Kaleidoscope

CBS Affiliate Criminalizes Black Men

2011-09-14T09:45:00.001-07:00

So the Maynard Institute has been following this story and holding Chicago's CBS 2 news station accountable. Given my recent activism about two Black men being hypercriminalized (Below) I thought that it was relevant to post a link to the Maynard Institute and the work they do around coverage of Black people by the media. This is a story about how far the news media will go to make Black men look like criminals.

In Defense of Kevin and all those too Principled and Black to Be Anything But Outraged at The Gay Contribution to State Violence Against Black Men

2011-09-07T21:33:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was a witness to an incident that was chronicled in the Bay Citizen and categorized as a "Hate Crime." Many of you know that my first degree is in Criminal Justice and I have strong feelings against Tough on Crimes laws and Hate Crimes laws and believe that they have been targeted against Black men who are already disproportionately represented within Criminal Justice and the Prison Industrial Complex. I further had difficulty thinking of the situation as a gay bashing or hate crime because the Gay man involved in the fight initiated the physical violence and was the first to "throw blows." So I spoke up in the Bay Citizen's comments section. Weeks later Kenyon Farrow, known for his work with Queers for Economic Justice and Critical Resistance, posted an article on his blog attacking me and defending the alleged victim, Brontez Purnell, who is apparently a friend of his. Kenyon's blog post has been linked ironically enough to the blog belonging to INCITE! Women of Color United Against Violence. The hyper linked articles above provide context for my response which appears below.

Brontez as gay hero who refused to be a victim and brought the violence to them before they could bring it to him and Brontez as warrior avenger who smacked them up for his respect after they called him a faggot are images that stand in stark contrast to the depiction of him as a hate crimes victim which if you remember is the depiction that Brontez himself has put forward. The facts offered by Brontez and to the police do not include the facts that I offered; facts that Kenyon Farrow and others have used to spin Brontez as the gay hero. His story in fact left out the part about him spitting on them, left out the part about the so called assailants trying to flee Brontez's attacks for most of the encounter, left out the part about Brontez’s friend begging him to let it go leave and left out the part about the blunt metal object which Brontez wielded against them repeatedly and actually struck them with at least once. So which is it: Bad Ass Gay Hero or Victim of a Hate Crime? In order for the scenario that Kenyon Farrow has chosen to align himself with to be true Brontez has to have told a story that wasn’t true to the bay citizen which would align very closely with the story that I have told. For the scenario that Kenyon Farrow has aligned himself with to be true Brontez most certainly can’t be a “hate crimes” victim.
That being said: I didn't have a problem with the brother not walking away. I didn’t have a huge problem with his “line in the sand,” and I don’t have a problem with refusing to back down from physical violence. My problem is the classification of that evenings events as Hate Crimes and involving the police after Brontez decided to step to those brothers. It was your friend, Mr. Farrow, who decided to initiate physical violence in a "handle it in the streets" model that is popular among many Black men. The problem for me -not clearly expressed in the Bay Citizen because I know white folks and how white gay racism operates- is: How is it fair to call the police and classify yourself as a "victim of a hate crime" after you decided to use the "handle it in the streets model" and demand your respect by initiating a physical altercation? One does not become the victim of a hate crime because one lost a fight that they started regardless of how righteous the rage that drove them. Mr. Purnell started a fight wherein he had weapons and his opponents did not, and he lost. This does not make him a hate crimes victim and I think that the real tragedy here is that a Black man who is gay could use the masters tools (state sponsored violence through tough on crimes and hate crimes laws) to win an ego driven contest and he is not challenged, but defended, by a friend who has worked for Critical Resistance and Queers for Economic Justice. What’s really sad is that the analysis of so many self proclaimed “radical queers” is so utterly blind to the racial nuance presented by hate crimes laws particularly when they are invoked by Black gays against other Blacks. If Kenyon were really Brontez’s friend (and this is for all of commentators on various blogs and threads) he would ask his friend to be accountable to the political analysis about the prison industrial complex and state violence against Black men which I assume Kenyon has from his time at Critical Resistance. Further the insistence by so many that I should have involved myself in the violence is ridiculous. I went toward the words “botti boy, bumba clott,” with the intention of lending my fist to resist a gay bashing (which anyone who knows me will tell you I’ve been known to do) only to find a gay brotha was the one yelling the epitaphs and wielding a blunt object against some other brothers who were trying to get away. Had I intervened on behalf the victims, as I saw it that night, I would not have been on Brontez’s side. I knew he was gay, assumed his rage was righteous, but did not see him as a victim so I stayed out of it.

I Agree With Her,Ask Me Why. Woman Sues Church For Performing Gay Unions

2010-06-25T22:47:00.000-07:00

I posted this video under the same heading as this video is posted here. A conversation ensued and here is an excerpt of my comments.

It’s the bottom line of the financial transaction that I agree with. Whether or not its a place to fellowship and worship it is a place in which the good sister Williams has invested considerable time and money only to have her voice muted by the pastors of the church. I am not looking at the particular issue as much as I am looking at the principle. I think she's wrong about gay marriage but I think someone who invests as much time and money as she did deserves to have her voice heard and she deserves to have the pastor consider her voice in the shaping of her/his own theological interpretations (to use Mark's language) its not just about money its also about time and effort but you can't get either of those back. You can get money back.

This is a question for me of entitlement and empowerment in the Black Church. For me it is a question of gender equality and social justice in the Black church. For the most part women and gay men form the financial and logistical back bone of Black churches but the overwhelming majority of pastors, deacons and trustees are heterosexual (at least heterosexually identified) MEN. The voices of women and gay men tend to marginalized in Black churches even though they constitute a majority of the active and contributing members.

Here is the story of a Black woman, who may have been wrong about her reasons, but who stood up for the value of her voice in the decision making process within the church. If you paid attention to the clip you hear the co-pastorial husband and wife team say that THEY (the two of them) wrote the vision statement for the church. Now I have done a number of strategic planning sessions both as a participant and as a leader of the process and I can tell you that it is absolutely inappropriate for two people to write a vision statement for any organization, religious or otherwise, without input from a diverse group of stake-holders. This is why I believe that woman was right. Not because of money, not because of her beliefs about homosexuals but because of the way that they marginalized her voice in the running of the church after what seems to me to be considerable contributions of time and effort from her.

TO VIEW THE ENTIRE DEBATE CLICK HERE

Missionaries of Hate: Vanguard

2010-06-23T21:19:00.000-07:00

Watching this video my reaction is in many ways conflicted and the only thing that is perfectly clear to me about my response is that I am disturbed greatly. My conflict comes from many places not the least of which is the fear that Africa's story at the mercy of white story-tellers has always been skewed by the arrogant/white supremacist western lens. My cursory glance at this series does little to discourage these feelings. Being carried through one of Uganda's market places upon the gaze of a white camera crew who at the moment that Black Ugandans speak about there spiritual and political believes decides to take us into a gathering of flies on various cuts of meat for sale reveals to me the sad truth that white people who do these kinds of "documentaries" about Africa always have as one of their key agenda items the advancement of white supremacist ideas/notions about Africa and African people.

Another source of conflict for me is that the Ugandan people who I hear speak about this horrific bill are actually responding less (as I hear it)to homosexuality and all the ick that it apparently carries for them and more to the very phenomenon that I describe above: White supremacy and imperialism. They are responding to white supremacy, imperialism and western influence in the same way that the people of one of Atlanta's poor neighborhoods (Kirkwood and East Atlanta) responded to gentrification in 1998. While the media brilliantly crafted the controversy into a Gay vs Black situation it was clearly poor Black people reacting to a threat to their way of life posed not by homosexuality but by the TAKE OVER of elitist white supremacy that Gays have been conflated with by our friends on the far right and in the conservative media.

Minister Simba declares that Homosexuality has been to Africa but Human Rights for Homosexuals have not... He goes on to talk about how the west is not going to "push it down our throat." The brilliance of the conservative propaganda machine is revealed here creating the same association with authenticity and anti-gay conservative Christianity for the Ugandans (showed in this film) that they have created for many "red blooded" Americans. So part of being a Red Blooded American and Part of Being an authentic African is the rejection of a value system take over that has also been invented by the conservative-Christian-propaganda machine.

While I am absolutely disturbed by Black people and the homophobia that we often perpetuate in our own communities I have to point out that I do not believe that African people are so committed to oppressing gay people as they are committed to an authenticity/pride that imperialism has left many grasping for desperately and that the conservative-Christian propaganda machine has successfully juxtapositioned against gayness. Homophobia in Africa and among Africans in the Diaspora is a by product of western imperialism and a critique of African homophobia in either location that fails to recognize this fact is, to me, white supremacist. Further the rejection of western values, whiteness, and elitism among the marginalized folk of the world is often articulated as a rejection of homosexuality. The sooner we recognize these truths the sooner our liberation and coalition building strategies will be crafted to respond appropriately.

2009-12-21T11:04:00.001-08:00

An Avatar is a form used by a deity to reveal itself to the people. The White people in the movie were called "Sky People" and the bodies that they used to reveal themselves to the indigenous folks of "Pandora" were called "Avatars."

AVATAR the movie is little more than the "White man as Chosen One" motif. This model is ever as popular as it's always been but has taken to involving the white man "Chosen One" taking the form of the oppressed in order to play savior. District 9had a similar twist. The "Chosen One" is a white man who is inflicted with a disease, he is becoming the "alien!" Even the Blockbuster Surrogates plays with the idea of the white-man becoming the other with male users of female surrogates and white uses of Black surrogates abound.

Waking up OTHER has long been an obsession of whites and in both movies the fulfillment of this obsession is realized. But fantasy and nightmare are combined because while I fantasize that the physical prowess, the colorful culture, the secrets, the innovation, the magic/technology of the oppressed can be mine my nightmare is the price of living the rest of my life in the OTHER-LAND/Hell that me and mine have created for them. Doesn't this smack of the schizophrenia of white racism?

Riots In Oakland

2009-01-07T21:16:00.000-08:00

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

-Claude McKay-

It occurs to me that the young black people rioting in the streets of Oakland today just weeks after they danced in these same streets to celebrate the election of this countries first Black president are fighting for their lives like they have been doing since they were brought to this country in the rancid bowels of slave ships. As this occurs to me I wonder if Claude McKay knew in 1919 when he wrote the timeless words at the top of this page that almost 100 years later these words would be as relevant as they were then.

Almost as if to put us in our place weeks before the inauguration of America's first Black President a police officer killed a young Black man execution style with a single shot as he lay on his stomach waiting to be hand cuffed and carted off to jail for some petty crime. Nearly fifty years after a battery of supreme court cases and legislative acts came together to create the illusion of freedom for black people in this country and since the Warren court reeked havoc on the lawlessness of America's police racial profiling, police brutality, and unjustified murders continue to plague poor and young black folks.

Tonight in Oakland young Black and Latino women and men took to the streets to protest the killing of 22 year old Oscar Grant by the police on New Years day. The officer, whose name has yet to be released, shot the young man in the back of the head while he lay on the ground waiting to be hand cuffed. This evening while I sat in the offices of my part time job on 7th and Broadway in Downtown Oakland my co-workers and I spotted out the windows several groups of young brothers running. What was most striking about this site was that these young warriors were running toward the center of the conflict at 14th and broadway with the words of Claude McKay lighting their steps "If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain..."

This shit is pissing me off!

2007-04-26T19:17:00.000-07:00

How is it that this stupid white man (Imus) says fucked up shit about Black women and it some how gets turned around on Black people (Hip Hop)? How is this white man's stupidity Black hip hop's fault?

Racism is a bitch!!!

Coming Out Story

2007-04-14T07:08:00.000-07:00

Gimme five! Two times! On the black hand side. I remember shaking hands, giving dap or some love: Slap twice rapidly but don’t take the other’s hand, take his hand, thumbs back, drop your thumbs forward close you fist around the forward fingers of his closed fist so that your fist interlock, pull back slowly bringing your middle finger and thumb together snap as you come out of the embrace. I remember shaking hands, being allowed this briefest of a caress between “Brothers.”

I remember being a brother! I was, “blood,” “Folks” “dog” “youngsta” “shawty” “mah nigga.”

I remember being a nigga too. Hunted as niggas are, I remember what it was like to be endangered! Not like I’m endangered now, but I remember what it was like to be in danger and be protected from danger. Protected by black folks, because I was “youngsta” “shorty” “Brotha” they built hide-outs along the way home from school! Underground railroad conductors waiting at Upward-bound and the Boys and Girls Club to show me the way to freedom screamed “live free or die” at little black boys like me with few other options.

Racism is harsh! But the resolve of my tribesman was stronger. We built fortresses to protect our children. We fortified there walls with our prayers and with the power within our collective voices, raised in song, that we so trustingly call “God.”

I remember being a tribesman too. I remember being jealously watched over by black women who in their gaze and as payment for their protection claimed me for their daughters, granddaughters, nieces, cousins, sisters, and themselves.

I remember being a tribesman and I remember my own gaze. Careful and suspiciously I watched and scrutinized white people, sisters and brothers who married white people, Asians, police, teachers, homosexuals and anyone else who represented the system or the “others.”

I remember leaving the tribe.

Now, blank stares on the faces of women who once claimed me as their own and now hardly recognize me and certainly do not want me for themselves, their daughters, nieces, cousins or even their sisters.

Exiled by “God” and his urban pontiff to this new Diaspora, I stand cold outside of fortresses that once kept me safe with prayers and songs and the promise of “God” and love, facing racism by myself.

Having chosen freedom over death my freedom is used against me by those who so implored me to it! The codes have been changed in the night and the path to the hide-outs buried away from my sight our children protected from me by conductors who will one day tell them to live free or die.

I am no longer “brother” “shawty” “youngsta” “dawg” “folks” “blood” “people.” The fist that once served to embrace me, in likeness and familiarity, has turned against me in a new kind of less familial caress for the briefest caress between “brothers.”

I am the “other” that I used to diligently guard against with my careful and suspicious gaze. “I” now “them,” find myself ranked beneath women who marry white men, men who marry white women, police, teachers, Asians, and even white men.

I remember leaving the tribe.

Gimme five! Two times! On the black-hand side.

Rights VS Social Justice

2007-04-14T04:10:00.000-07:00

Recently I’ve come to the conclusion that the queer left needs to reshape its conversation about marriage, the military, and job security and queer rights overall to be a more justice oriented conversation. The conversation about “rights” is easily twisted by conservatives and the extreme right into a conversation about “special rights” and special protections for queers.

I’ll use marriage as an example. Marriage discussed as a right that LGBT individuals deserve to share with their heterosexual counterparts is a week argument compared to marriage discussed in its current form as a set of policies that serves to create second class citizens by excluding them from enjoying justice, equality, and full status as citizens in society.

LGBT movement has, for the large part, modeled itself after the Black lead civil-rights movement of the 60s. This relatively successful movement which used a very similar “rights” oriented rhetoric was successful largely because it was able to partner with the media and with popular social voices to demonstrate the ways in which contemporary social policies excluded Black people from full participation in society. It was able to illustrate in graphic and explicit ways the injustice of the exclusion of Black people as well as the brutality associated with enforcing unjust policies and the impact of said policies on Black people. Police dogs, fire hoses, church bombs, school assaults, and widespread assassinations were catalyst that served to augment the arguments for “rights.”

Queer movement has tried to use a similar rhetoric but has lacked, except in a few extreme situations, the same graphic and explicit illustration of the ways that queer people have been hurt by not having certain rights. It’s been as difficult for queers to translate the rhetoric of the queer movement into a general societal moral indignation as it was easy for the leaders of the civil rights movement. This is because of the lack of the kinds of graphic examples of the anti-justice that were so common in the civil-rights error.

Incidents that have involved extreme violence have been few and far between when compared to the frequency of such incidents leading up to and during the civil-rights movement. The lack of these kinds of examples has made it easy for the conservative right and other anti-gay forces to paint the LGBT movement as a movement of privileged cry babies who, drunk with greed, are crying out for protections that “everyday” citizens do not enjoy. Because it would be ridiculous to hope for or look for these kinds of graphic examples our best hope is for the conversation about social justice for queers to become one that is much more rhetorically explicit. Crying for civil rights while most Americans view queers as a particularly privileged group does not have much of an impact on the moral tenor of the nation. This moral tenor has always been the spirit of change in America and essential for creating change in oppressive policies.

Thus organizations like HRC, NGLTF and the host of statewide LGBT PACs which are perceived by queers and heteros alike as existing for the sole purpose of mainstreaming queers particularly queers of privilege need to reconsider the tone of their rhetoric. Talking about LGBT social justice movement as a civil rights movement does not have much of an impact when the lack of civil rights for queers has not been associated in the American psyche with disenfranchisement or lack of access. A movement language that calls for, instead of rights, an elimination of policies that create injustice and exclude whole groups from participating in society as full status citizens will prove much more effective.

TOO Much Beyonce: What black people will and will not tolerate.

2007-03-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

Earlier today I was sitting at my desk at work checking email and came across a message to which a video was linked. The title of the email was “Too Much Beyonce: Parents am I the only one who sees this as inappropriate? I’ve seen so many videos on Youtube of sexualized school girls dancing to pop music that I was expecting to see a 12 year old grinding like a stripper to a Beyonce song. There was no 12 year old in booty shorts, in fact there were no booty shorts at all. Further there was no grinding, rump shaking, crotch grabbing or the like. How refreshing. What I read in the video comments however scared the hell out of me.

“I swear to god if i ever caught my 8 year old brother doing that shit i would kick his ass so hard...anybody that condones this foolishness is a fuckin moron and should have thier reproductive organs rip off and put in a blender”

and

“lol @ his to the left dance...I'd pickup one of those white chairs and knock his gay ass out”

WOW! So based on the fact that this child danced to and sang his adorable little heart out to a Beyonce song people on Youtube are now contemplating not only harming him but harming members of their own families should they ever dance to a Beyonce song while male.

The kinder of responses, while they seemed less violent, unjustifiably pathologized the child, his family, his environment and his life circumstances based on a 5 minute video clip. These responses insisted that the father is not in the home and that the child needs a male role model to teach him to act like a boy. The woman who sent me the video on the yahoogroup even suggested that there were better things that he could be doing with his time as if she has knowledge of his life and his entire life schedule and knows for a fact that all he does is dance all day and practice "Feminine" mannerisms, while other boys his age are spending there time at the much more useful and important endeavors that 5 year olds are obligated to spend their time doing. That is to say that somewhere between knapping, eating, peeing on themselves, throwing temper tantrums, and producing copious amounts of snot, they are solving complex equations, conducting life saving research, and bringing peace to the middle east and the hood. We know this because they act like boys and only acting like a boy can prepare one for these important endeavors.

After musing for a while and wondering how anyone could not see how perfectly natural it is for a small child to enjoy dancing and singing (duh!) and how oblivious said small child is to the fact that he had broken cultural mandates that would inspire such rage that people would demand that he be harmed, I thought about another video that had been circulating on Youtube. Another video on Youtube with a Black boy who is just as cute and also has a particular talent that one would not expect from someone of his age. I did a search for “Gimme My Money” and I found the video not yet flagged by Youtube users and still generating amused comments like:

“hahahahahahhaahah i watch this everyyyy day”

And

“THIS IS SOME FUNNY SHIT! HOW CAN I SAVE IT TO MY PC?”

I’m perplexed. I’m disturbed. I’m disgusted. I’m scared for every little Black boy growing up to be a member of our maligned tribe of outsiders.

