The Next Thing (TNT) Heritage Week (mid-2000s)

A programme of events for the TNT Heritage Week – February.

This was a programme showing the series of events lined up for the The Next Thing (TNT) Heritage Week at Brown. It was held on the 23-28 of February in the mid-2000s. I assumed that it was in the mid-2000s because the rape documentary, No!, was fully released on 2006 and was still in the making when they showed the trailer at Brown. This programme served both informational and invitational purposes. The phrase, “show your support for your queer brothers and sisters of color at the first annual explosive,” suggested that people who do not identify as queer or queer of color were also welcomed. Although TNT was a support group for LGBTQ of color, the logo, with three arms holding each other with different skin colors, suggested solidarity regardless of the color of the skin. The TNT heritage week was highly political as suggested by the language of the poster, having words such as radical, decolonization, resistance, ending intra-racial violence.

We chose to highlight this programme because there were a couple of LGBTQ women of color invited to speak such as Cherrie Moraga (the fierce Chicana lesbian writer) and Arlene Avakian (the Armenian American lesbian Feminist author). This shows that Brown students were aware of the distinct and arguably more complicated struggles of queer women of color as opposed to just gay men’s issues.

For us who are visual learners, some multimedia were used as well. In addition, some events were collaborated upon with other student groups on campus such as the Sarah Doyle women’s center. The TNT Heritage Week seemed to consider the overlap with other issues (i.e. Women’s issues, issues of race and ethnicity). Furthermore, a striking part of this programme was a statement by Ms. Aishah Simmons wherein she talked about the Mike Tyson rape trial (1992) and how black men accused Desiree Washington (a Black woman who was raped by Tyson) of betraying the Black community. This raises the issue of which is more valuable, race or gender.

In my interview with Walter Kikuchi ‘16, the LGBTQ Resource Center Archivist (2013-2014), he explained that the solidarity movements among the LGBTQ population at Brown started from being social (events) to becoming more political/ activist in nature. The TNT heritage week happened more on the later side (late 1990s) of the development of the LGBTQ community here at Brown because the TNT Heritage Week is definitely more political.

 

What do YOU think?

The Power of collaboration

• Why did the TNT Heritage Week organizers collaborated with other groups on campus such as the Sarah Doyle Women’s Center, Black Student Union? Did this make the event more inclusive? or they just needed it to increase the funds?  If they needed to expand, does that mean the LGBTQ center wasn’t a huge presence at the time?
• Does tackling both issues of race and gender simultaneously an effective way to foster change? Or is it easier to take it one issue of a time? What are the benefits of a coalition? What are its consequences?

Brown alumni and current students

• As we can see, there was a TNT alumni panel and discussion. What was the effect of this to current Brown students at that time?