last week i found out through campus mail that j.l. king the new york time bestselling author was going be giving a lecture at my alama matter prairie view a&m university. i spoke with brandon, and we decided since he would be this close to us we would go see what the brotha had to say. i must say from hearing from people that had heard him speak, people that read the books, over all i had a tainted image of him. i figured that he was just one of these guys who has gotten rich over typical situations. i was told that he did not call himself or other men that have sex with men and maintain hetorosexual relationships with women gay. i figured that he was going to be cocky becasue he is the poster man, and the man that blew the top off this whole dl shit. by sunday i had decided i was not going to attend, however brandon soon convinced me that with me wanting to be the big time journalist, and blogger i needed to attend. i still refused to by the book, so while i was at work i copied a image from his website, and had it mounted and laminated, to get an autograph. we arrived on campus quite early i was able to walk around, and mix and mingle with people i had not seen since before gradaution. we went into the auditourm and found some seats, i had a bad feeling in my stomach, looking around the room i noticed so many black women, old and young, and many professionals from the university itself. now i an known for having a bit of a loose mouth in event like this so, so many people had told me to hold my thoughts, and please not do nor say anything i would regret. the sga introduced him, and he stepped onto the stage, everyone in the room was paying close attention to what was being said. he started off telling us about his background, not going much into his personal life, he told us about how he ws first discovered, and how he and oprah first met. he told us about doing the oprah show, and how much it changed everything. then he got to the knitty gritty, he broke down statistics about hiv and aids in the black community, and how it was destroying our communities in africa, and if we were not careful, we in the united states, the richest country in the world would end up like some of the third world countries where so many children are parentless die to aids. he went on to tell others to accept our fellow gays, and that in the world they would have to encountor gays in some way or another. he told us that it was about respect for each other....and then it was time for the question and anwser session...well with everything that had been diccussed the questions i was going to ask, had been anwsered. so when i started to hear all of the other questions, i decided to ask mine...i was please with the response i got in return. afterwards a pastor got up and decided that he was going to "enlighten" him on a few things, at that point i got up and walked out of the room, all the way down the main coridor of the student center to the oppisite end. with everything that had happened with religion and homosexuallity i was not at all in the mood for that. i walked back and was able to catch king's response which shut the pastor up, and the crown went wild. afterwards the book signing was in the lobby...i stood in line, with brandon, and once we got up to the table we had conversations with him about how actually hearing him had changed both our minds, and we were so glad we got a chance to hear words from his mouth, not what everyone else was saying. he told me hat he wanted to work with me on some things, and even return to campus soon. i gave him a card, and he told me he would be in touch. i am so glad i went, it was a great event, i felt so much differently than i had walking in......
No comments:
Post a Comment