On the one hand we have a video of a young boy enjoying himself, demonstrating his prodigious talent and confidence who is obviously happy and well cared for. He appears to be safe, is clean and healthy, and has people in his life that love him enough to celebrate his talent. On the other hand we have an angry young boy, who is alone enough that he not only has to go to the store by himself but when cheated by the stores proprietor is left alone to advocate for himself. Why isn’t his mother or father at the store with him? Further his profanity and threats of violence are socially unacceptable in most communities particularly when the user is a small child and the one being addressed is an adult. But it gets worse: Not only is this little boy a neglected potty mouth who does not know a proper respect for adults but he is a racist who more than once makes bigoted and prejudicial comments about the store proprietor who is Asian.

But black folks are in an uproar about which video? In all the time that the video of the young boy cursing and threatening the Japanese woman has been circulating I have not received a single email that has addressed this video as anything but hilarious. Not one among the dozens of people who have forwarded this video to me have said that this boy needs a spanking, needs more positive role models in his life, or bemoaned his comfort with violence and profanity at such a young age. Further I haven’t been able to read such sentiment on the Youtube comments.

What I have heard is that there is something wrong with a little black boy dancing like Beyonce. I’ve heard that he needs stronger role models, needs to be severely beaten, will deserve it when his peers harass and attack him and that he needs to be removed from his parents care because of the way he dances and the music that he likes.

Why is it so much more egregious to our people for a little boy to "act like a girl" than it is for a little boy to act like a violent idiot?

The Coon Affect, Black Presidential Candidates and Barrack Obama The Best Hope For…

2007-01-30T21:48:00.000-08:00

The Coon Affect

“If the minstrel skit had an ante-bellum setting, the coon was portrayed as a free Black; if the skit's setting postdated slavery, he was portrayed as an urban Black. He remained lazy and good-for-little, but the minstrel shows depicted him as a gaudy dressed "Dandy" who "put on airs." Unlike Mammy and Sambo, Coon did not know his place. He thought he was as smart as White people; however, his frequent malapropisms and distorted logic suggested that his attempt to compete intellectually with Whites was pathetic.”

Since antebellum the white supremist, patriarchal, dominator power structure in the United States has invested many resources into disparaging blacks that, due to attained levels of freedom beyond that of most blacks, posed some threat to the status quo. Racist iconography has been a common tool employed since antebellum by the power structure to inform public opinion about Blacks. Resulting negative public perception of Blacks has often translated to public policy. Free blacks during slavery and educated or middle class blacks after emancipation were often the targets of this strategy. In addition to employing these methods to paint middle class and educated blacks as pathetic and laughable the white supremist, patriarchal, dominator power structure has often employed these methods against Black political leaders and activists. Specifically Booker T Washington, W.E.B. Dubois, Frederick Douglas and many Blacks who advocated on behalf of Black people were often depicted in popular media as bumbling idiots who stumbled through the English language in an attempt to use “big words” that ultimately resulted in exposing their foolishness and intellectual inferiority.

Coonifying Black Presidential Candidates

Black candidates for president in the US have been a favorite target of the coonifying media and public attitudes machine. To date there have been four black candidates for president and 5 presidential campaigns for Black presidential candidates. Those candidates were Shirley Chisholm, Senator Carol Moseley Braun, Jesse Jackson, and the most recent Al Sharpton.

Chisholm and Moseley Braun who both have the distinction of being women have some things which distinguish them from Jackson and Sharpton other than their womanhood. Both had extremely successful careers as elected officials and public servants prior to their bids for president. Chisholm and Moseley-Braun both served in the Legislature of their home states before being elected to the US Congress, Chisholm to the house ( 8 terms), and Moseley Braun to the senate (1 term). Moseley Braun also had a brief career as a prosecutor before beginning her elected career and has the distinction of being the only Black woman ever elected to the US Senate. The final and probably most regrettable commonality between Chisholm and Moseley-Braun is that they were both very well qualified candidates who would probably have been taken much more seriously had they had penises and a bit less melanin and both led such dismally doomed to fail campaigns that they were not subjected to what I’ll call the coon-affect that plagued the Jackson and Sharpton campaigns.

Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are serious politicians, dedicated and seasoned activist, brilliant and articulate orators, published authors, and biblical scholars. Further they have both demonstrated such a profound commitment to fighting injustice that one is never surprised to see either of them as first on the ground when injustice occurs in America, or abroad. However, in spite of what I consider the undeniable credibility and qualifications of both men they are often positioned in conflict with credibility, as race-batting, pontificating, tongue wagging, coons. Unfortunately the realities created by the internalized racism of many blacks dictates that much of the coonifying of Sharpton and Jackson has been committed by Black comedians, publications and broadcast programs. Jokes by Blacks and Whites about their seriousness as presidential candidates that focus on their oratory cadence, their diction, and other language patterns bear a striking and disturbing resemblance to the coon iconography of America’s racialized cultural history. Ultimately Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and a long list of other brilliant and important change agents have been victims of coonifying.

Enter Barack Obama- Coon Free

When Obama first became the sweet heart of the American media and subsequently the American public I wondered why. A key note address that he delivered at the 2004 democratic primary seemed to catapult him into the hearts of the American people and a successful campaign for election that followed shortly thereafter seemed to cement him there, at least for now. Before these events very few Americans would have been able to tell you who Barack Obama is. It’s extremely curious that Obama is so popular today, being a Senator who won a seat that was so low profile that he ran uncontested until republican Alan Keyes decided to throw his hat into the rink in the final hour. What else is curious is that Obama, unlike other high profile Black politicians, has yet to be coonified. Since his successful election to the US Senate Obama has enjoyed an unusual amount of positive press. Not even his unusually dark lips have been enough to draw the coonifying eye of comedians. Even an admission of using cocaine and marijuana was not enough to draw out the conservative hounds. The only somewhat negative press that Obama has received is so ridiculous that it seems almost orchestrated to be so. Fox news commentators recently compared his name to Osama (Bin Ladin) and suggested that he was trained in a radical “Islamist” primary school.

Over the last year or so speculation has been flying about whether Obama will run for President in 2008. No other perspective 08 Presidential candidate has received the kind of attention that Obama has received other than Hillary Clinton. In fact so many in the Democratic camp are hopeful for an “Obama 4 President” campaign in 2008 that Democratic funding channels have been all but locked down and the only person other than Obama who seems to be able to raise two pennies to rub together, again, Hillary Clinton.

The attention that Obama has received has been intriguing for a number of reasons. Obama a relatively unknown State Senator who delivered the key note at the Democratic convention apparently made such an impression that he was able to win a seat in the Senate with virtually no competition, a task that is next to impossible for Blacks. What’s also striking about the Barack Obama Love affair is that he has yet to be coonified or radicalized. Commentators that have speculated on the love affair have suggested that the reason for America’s comfort with Obama is that he has a white mother and a father from Kenya and therefore is not one of the children of those enslaved by American whites. Others have suggested that the love affair can be credited to his charisma and to the advancements that Americans have made in the area of race relations since the end of state sanctioned segregation. I don’t buy it!

Manchurian Candidate

Barack Obama is the Manchurian candidate! I’m not suggesting that Obama has been implanted with a microchip that when activated will cause him to bomb Canada. What I am suggesting is that some very powerful forces have had there hand in the making of this hugely successful upstart Senator. In less than two years an unknown Junior Senator becoming America’s favorite for the presidential race is cause for inquiry. What I am suggesting is that he and Hillary have been very strategically placed in the lime light and developed as the American favorites for President in 2008 and that nobody in the Democratic camp has the skill to achieve this while conservatives remain silent as they have. I’m also suggesting that Obama, like the character in The Manchurian candidate has little to do with his own success and that strings are being pulled from the dark corner of a marionette box to ensure his run for President. To determine who is pulling the strings, one need only determine whose interest it will serve if Obama does decide to run.
I believe that someone in the Republican party is pulling strings with the media to set both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton up to receive the Democratic nomination for president. This is why Obama’s public image has not been marred by coonification and why his most staunch competition for the Democratic nomination is a woman. While this may seem like a stretch there are some realities that inform my position.

1) Based on history we know that it is very difficult for a Black man to win the nomination for the presidency from either of the two major political parties in the US. In fact to date most nominees have been white, male, and protestant. Deviation from this formula is usually a sure fire way to lock a candidate out. Candidates who are protestant and white but not male; male and protestant but not white; white and male but not protestant are all pretty unlikely to be President in this country. God help those that neither white nor male. In spite of this formula the two individuals who are most likely to win the Democratic primary are a white woman and a black man, both are protestant.
2) America is pissed of with the Republican party and the neo-conservative (neocon) movement of George Bush is all but dead. There is virtually no way that a Republican will succeed George W. Bush as President of These Here United States. Unless…
3) Of the republican candidates that have formally filed with the FEC all are white, male and protestant.

Final Analysis

What we know for sure, if Hillary wins or if Barack wins, the Democratic nominee for President will be a non-white-male-protestant running against a white, male, protestant candidate. While white Americans are very unlikely to elect a white woman who runs against a white, male, protestant, they are much less likely to elect a Black man who runs against a white male protestant. The lack of coonification that has made Obama’s candidacy unique among Black male candidates for the post of US president is precisely because Barack Obama is the best hope for a Republican president in 2008.

What's Your New Year's Resolution?

2007-01-02T06:31:00.000-08:00

What will 2007 bring? MLK weekend is coming up and once again thousands of Black gay men will honor Martin Luther King's Dream when they converge on the city of Atlanta bringing with them millions of dollars in disposable incomes ear marked for Lenox Mall, Bull Dogs, and Christian Brothers. Delta Airlines, Hertz Rent-A-Car, the Hiltons and dozens of restaurants, bars and clubs are licking there chomps at the prospect of record breaking sales margins at the expense of Black queers.

While club owner get, and remain rich, from our labors, another “For Us by Us” AIDS service organization, like Renaissance III, will likely close its doors or lay off staff for lack of funding. While we, Black Gay Men, demonstrate our ability to piss out thousands of dollars into the sewer systems of Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles, New York, DC and other party centers all over the country the Sexual Minority Alliance of Alameda County remains committed to serving Black Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender young people even in the face of tough financial times and staff and programmatic cut backs. While ZAMI and The House of Manolo Blahnik struggle to raise the money to give away thousands of dollars worth of scholarships to young Black Queers, Black gay men will buy plain tickets, hotel rooms, party passes, drugs and alcohol worth many dozens times the amount that it cost for these organizations to send Young Black queers to school.

While we dance, sweating our liquid investment away into the thousands of dollars worth of designer digs bought special for MLK, Fourth of July, MemorialDay etc., the Black Justice Coalition, The Black AIDS Institute, People of Color in Crisis, Us Helping Us, People Into Living and the New York State Black Gay Network will all look for money from the FORD Foundation, the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, State and Local governments and community foundations and other non-black funding sources so that they can keep their doors open and continue doing the work that they do on our behalf.

What is your New Year's resolution?

Will it be once again the weight loss plan that includes costly health club memberships or workout equipment that begin gathering dust on the 14th day of the year? Or will you help to make sure that young Black LGBT kids in Oakland have a place to go to get away from the violence and harassment that their schools, homes and neighborhoods often reserve for them? Is your commitment for 2007 to find a man, to which end you will spend thousands on a new wardrobe that shows off your figure? Or will you make a commitment to ensure that organizations driving our issues forward into policy and legislation have the dollars that they need to effectively lobby on our behalf? Will you resolve to finally take that trip that you’ve been promising yourself? Or will you take responsibility for the thousands of Black Gay men receiving HIV care services from Black AIDS Service Organizations.

Another year means another opportunity. We have the opportunity to make 2007 a legendary year, a revolutionary year, a year of liberation. Make your New Year's resolution to ensure that non-profit organizations working on our behalf and on behalf of our children don’t have to look outside of our communities for the dollars they need to continue to exist.

I'm Beautiful Damn It

2006-12-29T01:56:00.000-08:00

The messages that I’ve received since coming out have consistently suggested that I do not deserve to love myself. At every turn within Black gay community, in clubs, at discussion groups, on the street, on internet dating sites there are messages and messengers waiting for me to inform me that I do not have the right to like my body. “How dare you be a sexual being,” is a constantly reoccurring message drummed at me from every corner of Black gay community. While I have attempted to be strong I have internalized many of these messages.

Just this evening I was on a popular website for Black gay men to “chat” with one another. I’ve been in Oakland for three months and have not found a club or other venue for meeting men that suites me so I decided to give the internet a try one more time, after a long self imposed period of exile. So I got my pictures together, got them posted and wrote a blurb that advertised me in what I thought was the best light. I finished my profile, closed the window (to give it a minute), and waited to get a message or two that I could respond to in the hopes of having a date for this weekend.

While I was going through the dozens of pictures of myself on my hard drive and selecting the ones that I consider the most flattering I was feeling particularly good about myself. I had looked at the pictures, of my face, my body, my sense of style and once again, against all conventional wisdom, decided that I am beautiful. This has become a seemingly annoying habit of mine that I am apparently more susceptible to after long extended periods of absence from Black gay male community.

After an hour or two of “giving it a minute,” and feeling my resolve that I am beautiful begin to weaken, I decided that I would be more proactive. I started reading the profiles of the cute guys in the thumbnails on the left hand side of the page. About half of the profiles saved me the trouble by designating “no fats, no fems” I spent a bit of time pleasuring myself by rating them and selecting zero for every “pic” on their profiles. The other half of the guys that I found attractive got a short message from me expressing that I found them attractive, sexy or cute and that they should “hit me up” as the online jargon goes. Of the four or five guys that I sent messages to three responded negatively. One sent a message that simply said “no thanks,” another sent an email stating in, so many words, that I was fat, undesirable, and that I had nerve sending them a message, yet another sent a message that simply said “you’re fat.” I responded politely to two. The third guy who had said simply “you’re fat” I learned had blocked me when I attempted to respond. Wow!

I didn't know what to do. I thought for a moment, letting the feelings of rejection marinate and wondering why people felt like they could talk to me as if I'm a person without feelings. What is it exactly that would empower someone to feel entitled to saying hurtful and damaging things to another human being?

After a while of this musing I decided a couple of things were going on. The first thing is the devaluing and dehumanizing, by black gay men, of other black gay men who do not offer sexual value. The other thing that I recognized is the cultural norm that allows small people to mock and make fun of fat people without worrying about being held accountable for hurt feelings (we don't have feelings). The third thing that I realized was empowering these men to treat me the way that they were treating me was my silence. My silence allowed them to go on believing that I had committed a crime by being attracted to them, that I did not experience hurt when I was rejected with such vigor. This situation of my silence held in place by the shame attached to these feelings of rejection was the perfect place for the incubation for inhumane behavior toward fat gay men within Black gay male community.

I posted the following statement on my profile:

Damn! What have I done to be treated so badly? You don't know me, I've never done anything to you but I send a message to say hi or compliment you and you block me, don't reply, or reply saying mean things about me and my body? Why? Because you're not attracted to me? Here's a suggestion: If you're not attracted to me don't fuck me. All that other shit ain't necessary. You may not like my body but this is what the creator has given me and its the only body I have regardless of what you think about it. I haven't hurt or wronged anybody on this site. Please don't attempt to hurt or wrong me.

The anger, malice, and hatred that I am met with in Black gay male spaces when I attempt to be a sexually realized being in those spaces has always perplexed me. The communities that I’ve existed in have reacted to me with anger when I have asserted myself as a sexual being and abused me when I’ve owned my sexuality. I have experienced little more than rejection from Black gay male community and have relied largely on Black straight identified men “trade” for sexual affirmation.

While I have been a warrior for the rights of fat-fem me to be sexy, beautiful, attractive, and wanted I have often contributed to my own oppression by accepting the rejection of Black gay men wholesale, and acting complicitly with my silence. Silence and self imposed exile from clubs, internet sites, and other sexualized spaces has been the result of my own painfully internalized oppression.

My Promise to myself

As of today, I will no longer participate in my own oppression with my silence. While being rejected is shaming and while shame is powerful I am committed to making sure that Black gay men that treat me badly know that they are treating me badly and know that their treatment of me has consequences. Its only if I pretend nothing happened that people who treat me badly get to feel like they are the good people that they describe themselves as on their profiles. Maybe if we all (Fat Black Gay Men) react to the vigorous and unnecessarily vehement rejection that we often receive by expressing the feelings that we experience the shame will belong to those who abuse us and not to us.

Gay Racism At It's Best

2006-12-23T17:07:00.000-08:00

Chris Crain, the good ole boy former editor of Southern Voice is at it again with his special brand of radical race bating and white man cluelessness. His article "Where's The Truth in Humor?" which appears in the San Franciso Bay Times skirts dangerously close to advocating for the public use of the "N word" among lesbians and gays; at least until Blacks stop being homophobic.

Read the full article

Anti Racist White Allies

2006-12-05T03:25:00.000-08:00

Recently a friend of mine who is white, a drag performer and a former anti-racism trainer wrote me, through an email group that we’re both on to say that Shirley Q Liquor was going to be performing at the drag bar where he performs.

The reason, he said, for his writing the note to the web group was to get feedback, input, and advice about how those of us on the email list thought he should proceed. He announced that he was going to tell the owners of the bar that he would not perform with Shirley Q Liquor because of her racist portrayal of an older, southern, black woman.

This was interestingly conflicting to me because the bar that he performs in is owned by one of Atlanta’s legendary white drag performers who is notorious for her racism and misogyny and has been challenged at least a dozen times over the years for such.

I wrote to my anti-racist drag queen friend that I didn’t think there was a difference between performing with the racist-bar-owner-drag-queen and performing with Shirley Q Liquor. My reasoning was that they are both racist assholes and that performing with one while refusing to perform with the other did not make much sense to me.

His response was twofold:

1- Shirley Q liquor has gone too far by performing in Black Face and is more than he can take.

2- The reason that he remained as a performer in the bar of the racist-bar-owner-drag-queen is that he is the loan white voice of reason and that it is important to him to be in spaces where people do not necessarily have access to the rhetoric of movement. It’s worth it to remain in the racist-bar-owner-drag-bar because someone needs to be there to tell the other drag queens when they are being fucked up.

My problems with his argument are many and varied. I’ll try to be brief about articulating some of my problems here.

1- It seems that an anti racist ally would take his cues about what is “too racist” from people of color. I’d like to know what his criteria for “too racist” are. If the bar owner has been challenged many times, multiple people of color have expressed that her racism is intolerable, and very few people of color will visit her show more than once, why is this not too racist for my conscious friend?

2- Assuming that there is merit to this argument, my question is this: what is the difference between being the lone voice in the wilderness of the racist-bar-owner-drag-bar and being the lone voice in the wilderness at the Shirley Q Liquor show? Are there not just as many, if not more, unenlightened white people waiting for our angelic drag queen friend to deliver them from the wilderness into the higher—ground-holy-land of anti-racism?

I have written all that I’ve written thus far to say: It all rings a little false to me.

That being said, lately, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the privileged whites who call themselves my allies. I’ve identified a couple of truths and identified some ways to hold those who call themselves our allies accountable.

First the truths:

Very few of the white people who call themselves anti-racist remain anti-racist after college or college age. This is because it is simply easier to be radical when someone else is paying your bills. Tryna get a job as a blue haired, ripped jeaned, queer radical could prove difficult for our fully grown “allies.” So they jump ship.

