“I got a call the other day
Liberation was on the other end
Speaking harsh words of hate, violence and the dread of tomorrow
Words cut short
An intruder in her space
“Call you back tomorrow”
Happy she got off my line
I got a call yesterday
Liberation was on the other end
Speaking indifferent words of apathy, isolation and the detachment of tomorrow
Silence
Ghosts in her space
“Call you back tomorrow”
Worried she, got off my line
I got a call earlier today
Liberation was on the other end
Speaking sweet words of love, safety and the potential of tomorrow
Words expanded
A guest in her space
“Call you back tomorrow”
Frustrated, she got off my line
Can’t finish this poem
Liberation is calling me”
Pride
One of the tenets embedded in NYC Affirmative Psychotherapy’s philosophy is a commitment to serving queer communities of color. We express that commitment by not only providing psychotherapeutic services to historically marginalized populations, but by also creating job opportunities for those same communities that we serve. We continuously strive to ‘practice what we preach’ and in our 5th year in operation we want to center and celebrate our staff through the lens of rest and celebration. Annually our practice will be closed for a week between Juneteenth and NYC Pride.
Why Juneteenth & NYC Pride?
Juneteenth concretely marks the commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States, with Galveston Texas being memorialized as the location where word of the Emancipation Proclamation finally materialized, two years post its inception. That day of liberation brought forth celebration through song, dance, communal gathering and feast by formerly enslaved individuals. Despite the strife, terror and subjugation experienced by the formerly enslaved, they found a way to commune and express their vitality to live! At NYC Affirmative Psychotherapy we recognize the strife, terror and subjugation in our present society imposed through systemic racism that continues to live on today, and yet we make space for the expression of vitality to live. Happy Juneteenth!
NYC Pride commemorates all that encompassed and has hence lived on from the first Pride March in 1970, following The Stonewall Riots the year prior. Individuals such as Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera are commensurate with the thrown brick that started it all. Despite the gay liberation movement throughout the United States in the late 60’s throughout the 80’s LGBTQ individuals continue, with the help of allies, to fight for equality 53 years later. The fact that the Stonewall Riots kicked off in Manhattan, the borough that NYC Affirmative Psychotherapy has as a homebase, holds a special meaning to our group practice. We continue to push the envelope year after year to provide high quality affordable psychotherapy to queer communities of color, centering them as our primary population in the city that never sleeps. In similar fashion to The Stonewall Riots, we want to be a leader of change that equates to a ripple effect of positive expansion for all queer communities. Happy Pride!