H. Sharif Williams

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Hameed Sharif "Herukhuti" Williams is an American cultural studies scholar whose work focuses on sex research and education. He is also a systems theorist, culture and interdisciplinary social scientist, journalist and public speaker who has written about and lectured on bisexuality particularly among people of African descent. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Williams was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, with a heritage steeped in the black radical and socialist traditions. His maternal great-grandmother was Garveyite, a member of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, and active in the Moorish Science Temple. [2] His maternal grandparents were members of the American Labor Party (ALP), and his parents were members of both the Black Panther Party [3] and later the Sunni Muslim community. His mother was a union organizer, and a tenants' rights and housing advocate, and his father worked on Mayor David Dinkins first mayoral campaign.

Galvanized by the police murders of the several black people, including Eleanor Bumpers, Michael Stewart, and Michael Griffith, Williams became politically active as a teenager in an effort to end racially based and state-based violence and murder against people of African descent in New York.[ citation needed ] As a 14-year-old, he was formally initiated into the Kemetic [4] priesthood by Amen Khafra Ndongo, High Priest and Founder of the Temple of the White and Gold Lotus, Shrine of Amen-Ra and received the name Aih Djehuti Herukhuti Khepera Ra Temi Seti Amen.

Williams holds a PhD. in human and organizational systems [5] with a concentration in transformative learning for social justice and specializations in sexuality and cross-cultural studies of knowledge. [6]

Career

Williams is the author of Conjuring Black Funk: Culture, Sexuality and Spirituality, Vol. 1 [7] and the co-editor with Robin Ochs of Recognize: the Voices of Bisexual Men. [8] [9]

Williams has worked as a human rights and social justice activist specifically within the decolonization movement focusing on intersectional politics. His activism has taken many forms over the years including as a co-founder and the inaugural co-chair of Global Youth Connect, an international human rights organization for youth. His work can be found in academic and trade publications such as Sexualities, [10] Journal of Bisexuality , ARISE Magazine, and Ma-Ka Diasporic Juks: Contemporary Writings by Queers of African Descent. [11] He is the co-editor with Loraine Hutchins of Sexuality, Religion and the Sacred: Bisexual, Pansexual and Polysexual Perspectives. [12] A board member of the editorial board of the Journal of Bisexuality, he served as the co-editor of the journal's special double issue on spirituality, the Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships. [13]

Williams has received numerous fellowships including a National Institute of Mental Health-funded graduate research at the HIV Center for Clinical Behavioral Studies at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He along with a cohort of bisexual leaders, activists and researchers were invited to the White House in 2013 for a community issues and public policy roundtable where he co-presented on the topic of HIV and bisexuals. [14] And in 2015 Williams received the Brenda Howard Award, [15] the first award by a major American LGBT organization to be named after an openly bisexual person.

Also in 2015, Williams was a Lambda Literary Foundation Playwriting Fellow, and a Thought Leader for the Association of Black Sexologists and Clinicians. He currently serves as a professor at Goddard College, [16] an interdisciplinary studies college where he teaches progressive education with students interested in social movements, arts and cultural studies, sexuality studies, spirituality studies, social entrepreneurship and education.

Works

Related Research Articles

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kinsey scale</span> Scale for measuring sexual orientation

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pansexuality</span> Sexual attraction to people regardless of sex or gender identity

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Loraine Hutchins is an American bisexual and feminist author, activist, and sex educator. Hutchins rose to prominence as co-editor of Bi Any Other Name, an anthology that is one of the seminal books in the bisexual rights movement. Hutchins contributed the pieces "Letting Go: An Interview with John Horne" and "Love That Kink" to that anthology. After the anthology was forced to compete in the Lambda Literary Awards under the category Lesbian Anthology, and Directed by Desire: Collected Poems, a posthumous collection of the bisexual poet June Jordan’s work, had to compete in the category "Lesbian Poetry", BiNet USA led the bisexual community in a multi-year campaign eventually resulting in the addition of a Bisexual category, starting with the 2006 Awards.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bisexuality</span> Sexual attraction to people of any gender

Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, to more than one gender, or to both people of the same gender and different genders. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, which is also known as pansexuality.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBT demographics of the United States</span>