Further its way too easy for privileged white people who call themselves our allies to gain “street cred” among us, all to willing to accept massa’s love, Black folk.” Refraining from saying racist stuff, calling everyone by the most up to date and current identity marker (African American instead of black), and hanging out with a few people of color (usually snow-queens) is not anti-racist. This behavior is nothing more than politically correct, hollow gesticulation that amounts to absolutely nothing.

My new philosophy is this:

A real anti-racist is a philanthropist.

This is why:

In America the most tangible effect of racism is the huge disparity between the incomes, and lifestyles of Black people and white people in this country. This disparity is actually the reason for and the end result of racism. Racism means that if I am white, I have better access to education, better access to health care, better access to credit, and better access to employment. I am further less likely to be shot down in my neighborhood by the police or a fellow, and less likely to serve time in jail. I will be paid higher than people of color for the same jobs and get better interest rates on loans.

So the only place for racism to lead is to a disparity in wealth. White privilege then is tangible. The culmination of all white privilege is INCOME. There is no “Invisible knap sack.” The knap sack is in fact quite visible. So those white people looking to distance themselves from their privilege need only take out there check books, credit cards, wallets, and start giving. Distancing one’s self from white privilege means, at the end of all the bullshit gesticulation, distancing one’s self from one’s money.

Thus my note to my friend in the racist-bar-owner-drag-bar concluded, I don’t care about Shirley Q Liquor making fun of Black people and I don’t care about the racist-bar-owner-drag-queen making fun of people of color either. I actually think that our so-called anti racist allies often rely on people like Shirley Q Liquor so that they can position themselves against them. They can be seen white as snow against the black background of Shirley’s odious rhetoric thereby removing themselves from scrutiny. We recognize their street-cred without asking why they live in so much privilege, with the big car (maybe a hybrid), the big house in the bleeding heart liberal (the expensive) part of town, the $500 cell-phone, the $400 Ipod, the newest Lap-top, the IRA, the off continent vacations, the study abroad in Spain etc, while they declare that whites must distance themselves from privilege.

In her Black Men and Love series bell hooks suggests that the sex lives of straight men are the last stronghold of male privilege that “feminist” men rarely release. I’ll argue that the pocket books of whites are the last stronghold of white privilege that white people, even the staunchest anti-racist, will not release easily.

I knew my girl was still the deal!

2006-11-16T16:33:00.000-08:00

So all of you doubters and haters can back up off my girl Whitney! She has some shit that is going to have you all gagging! I'm the only one that stood by her, declaring that she is no crack-head and that Bobby-Christina is a perfectly well developed young girl.

Speaking on behalf of Whitney in the words or my wise and wisend sister Londyn "Learn me bitches!"

Charles, Heru and Kevin: On Sexual Desire, Sexual Desire Politics, and other things

2006-11-12T18:17:00.000-08:00

Below is the result of an online interview conducted by Charles Stephens. Charles compiled the following 8 questions to be answered by him, Heru and myself. My hope is that this can become the begining of a conversation about how our desires so often reflect our oppression and how our liberation depends on the interrogation of everything we believe.

>1. How would you describe the current state of sexual politics in the black gay communities you are a part of?

KEVIN: I want to say first that sexual-desire politics in the black gay communities that I am part of extend far beyond the bedroom. While I believe firmly that our [Black Gay Men] seemingly collective obsession with two or three archetypes of manhood is extremely problematic and counter revolutionary I want to draw a clear distinction, in this conversation, between personal-desire and sexual-desire politics. To the extent that the personal is political, it is important to discuss the ways in which we exercise our desire. When I talk about sexual-desire politics I’m talking about a collection of norms within the Black Gay Communities that create exclusion and marginalization for an entire group of men that have endured, like all Black Gay men have endured, the oppressive forces that act against us as Black men and as gay men . This, to me, is unconscionable and serves as a barrier between US, Black gay men, and true liberation. As Audre Lord suggested, I believe that, “The masters tools, will never dismantle the masters house.”

Sexual-desire politics have too much of a role in within the communities of Black Gay Men. I’ve witnessed too many times, working within Black Gay Male communities for most of my adult life, Black gay men of influence dismiss promising young Queens or promising young fat boys. While I cannot claim to know why these people were dismissed I can say that I’ve seen some chosen and some not chosen to be mentored, to be the youth board member, to be the poster child, because of where they lay on the scale of “aesthetic beauty.”

HERU: I'm not a part of any black gay communities. I don't subscribe to the concept of black gay communities. I think there are black gay spaces in which groups--affinity groups--of black men who practice some version of same-sex desire and black women who practice some version of same-sex desire inhabit, oftentimes simultaneous with groups of other black men and women who practice some version of same-sex desire. So based upon that way of framing black same-sex culture, I would answer your question for a description of the current state of sexual politics with two words: fucked up. Fucked up because too many of us have adopted a reality, an identity, a worldview that is not only not our own but also antagonistic to our cultivation and development on personal and collective levels. When I think of the word politics, the word power comes to mind. Observing the sex in porn featuring sex between black men, listening to the conversations of black men who have sex with men, reading the online profiles of black men who have sex with men, I see and hear an attempt to play with very specific, very narrow notions of power. Power is confined to the expression of hardness, aloofness, emotional unavailability and distance, and numbness. Power is also confined to dick sizes 8 and above and abdominal muscles that form a 6 or 8 pack. Power is confined to lower tones of voice, sneers, snarls, and smirks. The Black brute, originally conceived in racist movie images to justify Jim Crow segregation, has reappeared in our bedrooms, our sex parties, our porn, our parks, and our tearooms. One of the more interesting things is how we have merged the sociology of the Black brute with the epistemology, axiology, and ontology of house/ball culture. One becomes the Black brute by wearing timbs even if one is a 50 year old queen with a corporate job. One becomes the Black brute by spending several hours a day, 3-4 days a week in the gym to sculpt one's body into the laborer's body even if one is an attorney without the knowledge of how to fix a car, repair a household item, or build anything other than biceps. It becomes equally important to downplay, obscure, or completely hide one's intellectual abilities and capacities. So I return to my original two words to describe the current state of sexual politics among black men who experience same-sex desire: fucked up.

CHARLES: I want to be hopeful. I see some courageous brothas in some spaces and places challenging the body politics, resisting these sorts of homonormative sexual scripts, embracing femininity sexually and socially. My experience has been that many of us are kind of conflicted. It’s very difficult to move through the world, even in our queer communities, without defining your value and measuring yourself against the more widely circulated notions of masculine beauty. I see some of us at least struggling to put forth wider and more democratic notions of desirability, even as we do so with ambivalence. I would like to see our communities move more toward challenging these sexual scripts that many of us are handed: muscles and masculinity. It’s not to say that brothas that walk in those bodies are horrible people, or even the people that aspire to or construct their desires around that. However, I wonder if our community circulated wider notions of desirability and beauty, would there be such an urgency to attain such a narrow ideal of beauty? Would the lines be so very rigid and defined? Final thing…. any revolution against heterosexism will have to begin in our own bedrooms. The promise of queer sexuality is to question the ways our oppression and our desires collide.

>2. Why do you think it's important for us to challenge the sexual apartheid, to use your phrase Kevin, in our communities?

KEVIN: It is in our best interest as oppressed people to go to great pains to ensure that our communities, our community institutions and our community co-inhabitants relate to people as people, with the humanity of those with whom we share the world as our first concern. The sexual apartheid of Black gay community is a system that creates exclusion from humanity for individuals who occupy marginalized bodies and present marginalized genders. This conversation goes beyond who one dates and who one fucks. The sexual apartheid of black gay men extends to who we choose to be friends with, who we let into our lives, who we hire for the job, who we chose to mentor, who we chose as our mentor, who we as a community advocate for, who we select as our leaders etc. The sexual apartheid (no fats, no fems culture) alienates and places on the margins of marginalization many HUMANS who are real people with much to offer. Not just sexually, but holistically.

Our survival depends on one another. Our community has been stripped almost bare by AIDS. Many of our most talented have fallen. “When my brother fell I picked up his weapons.” We cannot afford to throw anything away in this struggle for life and liberation in which we find ourselves engaged. When I see talent ignored and men of great experience, skill, education, passion and ability relegated to the role of back ground singer, peanut gallery participant, or fan club president for the “pretty” I am disgusted. We do not have the resources to require our leaders to have the six pack of LL Cool Jay, the masculine appeal of Tupac Shakur, and the face of Nelly. It may very well be the brother with the six-pack of Cedric the entertainer, the masculine appeal of Patty Labelle, and the face of Ru-Paul who lead us forward the choice that we have is very simply to, “Live free, or die.”

HERU: You might want to define the phrase sexual apartheid using Kevin's previous comments as a reference. Having said that I will say that I think it is important for me as a social justice worker to challenge any form of apartheid. Therefore, sexual apartheid is one of the forms of apartheid or (internalized) oppression that I feel called to examine, discuss, critique, and work to dismantle. I work for social justice and against oppression (internalized and imposed) so that I can experience freedom and so that I can have better relationships with the people I love. For me, oppression in any form prevents any of us and all of us from fully being who we are, fully loving, fully engaging with each other. So I believe that there is a way of being, a way of living, a way of loving that I have not yet experienced with anyone because those ways exist on the other side of the wall of oppression. I want to get to that other side. I want to get to that place where I live and love in the absence of oppression (internalized and imposed). I can't even begin to imagine what the sex is like on that other side but I want to feel it.

CHARLES: I think we need to have a serious community-wide “come to Jesus” meeting about the messages we receive from the hetero world, and how they play out in our world. Many of us feel alienated, isolated, alone. Many of us are suffering. I talk to brothas constantly that have these feelings. They are suffering. They think because they don’t fit into this mold, they will be single forever, or unworthy. We can’t blame everything on the big straight boogy man, especially when we perpetuate the messages that wound us. If we are serious about community building the overriding message shouldn’t be no fats and no fems, but to invoke the thrilling words of Joseph Beam “we are worth wanting each other.”

>3. Why do you think the blog revolt ended up being so huge?

KEVIN: Many of us have been touched by this phenomenon. There are those of us who have been marginalized by this situation and there are those who have been privileged by it. Wherever we are in this conversation we all have a huge stake in how it turns out.

What I witnessed during our Blog conversation was a group of men who had much invested in lifting the secrecy away of from this phenomenon and unveiling the human faces of those who are hurt by “no fats, no fems,” and those who had everything invested in maintaining the secrecy. Just like white people often react with rationalization and justification to avoid acknowledging there privilege, I believe that many of the brothers who participated in the conversation that we had were acting to defend there privilege.

I am also very aware of an attempt to intellectualize and academize the conversation, to this end. The rhetoric of those who challenged the idea of sexual-desire privilege and marginalization amounted, in the end, to circumlocution and circumnavigation. To put it plainly they talked in circles around the issue of privilege which made the conversation that much more laborious.

HERU: What blog revolt? LOL. Revolt implies that there was a state within which several of us challenged the status quo, the established order. I don't think that was the case. There is no governing order in the blogsphere. I don't believe in a blogsphere hegemony either. I believe that many more people read my blog and the blogs I enjoy than I realize or know. I also believe that there are some blogs out there that are a waste of the skin cells that get discarded when the authors of those blogs using their fingers to type out the content on them. The fact that many more people read and respond to those blogs than I feel the quality of their content warrants is just one of those things in life that I have had to just accept as a not surprising but a bit disappointing...like the re-election of George W. Bush to the US presidency in 2004. I'm also not sure how "huge" it was. How many languages was it translated into? Does the US Library of Congress have a copy? In how many works has it been cited? Hopefully it was huger (more huge...I don't know which is the appropriate term) than the egos involved. I can speak to why I think it got heated. It got heated because one individual wanted to enter the discussion with very little to say of substance or originality and very much to offer in terms of ego, arrogance, and effect. It, however, would not have been so bad if I had not treated that person with disrespect and dismissal, however well deserved. Prior to the entrance of that individual, I felt the participating group was really getting into something in the face of our differences in the discussion. I think we still salvaged some parts of an important discussion despite the intrusion.

CHARLES: Because it was time. Painful but necessary lines were drawn.

4. Do you have any final thoughts about your experience being a part of it? What did you learn? How do you think the discussion landed with other folk listening in?

KEVIN: What I learned is something I’ve known for a long time: Academics are often separated from there common sense by there obsession with rhetoric and data.

HERU: I was really disgusted by the back alley commentary made by people who knew one or more of the parties yet decided to not comment publicly. I got wind of the existence of some of these DL-commentators and considered their silence to be intellectual and social weakness. To me it's one thing for someone to decided they are not going to participate in the discussion by not commenting OR reading the discussion. It's another thing altogether for someone to read and discuss the content of the discussion and not make their intellectual and social contribution or give-back by posting their own opinions. In my opinion, blogs represent social sometimes intellectual communities and in these communities we should be engaged
in mutuality, sharing ideas not just taking.

CHARLES: Perhaps revolt wasn’t the right word. I will say that I was disappointed that some of the brothas listening in were so utterly antagonistic. Or so willing to trivialize it all. It’s stunning when your alleged comrade’s come at you with scorn. But disagreement can be constructive, I’m not sure if it was this time. Leaving the experience though, I am hopeful. There are brothas that have started to question this whole gay clone machine, praise Jesus.

5. How have you found yourself challenging masculinism and body fascism in your own sexual journey?

KEVIN: This is a big one. While I am fat and fem myself much of my sexual life has been spent replicating my own marginalization, within my own desires and desire politics. It was my acquaintance with Transgender, Genderqueer, and Gender fuck culture that first brought me into contact with “pansexuality.” Pansexuality is the belief that sexual desire need not rely on gender. In other words a penis on a woman does not make her any less of a woman and a vagina on a man does not make him any less a man. Pansexuality is a sexual expression that embraces all genders as desirous. I am not claiming to be pansexual. I’m mentioning this because it is in the pansexual workshops, and at the transgender conferences that I came into contact with thinkers, activist, and sex partners that challenged me to interrogate my desire. To ask myself the critical questions of where my desire comes from. When I began to understand that my desire comes from somewhere that I couldn’t have just arbitrarily decided that “bad boys” are sexy when 90% of women and gay men share my desire I also began to realize that Some one has been telling us all this time how to shape our desires, what desires are acceptable and who we should seek to be desired by.

My liberation walk began with seeing myself as sexy. It went from there to acknowledging the sexiness in everyone that I meet. What I’ve learned is that I can be attracted to many kinds of people and many kinds of bodies. What I’ve learned is that big men can fulfill my fantasies just as much as muscle queens. I learned that some of the best sex I’ve had has been with people that my instinctive desire would never have allowed me to consider. What I’ve learned is that fem boys make some of the best tops. That old men are some of the most energetic lovers, and that two fat people can do something together other than “make grease.”

What I’ve begun to consider, at your urging Charles, is whether I can experience pleasure in the absence of any desire. Ultimately the answer is yes. I am continuing to grow more mature as a sexual being.

Why is any of this important? Because I believe that our desires are connected to our oppression. The someone that has been telling us how to be sexually attracted is the same someone who has been telling us how to regard women, black people, queers. I’ve learned that the collective desire that we experience is the result of a media that has endeavored for a long time to tell stories about black people, women, other people of color, and poor people that are simply not true. The way that this collective desire manifests itself correlates with the stories that we have been told by the media and larger society. The men we are attracted to look a certain way talk a certain way dress a certain way etc. What’s more important though is that the men who we are sexually repulsed by look a certain way, act a certain way, dress a certain way etc. And all of us are repulsed by the same people. The Black men that are valuable are those who can lift 100 pounds, how far does this divert from the philosophies of our masters? The gay men who are valuable are those who act straight. When I look up and find myself in agreement with my master, as an oppressed person, this is my cue to change.

HERU: Masculinism? Is that a word? I just live. I am conscious in my practice of various Africanisms so I do certain things that my challenge masculinism without being deliberate in that challenge. For example, I wear sarongs and lapas at home and in Afrocentric community. I feel more comfortable wearing them than wearing pants. Some might see this as a challenge to masculinism because men in this society are not conditioned to wear sarongs or lapas. In terms of body fascism, I don't think I do much to challenge it. Though I have a belly/gut I have dated men and women who liked my belly/gut. I don't hang out in spaces in which my belly/gut would be problematic for others or challenging to their aesthetic. Nor do I wear by Black Panther regalia in redneck communities or tongue kiss men at Fruit of Islam meetings.

CHARLES: Hmmmmm…..I have found not hating myself or my body and eroticizing a range of other bodies as being the best I can do….for now. And finally, questioning everything.

6. I know you both, Kevin and Heru, have challenged mainstream HIV prevention and been critical of groups and forces that have been critical of barebacking. Could you clarify your thoughts about barebacking and gay men....why we do it, why it's such a hot button issue now, and what does sexual health work look like for these communities?

KEVIN: Sex without condoms is hotter. For decades we have been telling this lie, that we can have sex with condoms that is just as hot as sex without condoms. We have been telling this lie, as HIV prevention people, that sex without fluids, sterile sex can be just as fulfilling as sweaty, greasy, slimy, cum bucket sex. It’s a lie!

What we know for sure however is that sex with condoms significantly reduces one’s risk for acquiring or transmitting the HIV virus. We all know this. Black gay men have heard, more than anybody, the messages that have been yelled at us for the last two decades. But what is also true is that many Black gay men do not want to use condoms. Even in light of these scientific truths there are brothers, and others, out there that would take the risk for a chance to fuck. What we are missing is that this is not new. What is new is that Black gay men are revolting against the stigma that The HIV Prevention Industrial Complex has erected around condomless sex. A peek at the prevalence of HIV and AIDS among Black gay men should tell us that the desire to bareback is not new in our communities. As an HIV Prevention community we have failed. We’ve failed because we failed to seek input from the communities that we served. When we heard that brothers were having sex without condoms we shamed them. We created a climate in which those most at risk for HIV infection would never talk openly too those who are best placed to help them remain negative. We have created a climate in which black gay men lie about there sexual behavior to those who could help them plan there sex lives in a way that created the highest level of safety that the actions they are wiling to take can create. So what “barebackers” know from HIV prevention pros is that “they’re crazy,” or “have a death wish,” and not that using lots of lube can reduce your risk, that pulling out does reduce your risk, that just sucking it with no condom is safer than getting fucked with no condom, that most HIV positive men, when asked, will answer honestly about there HIV status, that 70% of new infections are attributed to HIV positive individuals that don’t know they are HIV positive, that getting tested and treated for other STDs significantly reduces your risk of becoming infected when exposed to HIV. So many of them are dead because we told them what we thought of them and not what we know of their risk factors. So many of them are dead because so few HIV prevention workers have educated themselves about the biological realities surrounding HIV transmission.

There are men out there with perfectly alright self esteems, who know how HIV is transmitted and who have made a quite conscious decision to have sex without condoms. As someone who has been involved in HIV prevention for as long as I have been I know that it is not my job to judge but to help these brothers reduce there risk, within there own parameters.

I was disappointed by the actions of those who marched with picket signs outside of the sex party for no other reason than that I thought it was short sighted, thoughtless, reactionary and silly. A much better strategy would have been to embrace the brother who throws the parties and create opportunities to educate the brothers who attend the parties. But what those organizations that picketed that party let the brothers on the inside know is that those organizations are not places where there CHOICE will be honored or where they will find support for preventing the acquisition of HIV.

HERU: Whoa. I devoted two years of intense study and research to answer these questions. The knowledge I have gained will the subject of several journal articles and a book or two that should be coming out in the next couple of years so stay tuned and I'll give you the bibliographic information on them.

