENCE

West End Intergenerational Residence opened its doors in 1989. We own our primary building at 483 West End Avenue, Manhattan, a 12-story, 94-unit project that provides transitional housing for 54 homeless young mothers and their children, and permanent supportive housing for 40 low-income and formerly homeless older adults. In addition, West End provides contracted building management and services at two low-income permanent housing facilities located in Hamilton Heights and East Harlem.
For more information visit www.intergenerational.org

If you live in Harlem, please sign the petition:

http://www.gopetition.com/online/23158.html

Dear Friends,

In New York City, a very disproportionate number (up to 40%), of homeless youth identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT). Even more disturbing are reports that these young people often face discrimination and at times physical assault in some of the very places they have to go to for help.

This is shocking and inexcusable!

 

That's why my manager, Lisa Barbaris and I are collaborating with Colleen Jackson and West End Intergenerational Residence to create the True Colors Residence, (TCR), a permanent supportive housing program for homeless LGBT youth 18-24 years old.
We'll be building it from the ground up so our residents will have a brand new, modern building with studio apartments for each resident, as well as both indoor and outdoor community space to socialize or attend education and recreation programs. Each resident will be responsible for paying affordable rent based on their income and will receive ongoing assistance in obtaining employment best suited to their individual interests and skills.
Although TCR will not require participation in its programs, a variety of social and educational support services will be available to all who request them. Our primary goal is to provide a physically and emotionally safe and supportive environment that will empower our young residents to be the self-loving, happy, and successful individuals they were meant to be. As longtime supporters, Lisa and I know that West End has been a trailblazing forward-thinking organization that is willing to do whatever is necessary to serve those in need. Their services have, in our experience, always met the highest standards. I am now very excited to report that the True Colors Residence Housing Development Fund Corporation was officially incorporated July 21, 2008 and the property acquisition closing took place on July 31st.
I am proud to work with Colleen and West End on such an exciting and important project as the True Colors Residence and I ask for your support as we move forward. You can learn more and keep updated on the Residence by visiting the West End's Web site: www.intergenerational.org.

 All my best,

Cyndi Lauper

By Carlos Sadovi and Dan Mihalopoulos

Mayor Richard Daley seemed to distance himself Thursday from a proposal to build the first city's first high school aimed at gay students.

Speaking to reporters, the mayor said he had concerns that the School for Social Justice Pride Campus, designed as the city's first school for gay, lesbian and transgender teenagers, would unduly segregate these students.

Mayor Daley

"You have to look at whether or not you isolate or segregate the children. . . . A holistic approach has always been to have children of all different, you know, backgrounds and everything in schools," Daley said. "When you start isolating children, you say only 50 percent here or 40 percent here . . . we start doing that, you're going to start isolating and segregating people."

Daley's comments come after the Board of Education this week put off a final vote on the high school until Nov. 19. Schools chief Arne Duncan recently met with ministers who blasted the proposal.

The mayor, who took control of the district in 1995, said that while he is leaving the decision up to board officials, the proposal should be carefully thought out.

District spokesman Michael Vaughn said Daley is correct in saying that it's a complicated issue that will require thoughtful deliberation by the board.

"It's a controversial issue that has considerations to be weighed on both sides, and that's what our board will be doing when they vote on it," he said.

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Atlanta, GA (BlackNews.com) - Motivational speaker and author Orrin Hudson is looking for a game...actually 50 games simultaneously. Also a chess champion, Hudson will take on 50 opponents all at once on Saturday, September 13th and Sunday, September 14th during the V-103 For Sisters Only event at the Georgia World Congress Center.

 

It's part of a program Hudson calls "Heads Up, Pants Up, Grades Up." He believes that learning to play chess can help young people learn to think for themselves.

"Playing 50 chess games at once is an example of learning to fight using your head. We all have an amazing computer between our ears," explained Hudson. "The key is to realize it and use it."

Hudson has a non-profit organization in Atlanta called Be Someone, Inc. that promotes strategic thinking to young people. Their goal is to reach one million kids, with various messages including urging young men to abandon the saggy pants look to project a more professional appearance.

Hudson, a former Alabama state trooper and Air Force veteran, founded Be Someone Inc. to promote his innovative approach to teaching kids to play chess. While they learn the game of chess, they gain valuable life skills, applying the same concepts of responsibility, discipline, and self-reliance to their lives. Family members of the more than 20,000 students attending his chess and motivational clinics report improvement in their grades, social conduct and mental acuity.

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CPS chief Arne Duncan expected to decide fate by Oct. 1

By Carlos Sadovi

Weeks after a proposal to open Chicago's first public high school catering to gay, lesbian and transgender youth was announced, about 200 people on Thursday met with administrators at the city's main gay social services center to discuss whether it's a good idea.

The Social Justice High School—Pride Campus would offer a college-preparatory curriculum in which students would take four years each of English and math, three years each of foreign languages and science, as well as fine arts and physical education, administrators said during the public hearing at the Center on Halsted on Chicago's North Side.

"[We want] to continue to provide a college-prep campus for students who are often overlooked," said Chad Weiden, an assistant principal at the Social Justice High School who would be the principal of Pride Campus. "Gay, lesbian and transgender students are often overlooked in our district. And this is a school for all students."

