AFRICAN SPIRITUAL ORGANIZATION DENOUNCES BOARD MEMBERSHIP OF CHIEF PRIEST AND BABALAWO, THE OLOYE, BABA IFA KARADE (HETEROSEXUAL MAN), FOR SUPPORT OF SAME GENDER LOVING PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT'S INCLUSION IN AFRICAN SPIRITUAL COMMUNITIES AND HEALING CIRCLES

To: Kwabena Faheem ASHANT, Ph.D., PtahRahene [High Priest]

From: Ta'Shia Asanti (Ayoola Omikunle Karade), Priestess of Yemoja

Alafia, Hotep, Hetepu--I greet you in the way of our ancient ancestors. I pay foribale to you as an Elder and cultural leader of African traditions. I am Ta'Shia Asanti (Ayoola Omikunle Karade), co-founder of the Ifa Conference on African Spiritual Tradition, Priestess of Yemoja in the Ifa tradition, anti-racism/white supremacy activist, educator of African traditions and culture, writer and journalist. It is my intention that this message will serve as a tool for education of African spiritual communities worldwide as it relates to the issue of Same Gender Love (herein referred to as SGL) relationships and facilitate healing and reunification of African communities across cultures and spiritual belief systems.

Dr. Kwabena, High Priest and Elder, I respectfully say to you that the dialogue relating to SGL must take place from an informed position. Such dialogue must involve and include culturally conscious and spiritually healthy/whole SGL persons of African descent. Any other discussions are and will be based on further division of African people all over the world. The below statement made by your organization, which is in response to the statement made by the Oloye, Chief Priest and Babalawo, Baba Ifa Karade, on the subject of SGL and his support of their inclusion in African spiritual communties and healing circles has stimulated this writing. We, members of the African community worldwide salute the efforts of the Oloye Ifa Karade. No one else in the African spiritual community has had the courage, spiritual grounding and insight to recognize and see the big picture of what the Orisha, Olodumare and NTR, (all African Gods included) are trying to accomplish by unifying, healing and empowering our "entire" African community by assisting them in returning to African traditions through initiation, study and diligent service. The Oloye's stand on SGL people of African descent and their inclusion in and need for African spiritual community and healing circles is revolutionary and spiritually timely. His spirit reigns above cultural acceptance and "fitting-in." Such a spirit and this kind of strength is what is needed to authentically and effectively heal our vast communities of the African diaspora.

Modupe, Adupe to the ancestors and the deities that guide the Ori of the Oloye and for his Chiefly insight.

Ase.

The Statement Sent to the Oloye and Others June 29, 2003

in a message dated 6/29/2003 9:01:39 PM Pacific Daylight Time, kwabena_a2000@yahoo.com writes:

AFRICAN GAY AND LESBIAN RELATIONSHIPS

The INTERNATIONAL BOARD OF AFRICAN TRADITIONAL THINKERS,RELIGIONS,AND HEALERS, INC. is STRICTLY STRINGENT against same sexual gender relationships between Africans. I have read and understood your views, opinions, acceptances, and directives to your KARADE membership. Your logic correlations are very correct---your conclusions are very wrong, an anti-African. As you
know, the BOARD MEMBERSHIP REQUIREMENTS is very clear on the promotion, acceptance, and practice of Gay and Lesbian relationships in the African theological,
cultural, and philosophical world views.IT IS NOT TOLERATED.

The Response

First and foremost, it is time that we as an African community get re-educated on cultural aspects and differences between same-gender-love and gay and lesbianism. Cleo Manago, activist, writer, executive director and cultural worker for over a decade, initially founded the term "Same Gender Loving" to avert any correlation and assumptions between and about Africanist SGL people and the White, gay, Greek culture which represents mainstream gay/homosexual culture. He foresaw these kind of issues erupting and wanted to clearly distinguish and provide an outlet for African SGL people who embraced African cultural expression as African SGL people's natural and wholistic self/life expression from those who felt they had to embrace white gay Greek culture to express themselves as SGL. In this writing, we will and ask you, respectably, to herein refer to African people who LOVE those of the same gender as "SGL African people." Ase.