CHARLES: My own thoughts about barebacking have been informed by the community organizer/scholar Eric Rofes and echoed by the blogger geekslut and the novelist/essayist Edmond White. For me the question we should ask ourselves is how can we promote and support sexual pluralism in our communities, but at the same time encourage support and care for each other. That is to say maybe there are models of barebacking we can create that are rooted in trust, in communication, and in mutual respect and care for each other. I completely get how anonymous “don’t ask, don’t tell” barebacking can be appealing, though maybe we can find ways to expand the possibilities where we can be our brothas lovers/tricks/fuck buddies and keepers. Also, I think we are a diverse community that attaches diverse meanings to our sexual practices. We have to find ways to meet those communities where they are, encourage self-care and not shaming their particular brand of pleasur.

>7. Why do you think it's difficult for man folk in our communities to think critically about how we construct our desires, and the meaning we attach to what we desire. More so I have found that when we challenge each other, there is a lot of
anger and resentment that builds. What has your experience been in such situations?

KEVIN: I agree. Challenges to desire are met with anger. I think this is probably because it takes a lot of work to even interrogate our desires, let alone expand them.

I also think that homophobia has made sure that our desires are challenged from the day that they come into being. Most gay men have worked very hard to get to the point where we can accept our desires, and find affirming for our desires. For most of us that are "Out" there is an activist spirit attached to expressing our desires. So, it’s not always easy to distinguish between a condemnation of our desires and a call to explore how our desires are varnished with the residue of the very oppression against which we shape our desires.

HERU: I think that most people are not critical thinkers. In fact, I believe that too many people are fool ass ignorant. So anytime that you apply pressure to their cognitive systems and processes they are gonna get a bit anxious if not downright pissed. The educational system in this country has really fucked up people's heads. It's a damn shame how many dumb ass motherfuckers are running around here thinking that they can think or know what that means.

CHARLES: I think to challenge the more dominant notions of desirability is still extremely radical for gay men. Because so many of us are wounded by masculinity, and try to work through that by identifying with it and desiring it, to challenge that desire is to pour salt in the wound. Rather than question the source of the pain and go internal, they would rather go externally. Further, anytime you challenge a myth that someone holds dearly, it’s like pulling the rug from up under them. Their concept of reality gets shaken, and to stabilize they have to cling to the myth. It’s kind of like when you tell poor people there is no American dream.

>8. Final thoughts.

HERU: No final thoughts because my thoughts are not finalized. I'm still learning, growing, and developing.

CHARLES: As queer men I believe that it’s all right and even expected that we eroticize big dicks, big muscles, and masculinity. At the same time I think it would be very beneficial if we widened our scope of what’s desirable. Finally, I would encourage all of us to rethink what we are told what’s desirable, and how we measure our own value with regard to those messages.

Market Street

2006-11-08T22:15:00.000-08:00

Beneath big buildings
full of commerce
and the manufacturing of realities
street sweepers cast the bristles of their brushes into
broad unending ciphers
that dig deep into black asphalt
throwing trash
into the green certified vacuum powered
mouth of the machine.

abandoned coca cola bottle
swept away
fallen leaves, a knapping pauper, a child’s lost mitten,
a prostitute-or-poet-or-mother
a scrap of unidentifiable paper,
a vagrant, M & Ms,
that boy I cruised moments ago,
spent cigarette butts,
and other discarded and sundry annoyances
cleaned-up

beneath the stars and stripes
fluttering in the wind
atop the big commerce making buildings
that preside over United Nations Plaza
where Universal Human rights were declared
right outside of Carl’s Junior

a street sweeper casts omnipotent bristles
into the asphalt
to remove brilliantly black, brown, urban, hip-hop,
trash
that the commerce makers
from the tall, important, reality constructing buildings
are too big
to be bothered
to step over
on there way to BART

Gay For Pay: In The Bay

2006-11-06T22:12:00.000-08:00

I've recently relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm working in San Francisco and living in Oakland California. Initially I did not think that this would be the culture shock that it has been, considering that I grew up in California's San Francisco Bay Area and went to Junior High school and High school in Oakland. But boy was I wrong!

After living for 12 years in the "deep south," I've developed a way of being that is not necessarily compatible with the bay area. Particularly my way of being around justice issues and issues of social equality are incompatible. In the south, one can trust that white people who talk about Social Justice are a little more than rhetoric. Racist white people certainly do not come in liberal packages in the south.

Race issues in the Bay Area are completely FUCKED UP! The trick seems to be that if liberal white people can make you believe that they do not have race and class benefits then they can keep their feminist, anti racist, anti classist identity, from college, and do not have to give up their race and class benefits. It's all a bit too much like having one's cake and eating it too.

Every white person that I've met here considers themselves anti-racist. Columbus Day is instead, "Indigenous Peoples Day," black people are instead "African American." Everyone is for the abolishment of prisons and the eradication of homelessness, and everyone is pro-Palestine. Public schools in the bay area are named after such American heroes as Cesar Chavez, Malcolm Ex, and June Jordan. Every home has copies of the Bluest Eyes, or By The Light of My Father's Smile proudly displayed in there libraries. Every organizing initiative tries to include representatives of people of color communities. The Mexican celebrations of Day of The Dead and Cinco De Mayo, along with Junteenth and Kwanza are on the calendars of every liberal home, white, black, Asian, and Latino/a alike. I should say White, African American, API and Latino alike. Everyone rides bikes, shops at thrift stores and co-ops, grows there own food and smokes "home-grown" weed.

This is the liberal capital of the world!

San Francisco and its bay area is "The Myth of The Level Playing Field." This myth is powered by the bike riding, food growing, pot smoking, room mating, kwanza celebrating, liberal white queers who have post graduate degrees, make over $100,000 in a year and live in bungalows on the co-op land. Everyone is fake working class. Those that don't make over $100,000 in a year can afford to make less. For example, all of the nonprofit jobs pay below $40,000 which here in California is considered low income. While shopping for jobs I've begun to wonder "How do these people survive?" Then I go back to the nonprofit lessons given to me by my friend Shira, a Progressive Jewish Clergy Woman. Shira says that "movement" nonprofits are all about white guilt. See the rich whites play this game where some of them work in the nonprofit and get their rich white friends to donate to the nonprofits and everyone gets to fix there guilt. The low pay is part of that guilt fixing mechanism.

This is something that folks who use their jobs as there primary source of income and in my case ONLY source of income don't really understand. How can someone live off of $40,000 a year in the bay area? Is it because of the roommate culture? Is it because of the wonderful public transportation and bike lanes? No. The real answer is that one cannot afford to live off of $40,000 in the bay area. Those that seemingly afford to live on this kind of income have other income sources like parents, trust funds, and investments that allow them to work for the pennies, identify (because of there "income from work") as "Working Class," and get to be absolved of guilt by penance.

What is annoying about this whole set up is that while everyone is an anti-racist and feminist change agent, poverty is just as devastating here as it is anywhere else. With all of the wealth in this area, and for all of the progressive politics of the bay area it is troubling that more money does not make it into the hands of the poor and those that serve the poor. But rich whites don't have to help the poor here because they are working in nonprofits for $20,000 a year and are poor themselves. Right? While walking down the street with a group comprised of former welfare reform worker, homeless advocate, and a few other social justice types a woman approached us with such a look of anguish on her face I thought that she might pass out on the spot. She asked for help. Not for change but for help. I was hurried into the room by the Welfare reform worker, the Homelessness rights attorney, the troubled-youth advocate, and the Human rights trainer, the door was slammed behind us. We stepped over the woman.

This is how I see the bay area. People full of rhetoric about fairness, equality, and justice, who are immensely politically correct and who work in the "movement" all while stepping over and forgetting the poor.

More on Sexual Desire

2006-10-28T15:26:00.000-07:00

I think it was Frued who suggested that the object of our sexual desire is actually what we want to desire us. That our sexual desire is more about the desire to be desired than it is about actual desire of bodies. So I am attracted to the people I am attracted to because they are the ones that I most want to be desired by and not the other way around. This bring to mind for me a question:

Is our collective-desire, as Black gay men, for convential and frankly stereotypical male bodies telling of a desire to be affirmed by the heteropatriarchy that has rejected us?

Ulester Douglas, a friend and a professional therapist in Atlanta, suggests that we are attracted to the places in our lives that hold the most pain. Another question:

Are the bodies that have most often carried rejection for us the bodies to which we are most attracted?

Is Black Gay male obsession with a patriarchal picture of "masculinity" and "man hood" about the fact that these are the entities from which we have experienced the most rejection and from which we carry the most pain?

Is our obsession with hip hop bodies and masculinities about our experience of rejection from the working class black men in our pasts?

What the hell is wrong with ITLA?

2006-08-27T00:30:00.000-07:00

Southern Voice recently published an article about allegations made by In The Life Atlanta (Black Gay Pride Organizing Group)that AIDS Services Organizations in Atlanta should "Be ashamed of themselves," for not giving large amounts of money to the Black Gay Pride celebration. The text of this article appears on the SOVO website.

Below is my response:

August 25, 2006

It’s extremely egocentric for ITLA and Greg Smith to suggest that because AIDS Service organizations (ASO) don’t support there thing that they’re doing nothing about HIV among Black gay men. National AIDS Education and Service for Minorities (NAESM) and AID Atlanta have spent millions of dollars and decades fighting AIDS in Black communities. AID Atlanta dedicates most of it’s, seemingly begrudged, 6 million dollars supporting the life needs of people living with AIDS. Medical care and housing are commodities AID Atlanta spends its money on. These organizations have employed scores of employees with the expressed intention of curbing HIV among Black Gay men. To suggest that because ASOs don’t give money to Black Gay Pride they’re not concerned about Black Gay men is ridiculous and offensive!

Black LGBT people will spend millions with companies that have never spent a dime supporting BGP. Where are ITLA’s allegations against the scores of corporations that have never supported BGP but reap the benefits again and again? If ITLA spent the same amount of time soliciting corporations as they spend trying to tax the scarce resources of other nonprofits they would easily raise there alleged $75,000 budget. Where are ITLA’s admonishments against the hotels and clubs that will pack themselves to capacity thanks to BGP? If ITLA used the same advocacy against the huge companies that rake in the dough and snub their sponsorship requests, as they use against ASOs they might be able to demand support from these companies with the same entitlement with which they demand support from struggling charitable organizations.

While ITLA seems happy with DHRs donation to them, in 2006 though they are the most affected by AIDS, DHR did not give a grant to a single group to support HIV prevention among Black Gay Men within the metro Atlanta area. Maybe some of ITLA’s media advocacy skills should be directed at breaking that story instead of trying to Gestapo NAESM and AID Atlanta into breaking there banks.

I am greatly offended by ITLAs attacks against organizations that have supported the actual lives of many Black Gay men who are living with HIV. ITLA has misdirected the frustration, that comes from scraping together scarce resources, at charity groups while they should be going after some of the huge companies that will once again reap benefits and not write a check to ITLA.

Sincerely Bothered,

Kevin E. Bynes

Divide and Conquer

2006-08-25T14:40:00.000-07:00

Aron Ranen's Black Hair Documentary Part One

I recieved this video in an email from a Yahoo group called 'Black Young Professional Public Health Network'and I was disturbed for obvious reasons. Below is my emailed response to the video. I think the enteprising of the Jews in Germany was a reason used to murder 6 million. What treatment of Koreans will be justified because many of them own Beauty Supply Stores? Please read below:

“The same dog that bit me bit you, we look like fools fighting each other, lets go get the dog.” –Elijah Muhammad-

I would be much more interested, particularly on this public health list, in hearing what proportion of health care services consumed by Black people are provided by black people. How has the health industry profited on Black peoples health disparities?

I would be much more interested in hearing, on this public health list, what proportion of housing consumed by black people is provide by black people. How have inner city housing owners profited by Black people lack of home ownership?

What proportion of primary, secondary and post secondary education consumed by black people is provided by black people? How has the education industry profited by Black folks lack of ownership of education institutions? Did you know that a good number of the HBCUs that we attend were founded by white men? Did you know that many of those HBCUs have white dominated Boards?

What proportion of food that we consume is produced by black people? How has the food industry and the grocery industry profited from the lack of black owned grocery stores. Is Koolaid and Churches Chicken owned by Koreans?

I realize that black people really want a reason to hate Koreans and I sympathize. But targeting Koreans because the have captured a large share of a particular market as “unfair” and some how against black people is silly. Attempting to paint Koreans as predators or oppressors is misguided. There is nothing more wrong with Koreans owning most of the hair shops than there is with Koreans owning most of the nail shops. Koreans cannot be placed at fault for the lack of Black entrepreneurship. I would have thought we would have learned our lessons during the Rodney King riots. Remember us destroying our communities to get back at Koreans while the areas where the police who had abused Rodney lived, were left unscathed? Koreans are not to blame years of social inequality that have driven black people into ghettos and that have driven Koreans into ghettos are to blame.

The question then remains: Are the above industries dominated by Koreans too? If they are not who do we blame? Mexicans? Japanese? Jews? What other people of color group should we target instead of targeting the systematic oppression of us all?

Craig Washington on Peter Jennings Out Of Control AIDS Special

2006-08-24T22:59:00.000-07:00

Below is a very honest and passionate critique of the recently run Special Edition of ABC News 'PrimeTime' with Terry Moran and Peter Jennings, Out Of Control: AIDS in Black America. This is an email sent in the dead of night by veteran Atlanta Social Justice and AIDS activist Craig Washington. Because I was very busy (watching South Park re-runs) I did not have time to watch the show that Keith Boykin prophetically predicted would be a dangerous return to the Gay Baiting DL conversations of last year. Enjoy your reading:

Way Out of Control

The highly publicized Peter Jennings ABC TV special on AIDS in Black America (aired August 24th) was quite aptly entitled "Out of Control". Because that is what it was. A fool. With the exception of some cogent remarks by Phill Wilson and David Malebranche, most of the commentary about Black gay/same gender loving men was obviously edited to depict us as the harbingers of disease for Black innocents-women and children. The focus on Black gay men being conflated into yet another down low diatribe--out of control. Peter Jennings shaming gay brothas about infecting their wives--portrayed as if they were helpless victims destroyed by their no count triflin sexually depraved husbands--out of control. One of the few dignified moments came when brother Michael Banner called Jennings out on his self righteous indictment. Oh and did you catch the sequenced dl baiting of sanctimonious Black women who blame the plague on men who have sex with men? Notice how their sweeping statements went unchecked, and way out of control. I gagged at the paternalistic nerve of the reporter who asked Jesse Jackson, whom the white media has apparently crowned as King of Black America, how this could have happened on "your watch." I guess they forgot to mention how President Ronald Reagan, the "great communicator" avoided mentioning AIDS for years while gays and people of color were ticking off like mayflies during his watch. White men like Jennings and his cohorts who have controlled the media for the span of the epidemic and are just now getting around to having a Primetime special about the subject, they exemplify the height of white supremacist arrogance--out of control and off the chain. Let us not forget Passa Megapimp TD Jakes excusing the silence, judgement, and misinformation promulgated by black pastors by claiming that AIDS was not in the Bible. Coon, thou art loosed--Jakes is a laughably tragic clown--a dangerous minstrel in the conservatives' court. Throughout the whole self congratulatory program, there was little acknowledgement of the symbiotic connections between homophobia, misogyny, class oppression and AIDS. No critique of prevention dollars for gay men being held hostage to puritanical ideologies. No examination of young Black gay and bisexual mens lives, those who are much more profoundly affected than Black women or any other population in the U.S. No queries about flat funding for Ryan White dollars in the face of increasing needs and shrinking resources. This mess was hella out of control. And so are we. Black People. Have we reached a new low in our willingness, our readiness to be bought off to tell lies or bossed to say nothing?I need a community of people who are capable of doing whatever, whenever as Essex Hemphill challenged. At this point, I do not think I have the luxury of particular preferences about the sexual orientation, race or ethnicity of those who are willing to make real the vision for our salvation.

Craig Washington
http://www.craigwerks.com
"Your crown has been bought and paid for. All you must do is put it on your head." James Baldwin

Michigan Women's Music Festival Controversy

2006-08-24T11:03:00.000-07:00

August 22, 2006

MICHIGAN WOMYN'S MUSIC FESTIVAL SETS THE RECORD "STRAIGHT"

