The LGBT Center and the Multicultural Center are co-hosting a Black History Month Dine-n-Discuss event.
Students are invited to discuss the intersection of black and LGBT identities over a free lunch.
The LGBT Center and the Multicultural Center are co-hosting “Dine-n-Discuss: Black Identities and LGBTQness" on Wednesday at 12 p.m. in Baker Center 230.
“The goal is to create space for people to engage in (the) intersection of black identities and LGBTQIA identities ... which is why we were intentional about the kinds of organizations that are a part of it,” Winsome Chunnu-Brayda, strategic director for Diversity and Inclusion and multicultural programs, said.
The Black Student Cultural Programing Board, the Office for Multicultural Student Access and Retention, Shades, and STARS are also putting on the event.
“As a human you don’t have just one thing that you identify with,” Lindsay Schneider, a second-year graduate student in the college-student personnel program and a practicum student in the LGBT Center, said. “There are so many things that make up who you are, and it’s important to talk about all those identities that aren’t normally talked about … It’s important to know about the whole person.”
Chunnu-Brayda said people who identify on the continuum of black or LGBT identities face various challenges depending on factors such as family, religion, origin and socialization.
“Having these conversations around how these identities intersect is important, particularly for students who are struggling or on the continuum,” Chunnu-Brayda said. “And some of them ... are still trying to find their comfort level on that continuum.”
Schneider said LGBT students and black students face negativity on campus, and being both LGBT and black even can be more challenging. She hopes the Dine-n-Discuss can help open the conversation.
“If they have a place where they can meet other people, or if they can just find people that are supportive, then hopefully we can make their experience better,” Schneider said.
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Those challenges are not limited to OU, Chunnu-Brayda said, but apply across the nation.
“Finding the tools, the language and the space to navigate those conversations, or to even navigate a space that you’re in, I think is essential for students and is becoming even more important because of where we are going as a country,” she said.
Though the event is about black and LGBT identities, Chunnu-Brayda said she implores anyone to attend because “we are not operating in a vacuum.”
“It’s important for people who do not identify along the spectrum to also learn about some of the challenges that people are facing who are on or navigating these spaces so that we’re better able to relate to our fellow Bobcats … because we now have a better idea of some kind of identity challenges,” she said.
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