I submit to you emphatically that African SGL is not anti-African! We need to put the real issues on the table. We as an African spiritual community, must begin to deal with the real issues that are destroying our community at its core (I will deal with this later in this statement). And I say, after much research and evaluation, that the issue of SGL within our community is not causing our destruction or division. However, within the body of this e-mail, I will address some very sensitive issues as it relates to our destruction as a people and the inclusiveness of our movement to empower ALL African people from a spiritual aspect. I will also address from a spiritual, historical and cultural aspect, the issue of SGL in African spiritual communities and the African community at large.

1. Much of what we call "gay and lesbian" practice and/or culture originated in Greek culture, and re-surged itself during the civil rights movement (the gay rights movement and cultural explosion tagged on to the civil rights movement and later abandoned the movement for racial equality and embraced its own _expression). The gay and lesbian movement and cultural _expression is very much a culture that is often anti-African and/or often non-supportive of values, concerns and issues of and related to the African community. This is clear throughout its history. In vast contrast, same gender love is and always has been a part of African history. To deny its presence is to deny the lives and presence of millions of Africans and their relationships/families. Same gender love in African communities was and is not some movement to condone a sexual _expression, it wasn't and isn't about waving a rainbow flag or fighting for one's right to have sex a certain way--it was and is about community, it was and is about love, it was and is about how certain cultural aspects play themselves out within the context of the village. Historically, this can be seen in a tribal practice called Mati-ism, practiced heavily in ancient West African culture. Even today, a large SGL movement exists within African culture and many communities in Africa have accepted and embraced it's presence. It was a common part of the African tradition called Mati-ism for women to marry women and women to become wives of other women. Of course these women had husbands too and the responsibilities to the wives were secondary. Just as in modern SGL African culture, many women have had husbands and some still do. Mati-ism was accepted as normal and healthy. Again, please be clear, this cultural _expression wasn't about the act of being "gay", it was about love, protection and service. It wasn't about some big sex-scapade, it was about comforting the wife when the husband was gone hunting for six months or going through initiation. Just as SGL today isn't about sex, it too is about expressing and having love in a village and African nation rocked and marred by white supremacy and the remnants of slavery and racism in America. It is too about spiritual attraction, biological nature and emotional needs. It is about loving from a position of how spirit leads one to love and have love. Who are we as humans having a spiritual experience to determine what someone's spirit needs or doesn't need?

In modern day African/American culture, while many, many African women simply feel drawn to other women spiritually, ancestrally and intimately, many sistahs have also "ended up" in SGL relationships because of the shortage of brothahs, specifically spiritually healthy brothers. Sistahs in the SGL community don't like to admit this but it is true. They are not sick--nor are they anti-African-they just need love! This is an unnatural world with unnatural circumstances. Our brothers have been genetically damaged by slavery, as have our sisters. Some sisters/brothers have been permanently damaged due to the spiritual sickness of brothers, fathers, uncles, mothers who sexually and/or physically abused them. These are the sistahs and brothers that need healing--not exorcism, rejection or exclusion--healing, African healing specifically. How are we helping our people to heal by ostracizing who they are when they come to us?

Some of our heterosexual brothers and sisters are damaged as well, and some of them observe unhealthy, sometimes sick and perverted hetero-sexual expression. Is this not true? If so, why are they not banned from your community and board??? Is it that we only deal with sexual dysfunction when it happens between SGL African people? This is wrong, morally and spiritually.

Many SGL sisters and brothers are completely African-centered in their being, doing and total self-_expression. Some, just as in those who identify as heterosexual, are not. How can any organization, claiming to operate in spiritual integrity, claiming to be about spiritual empowerment, determine which African should be accepted into a group that is about God's work of healing African people? How can we as humans decide how people should be healed? How do we determine that someone's healing should come through and by not being SGL? Only the spirits of our Ancestors and elevated deities know what each individual African needs to return to their greatest self i.e. Sankofa. Some of us are so wounded we are fortunate just to exist! True healing comes from self-introspection and spiritual/internal revelations--not someone telling us what we should be or shouldn't be or oppressing who we are unless we're killing, stealing, dealing, raping and teaching cultural and historical lies.