Hart, Michigan - Seeking to correct misinformation widely distributed by "Camp Trans" organizers, Michigan Womyn's Music Festival founder and producer Lisa Vogel released the following clarification:
"Since 1976, the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival has been created by and for womyn-born womyn, that is, womyn who were born as and have lived their entire life experience as womyn. Despite claims to the contrary by Camp Trans organizers, the Festival remains a rare and precious space intended for womyn-born womyn."
The facts surrounding the interactions between WWTMC and Camp Trans organizers are as follows:
In the months preceding this year's Festival, held August 8 - 13, there was communication between a Camp Trans organizer named Lorraine and Lisa Vogel.
Letters from Lorraine continued during the Festival, when they were hand-delivered to the Festival's front gate from Camp Trans, which takes place on Forest Service Land across from Festival property. On Tuesday, August 8th, Camp Trans organizers inquired at the Box Office about Festival admission. They were told that the Festival is intended for womyn-born womyn, and that those who seek to purchase tickets are asked to respect that intention. Camp Trans organizers left without purchasing tickets. They returned the next day and were given the same information. Lorraine at that point chose to purchase a ticket.
On Wednesday, August 9th, Vogel sent a reply letter to Lorraine which stated in
part:
"I deeply desire healing in our communities, and I can see and feel that you want that too. I would love for you and the other organizers of Camp Trans to find the place in your hearts and politics to support and honor space for womyn who have had the experience of being born and living their life as womyn. I ask that you respect that womon born womon is a valid and honorable gender identity. I also ask that you respect that womyn born womyn deeply need our space -- as do all communities who create space to gather, whether that be womyn of color, trans womyn or trans men . . . I wish you well, I want healing, and I believe this is possible between our communities, but not at the expense of deeply needed space for womyn born womyn."
Page 2 of 3
Vogel's written request that Camp Trans organizers respect the Festival as womynborn- womyn space was consistent with information provided to Camp Trans organizers who approached the Festival Box Office. "Does this represent a change in the Festival's commitment to womyn-born womyn space? No." says Vogel. "If a transwoman purchased a ticket, it represents nothing more than that womon choosing to disrespect the stated intention of this Festival."
"As feminists, we call upon the transwomen's community to help us maintain womyn only space, including spaces created by and for womyn-born womyn.
As
sisters in struggle, we call upon the transwomen's community to meditate upon, recognize and respect the differences in our shared experiences and our group identities even as we stand shoulder to shoulder as women, and as members of the greater queer community. We once again ask the transwomen's community to recognize that the need for a separate womyn-born womyn space does not stand at odds with recognizing the larger and beautiful diversity of our shared community."
* * *
In an effort to build further understanding of the Festival's perspective, answers are provided to questions raised by the recent Camp Trans press release (which contains misinformation):
Why would the Festival sell a ticket to an individual who is not a womonborn womon if the Festival is intended as a space created by and for womyn-born womyn? From its inception the Festival has been home to womyn who could be considered gender outlaws, either because of their sexual orientation (lesbian, bisexual, polyamorous, etc.) or their gender presentation (butch, bearded, androgynous, femme - and everything in between). Many womyn producing and attending the Michigan Festival are gender variant womyn. Many of the younger womyn consider themselves differently gendered, many of the older womyn consider themselves butch womyn, and the dialogue is alive and well on the Land as our generational mix continues to inform our ongoing understanding about gender identity and the range of what it means to be female. Michigan provides one of the safest places on the planet for womyn who live and present themselves to the world in the broadest range of gender _expression. As Festival organizers, we refuse to question anyone's gender. We instead ask that womon-born womon be respected as a valid gender identity, and that the broad queer and gender-diverse communities respect our commitment to one week each year for womyn-born womyn to gather.
Did the Festival previously refuse to sell tickets to transwomen? The Festival has consistently communicated our intention about who the Festival is created by and for. In 1999, Camp Trans protesters caused extensive disruption of the Festival, in which a male from Camp Trans publicly displayed male genitals in a common shower area and widespread disrespect of women's space was voiced.
The following year, our 25th anniversary, we issued a statement that we would not sell tickets to those entering for the purpose of disrupting the Festival. While this is widely pointed to by Camp Trans supporters as a "policy," it was a situational Page 3 of 3 response to the heated circumstances of 1999, intended to reassure the womyn who have attended for years that the Festival remained - as it does today - intended for womyn who were born as and have lived their entire life experience as womyn, despite the disrespect and intentional disruption Camp Trans initiated.
Is the Festival transphobic? We strongly assert there is nothing transphobic with choosing to spend one week with womyn who were born as, and have lived their lives as, womyn. It is a powerful, uncommon experience that womyn enjoy during this one week of living in the company of other womyn-born womyn. There are many opportunities in the world to share space with the entire queer community, and other spaces that welcome all who define themselves as female.
Within the rich diversity now represented by the broader queer community, we believe there is room for all affinity groups to enjoy separate, self-determined, supportive space if they choose. Supporting womyn-born womyn space is no more inherently transphobic than supporting womyn of color space is racist.
We believe
that womyn-born womyn have a right to gather separately from the greater womyn's community. We refuse to be forced into false dichotomies that equate being pro-womyn-born womyn space with being anti-trans; indeed, many of the womyn essential to the Michigan Festival are leaders and supporters of transsolidarity work. The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival respects the transsexual community as integral members of the greater queer community. We call upon the transsexual community in turn to respect and support womyn-born womyn space and to recognize that a need for a separate womyn-born womyn space does not stand at odds with recognizing transwomen as part of the larger diversity of the womyn's community.
What is Camp Trans? Camp Trans was first created in 1994 as a protest to the Festival as womyn-born womyn space. Camp Trans re-emerged in 1999 and has been held across the road from the Festival every year since. A small gathering of people who camp and hold workshops and a few performances on Forest Service land across the road, Camp Trans attempts to educate womyn who are attending the Festival about their point of view regarding trans inclusion at the Festival. At times they have advocated for the Festival to welcome anyone who, for whatever period of time, defines themselves as female, regardless of the sex they were born into. At other times, Camp Trans activists have advocated opening the Festival to all sexes and genders.
What is the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival? It is the largest and longest running womyn's festival in the United States. Since the first Festival in 1976, tens of thousands of womyn from all corners of the world have made the pilgrimage to this square mile of land in Northern Michigan. The essence of the Festival is that it is one week a year that is by, for and about the glorious diversity of womyn-born womyn and we continue to stand by our labor of love to create this space. Our focus has not changed in the 31 years of our celebration and it remains fixed on the goal of providing a celebratory space for a shared womyn-born-womyn experience.

This statement was sent out by the organizers of camp trans and later debunked by the organizers of the Michigan Women's Music Festival

For over a decade the Michigan Women's Music Festival has descriminated against transgender women by barring them from the festival. This year that tradition of exclusion has ended!

Once again, I think there are lessons that Women's communities have to offer larger "Progressive" and "Radical" communities.

Read on:

HART, MICHIGAN - The Michigan Women's Music Festival began admitting openly trans (transgender/transsexual) women last week, bringing success to a longstanding struggle by trans activists both inside and outside the festival.

"Seeing trans women inside the festival for the first time brought me to tears," said Sue Ashman, who attends the festival every year. "It's restored my faith in women's communities."

Ashman said "I have friends who have already committed to bringing themselves and others for the first time next year."

Organizers of Camp Trans, the annual protest across the road from the festival, say that every year at least one trans woman at Camp Trans walks to the festival gate with a group of supporters, explains that she is trans, and tries to buy a ticket. In past years, the festival box office has produced a printed copy of the policy and refused.

"This time, the response was, 'cash or credit?'" said Jessica Snodgrass, a Camp Trans organizer and festival attendee who spent the week reaching out to supporters inside the fest. "They said the festival has no policy barring any woman from attending."

The woman purchased her ticket on Wednesday and joined supporters inside the festival. Another trans woman, Camp Trans organizer Emilia Lombardi, joined on Friday to facilitate a scheduled workshop discussion on the recently-retired policy.

"This kind of discussion has happened before inside the fest," said Lombardi. "But for the first time in years, trans women were part of the conversation. Over 50 women shared their thoughts about what the inclusion of trans women means for the Festival and how we can move forward."

"We didn't expect to change anyone's minds in the workshop - but in the end we didn't need to. The support we found was overwhelming."

Both trans women say they were moved by how friendly and supportive other festival attendees were.

"We spent all day inside the festival, talking with other women about how Michigan has grown to embrace the diversity of women's experience," Lombardi said. "The attitudes of festival goers have definitely shifted since the early 90's."

With their original mission accomplished, organizers say Camp Trans will continue to be a place for trans people and allies to build community, share ideas, and develop strategies for change. And they will keep working together with festival workers and attendees to make sure trans women who attend the fest next year have support and resources.

Camp Trans will partner with a group of supporters inside the fest next year to establish an anti-transphobia area within the festival. Representatives from Camp Trans and A group of festival workers and attendees, organizing under the name "The Yellow Armbands," plan to educate people on trans issues and provide support to trans and differently gendered women. Festival attendees have worn yellow armbands for the past three years as a symbol of pro-trans inclusion solidarity.

Both Camp Trans and supporters at the fest say they are excited to be working together to welcome trans women and support a trans-inclusive, women-only space.

"This is not about winning," said Snodgrass. "It's about making our communities whole again. The policy divided people against each other who could be fighting on the same side. We want to be part of the healing process."

Camp Trans (camp-trans.org) is an effort to end discrimination against trans women within women's communities. For 14 years, Camp Trans has been a site for trans people and allies to protest the policy, build community, and develop strategies for change.

BACKGROUND

The festival's policy against trans women was first enforced in 1991, when festival security ejected Nancy Burkholder from the grounds of the festival.

As the largest women-only festival of its kind, and as one of the few remaining women's events to openly discriminate against trans women, the
festival was well known for its policy, drawing criticism from trans activists and festival attendees. Two years ago, a group of attendees deployed a 25-foot banner opposing the policy during the headline act.

Pithy Points On "No Fats No Fems"

2006-08-23T23:23:00.000-07:00

I thought that Pithy Points, an Intersex person, presented a demension of the conversation that our discussion sorta missed. Please read on.

Beautifully, reading this blog makes it seem like the 1980s again when many, many deeply thoughtful gay and lesbian people of color roundly debated an ever more rich array of issues from complicated perspectives.

I have missed that energy--an energy that seemed to wane as so many of the people I knew and/or respected like Essex, Joe Beam, Jennifer Smith, Miss Pepper Labeija, Marcel Christian, or Mother Dorian Corey died of HIV and other causes. So too did the rising fetishization of theoretical jargon and concept-dropping among gay and lesbian scholars become a means to distance ourselves from issues in favor of ever more ornamental rhetorical displays.

Online communities have facilitated a new renaissance in discussions of African American sexualities. My regret is that sometimes these discussions often collaspe into worthy but also painfully personal jockeyings for position among ourselves. This kind of positioning for leadership-recognition is hardly new: G. Winston James was Essex Hemphill's critic and many still bristle that cults of influence developed around Essex and not other equally wise poets and essayists. Audre Lorde critiqued Alice Walker's concept of Womanism as disrespectful to Black Feminism as a concept and a practice. AIDS among gay men (and women too) and breast cancer among lesbians truly seemed to level the field though. The spectre of death made us work together with more solidarity in different ways.

After the early 1990s, with the rise of important and often wise but also very narcissistic and agressive-cum-passive aggressive leaders like Keith Boykin, I moved away from public discussions. Being attacked by black gay men is a terrible thing, let me tell you--a terrrible thing that is equally as horrible as being attacked by any other group for our ideas or our appearence.

Today, with a newer generation of young college-educated or education-pursuing black gay men in their twenties and thirties, there is, I feel, even more snarkiness, hostility and narcissicism. I found Frank Leon Roberts justifications for that narcissicism on the original June 6th 2006 post on Kevin's blogs very unconvincing and full of the kind of fetishizing of theory and ornamental rhetoric that is so prized in the queer theories that dominate many graduate students' education in sexuality today. However, after his initial response to Mr. Roberts, I found Dr. Heru's increasingly counter-productive rejoiners in reaction to Mr. Roberts to be unworthy of either of these men's erudition and a mistake of reason. Two or more wrongs never, ever make a right.

What has been lost in the increasingly narcissistic and overly personalized exchanges is a deep critique of the exclusionary erotic practices that have always (in my mind) infected gay male sex-worlds (to say nothing of lesbians).

As one of the few openly intersexed people of color who has been active in social justice concerns since the 1980s, the cast of my very genitals and body have stigmatized me erotically among gays. [Please see the following link for appropriate definitions and ideas related to intersexed conditions: http://www.isna.org/faq/. No one has stigmatized me more (laughed at me, called me inappropriate names, accused me of lying and tried to pull my pants down or physical harm me, tried to photograph me in bars while using the stalls, placed mean comments online about my body, admonished me for making money off of my intersexed conditions when I performed at NYC's Show Palace in the 1980s while also defaming me for supposedly not being honest as 'not a true gay man' or a 'true lesbian' or a true anything)--no one has stigmatized me more in sexualized situations and elsewhere than gay men.

I thought that being abused in foster care as a child (in part because of my conditions) would be the most trying pain of my life until I tried to chart my own erotic course among gays and lesbians (and men in particular).

Why are so many gay men and straight men so committed to erotic synecdoche: parts for wholes, and penis and superficial muscularity above all). [On the term synecdoche see the following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche.]

The hurt that I have felt (and sometimes still feel) is real. Having a "perfect" body is so prized among gay men (even when the body is, in reality, hardly perfect) that they seem to forget about the basic hurt of erotic exclusion and the horrible generalizations that arise when we exclude and demean people for being fem, fat, not buff, too black, too Asian, or, in my case, "deformed."

I think in the present discussions of body fascism we quickly moved away from Kevin Bynes' original call to interrogate the pitch and substance of our desire when we exclude others based on very, very superficial and shallow aspects of appearence (like body size, skin color, genital shape, etc) in public forums like personal ads and promotions for sex parties (this was a call that Kevin Bynes and then commenters like Dr. Heru made in the discussion section after Kevin Bynes' original 6/06 post.

Excluding "fats and fems" is a form of discrimination that hurts and diminishes us just as much as excluding (overtly or covertly) "coloreds" from water fountains OR, even more importantly, white gay bars. Audre Lorde was more than right when she said that there really are no hierarchies of oppression.

The problem, for me, is the lack of sensitivity and searching that often arises when the hunt for sex and the "rubber-necking" for beautiful bodies gets turned on. Black gay worlds socialize this problem in different ways than predominately white gay worlds but the basic lack of sensitivity and searching overlaps and persists.

All the depth of thinking that may be evident in a person's life at other times seems to fall away as the person gives into an exclusionary erotics.

Thank you for this belated opportunity to share my view.

"They're peddling death"

2006-08-16T21:10:00.000-07:00

"The promoter of the Raw Dukes sex party in Harlem in May banned safer sex, hoping to maximize his profits. A loud protest shut him down, but the underground industry of largely condom-free parties aimed at men of color is still thriving in New York City. AIDS educators have barely begun to fight back, while health advocates fear the trend could spread across the country."

The above quote is from a cover story from this months Advocate a Gay Men's Magazine. Please read the entire article by clicking on the above link.

McKinney Election Night Remarks

2006-08-10T13:19:00.000-07:00

"The news media didn't tell you about that because they wanted you to focus on my hair!"

In the film American Blackout, you saw that I say that my district needs jobs. And so, in partnership with faith-based organizations and labor, I put together a program to train my constituents to acquire the skills for jobs that won't be outsourced overseas, and that pay more than a living wage, with health and retirement benefits. Last month, we took in 500 students. Who at the end of their training will have transportable skills, internationally-recognized certification, and a chance to live the American dream, supporting their families and our community.

The news media didn't tell you about that because they wanted you to focus on my hair!

Tonight my mother was hurt by someone in this room, a member of the press. My staff assistant was hurt by someone in this room, a member of the press.

I first got into trouble when I was compelled in 1991, while serving in the Georgia Legislature, to speak against George Herbert Walker Bush's war against Iraq. And during a point of personal privilege, I declared that I could not support *any* of George Bush's reasons for war.

My colleagues got up and walked out on me, I was vilified in the press, and compared to Julian Bond, who too had spoken out against an unjust war.

Ladies and gentlemen, there comes a time when people of conscience are compelled to dissent.

Bobby Kennedy said, "The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country."

We love our country, and that is why we dissent: because we care.

We care about the dignity of all the world's people.

We care about minimum wage workers; we care about no wage workers;

we care about the homeless--too many of whom are veterans;

we want a healthy future for all our children;

we want our seniors to live in dignity.

Our country is too rich to tolerate such poverty in our midst.

We have more to give to our people and the world than DynCorp, Halliburton, and the Carlyle Group.

We care about the air and the earth and the water. And so we reject George Bush's science lessons that distort the facts and justify policies that support drilling for oil in Alaska; exacerbate global warming; and allow more human consumption of known toxins and pollutants.

We care about the projection of US power around the world. Either we can be a force for good in the world; or we can rely on force and upset the world.

Sadly, this Administration has chosen the latter.

At a time when this country has failed to train enough certified teachers to educate our children, George Bush is spending billions, nearly one trillion, dollars for war. And in a point of personal privilege right now I echo what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "A time comes when silence is betrayal; we are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls 'enemy.'"

One year to the day before Dr. King was murdered, he declared that the greatest purveyor of violence in the world was his own country.

With Israel's invasion of Lebanon, there might even be a call for more US or UN troops to be stationed in the Middle East, we--here tonight--say to our Commander-in-Chief: Sir, No Sir.

And so, before we engage in yet more war, I declare tonight that we stand with the families of our hurt soldiers and the hundreds of thousands of innocent hurt and dead Iraqis.

We stand with the homeless Vietnam and Gulf War veterans.

We stand with the Agent Orange victims and the 160,000 sick Gulf War veterans.

We stand with the 37,000 green card soldiers, not even citizens, but willing to trade their lives for a chance to live and work in America because our foreign policy has failed to uplift their hopes and aspirations in their own countries.

Dr. King told us that in order to stop the madness we would have to match actions with words. Mario Savio before that told us that we have to put our very bodies against the wheels and the gears and the levers of the machine and we have to say to those who own it, that they must stop it, or we will stop it.

Tonight I am joined by noted men and women activists who have put their bodies against the wheels and the gears and the levers of the machine and they are trying to stop it. They are not tricked by red herrings that the corporate media throw to us. They are focused on our objective to make America a better country.

Something is happening around the world: countries with little or nothing are standing up, rising up against the utter and complete domination.

Thank goodness for the people in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Venezuela, Malaysia, all standing up and speaking for the weak and the voiceless in their countries. A change is sweeping the world. And America must not be left out.

So my new friends are the mothers who have lost their sons in George Bush's war and we say to them hold fast to your faith--your suffering will not be a stumbling block for us. We will make this stand with you--you are not alone.

Denise Thomas, daughter went to Iraq once and when they tried to send her a second time, Mama got political. She's now the founder of the Georgia Chapter of Military Families Speak Out. First told her story at a prayer vigil organized by Ann Mauney. Prayed at by Reverend Timothy McDonald.

Then one mother who wasn't so lucky. She couldn't save her son from the War Machine. The first Georgia soldier to die in Iraq came from the 4th District. Patricia Roberts, Jamal Addison's mother, now politically active and my new friend.

Another mother, lost her son, Casey, and decided to take her case directly to President Bush. Cindy Sheehan.

There's something special about these women. Their names aren't Deborah, or Esther, or Ruth. But they are women for these times. Women, called to make peaceful revolution.

President Kennedy warned us that "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Electronic voting machines are a threat to our democracy!

So let the word go out: we aren't going to tolerate any more stolen elections; we're watching you. And we want our leaders back--or we will become the leaders.

And not only do we want our country back, we want our Party back.

There *is* a growing force for peace in this country. And the peace movement that we are building is backed by millions of young people. I want to thank the hundreds of people who volunteered in our campaign, especially the young people who were excited about getting involved in something good.

Thank you all for a lot of hard work, thank you for the thousands of volunteer hours, thank you for helping to make a stand in Georgia.

I wish the new representative for the 4th Congressional District well.

A snake in the bush is easy to fight. But one already in the house becomes a problem!

A Dark Day For Georgia: McKinney Voted Out

2006-08-08T21:42:00.000-07:00

Ever since I came to Congress in 1992, there are those who have been trying to silence my voice. I've been told to "sit down and shut up" over and over again. Well, I won't sit down and I won't shut up until the full and unvarnished truth is placed before the American people. –Cynthia Ann McKinney, (US Congressman 1993-2006)-

August 8, 2006- At 12:30 this evening, Cynthia McKinney conceded the race for the Georgia’s Fourth Congressional District Representative seat. According to reports McKinney received 41% of the vote while her opponent, Hank Johnson, received 59% of the vote in the Democratic Primary election.

Johnson ran a campaign condemning McKinney for being too controversial, claiming that McKinney, during her years of representing the Fourth Congressional District, stirred up controversy rather than advocating for her district. Johnson appealed to voters by calling into question McKinney’s effectiveness as a legislator claiming that she does not have the political clout to realize legislation.

Much like Denise Majette, who defeated McKinney in a 2003 primary, Johnson presented himself to voters as the more conservative Democratic candidate and has received thousands of dollars in campaign donations from Republicans who want McKinney out of there hair. He has also been vocal about his support for Israeli attacks on the Lebanese people stating “Israel has the right to defend itself.” An assertion that won Johnson thousands of campaign dollars from Conservative Jewish PACs. Johnson’s success is credited, by some, to whites in the district rushing to the polls. Johnson who is a 2 term Dekalb County Commissioner and a 12 year associate judge, defends his record as a “Life long Democrat.” ;)

McKinney has been criticized lately because of a claim by a Capitol Hill police officer that she attacked him. While a Capitol Hill police investigation allegedly found enough evidence to charge McKinney a Grand Jury did not. Although McKinney was exonerated she has never been truly vindicated and her opponent was able to capitalize on the controversy generated by the incident.

McKinney lost a race once before because of national controversy. In 2002 after controversy that flared when she informed the American people that George Bush and his administration had information that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks on the country, she came under unprecedented attacks by the media liberal and conservative alike and lost the Democratic primary to Denis Majette. In 2004 when the 9/11 report was published McKinney was once again not vindicated within the court of public opinion. McKinney was able to regain her congressional post in 2005.

