Race, Sex, Power:New Movements in Black & Latina/o Sexualities Conference Opening Remarks By Cathy Cohen

Good morning, Buenos Dias! I am Cathy Cohen and on behalf of the planning committee I want to welcome all of you to Race Sex Power: New Movements in Black and Latina/o Sexualities Conference. We all want to thank you for coming to what we believe is an historic gathering of artists, activists, academics, individuals, groups, and communities to discuss the intersection and manifestations of race, sex, and power in its many forms in Latina/o and Black communities.

For those of us who have been working on this conference for over 18 months-with weekly meetings the last few months-we believe that the conference is a bold effort and opportunity to rethink what sexuality means for Black and Latina/o communities. I should say that while this conference is structured around two specific racial/ethnic groups-and we understand some people's displeasure with that framing-we hope that the conversations over the next two days, will expand, when appropriate, to talk about the experiences of other people of color and other groups of people.

The planning committee has always understood our work and this conference as a beginning, the beginning of a conversation, a debate, and maybe a movement to speak to, challenge, and radically transform the condition of Black and Latina/o communities as well as other oppressed groups through the intersectional lens and actions of sex, race and power.

Now we also understand that if we are focused on the topic of sex, sexualities and sexual regulation that will mean that some of our discussion over the next two days must and should center on difficult and uncomfortable subjects such as the disproportionate impact of HIV/AAIDS in our communities. It means that we will need to debate how we can fight the attack on the reproductive rights of women, especially the reproductive rights of poor women, using for example a reproductive justice framework. It means that we have to deliberate about how best to combat the epidemic of STDs confronting, in particular, young Latinas and Black women. Our focus on and through sex demands that we make visible and develop strategies to combat the government's efforts to limit the sex education that Black and Latina/o youth receive in public schools across the country. It means that we have to confront the homophobia and heterosexism that threaten the lives of our lesbian, gay, and transgender brothers and sisters, threatening our, my very survival. It means that we have to analyze the impact of the prison industrial complex, this time paying attention to its impact on sexual and intimate relations and family structure in Latina/o and Black communities.

That is right, over the next two days we must talk about, analyze, and organize against the pain, suffering, oppression and marginalization that has been and continues to be visited on Black and Latino communities through the auspices of sex or more specifically sexual regulation. However, that cannot be the end of our conversations. And for too many people, too many of us, that is the only way they/we can talk about sex, especially in communities of color.

Our presence at this conference is meant, however, to be a signal that we will not accept such limited understandings and representations of who we are. We will now define the realms of sexual inquiry, production, performance, resistance and acts in Black and Latino communities. We are here to stake out a new sexual territory-not in the colonized, empire sense of old, but in the liberatory, freedom sense promised in a changed political environment. This conference is about expanding the possibilities of sexual engagement, sexual exploration, and sexual enjoyment, especially as those new possibilities are rooted in Black and Latino communities.

So as we struggle with the difficulties that confront our communities in a sexual realm, we also want to make visible, examine, and celebrate the multiple forms of sexual desire, pleasure, exploration and intimacy found in Black and Latina/o communities.

So we have a lot of work and fun in front of us, but I know we are in store for an amazing two days. And more importantly, I know the people in the room are up for this challenge.

In closing I just want to say thank you again to the University of Illinois, Chicago - better known as UIC - for hosting us these two days. To be able to hold this conference at such an incredible, public University populated by Black and Latina/o and other students of color as well as those from varying class backgrounds really is ideal. So on behalf of the planning committee, I want to thank the faculty, staff, administrators, and students of UIC for hosting us and extend a special thank you to the UIC faculty on the planning committee for doing the heavy-lifting in terms of making sure everything was in place on their campus.

Finally, this conference really is a testimony to the power of collective action. Individuals from nine universities and colleges came together to produce this conference. It wasn't always easy, but everyone in the process demonstrated level of integrity and political commitment rarely seen, in particular, among academics. Many of us who volunteered for the planning committee did so because over the years, we have built in Chicago possibly the most vibrant community of people working on the subject and practice of race, sex and power anywhere in the country.

So I want to thank the dedicated, generous, and brilliant members of the planning committee for their tireless commitment to this conference. I also want to thank the larger community of scholars, activists, and artists in and around Chicago, working on the subject and practice of sex, whose work and support help to bring us to this historic moment! Thank you all and welcome to the race sex power conference!

Cathy J. Cohen, is the David and Mary Winton Green Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago

These remarks were made at the opening of the conference on Race, Sex, Power:New Movements in Black & Latina/o Sexualities, co-sponsored by 9 U.S. universities including the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Chicago.