The demographics of sexual orientation and gender identity in the United States have been studied in the social sciences in recent decades. A 2022 Gallup poll concluded that 7.1% of adult Americans identified as LGBT. A different survey in 2016, from the Williams Institute, estimated that 0.6% of U.S. adults identify as transgender. As of 2022, estimates for the total percentage of U.S. adults that are transgender or nonbinary range from 0.5% to 1.6%. Additionally, a Pew Research survey from 2022 found that approximately 5% of young adults in the U.S. say their gender is different from their sex assigned at birth.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of bisexuality</span> Aspect of bisexuality history

The history of bisexuality concerns the history of the bisexual sexual orientation. Ancient and medieval history of bisexuality, when the term did not exist as such, consists of anecdotes of sexual behaviour and relationships between people of the same and different sexes. A modern definition of bisexuality began to take shape in the mid-19th century within three interconnected domains of knowledge: biology, psychology and sexuality. In modern Western culture, the term bisexual was first defined in a binary approach as a person with romantic or sexual attraction to both men and women. The term bisexual is defined later in the 20th century as a person who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to both males and females, or as a person who is sexually and/or romantically attracted to people regardless of sex or gender identity, which is sometimes termed pansexuality.

References

  1. ↑ "H. Sharif Williams". Goddard College. Archived from the original on 2019-07-02. Retrieved 2019-09-05.
  2. ↑ "A Pure Moorish Islamic Community to Inform, Educate & Uplift". A Pure Moorish Islamic Community to Inform, Educate & Uplift. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  3. ↑ Baggins, Brian. "Black Panther Party". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  4. ↑ "What is Kemetic Orthodoxy? | Kemet.org". www.kemet.org. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  5. ↑ "H. Sharif Williams". Goddard College. Archived from the original on 2019-07-02. Retrieved 2019-07-02.
  6. ↑ "Fifth International Conference on Transformative Learning" (PDF). Meridian University. 2003-10-23. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-05-09. Retrieved 2019-09-06.
  7. ↑ McGlotten, Shaka (2011-03-18). "A Review of: "Conjuring Black Funk: Notes on Culture, Sexuality, and Spirituality, Volume 1 Herukhuti (Hameed Williams)"". Souls. 13 (1): 119–122. doi:10.1080/10999949.2011.551480. ISSN   1099-9949. S2CID   145419943.
  8. ↑ "BRC Store". www.biresource.net. Archived from the original on 2016-02-07. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  9. ↑ "BRC Welcome". www.biresource.net. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  10. ↑ "Sexualities". sex.sagepub.com. Archived from the original on 2016-02-06. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  11. ↑ Douglas, Debbie; McFarlane, Courtnay; Silvera, Makeda; Stewart, Douglas, eds. (1998-02-01). Ma-Ka Diasporic Juks: Contemporary Writing by Queers of African Descent . Sister Vision Pr. ISBN   9781896705149.
  12. ↑ "Routledge". Routledge.com. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  13. ↑ "Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships - University of Nebraska Press". www.nebraskapress.unl.edu. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  14. ↑ "Dr. Herukhuti (H. Sharif Williams, PhD., M.Ed.) | The Association of Black Sexologists and Clinicians". Archived from the original on 2019-09-06. Retrieved 2019-09-06.
  15. ↑ 11th Annual Brenda Howard Memorial Awardee: H. Sharif "Herukhuti" Williams
  16. ↑ "Goddard College -". Goddard College. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  17. ↑ Williams, Hameed S. (2007). Conjuring Black funk : notes on culture, sexuality, and spirituality (1st ed.). New York, N.Y.: Vintage Entity Press. ISBN   978-0975298732. OCLC   191680375.
  18. ↑ Sexuality, religion, and the sacred : bisexual, pansexual, and polysexual perspectives. Hutchins, Loraine, 1948-, Sharif Williams, H. London: Routledge. 2012. ISBN   9780415783040. OCLC   751750352.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  19. ↑ Rec-og-nize : the voices of bisexual men : an anthology. Ochs, Robyn,, Sharif Williams, H. Boston, MA. 2014. ISBN   9780965388177. OCLC   895197297.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
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