Apparently the controversy that Mr. Johnson has been referring to is the back lash that McKinney often faces for telling the truth and standing up for her constituents and the American people. In our politically corrupt nation of Oil Industry mogul presidents and the highest gas prices in history I can see how some might be concerned about a person like that holding public office. A politician that represents the interest of her constituency might very well seem ineffective, controversial and even dangerous.

Hank Johnson must face a republican opponent Catherine Davis, who is not heavily favored, in the November elections.

American Black Out - The Movie

2006-08-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

Click Here for the Trailer.

Policing Desire = Race Card

2006-07-25T16:09:00.000-07:00

My recent critique of a post on LarryLyons II was met by a flurry of words meant to fatigue me; which they did. Lots and lots of words and answers posed as questions that I was not supposed to answer. Like:

“Is it impossible for John Stewart to critique white privilege if he benefits from it?” (can you hear the implicit answer that one is supposed to arrive at?)

Yes, certainly.

(But there is another question)

Is it possible for me to accept his critique as authentic when he is working (4 times a week in the gym, is it, Larry?) to keep his privilege in place?

No, AB-solutely not.(LOL)

Thus, exhausted I ended my participation in the blog discussion. Then the discussion continued on my blog.

Larry commented that drawing the connection between “No Fats No Fems” and Jim Crow laws was overly simplistic, strategically worthless, alienating, and dangerously close to “policing desire.”

I thought it was beautifully simple, striking, empathy inducing, and dangerously close to letting desire off the hook. It was an image coupled with four words that are popular within the cultural language of black gay men. And the intention of having a conversation on my blog about No Fats no fems was realized months later, thanks mostly to Larry’s abs.

Social Justice Lessons

I’ve learned through years as a Social Justice trainer, who made a cute penny at white college queer alliance conferences, that no matter how well intentioned people who come from privilege or people who have privilege are, they have every reason to protect by struggle and fight-to-death their privilege. Whether we are talking about Men, White people, people from class, heterosexuals or able bodied people, the above is true.

The second thing that I learned is that silence is the glue that keeps oppression in place (NCBI). If we don’t talk about it disenfranchised people who know of their oppression, will never truly know the full impact of that oppression or the differences between the lives they live and the lives that the people of privilege live. This means, to me, that in the struggle to defend privilege the people of privilege are wedded to silence. We do not discuss, in proper taste and proper places, race, class, disability, women’s rights, etc. We do not mention whiteness. We do not discuss body privilege or question that people who are conventionally attractive have privilege. Be clear that when I say privilege I mean benefits that are undeserved and unearned. We certainly do not discuss the disenfranchisement of Fat people, black people, feminine people, women, disabled people, and what those listed and those not listed, lose as a result of there being outside of convention, or being fringe. If we do discuss these things we are accused. We pay dearly. We are lashed by people of privilege.

The third thing I learned is: There is an inherit complicity with the abuse and subsequent suffering of the disenfranchised whenever one, consciously or unconsciously “accesses” (accepts the benefits of) privilege.

The fourth thing that I remember from my social justice work is this: As a way to deal with the guilt that inevitably arises from knowing about one’s own privilege and knowing about the impact of one’s own privilege on the lives of the disenfranchised, people of privilege do a couple of things:

1) Deny that the privilege exist all-together and reduce the voices of the disenfranchised to complaining (Race card). This method usually involves blaming the disinfranchised for their condition as well.

2) Attempt to associate themselves with the disenfranchised group which amounts to cooption of the disenfranchised identity. White wigger identified individuals and skinny big-gurl identified gay men fall into this category. Also those "allies" who's alliance is always rhetorical and never active.

3) Declare themselves disenfranchised and hold up the ways in which they are disenfranchised as a shield to being challenged about their complicity with the disenfranchisement of others. "I am not a receipient of white priviledge I'm a poor woman." or ???Intellectuals in sexualized positions are subversive???

Protecting Privilege

1) Others and I who critique the use of body privilege by one who identifies as feminist and queer, are accused of being in pain and reacting to “our own stuff.” This is not unlike the habit of white people accusing black people who acknowledge racism of having a “chip on the shoulder” or “playing the race card.” This is not unlike calling women who advocate for there rights as humans bitches. Disinfranchised people must not dare mention there disenfranchisement! When they do, it is because of their own anger and bitterness and not because of “what had happened.”

3)We are accused of policing desire? I believe that the term “policing desire” is equal to the term “race card” in this instance. It’s a term used to say "shame on you" when people who are on the outside challenge people on the inside of privilege.

2006-07-18T21:43:00.000-07:00

As much as he is
A Black boy

He is not the noble poor
the stunning beauty
the wizened-Street smart
under-educated-choco-brown-never done a push up in his life-corn fed-naturally lean-youth
that comes to mind
when you say
Black Boy

Black as Black can be

He lives on
Bankhead/Foothill/Fulsom/Stony Island
where no one notices him
for the right reasons

He lives just past the
fish on Friday fish store
where no one notices him
for the wrong reasons either

He’s a fag
a real one
the kind of fag
that you would never call
Black Boy

While he does not have any boot straps
by which to pull himself up
he is not in any particular need
of a boot strap

No he is not the victim of circumstance
nor the wayward needy child of
crack

His name is not dough boy
trey, or bigger for that matter

He does not elicit desire
or sympathy

He is
a black boy
just the same

Black Boy

2006-07-18T20:35:00.000-07:00

2006-07-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

If she were going to be so round
And want to fly
Her wings certainly should not be so
short.

Her color certainly
not so
Yellow.

If she were going to be so round
And want to fly
Her voice certainly
Should not be so
Raspy

But there she goes!
Too round!
Wings too short!
Way too yellow!
Voice so raspy!

Flying around
All yellow, raspy and round
On wings way to short
To fly!

Why does she carry on so?

No Fats! No Fems!

2006-06-05T00:03:00.000-07:00

Internet Perves and Our Civil Liberties: Thanks Alberto Gonzales!

2006-06-04T23:05:00.000-07:00

Like most people I have been captivated by the recent Dateline Series “To Catch a Predator.” Every week, or every time I’ve caught it on the boob tube I’ve sat mesmerized watching dozens of really stupid men parade into a house where they suspect a minor is inside waiting to be sexually abused. I, like much of America, to the delight of NBC and there sponsor companies, watched unmoving for the duration of the series
Being the conspiracy theorist that I am I figured that the Date Line specials and the other media focus on internet predators must be serving some purpose for the extreme right, fascist government of the United States. So like the good conspiracy theorist I am, I embarked on an internet probe in search of something that would confirm my suspicion. What I found is that recently the US department of justice with the support of the Federal Bureau of Investigations has made yet another encroachment against our civil right to privacy. According to USA Today, the above listed federal agencies have requested that internet companies like Google, America Online, Yahoo, and MSN begin retaining or preserving records of your click by click activity on the internet. Outrageous, right? I mean if a body is not safe to surf the internet for porn where is a body safe?

Well guess how your repressive government is justifying this encroachment. Our friend and fellow brown-boy (man of color) Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales is saying that the information will help law enforcement agencies to protect your children from online predators. Earlier in the year George Bush and Attorney Gonzales introduced a "plan" by the executive branch to protect children from the growing number of internet perves.
Today after speaking with a friend of mine, a Social Worker, I went to the Date Line website to again watch the available clips. Again, I was disgusted. Internet predators are a big problem and threat to the safety of children! Right? Well…

I had to do a little research. This is what I found:

68% of children who are molested are molested by someone that is related to them.

40% of children who are molested are molested by someone who is in the social network of the child’s family.

10% of children who are molested are molested by strangers.

* Many child molesters molest from multiple categories of children so the above represents a number greater than 100%. The above data are taken from The Stop Molestation Book.

So what’s the deal with Date Line and the Attorney General?

Wouldn’t a more sensible effort to protect children from sexual abuse be focused on making mixed families safer for the children within them? I mean if the number one purveyors of sexual abuse against children are members of their families and most likely a step/adopted parent would it make more sense to teach parents, teachers, social workers, school counselors, and other people who work with kids to recognize the signs of abuse? I mean does this internet thing really happen enough to spend so many resources toward interrupting it? Well according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about 1 in 5 kids who use the internet for chatting are approached for sex. What proportion of those children who are approached are actually exploited or molested is not given by the Federal Government Website.
While 3 children die everyday from child abuse (Prevent Child Abuse, 2006) in this country it seems that if the Attorney General were really trying to protect children he would be focused on child abuse in the broader sense as opposed to the apparently obsessive focus on middle aged men’s proclivities for teenaged girls. I mean I could have told you that a 35-50 year old straight man would rather have sex with a 16 year old girl than with a woman his own age. I didn’t need Dateline to tell me this either. All one has to do for confirmation of 30s to 50s something straight guys desire to exploit teen girls is to take a stroll down the isles of their neighborhood adult book store or watch late night television until the Girls Gone Wild Ads come on. So Date Line/Attorney General intent is lost on me.
It seems that our government and Date Line would tackle this as a holistic issue rather than attacking what is arguably the least concerning phenomenon when one considers the ways in which children are maltreated in this country. As someone who has had the distinction of dropping-out of some of the best Social Work schools in the country I am more than familiar with Child Abuse data. The fact is that the majority of children who are abused in this country are not molested. The majority of children who are abused in this country are neglected. The second largest group of abused children are beaten or otherwise physically abused. If only 10% of abused children are molested and only 10% of molested children are molested by strangers and only god knows what percent of those children molested by strangers are molested by strangers they meet on the internet this initiative promises to protect a very small fraction of the at risk children in our country. I’d love to support a more broad reaching initiative from our Attorney General.

Child Abuse Statistics Ranked:
1. Neglect (54%)
2. Physical Abuse (19%)
3. Other Forms of Maltreatment (14%)
4. Sexual Abuse (10%)
5. Emotional Abuse (3%)

* The above data are courtesy of Prevent Child Abuse America’s Advocacy Guide.

McKinney Shove Versus The Bush Leak

2006-04-08T10:35:00.000-07:00

I've decided that the particular political strategy of this administration is the "smoke screen." I think they discovered it with 9/11. You know, when everything that the country had been lambasting the president for was suddenly forgotten as the media focused on the disaster? Remember that half the country was calling his presidency stolen and calling for recount after recount? Then the disaster. Then, we haven't talked about a re-count since. A new strategy was developed.

Do anyone of us remember what was going on as a popular televangelist called for the assassination of a head of state? Have we forgotten that just as Cindy Sheehan had the presidents balls to the wall, as they say, Pastor Pious decides that he is going to call for the murder of Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela? Then, as quickly as it happened, we just stopped talking about it, shortly after we stopped talking about Cindy Sheehan.

The gay marriage debate is pure gold for the GOP. Whenever they need a smoke screen they just introduce legislation in a different state or get George Bush, to threaten a constitutional amendment that he does not have the power to realize. Here in Georgia we rallied around the gays in a frenzy of door to door canvassing and get-out-the-vote campaigning as some of the most regressive legislation in history slipped right under our noses into the laws of our state along with the anti-gay marriage amendment.

Now Cynthia McKinney is being used by the GOP. How many congressman/women have been through that security check point? How many have tried to by-pass it and been stopped? How many have "tussled" with an officer? We don't even know what "tussled" means. We hear the words Tussled and Struck and we create a scenario in our heads but really she could have attempted to remove his grip from her arm or she could have punched him in the face. What do "tussle" and "Struck" mean.

What's most interesting about the media coverage of Cynthia McKinney's "Tussle" with a capital police officer is that recently evidence has been emerging that the president of these united states and a top aide, Rumsfield, were responsible for leaking the identity of an undercover CIA officer for political revenge. Yesterday on the cover of the New York Times we saw that there is now EVIDENCE. But as this situation is brushed under the rug we will be talking instead about the conspiracy against McKinney and how the Republicans want to capture all of the redistricted seats in congress. Or about how they have to try to keep a strong hold of the house in the wake of anti republican backlash.

But I know that this is not about McKinney or congress at all. It's about re-focusing the media away from what they and the country should be focusing on right now.

You may ask: "What, exactly, should the country be focusing on?"

Answ: Evidence that George W. Bush is worthy of impeachment!

http://www.impeachteam.com

Bloggers Make Me Sick

2006-03-01T19:09:00.000-08:00

I've been thinkin a lot lately about this blog thing. I've figured out that I am not a "blogger." What I mean by this is not that I don't think I can be good at writing cute things for everyone to read. I can do that.

What I do mean is a little complicated and as usual with me there is a story to tell. Around about 1999 I was really well known for my writing of poetry which I would read at Speakfire and other open mics round about Atlanta. Then I stopped. In a moment of disgust I realized that I could not, while maintaining respect for myself and the medium (poetry) in general, continue to participate in the over-exposed, comercialized forum of "open mics." My biggest concern was aggravated when people started accusing me of being a "spoken word artist."

I hate spoken word. Why? Because I noticed that every black girl with seemingly no clue about the English language nor an iota of capacity as a writer or a poet had taken up pen and pad and started to call themselves "spoken word artist." I decided that the movie Love Jones was mostly to blame and wrote off the form completely. I have not looked back. I could not bare to hear another black girl talk about the flowing rivers of honey between her thighs! Even more I grew to anticipate with great trepidation the angry fuck-it-all, what-do-you-mean-I-need-therapy-?- "poetry. "Nor could I stomach the brother-man-bravado speak about the prowess of his penis delivered in the trite sing-song pseudo rhyme of Tigra and Bunny. Don't get me wrong, I like the cars that go boom too! But I would never sit idly while Tigra and Bunny defined what they do as poetry. I could abide less the insistence by the queues of college freshman, scorned men and women, and self proclaimed love doctors, that they too are poets.

Thus I have begun referring to "spoken word" as "chittlin circuit poetry." I, subsequently avoid open mics and other spoken word venues like the proverbial plague.

This brings me to Blogging. I discovered it a little late and decided that it would be a great low pressure way for me to deliver some of my ideas into cyberspace. I did not care who read my blog and thus blogged like I did not care. Anything that was on my mind became the topics of my blog post.

I found that I was doing it wrong. You see, what I have discovered is that there is a predetermined model of Blogging for Black gay men. The essential components are as follows:

-A super-model aspiring Black fag

-Glamour shots of myself to post on the face of my blog

-Glamour shots of myself to ad to every new post

-An adequate suply of "artistic nudes" of myself for every other post

-A huge predisposition toward self promotion

-A heavily celebrated but mediocre writing ability

-At least 60 black educated butch-queens who profess to want to mentor me that secretly actually are hoping to bed me once I have become to myself, like them, undesirable because of age and body image issues.

I and my blogging have been found lacking. I have thus ignored my blogg with the same disdain that I have ignored spoken word.

What I believe about both is that they have become the forms of people with underdeveloped social skills who are unable to act out their dating dance in realtime and the real world and thus result to the passive pandering of their own sexuality through spoken word and blogging.

What do you think? I'm interested in hearing from bloggers. Particularly those who have wallpapered their bloggs with glamour shots and "artistic nudes."

Al Sharpton leads a campaign, Farrakhan hugs Boikin and Kanye loves His Cousin

2005-08-18T21:30:00.000-07:00

"It's such a change
For us to live so independently
Freedom, you see, has got our hearts singing so joyfully
Just look about
You owe it to yourself to check it out
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?"

Click Here for FULL Brand New Day Lyrics

Are you queers serious?

I can see the scene playing in my head as I delete 13 forwards of the Kanye West story, 11 forwards of the Al Sharpton story and 7 or so emails emploring me to get involved with the planning for the Millions More March.

That ever illusive nod.

So, What:?

2005-08-18T14:55:00.000-07:00

Kanye West

"Are we really that hungry for that ever illusive heterosexual nod..."

46% - "The Sky Is Falling! The Sky Is Falling!"

2005-08-18T12:35:00.000-07:00

HIV Prevalence, Unrecognized Infection, and HIV Testing Among Men Who Have Sex with Men --- Five U.S. Cities, June 2004--April 2005

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5424a2.htm
http://www.geocities.com/mjloundy/

"So Goosey Poosey joined Cocky Locky, Henny Penny and Chicken Little, and they went along as fast as they could."

Remember the folk tale Chicken Little? Well I have been living a Chicken Little nightmare for the last 10 years or so. A lot of Black gay men have AIDS and HIV. So what else is new? Well, a study published in the most recent MMWR in which 46% of Black gay men in 5 cities were found to be HIV positive, that's what's new. Now, Chicken Little, Henny Penny, Cocky Locky and Goosey Poosey all have articles, open letters, social marketing campaigns, and subsequent research designed to address this new and emerging issue. How sweet. The only crazy thing is that this is not a new and emerging issue!!

As recently as 2004 an article published in MMWR suggested that a third of Black MSM at an Historically Black College somewhere in the Carolinas were HIV positive.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5332a1.htm

In 2002 we heard about young Black MSM in six cities who tested positive: Out of a total 920, 150 tested HIV positive! That's 16% and nearly all of them were unaware of their status.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5133a1.htm

Remember in 2000, in response to an MMWR article, Chicken Little (All Ya'll), Penny Henny yet in tow, was busy again running to tell the king that the sky was falling.

Again in 2000 we heard that racial and ethic minority men were accounting for an increased number of infections and that among these men African Americans were the most impacted.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4901a2.htm

For the last 10 years my Chicken Little nightmare has been the image of me working my a#% off to prevent the spread of HIV and every two years looking up to see the motley crew, Chicken Little, Henny Penny, Goosey Poosey, and Cocky Locky running to tell the king that the sky is falling!

Now once again we're running to tell the king.

"The sky is falling!" cried Chicken Little. "We must tell the king."

"I know a shortcut to the palace," said Foxy woxy sweetly. "Come and follow me."

"But wicked Foxy Woxy did not lead the others to the palace. He led them right up to the entrance of his foxhole. Once they were inside, Foxy Woxy was planning to gobble them up!"

The question that remains for me is: How many researchers, MMWR articles, and morbid study findings do we need to know that it's bad. How long will our HIV prevention efforts be reactionary and guided by hysteria? I've often wondered what kind of a living I could make as a researcher if I, once every two years sent out an email that said: "It's bad, and it's getting worse." I think I could save CDC and countless universities millions of research dollars. Dollars that could quite possibly go to fund the prevention efforts of the organizations that would be charged to react to my declarations.

I say all this to say: It's bad, and it's getting worse. We can't possibly be surprised when these data emerge to remind us. So why are we all running around with chicken little screaming "The sky is falling!"? The sky has been falling for a while! I say, "To hell with the king", cover your head!

"After that day, Chicken Little always carried an umbrella with her when she walked in the woods..."

Is it really all that...

2005-08-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

According to a report in the Washington Post, both Mayor Anthony Williams and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond have called for Wilson and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan to include gay men and lesbians in the planning of the Millions More Movement
http://www.washblade.com/2005/8-12/news/localnews/pastor.cfm

Is it really all that serious? Really? The million man march in 1996 (which I attended as a closet queen) excluded Black gay, bisexual and transgender men. The National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum actually asked to be included on the dais and was denied inclusion by the organizing committee lead by Farrakhan appointee Rev. Benjamin Chavez. Chavez has since converted to Islam and is known by the members of the Nation of Islam as Brother Minister Benjamin Muhammad.

Louis Farrakhan himself has a long history of crimes against Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender people. Chief among what I consider to be these crimes is the rhetoric that children growing up gay and lesbian in the Nation of Islam have to hear about themselves and the fear that these children experience everyday.

