Spanish-language anti-homophobia ad #1

SOMOS... One of a series of ads that ran in Spanish language media back in 2003 and 2004 which comes to mind as the New York State Black Gay Men's Network launches a brand new campaign targeting homophobia in the African-American community tomorrow. Ad design: Pablo Caro. Photo credit: Javier Soriano

You might have noticed, but we inadvertently jumped the gun on a new initiative to combat homophobia in African-American communities here in New York. After writing about a poster I noticed last week in a subway station, Mark Jason McLaurin of the New York State Black Gay Network said:

Hello Andres-

Thanks for posting our campaign- This is actually a campaign of the New York State Black Gay Network and it will be running all over the city - We have a launch press conference scheduled for Tuesday morning [August 22nd] with Congressman Charlie Rangel and Borough President Scott Springer- if anyone wants any more info on the campaign or materials- feel free to contact me at mmclaurin@nysbgn.org

Thanks for getting the word out (although we were hoping to keep it under wraps a bit until Tuesday but they started the subway stuff early) LOL!

Oops! Aplogies to Mark and the NYS Black gay Men's Network! Rod2.0 picked up on the post on Friday and Keith Boykin gives the down-low on the campaign on his blog today. The campaign, as Mark and Keith say, will be officially launched tomorrow. We wish them great luck and success with the campaign and on-going efforts to tackle homophobia in the African-American community.

In the meantime, these ads have brought to mind an initiative conducted back in 2003 and 2004 to combat homophobia in Latino communities in New York. In the post immediately below and in this post, I wanted to share a couple of the ads that we ran in some of the local Spanish-language newspapers Hoy and El Diario La Prensa. For a high resolution version of the ad above go here.

The text of this particular ad reads:

Jose Sanchez, Graduate Student, Peruvian, Gay
How long have you known that you were gay?
"The truth is that being gay has always been part of my identity. What was difficult was to accept myself and to be able to be sincere with my family and my friends. Nowdays I am the pride of my parents and brothers. I don't have to keep anything from them."

And you, what do you think?