2. American culture has negatively sensationalized homosexual culture by portraying all lesbian and gay persons as one cultural group. We see homosexuals in film, on TV, and through other outlets in images that do not reflect African people in any manner. It is unfair and it is an abomination for any African spiritual group to base their decisions to include or not include African SGL people based on such images. These images do not reflect conscious, politically active, dedicated cultural and spiritual workers of African descent in the spiritual community who are same gender loving people. Workers who have been a part of African and Black cultural movements since the beginning of time. Workers who many times have been the backbone of African spiritual communities and cultural movements even moreso than heterosexuals--known or unknown as SGL people. Explore the works of Audre Lorde who dedicated two decades of her life to racial equality, third world issues (the poverty and exploitation of Africans) who was also a SGL woman. Bayard Rustin, openly SGL brother, now known as the backbone of the MLK movement, and is also credited for teaching King how to organize movements and literally organizing the march on Montgomery. Same gender love, same gender love relationships and same gender loving African people have been and always will be a part of the African diaspora. SGL African people are our mothers, our fathers, our grandmothers/grandfathers, our aunties, our uncles, our brothers, our sisters, our children. They are our priestesses and our priests, our revolutionaries. They have died for African people, gave their lives to save African people, served time in prison to uplift African people. THEY ARE OUR ANCESTORS! SGL people of African descent are a vital, contributing part of African society and always have been. These individuals should not be confused with Blacks, SGL and non-SGL who are still asleep culturally, spiritually and politically.

Inclusion and membership into any African centered organization should be based on service, work, dedication, enlightenment. This is what ancient Kemetic society based their membership into the priesthood on. It was one's spirit that was judged in Maat. Spirit determines the weight of the heart, not MAN!!! It is written for all to see! Who has the right under spiritual umbrella's to defile the work, life and presence of SGL African ancestors? When ethnic cleansing happens, and it will, will anyone ask their African brother or sister if they're SGL as we're going to the bush to do ritual to save our people? I think not! Then why should we now? We are one in spirit and in blood--this cannot be denied. The ancestors are speaking through me here!

"African Gay and Lesbian relationships IS NOT ACCEPTABLE IN ANY FORM OF FASHION. It is considered an ABOMINATION by the ("Heavenly") Creator..." (which creator said or wrote this, there has been a lot that has been written by man, a lot of things which we don't adhere to because we understand that when it was written it was a different time, for instance, the bible says we shouldn't eat shellfish--how many Black/Africans love lobster, crab, shrimp? The bible also condoned incest between a father and daughter, we accept that this was written in a different time don't we? But many of us still use the bible to teach)

"...the Gods, the Spirits, the Ancestors..." (which Gods, which spirits? which ancestors? Some of our ancestors were SGL and we know this!),

"...and the Earthly Kings, Queens, Elders, and the Communities..." (do we think some of these might not have been SGL???!!!) .

"This is acceptable European and Asian behavior, but NOT by Africans
ANYWHERE ON THIS EARTH" (millions of African people accept that SGL people are a part of the African community, millions of African people are SGL or have been at one time in their life).

3. You have stated that SGL is anti-African, I submit to you respectably, and ask you to expore African, spiritual based, SGL families who operate fully on African values and ideals. African SGL people are raising African children and raising them to be powerful Africans! Until you have done this-sat down with your African SGL sisters and brothers - I submit that you cannot make a well-informed decision, neither can your board. You are mis-educated. I submit also that your organization bases its decisions and views not on conscious, culturally and spiritually healthy SGL families or individuals of African descent, but on perceptions presented by European gay culture. This is inherently wrong and done without spiritual integrity.
This is not a representation of all SGL people of African descent by a long shot.