Now Black Gays want to be included in the organizing of this event and NAACP and other Negroid Bastions of Power have spoken to urge Louie and company to include the fags and dykes in their plans. Washington Blade and, of course, Southern Voice, which both seem to be run by individuals who love to point out the failure of mainsteam Blacks to get in line with all that mainstream gays do, runs articles exposing this sin. And everyone is up in a tissy about Black Gays being included in the planning of the Millions More march.

Is it really that serious? Are we, proud, Black, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people really that hungry for that ever elusive Black heterosexual nod (approval) that we would stand with this group after they have demonstrated that we are not wanted? When everyone involved in this group has a history of homophobia and perpetuating violence against us with their severe and hateful rhetoric, do we want in? After 20 to 30 years of Louis Farrakhan's evil rhetoric regarding Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Trans people is patting Keith Boykin on the head and tossing him a biscuit really enough for us to feel like we can march in October and be truly marching for US. Is throwing a doggy biscuit to one of the safest -Here I refer to Keith Boykin as safe regarding his class, gender presentation, masculinity, and politics- Black Gay men on the planet really what we Black LGBT folks needin order to rubber-stamp Farrakan's march?

I'm not convinced.

Why all the poems?

2005-08-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

So it occured to me: Damnit I'm a poet! Considering that there may be a couple of people who read my blog, and contemplating about if I died today or tommorow, I've decided that I don't want a freakin Return of the Sith blurb to be my legacy. In so far as I have a legacy, and in so far as I can impact or in the minutest way shape my legacy; My legacy will be: Poet. Not AIDS Prevention worker, not social worker,not fat queen who hangs out at the Starbucks on 7th street! POET!

So read my poems. These are just some of the nastier ones. Lots of penises in these. I hope that I can share the more revolutionary ones at some point. I have some short stories that I'll post as well.

Please enjoy and be well,

Kevin E. Bynes

Poem

2005-08-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

Whore’s Confession

I’ve stopped looking at men.
I take them inside of me
Allow them to love me
Without loving me
Ingest them
All while refusing to look at them
Or anything
other than their bodies

I refuse to look at them
Consider them for anything
Other than this moment
Or that we could rest,
In love together, from:
loneliness
wanting
searching

ynkuyaJune 25, 2003

Poem

2005-08-05T11:47:00.000-07:00

Revolution

If
Black men loving Black men
Is the revolutionary act
Then
Our fucking must be the revolution
And if
Our fucking is the revolution
I’d bet we could fuck our way to freedom baby

I bet we could
I bet if you lay down
On your back, your dick in the air
And take the fullness of my ass as I engulf
Your man-ness
I could ride you
Around the world until we
Undo globalization
Until we
We fucked George Bush out of the white house
And out of Iraq!

If you place your front teeth flush
With my nipple between them
If you bite until you taste blood
Smell pain and hear my scream
You could probably play my nipples until
We fucked away sexism, gender bias,
Silence, and
Death from no voice

I believe that Black men loving black men
Is the revolutionary act
So black men fucking black men is
The revolution
I am fucking my way to freedom

Fucking away
Racism
Homophobia
Sexism
Misogyny

If you threw my legs over my shoulders
Entered me, ever so gently
And softly messaged my prostate
While staring into my eyes
Listening to them sing sonnets
And all kinds of funky jazz
To the rhythm of us
I bet we could
Eradicate hunger

If I felt the fullness of you
If I, bathed in pleasure,
Screamed
Your name
I bet I could scream
Until the sanctions are lifted from Cuba

If I painted pleasure
On your sphincter with
My tongue
Lapped up salty hints
Of musty you onto my pallet
I bet if I licked your ass like that
I bet I could lick until
Hate left the world

This revolution
Is
Being loved

This revolution is
Being fucked without fear

This revolution is
Fucking without fear

This revolution is
Living openly
Loving openly
Fucking openlyI bet we could fuck our way to freedom baby.

Poem

2005-08-01T15:43:00.000-07:00

In light,
breath on my neck,
skin on my skin,
tongue in my ear,
my mouth,
my ass,
teeth on my nipples
my lips
my scrotum
chase trepidation away

here,
under the sun’s light
salty residues
of you
eradicate uncertainty

your fears,
like sweat and semen
dry away
leaving saline memories
detected only by taste buds and
olfactory glands

under the sun
Beatings
promised by hate, by love,
strangers, neighbors
brothers, fathers and mothers
are a fowl after tastes
swept away by the thrust of my hips
your hips
our thrusting into each other
into light

the threat of immunodeficiency,
excommunication, termination,
and being disowned are lost behind the
rhythm of our cries
the ecstasy of our coupling
the transformative
strength of our fucking
without fear.
Ynkuya 6/29/04

poem

2005-08-01T15:36:00.000-07:00

With nervous hands
Trepidation shapes
Sensations and moments
Like clay
Fired to perfection
Broken by uncertainty

Intimacy has become
His slave
Bending
To his will
No longer daring to venture into
The spaces and moments
She is native too

On the other side of this touch…

Underneath this caress…

Hidden inside of this feeling…

Micro demons lay, ready to
Insight riots in my blood

Every sacred stroke
Hallowed kiss
Blessed moan
Has been tainted by
What if?

What if…
What if…
What if…

latex has been compromised?
I am point zero two percent?
Abstinence should have been my choice?

What if…
What if…

This kiss gives way
To viral blemish?
Bacterial ooze is waiting
Behind this blow job?

What if…

I thrust my tongue deep
Into places deemed
Inappropriate without
The
Awkward
Guarding
Latex

Just for a chance to
Actually taste him
My tongue dancing to the symphony
of labored breath?

I ride his dick
Dry
Raw
And unsheathed
Finally
Fucked in trust?

I relish
The taste of his skin
The warmth of his semen
Rolling down my throat?

I snub the dangers
Promised by blood
And bite
Just too deep
Into his nipple?

If he bathes my insides…

With the cascading streams
Of holy fluid
Never to be spilled?

Ecstasy, intimacy,
And notions
Thought much to brave
In this age?

What if we fucked without fear?
What if we fucked fearlessly?
What if we could
Throw danger, out the window
With her sister trepidation
Dance in the face of promised
Mortality
Fucking without fear,
Fuck fearlessly?

Kevin E. Bynes
05/21/04

Poem

2005-08-01T15:32:00.000-07:00

The penis that offends
By it’s existence
Threatens because of its nature
Calls anger
Into eyes
Pelvises
Penises
Of

Marauders

Of
Angry phalluses that
Respond to desire
Seduction
Met by desire
With

Scorched flesh
Bound wrist
Broken skin
Punctured lips
Big sticks
big guns
Bigger than that niggers
Dick

Big black
Obscene
Violates
Threatens
To destroy
A claim to
Those who need
Protection from it’s
Potency
And crave it

Angry phalluses
Trapped in cloth
Beat against their prison
Beat against that nigger
Really just a penis

Rendered uselessBy power

K.Bynes
1/04

Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith

2005-05-23T20:44:00.000-07:00

I saw the movie, finally! I have to say that it was amazing. I've decided that to encourage other's to see the movie, so that I'm not the only black gay man out here who is a HUGE fan, I'm going to list my top five scenes.

#1- Padme of Naboo sits in the senate chamber listening to Senator to Chancellor to Emperor Palpatine delivering a speech about how he will further limit the power of the senate, in order to protect the republic, and expand his power (sound familiar?). The members of the senate are crazy with clapping and affirmation of his ideas (are you recalling any recent events?). So Padme, wife of Darth Vader and mother of Luke and Lia, turns to Senator Oragana (the adopted father of princess lia) and says "So, this is how democracy dies. With thunderous applause." This is by far my favorite scene in the movie. I love social commentary and Chancellor Palpatine seems unabashedly similar to GWB. Thus this scene conjured images of the patriot act in my head -"For our protection"- and I wished that I had thought of this eloquent shit when we were going through the patriot act being passed. Social commentary: I love this shit!

#2 & #3 - So I figure that since number two and number three are both concerning Master Yoda I'll just combine them. You know I love this character so so so much! I thank the powers that be in the universe every day for having the perspicacity to put Yoda in the head of George Lucas. Any way, I'm sure that my favorite scene from every Starwars Movie concerns Master Yoda. My favorite Master Yoda scene in Revenge Of The Sith is when the extermination of the Jedi has begun. Anakin has gone to the Jedi temple and killed scores of younglings while the armies of the former republic/budding empire are ambushing the Jedi all over the galaxy. Dozens of Jedi have been executed and Master Yoda, unlike the lesser Jedi who have gotten got, senses these deaths in the force. Remember all that "Great Disturbance " shit from the first three movies? Well, Yoda feels the disturbance in the force. Being the Jedi Master that he is, in touch with his feelings and the force, Yoda also feels it in the force when the soldiers of the empire come for him. There he is sitting looking out on the horizon and feeling the force, the two storm troopers approach from behind and Master Yoda's brow crinkles into the cutest/most dangerous little frown. Just as the storm troopers raise their guns to cut the Jedi master down, he draws his light saber and strikes them both dead in a single sweep. I love this guy! His little saber is so cute! But he is one of the baddest mutha *shut you mouth* in the galaxy.

The second piece of my Yoda worship is the scene when Yoda and Palpatine fight. This shit was so fucking HOT. I can't really do a play by play because it was so action packed. But when Yoda was dodging the senate seating pods (huge egg-like platforms with room for senators and entourage) all of a sudden Yoda throws a hand into the air, tensing his face into an expression worthy of the most laborious stool, pointing his hand at the pod that is hurtling through the air at him. The pod stops dead in it's path, begins spinning on an invisible axis and to Palpatine's surprise is sent flying in the opposite direction. Palpatine has to jump out of the way and falls really far in order to avoid being knocked off his rocker. These bitches battled for quite some time. See the movie for the out come.

#4 - Obi Wan: Now I'd like to say that my fourth favorite thing was about Obi Wan but it wasn't. He has to be the most unremarkable jedi ever. God I hate him! He had like three chances to stop Vader from ever being! Ass hole! He was on a planet whose name I can't remember. But this man was riding this fucking lizard. Oh my god it was so HOT. I want a lizard like that. Can you buy one? I wonder if financing is available on big green rideable lizards.

#5 - Anakin gets out of bed threatening to show off all his goodies. He's just woken up from a bad dream and he is covered in sweat and half naked. You know I don't usually get into white men this much but... Like a white queen once said to me "I wouldn't put him out of bed unless he wanted to fuck on the floor!"

The Debates! Kerry VS Bush

2004-10-13T22:06:00.001-07:00

What's interesting to me about George Bush is that he is a republican. Don't republicans believe most strongly that government should not have a role in people's personal lives? Well what's his deal with gay marriage? Now most who know me know that I believe that the whole issue is a fucked up smoke screen and that I am far from gay marriage advocate but I take any opportunity to point out GW's hypocrisy.

Bush says that he does not believe in “legislating his faith” however he's introduced legislation that would ad anti gay and anti gay marriage language to the constitution. Marriage is between a man and a woman and he supports a constitutional amendment to protect that belief. Hmmm. Marriage between a man and a woman is a particularly Judeo-Christian tenant. If this does not qualify as legislating one’s faith I can't imagine what would. Need I go into his position on Roe Vs Wade? His belief against abortion is firmly rooted in his Christian faith.

I've figured out that republicans believe in the form of government that suites them best at the time. If over involved invasive government supports their agenda, in the moment, then that is the kind of government they believe in. If smaller government that is less involved in people's personal lives (no universal health care) suits their agenda, in the moment, then that is the kind of government they believe in.

The double talk party!

Skinny Girl Shit

2004-10-13T22:06:00.000-07:00

The below is an excerpt from an email conversation that I had with a good friend and Aunty Malik. Malik forwarded me an email that was going around poking fun at Star Jones's husband. The email suggested that he was gay. After a couple of back an forths between Malik and I sent this very conversationally written email...

That other light skinned woman too. Toni Braxton, a queen. But she's skinny and "fine" and her man is not assumed "gay." Every time a big sistah has a man speculation about his intention are abound.

Oprah- Stedman is gay or in it for the money. No one can figure it out. Further no one has ever considered that she does not want to marry him. The accepted assumption is that Stedman won't marry Oprah. I will concede that sexism and beliefs about women/men and marriage probably contribute some to the assumptions. It's funny because in the 80s there was another high profile couple (Goldie Hawn and that man) that were together in a loving relationship for years and never married, no assumptions were made about his sexuality or intentions, they just wanted to be together and not get married.

Star- he's gay. I really think that we as LGBT people have to be the leaders in accepting gender transgressions. If every time a man tries to escape patriarchal expectations we as LGBT folks join in the attacks we will never get anywhere. He can be fem in appearance and not be gay. How many straight male queens do you know personally? I know at least one who puts on gender when needed to avoid scrutiny.

Monique- he's with her for the money and he's gay. He's fine!

Aretha- well, her man was gay

Kelly Price- can't wait till she goes public with a man. I wonder what people will say.

You never hear of women who are deemed beautiful by societal conventions having to defend the intentions or the sexuality of there husbands in public. There aren't many fat black women who are in the public eye however if you use percentages I would estimate that at least 50% of them have had to defend the sexuality and intentions of the men who have chosen to partner with them. Another 25% have not gone public about any romantic relationship at all.

I don't know if I've spoken with you about it before but I have experienced first hand the effect that shame can have on the willingness of men who are attracted to big bodies to love big bodies. I have rarely brought men that I was involved with into community and when I did appear with men that I was involved with I have never made the nature of our relationship known. In part probably because I've internalized some of this shame. But it has been all to easy for me to sale the idea that I have not been in a relationship to too many in our extended circle. None of the people who readily acknowledge my caring, intelligence, charisma, and endearing nature have ever stopped to say "wait a minute Kevin, your a bright, charismatic, endearing guy why haven't you been in a relationship?"

The reaction of BQs and hetero people to seeing me with men that I'm obviously involved sexually with are limited to 4 categories that I will explain in this email:

Dismissal-

I have had sexual relationships with some very beautiful men when appearing in public with these men other Bqs have assumed that we were not a couple and taken the liberty to approach the man that I appeared with or worse approach me and ask me to tell him that they think he is cute or ask me questions about his relationship status.

He don't know he can have better-

The most hurtful because it often comes from my friends is the "He don't know he can do better approach," I have also called this phenomenon "Skinny bitch angst." In this phenomena the skinny bitch, having received verification of the nature of the relationship of the "cute" guy and me will decide "if he goes for me he will surely go with her." I have had friends tell men in my presence that they were cute enough to get them or remind them that they probably don't want to be rolling around with a big bitch like me. Most of my close friends upon meeting men that I am sexually involved with have pulled this stunt at one time or another. That's why I hang with Lesbians! (Disclaimer: Charles and Robert have never tried this shit with my dates) What's worse is that I often get this from other big people!

and Open attacks and shaming-

I have been in clubs where the reaction to guys dancing with me have gone from surreptitious giggling to open taunts and hate attacks like "That's a lot to handle," or "Be careful not to let her sit on you," or "Well we know who's on top!" or "Baby he gone get lost in all that." This I think is the most effective of the methods.

Oh the other one, Disqualifying the attraction- "He must be paying him." "He's with her for the money." "A mercy fuck." "He's a crack head." I actually challenged my children Justin and Omar about this. I was constantly confronted by the perception that the guys they saw me with were somehow unsavory. Suggestions that guys I was with were crack heads or hustlers caused me to confront them openly at an Ynkuya family gathering. My other child Tai, who used to be fat immediately understood and advocated my point that every time Justin and Omar saw me with a man they expressed that he must either be a crack head or a hustler. I actually witnessed a lover's quarrel outside of Bulldogs once when a conventionally attractive brother yelled desperately at a fat brother who was near tears "fuck that, I'm with you! Can you get that through your head? I'm with you!" I was walking to fast to hear the rest of the conversation. I don't like to tarry to long in front of one of hell's portals. But I wondered if the problem was the fat partner getting it through his head or the hateful Butch queens in the club getting it through their heads.

I'm convinced that there are men who are attracted to big men and big women. Had I been more vigilant about my monitoring process I could actually quantify this for you. (LOL) However, few men are willing to engage in an openly sexual relationship with big bodied people. I liken the shaming to the shame that we have all experienced when we contemplated being seen in public with male lovers for the first time. Many men are scared to be connected to big men and I have been the personal recipient of skinny bitch anger when I have been with a guy that they felt entitled to be with.

Real situations:

While x and I were working out our sexual tension Omar and Justin, even though they knew that x was neither Crack head or Hustler (one out of two aint bad), constantly undermined our process. While x is an exhibitionist and was constantly affectionate with me in public all the skinny bitches fell into one of the above categories in responding to our often public affection.

While x and I were working out our sexual tension I often was confronted with anger from J and disbelief from most of my friends that our attraction was mutual. When x fabricated a story of what happened THAT NIGHT everyone who heard the story was more than ready to believe it because it was easier than believing that a cute and very small guy would be interested in a fat man like myself. Even though anyone who has paid attention knows that x's record suggest that he loves a thick red bitch. I actually began to question what happened until I talked to other people who where at that party who reinforced my memories.

While hooking up at Lorreta's with a very sexy guy, L approached the table that we were sitting at (member when Lorreta's had tables?) threw himself into the lap of the guy that was digging me and announced that he did not have to go home with me he could fuck her instead. You might say "Oh the bitch was drunk." She don't drink.

Another friend another night at Lorreta's angrily asked a boy, do you really want to be laid up with all o that? My wonderful date aptly replied "some people like all o that."

At another club while sitting at a bar with a guy that had expressed a desire for me and actually left another club to come with me to that club where my best friend was performing (ambrosia devour), I placed my hand on my dates knee and was surprised moments later when a hand moved on top of my hand from the bar stool on the other side of my date. It took me a minute to realize that it was my best friend's hand. She was drunk and high and later dismissed her behavior by highlighting her intoxication.

At any rate I've gone off on a tangent.

The final analysis:
No fats no fems is a strictly enforced societal norm that we contribute to by taking part in conversations that suggest Star's and other fat peoples partners are not with them because they are attracted to them.
and
If Star's man is gay she deserves to live out her relationship in oblivion with all the skinny bitches that have partnered with "Obviously gay men."

Cosby, Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is, or Keep Your Mouth Where Your Money Is.