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Youths Coming Out Sooner, but Protections Against Harassment Lag

By Theresa Vargas

School's out, and Saro Harvey and his best friend, Samantha Sachs, are hanging out in his Arlington County bedroom. She is slouched across his bed, and he is poised on a chair, posture-perfect, wearing dark, skinny jeans and a ruffled shirt meant for a girl. A rust-orange purse he sometimes carries hangs behind the door.

The 15-year-olds were voted most popular last spring in their section of ninth grade at Wakefield High School. Still, Saro knows there are those on and off campus who don't like him, who never will.

He has grown so used to the stares and laughter of strangers that their insults slip off his 118-pound frame like an oversize shirt.

"I think I've dealt with it so much my whole life that it really doesn't bother me anymore, not as much as it used to," Saro says. "If you have a birthmark on your leg for so long, you don't even notice it."

Saro, who first said he liked boys to a classmate in sixth grade, is like many of today's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths who openly discuss their sexual orientation and identity with friends, and sometimes family, before entering high school. In doing so, experts say, these youths are escaping the isolation of generations before them but also finding themselves vulnerable to harassment -- or worse. A California eighth-grader who expressed interest in asking another boy to be his valentine was fatally shot in February in a case that drew national attention.

"Within any given school system, there may be a very accepting crowd and a very hateful crowd," said Robert-Jay Green, executive director of the Rockway Institute in San Francisco, a national center for LGBT research and public policy. "You have to find a way to avoid the people who will hurt you and keep close to the group that will accept you."

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Syracuse, N.Y.  — Transgender youth in New York's juvenile detention centers can now wear whatever uniform they choose, be called by whatever name they want and ask for special housing under a new anti-discrimination policy that advocacy groups say is among the nation's most progressive.

 

"New York is way ahead of the curve," said Roberta Sklar, a spokeswoman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "When you have a system like the New York Office of Children and Family Services putting out a clear nondiscrimination policy, it should be seen as a model for similar kinds of agencies all over the country," she said. The policy went into effect March 17, the same day Gov. David Paterson was sworn into office to replace the disgraced Eliot Spitzer. Last month, Paterson directed all state agencies to immediately recognize same-sex marriages legally performed elsewhere as valid in New York. Paterson spokesman Errol Cockfield said the policy reflects the state's intention to be "tolerant, responsive and respectful" of gender identity and gender expression issues.

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Support from loved ones most important thing for those coming out

By Rebecca Keister

Attlboro - It wasn't her decision, but it all worked out in the end.

When Samantha Jacobson, then barely a teenager, came out to her parents, it wasn't by choice.

"My aunt had overheard some of my friends talking, and she told my parents," the 17-year-old Jacobson said. "I didn't tell them."

But when they found out, Jacbosen's said, her parents sat her down and told her they love her, no matter what.

"It was kind of weird and awkward at first, but eventually it was fine," she said. "It made a lot of things easier."

So it makes sense that Jacobson is lauding Gov. Deval Patrick's very public support of his daughter, Katherine Patrick, 18, who went public about being a lesbian in an interview her father arranged with Bay Windows, a gay advocacy paper. Katherine Patrick said in the interview published Thursday that she told her parents she was gay in July 2007, about three weeks after the Legislature rejected an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution.

She said her father responded to her by giving her a bear hug and saying: "Well, we love you, no matter what."

The governor said that his family agreed to the interview to make the news public on their own terms.

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By Antoine Craigwell, Sr. Correspondent
     Eric L. Jones, Photography 

New York, NY-In an exclusive interview last Friday, May 23, Carl Siciliano, founder and executive director of the Ali Forney Center, spoke, about it, the work it is doing, the challenges, and its future plans. The Center, he said, was established in 2002 as a safe place for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth after he experienced the traumatic event surrounding Ali Forney, a homeless African-American gay youth who was killed on the streets of Harlem

Instrumental in the formation of the Center, said Siciliano, were two significant events that came together: A study published in the late 1990s by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene revealed that young men who have sex with men, especially those who live on the streets, account for 20 percent of all HIV infection rates; and the death  of Ali Forney, who was homeless and whose demise drew attention to the plight of  the number of youth who not only live on the streets, but are infected with HIV and are unaware of their status.

"I wanted to scream," said Siciliano. "There was so much money coming into the city to provide condoms, but no other support for them, especially for those out on the streets."

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Enochs and Oakdale teens join in national on-campus protests

By MERRILL BALASSONE

Sophomore Jacob Shackelford walked an Enochs High School hallway on Friday with his girlfriend on one arm and a black armband that said "Erase Hate" on the other.

The 16-year-old, who is straight, spent most of his day in silence to bring attention to the name-calling and bullying experienced by some of his gay and lesbian classmates. Jacob said he was the target of glares and some homosexual slurs in return.

"I just kept my head high and kept walking," he said. "I support my friends the way they are. I wish more people saw that."

Students at Enochs and Oakdale high schools, along with 6,000 middle and high schools around the country, took part in a silent protest against the harassment of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students and their supporters, called the National Day of Silence.

At Enochs, students made armbands that read "Promote Peace," "Love is Love" and "God doesn't hate." Others wore tributes to Lawrence King, an openly gay Southern California eighth-grader who was shot and killed in his school's computer lab in February. Lawrence allegedly was killed because of his sexual orientation.

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