You know, throughout the show,
we've been highlighting black figures
and organizations that inspire one
of the most celebrated in Western
Washington is Langston Seattle,
a nonprofit based around the Langston
Hughes Performing Arts Institute.
The Langston vision is to cultivate
black brilliance, including funding
and supporting to local artists.
Take a scroll through their Facebook
page and see their dedication
to art education, outreach,
even health care in the black community.
To learn more about the programs and events,
go to Langston Seattle.
Dot org now.
One of the things Langston is
committed to is creating a safe
space for the queer black community.
They recently partnered with $3 Bill
Cinema to feature films that tell the
stories of the queer black community.
I think
intersectionality is probably
one of my favorite topics.
We really recognize how vast the
black community is when we start
talking about intersectionality,
we start seeing that we're
everywhere and we're beautiful and
we're luscious and we're queer.
And we have homelessness,
and we have varying abilities.
And we have people in corporate.
We have people in nonprofit.
We have people across the board and
intersectionality allows us to see
just how beautiful that makes us all.
But also how important it is.
To recognize that without all of these parts,
we cannot create change.
We cannot come together.
It allows for many of us to create
community in a variety of spaces,
but also hold and honor our differences
at the same exact time and our sexuality,
especially within queerness,
really starts to highlight our
differences that then overlap, right?
We are all this entire web of
humans across this beautiful space.
Yeah,
the queer community is very diverse when
it comes to the black queer community.
What should people think about
that? There's not just one answer for
any of us that there's a lot to learn.
Not any one person is going to be
able to tell you exactly what it is
like to be black and to be queer,
which really opens up the opportunity
for us to build out and talk about
what it means to celebrate who we are,
and also talk about where we're
able to invest additional resources,
invest additional conversations,
and really be able to elaborate
on where are we able to be.
Where are we able to really take power
and dance and create our and create
films and bring in more people and
celebrate our foods and mix up how
we're able to work in spaces and how
we're able to really maintain this
trajectory of queerness and trans Ness?
In our communities,
I think that that's a really good
point that you make and Isabella.
My question to you is about the arts.
Y'all did a film event recently
to spotlight all of this.
All of these topics.
Any films that you'd recommend for
all of us to watch and learn from?
Yeah, of course.
I mean, there's the classics.
You know there's Paris is burning if
you haven't seen Paris is burning,
what are you doing?
What is wrong with you?
It's one of the greatest films
that has ever been made.
It's it's a documentary.
It's available, I think everywhere.
Also, if you haven't caught moonlight,
it's one of the most amazing films.
Also, what are you doing if
you haven't caught moonlight?
Where have you been?
Amazing performances,
amazing cinematography,
some of the other movies that have come
out recently that I love are Rafiki.
There's a movie called Pariah.
There's a movie called Tangerine
which is all shot on iPhone,
which is really crazy.
It's this movie that is about black
trans women trying to survive,
and it's taken from such an
empathetic standpoint which I love.
Strong island, which is a documentary
about a black lesbian woman.
It's on Netflix,
Bessie, the story of.
Jesse Smith,
one of the greatest queer
Blues icons of our time.
And also I am not your *****.
A great fantastic documentary also
available everywhere and one of the
films that we taught we screened,
which is Watermelon Woman,
which is another black queer classic film.
So if you haven't seen any of those films,
where have you been?
What are you doing?
Get into it.
Watch all those movies,
both that is required viewing alright,
and if everyone out there didn't
get to write all those, yeah,
we're going to have on our website.
Need to worry about a thing,
but Isabella, what are your hopes
for the black queer community?
In the future going forward,
yeah, I think it's very similar
to what Alana was talking about.
The things that I hope is for not
only just our health and our safety,
which is always kind of been secondary
and culture in government in society,
I'm talking about our mental health,
our sexual health.
I'm talking about our physical health.
I'm talking about all the different
kinds of health that we need into
or in order to not just survive
but also to thrive as people.
The safety.
That we need to feel in order
to be able to express ourselves.
Have the jobs that we want to live in.
Live the lives that we want to without fear
of being being legislated out of our lives.
The fear that you have to have where every
single life is a black queer person.
Can I go to this space?
Can I go to this bar?
Can I go to this bathroom every single
section of your life is lived in such
fear and I wish for us to be free.
Of fear I wish for us to be
able to live authentically.
Beautiful big open wide lives because so
much of our culture is based on queerness.
Your fashion, your music,
your dance moves, your lingo,
your tick.
Tock,
all of that comes from black queer culture,
and we want the same kind of love
that you give to our culture to
our vibration to to our vibrancy,
to to drag Queens.
To our fat,
all that stuff we want that same love
that you give to what we give you.
We want that back and that's where
a lot of was talking about with
investments we want to be invested
in and not just taken from and
so that's really what I hope for
for the black queer community.