4. I implore you to also deal with issues in the African spiritual community which are at the core of our continued destruction. We target SGL African people as anti-African based on what? The answer is inherently: what we see represented in Eurocentric culture. Again, I say to you, this is not African SGL culture. AFrican SGL culture and African culture is one! The primary issue that is often raised is that this state of being doesn't lend to pro-creation--but I submit to you again Elder, to do the research, to sit down with the sisters and brothers of African descent in the SGL community. 80% of them are parents, women who have given birth, men who have fathered children! If they aren't parents, they're caring for someone else's children, someone who is often heterosexual who has failed to care for their own children. And if we're dealing with spiritual and cultural states of being that are non-African or anti-African, why do we leave omit the following groups?:

A. Those who commit acts of rape and incest in our community.

B. Those who commit acts of domestic violence in our community.

C. Those who spiritually abuse women in our African spiritual community.

D. Those who abuse spiritual power for sexual reasons.

E. Those who follow the ideals of Eurocentrism on spiritual, political and cultural levels.

F. The drug dealers and sex industry pushers in our communities.

I submit to you again, these are the issues that destroy and have destroyed our community, along with the system of racism as described in the writing of Dr. Francis Cress Welsing and Dr. John Henri Clarke.

I submit to you the following: Black love, regardless of who is giving it and how it is expressed has never been anti-African, especially when it is Black on Black love.

However, the issues above clearly divide and destruct our communties at their very core. As the Oloye wrote, why are we not focusing our energies on the real issues?

"We are willing to assist, work with, and heal any Africans who seek to rid themselves of this sexual orientation or practices. In fact, I plan to have a
session this year dealing specifically with the incompatibility of African religion with African Gays and Lesbians."

5. Again, what human can determine destiny? It is the NTR's, the Orisha, the Ancestors and one's Ori that determine our path and spiritual _expression of self in the physical realm. I pray and hope that the ancestors will also lead you to include a session to help heterosexual Africans to rid themselves of the need to commit acts of incest, sexual abuse and domestic violence against their women and girls and how this practice is incompatible with African religion. Please be clear, I do not mean to compare the two, however, the tone in which you present the two issues is presented in a similar context.

"Baba Karade, I believe you know that I truly respect you. However, your positions and support for the homosexual life style is not those that I..."

i can't speak for the Oloye, but I believe what he supports is healing and empowerment of all African people. Homosexual lifestyles are based on Eurocentric culture, which SGL African love is not.

"...as the PtahRahene (High Priest), of The INTERNATIONAL BOARD
OF AFRICAN TRADITIONAL THINKERS,RELIGIONS,AND HEALERS,
INC. can or will support and approve. Your leadership of the American Northern region of our BOARD is now incompatible with it's mission. As a result, the executive council of Priests has recommended that your name be removed from our BOARD membership. Should your views on homosexuality return to the traditions of our African theological requirements, I will welcome you back enthusiastically. "

This is a major loss for your organization. This opportunity is one of the greatest ever to heal and further unify communities of African descent. Your organization is creating division and causing spiritual and cultural wounds instead of healing African people. There are an estimated 5 million African people who identify as Same Gender Loving or have loved someone of the same gender for whatever reasons. I'm sure there are others who are members of your group, known or unknown, and there always will be. I submit again in closing that such a decision is based on lack of information and faulty perceptions. You have a responsibility as a leadership organization to do the work to unveil the truth about this issue.

I pose the following -- bring together a representation of African SGL persons from conscious spiritual and culturally conscious communities for dialogue, education and healing. Meet their children, visit their shrines, look at their personal, professional and spiritual bios and see the work they have done for years! They have done more work than some so-called heterosexual people put together. The ancestors recognize their contributions--how can you not? I volunteer to gather the panel. Then and only then can your organization make an informed and spiritually integrous decision on this matter. Until then, our ancestors, the Orisha and the NTR's are watching us to see how we will deal with this issue. We cannot afford to lose not one of our African people.

In Unity There is Strength--Iya Ta'Shia Asanti (Ayoola Omikunle Karade) Priestess of Yemoja, in your tradition, known as Auset, the Great African Mother.

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