2004-08-08T12:41:00.000-07:00

Bill Cosby claims that the “Lower economic class” of Black people is not carrying it’s weight. Sighting $100 dollar sneakers and expensive cars, as evidence that poor Black people are some how not doing their part, Bill Cosby sounds conspicuously like the Welfare Queen Witch Hunters of the mid 1980s. While his money has not made it into poor Black Communities over the years, Cosby’s judgmental, self-righteous commentary certainly has. Like George Bush’s, “No Child Left Behind Act,” Cosby’s concern for poor blacks is simple under funded rhetoric.
While Mr. Cosby is a noted philanthropist he is best known for his contributions to Historically Black Colleges and Universities and not for his Urban Development or Anti-poverty efforts.
It seems to me that if Cosby’s comments where generated by real and genuine concern for poor black people his money would follow suite and end up in the bank accounts of charities that have poor people as their interest rather than adding to the already huge endowments of historically black colleges and universities that cater to middle class and wealthy blacks.
Bill Cosby, however, has been noted for giving millions of dollars over the years to HBCUs. Dormitories, cafeterias, auditoriums, courtyards have popped up on college campuses all over the United states baring the Cosby name. The Cosby’s have given Millions of dollars to Morehouse College alone. One can only wonder if Mr. Cosby’s commentary makes it into the lives of Historically Black colleges and Universities with the same vigor as they make it into the lives of poor blacks?”
While educators, students, parents and health officials have engaged in discourse about the release of a 2003 study that suggest that Young Black men on HBCU campuses are disproportionately impacted by HIV and AIDS and are largely unaware of their HIV sero-positive status, Mr. Cosby has not joined the discourse. When huge organizations like NAACP and the National Urban League gave Cosby a platform for his opinions he opted to squander this resource away on jokes and disparaging remarks about poor people instead of addressing the multiplicity of problems at Black colleges.
Some may remember that while the nation buzzed in 2002 at the brutal beating of a young college student who was bludgeoned nearly to death while attending Morehouse College, a major recipient of Cosby dollars and the school of Cosby’s beloved departed son Enus, Cosby was silent. While organizations and leaders all over the country called upon Morehouse college to deal with the culture of homophobia and anti-gay violence on it’s campus Mr. Cosby one of their biggest contributors was unheard from. While Coretta King, Spike Lee, and other leaders and celebrities with connections to Morehouse cried out Cosby hushed.
While Mr. Cosby is more than willing to contribute dollars Black colleges he seems to turn a blind eye and a shut mouth to the issues that these institutions are plagued by. Conversely Mr. Cosby turns an empty hand at poor black communities but is more than willing to offer his critique of poor black families, parents and children. My hope is that Mr. Cosby will put some funding behind his rhetoric and support the development of the poor communities that he seems to be so concerned about, and that he shows some concern for what’s going on at the colleges that he give his money to so freely. In essence, my recommendation to Mr. Cosby is, Put your money where your mouth is, and keep your mouth where your money is. Then maybe one more member of the Upper Economic Class will be pulling his weight.

Cynthia Is Back!!!!!

2004-07-20T21:38:00.000-07:00

Yes folks with 52% of the vote district 4 Cynthia Mckiney is the Democrat selected to run for the US Congress representing the folks of Dekalb county. Cathy kiss an ass and take a break from public life. Hah!!! No seat anywhere municipal or federal! Hah!!!
Go Cynthia!!!!!!!

HRC Turn Tails

2004-07-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

So After years of Cynthia McKinney being a staunch ally to the LGBT community HRC turned tail. The idea that they have endorsed Cathy Woolard, who although she is gay does not have a good track record of hearing the gay community. It's no shade either. I lived for her as city council woman but when it comes down to her and Cynthia. Hmmm. To get a personal look at HRC's hipocracy take a look at there website Congressional Score-cards http://capwiz.com/hrc/dbq/vote_info/?command=results&sort=District&state=GA&submit.x=15&submit.y=10

If that was the case bitch I never would have hired yo ass!!!

2004-07-11T21:09:00.000-07:00

Have you ever met someone who no matter what happens in there life they accept no responsibility? I mean I have this person in my life that I gave a job to. She was my friend so I had to convince my supervisors that she was the best person for the job, which I honestly thought she was. Then guess what she did. She fucked it over, she pissed and shit on the job and did absolutely nothing with it. Being the cancerian that I am and considering myself a process queen I talked to her. And I talked and I talked and I talked. In the end I had in 7 months 3 write-ups. So she comes into work an hour and a half late and says she was getting her hair did and it took longer than she thought and then she had some things to do. So of course I should understand right? No! I fired the bitch. Now she's telling all our other friends that I some how imposed expectations upon her that I would not have imposed upon someone who was not my friend. My response: If that was the case bitch, I never would have hired your ass.

On Christians, Christ, Dogma and Rhetoric: Saved, the motion picture.

2004-07-10T21:29:00.000-07:00

So I went to see the movie saved today. I have decided that this movie is the perfect response to the Mel Gibson movie "The Passion of Christ." While the passion upset and worried me, because of it's violence, and it's anti-semitism the satiric comedy of Saved was a refreshing dose of counter Christianity. I think I use the word counter instead of anti because while I definitely think Saved challenges some of the rigid messages put out by mainstream Christianity it is not particularly against Christianity. Like me.

I think that some of the really extremist messages that mainstream Christian culture have been putting out recently have been really dangerous. Anti-Islamic and Arab sentiment, anti-gay sentiment, all or nothing Christ or Hell messages and imperial rhetoric including catch phrases like civilization, and evil are all phenomenon that are currently being driven by mainstream Christian values.

On True Christians

I think that so much of what passes for Christianity is completely unchristian and anti-Christ. The picture that I have gotten of Jesus, who Christians call there Christ,is not a picture of a man who was rigid in his idea about human worth, value and goodness. I cannot recall Jesus insisting that one under go specific religious ceremony in order to be considered for the "Kingdom of Heaven." Infact I seem to remember Jesus coming under fire by the Jewish aristocracy of his time for declaring circumcision an unnecessary - I seem to remember something about circumcision of the heart- ritual. The man that I, from my studies, know Jesus to have been would never approach humanity with the judgmental attitudes of mainstream Christianity. So much of what has been attributed to him has been done so wrongly. He was not a stickler for rules. Jesus was about humanity and goodness. I am far from Christian in my spiritual belief system. But because I respect the legacy of Jesus it angers me when Christian war-mongers attribute their killing and mayhem to the teachings of Jesus. When oppression of LGBT folks and women is given to Jesus as if it is his I am offended.
Thus, I was refreshed and invigorated by the movie saved. It allowed me to laugh at much of what I have tolerated from the extremely Christian. Poking fun at the way that Christianity excludes humans from being considered good if they do not get baptized or if they are of another spiritual path is so so so validating for me. I loved this movie. I think that it was such a good answer to gibson's violent, and gruesome portrayal of Christ.

The Passion Of Christ

Once again I found myself offended, as a non-Christian Christ fan, at the editing out of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, in favor of the gruesome details of his death. But it occurs to me that Christianity, in it's modern form is not about the example of Christ's life at all. Christians do not try to live according to the example that Jesus left. Most of them any way. My experience with most Christians is that instead of living by his life example they opt to use his death to coerce non-Christians and Christians alike into self imposed subjugation. This is the spirit that I believe this movie was made in.

Final Analysis

My final analysis of Christ, Christianity, Christian dogma and rhetoric is, I don't give a rats ass that Jesus died for me! What I do care about is that he lived for me. It is in this spirit that I live, as a non-Christian Christ fan striving to follow his example of good will, charity, neighborhood, bristahood, and peace. If Christians wood focus more on how he lived than how he died I believe that the Christian dominated world would be a much better place.

What to blog?

2004-07-09T11:35:00.000-07:00

Well the pressure is definately on. I have not been blogging much, at least compared to the blogging of my blogging comrades. I didn't know when I started this that I would be called upon to blog about something ever day. But now I see that they are blogging nightly after work and blogging mostly about work. It's funny how this little thing that I wanted to do has sorta turned into a little underground subculture at my place of employment. It started with me, no matter what anybody tells you, then Malik had a sort of blog revival and brought his previously existing blog out of the closet to be dusted off and set center stage again, then Charles blogged on, then Neena, who has probably been the most active blogger, then Shanta and now Shanta's current bow is in the mix. I've read everyone's blogs and am very impressed. But increasingly folks are coming to me and saying "Kevin when are you gonna post again on your blog." I never knew that this thing was going to be so high pressure but I guess the little blogging community that we've created is a good thing. Why? Becuase I am under pressure to write. Which is good becuase I never write anymore. I used to write everyday as sort of therapy, then I got a therapist. Shit! Now I don't write anymore. Until this THE BLOG!!
Now I'm writing at least weekly about whatever. Nothing fancy or ultra intellectual. I guess that's kind of the appeal of this thing. Being able to publish one's ideas with out having to make sure that those ideas are publication worthy before they are put out to the universe for perusal. It's sortof genius. It's so anti establishment it reeks with the odor of exquisite freedom!!!! I can write whatever I want, and it's published probably more widely than if I was to labor over the idea until it is ready to stick in some magazine that goes to the two book stores in the world that will actually carry magazines with Black Gay content.I simply go free flow and write what ever comes to mind. Vhalah!!!! It's posted! I think that this is the cutest thing. Could I ever say cutest if I was tryna publish through more conventional means? No. Could I piece together this stream of ideas the way that it comes into my head at the speed that it reaches my fingers? No. I love it. Event though it is high pressure.

HIV Test Results

2004-07-08T15:37:00.000-07:00

Giving Results To Another

Last week I delivered positive HIV results to two very young brothas. Both of the above young men were under 25, black and gay. As someone who's job it is to prevent the spread of HIV among young brothas and as some one who is more than aware of the serious lifestyle change that a positive HIV test result demands, I felt very inadequate in the moment. While my cancerian ,mothering and emotional caretaking nature usually kicks in when I am dealing with people from this particular group, I was unable to do this with these young men.

While I have counseled hundreds of people in HIV testing situations, and even teach staff and volunteers at AID Atlanta to provide HIV prevention counseling I have never delivered a positive test result until last week. While I have been taught, theoretically, to locate myself with the client while maintaining the appropriate emotional boundaries I was unable to go to a caring place and say the supportive, reassuring things that I knew that I should say. Something was present in the room with me, most probably inside of me, preventing me from doing from behaving in and attending manner. In that moment I, more than ever, identified with the term "Cat got your tongue." Every time I tried to be nurturing something stopped me and kept me professionally distant from these guys.

In actuality nothing I could say would change the reality that at 19 and 22 years old these brothaz now have to take on a level of responsibility for their lives and there health that most of us are not confronted with until old age. I did not feel that I had the right to try to comfort them about having to abandon the carefree, invulnerable spirit of their youth in favor of life.

I did not.

Giving Results To Myself

So today, while trying to forget the positive results that we had given more positive results in days than we usually give in months, I was asked to demonstrate the rapid test procedure to a co-worker. I did. At first I tried to demonstrate with drawings and descriptions and even a little how-to sheet provided by Orasure Technologies. It did not work. After a minute of fumbling with unopened materials and unused lancets and other medical materials I decided to demonstrate the test on myself.

I did this very routinely without thinking much about it. I've found that I am one of the few people that I know who can actually pierce my own skin to do this procedure. I did that. I then mixed my blood with the test solution and place the reader rod in the test solution. It was only after I had performed the test on myself that every bit of sexual activity that I have participated in in the last few month came hurtling against my consciousness causing beads of sweat to form on my brow. I had not seen a negative test result in weeks and now I was testing myself infront of two people with none of the required counseling. I felt anxious. I was scared to death of what my result was going to be.

My result was negative.

Analysis

It occurs to me that life, sexual life, for gay men is shrouded in an awful lot of fear. I have for a long time worried about becoming HIV positive even though I have avoided high risk behavior. I have not been penetrated without a condom in a number of years and in the last year I have not been penetrated at all. Well except that time in Dallas. So why am I scared of HIV infection? I think that the reason that I am afraid of becoming infected with is because ever since I understood that I was gay, and that the gay that I am is the same gay that the news casters where talking about when they spoke about AIDS, I have understood, also, that I am meant to get HIV. I have believed somewhere within me, as do many gay men, that HIV infection is somehow in my destiny. Unlearning this belief takes combating messages that I get through the media, through public health agencies and prevention programs and from family and church. In popular culture and common public discourse gay men are spoken of almost synonymously with AIDS and vise versa. When the conversations are being had about so called "Men on the DL," sex with men is conflated with a positive HIV sero status. How can one exist in this culture and not believe that gay men are by virtue of their sexuality HIV positive? I am still struggling to figure this out. I am still experiencing anxiety every time I get tested for HIV and every time I have sex.

2004-07-02T11:45:00.000-07:00

I love my job. Yesterday however was a very stressful day. I work to provide HIV prevention services to young black gay and bisexual men. Sometimes in the function of my job I am called upon to provide HIV prevention counseling for people who come in to get tested for HIV.

So yesterday, while I was going along in my day I had to deliver results to two young black gay men. Both of these young men who were under 25 were HIV positive. I was so upset and so unable to function in the moment. I for some reason was not able to be the mother-cancer that I usually am in these sort of situations. Something about delivering positive HIV results to two young brothas was arresting.

It's like, a brotha who is at the beginning of his life and I have to tell him that his life will be forever changed. "You know, In about a month you will have constant diarrhea, head aches, pills pills and more pills, uncertainty, doubt, lowered self esteem, nausea and a host of other symptoms of HIV infection. All the mothering and caring in the world cannot keep your life from being radically changed. My words will not wash away the reality of what is happening inside of your body. So what do I say, what do I do? How do I respond? Referring you to my program will not change that reality. For the first time in my career of supporting young black gay and bi men in atlanta I did not know if I could make a difference. I did not know what to do.

911-The Movie

2004-06-28T15:05:00.000-07:00

This movie was so so so great. I think that it placed light on this whole Iraq/Afgahnistan thing. Go See the movie!!!

Pride and Prejudice- ANGER

2004-06-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

I've been in atlanta for about 10 years and have been working in the Black gay community since 1997. One of the things that I've noticed about white LGBT folks in atlant is that they are both unwilling to open their institutions to black lgbt folks and unwilling to aknowledge the institutions that black folks have created for themselves to fill the gaps. I guess your probably wondering what I'm talking about.

Well I'll try to tell you. Pride weekend, Atlanta Gay Pride weekend is an event taht is touted as Atlanta's pride event. However, there is a Black Gay Pride. The reason there is a Black Gay pride is becasue while Atlanta Pride is supposed to be an empowering experience for Gay people, it is rarely that for black gay people. From the focus of the vendors,to the diversity of the speakers, to the floats in the parade, to the genre of the music stages to the disposition of the park volunteers Atlanta Pride is often an experience that is disenfranchising for Black people. Thus Black people do not participate on any large scale in Atlanta pride. We go to Black gay prideso that we can be proud of our whole selves when we enter.

Recently I was challenged for not participating in white pride (as I will call it because this is what Black gay folks call it). Someone was upset that I had decide to direct my efforts at pride toward young Black gay men. I think it's important to mention here that I am paid to direct my efforts toward young black gay men. It was stated that, because I was going to act at pride in such a way that the majority of the folks that I came into contact with would be the folks that I am paid to come into caontact with, I was being a separatist. White people brought this accusation to my supervisors at my job. What is interesting to me about the willingness of these white people to bring this issue to my supervisors is the assertion that there reasoning was taht Pride needed diversity. I was striking to me that in an attempt to appear diverse these white people would try to force me, the black guy, to participate in these events,with threats to my job. I-fucking-ronic.

This is frustrating to me because I think that people are not willing to challenge racism. Black people are scared to do it because they don't want to be placed in the angry black gurl box that whites often place black folks in when they are willing to challenge or even aknowlege racism. The white folks won't do it because they don't see it, they are not the ones experienceing it. I am also frustrated because no matter how I try it seems that I cannot get away from institutionalized racism. I have removed myself from YP and moved into an agency where all of the people who I report to Directly or indirectly are BLACK. Racism is so powerful however, and white people have so much influence that they are able to threaten my lively hood from teers below wher my supervisors stand in the organization framework. Sometimes racism poses a threat from completely outside of the organizational structure.

I was under so much pressure this weekend (Pride 2004) to be seen in the park at the festival and to stay out there doing outreach even though it was storming. Why? Because the whitefolks were threatening my job and using accusations of seperatism and black anger to do it. Having been confronted about Pride I felt required to be in a place that it made little since for me to be in because it was said that I was being racist. Isn't that CRAZY? Since when did black folks get to be racist? Since when did we become responsible for the racial devide in american? Why the fuk am I responsible for diversity? Why the fuck can't they build diversity instead of looking to a single black guy or gurl to be responsible for such?

Why don't white people do the work to really make there organizations diverse, welcoming, inclusive instead of being angry at us for building organizatons that welcome and include us?

Conference, Cards, and Counseling: A Day In The Life Of Me

2004-06-20T17:10:00.000-07:00

I've been at a conference all week. The National HIV Prevention Leadership Summit. The conference is very relevant to my job. So I volunteered in order to avoid registration cost and such. I'll never enter such an arrangement again. This experience was a lesson in How not to manage volunteers. I attended only two sessions. Both sessions were about "Men On The DL." The reason I was so pissed by both of the sessions is because they were so indicative of the way that sensationalism can remove all logic from society. I mean we are HIV Prevention Professionals in a room jumping on the bad wagon of warning women against dangerous Black Gay Men who are out to infect them with HIV. It seems that we, as HIV prevention professionals, would spend our time and resources on warning women against having unprotected sexual intercourse with persons of positive or unknown HIV serostatus. This was not the case. I think that everyone is looking for a way to turn this into a catalyst to fame for themselves. To Late! JL King has already done this and the popular black media is not interested in anyone more qualified than he. He has them mesmerized. It’s sad really. So I made a lot of noise in the work shop sessions. Reminded everyone that we must begin to approach this topic more critically and analytically. I used the words un-pack this conversation. Easier to spell and understand. I warned them that black men have forever, since reconstruction in the south, been pictured as the owners of dangerous sexuality, that AIDS does not belong solely to Gay men and that a man's sex with another man does not automatically make him HIV positive. I also reminded them that in a social context were the media is granting gay men increased attention that it's probably not by accident that the attention granted white gay men comes through "Will and Grace", Queer Eye For the Straight Guy, and 101 television specials divided between MTV and VH1, while increased attention for Black Gay Men means Oprah talking about how we pose a threat to Black Women. It's a mess!

So I leave the conference with a couple of new friends and a couple of old friends to attend a party. On the way we stop, with our host, at the grocery store to pick up what's needed for the Rice and Peas, and some beverages. While in the grocery store I spent my time looking at the parade of beautiful black men that chose to use that grocery store that day. It was lots of fun. They had week coffee that they charged a fair price for. So I drank coffee while my friends shopped for coconut milk and par-boiled rice. We went from there to the home of our host, a lean bodied, brown skinned, dread lock wearing, Black Gay man who enjoys people enjoying the sight of his body. He spent most of the time at his house with his shirt off and his dick swinging back and forth through a thin pair of sweat pants. Fun! I looked plenty but got the feeling that touches from me would not have been welcomed. So I didn't touch. We played spades, drank rum and coke, vodka and cranberries, and spiked punch while eating barbeque baked chicken, rice and peas, and mac and cheese. It was a great time until a couple of brothaz walking through the final stages of a pre-mature relationship showed up with their 10 month long disagreement (the relationship) and turned the party into a counseling session for themselves. This is when the party became a mess and I realized how much I hate being drunk. Boy A has this control complex and bosses boy B around the entire time we are at the party. IT was ridiculous. He groped me in the kitchen while his boy friend presumably played cards in the other room. That is until the boyfriend responded to the silence in the kitchen by peeking in and found his boyfriend with his drunken hand about my waist. Awkward for me? Yes. So I took a sip of my rum and coke and retreated to the living room. When they returned they spent about ten minutes wrapped in a contrived, though distracting, embrace until the controlled one mentioned how unable he was to pay attention to the way the cards were being played. The controller jumped up in a drunken pathetic rage and screaming "Yeah, your right, I'm a fucking distraction!" We were successful at keeping the controlled engaged with the cards for about ten additional minutes until he stormed out of the room into the parking lot in fron of the party host's apartment. One of my friends followed, leaving the unfinished game of spades behind as well as the controller in the kitchen being attended to by several older gay men. Next out to the aid of the controlled was another friend named Mark then me several moments later. I went out of shear boredom and the lack of enthusiasm about going into the kitchen to chat with the controllers group. So I went outside for a walk that lasted for about 20 minutes and returned to join those trying to convince the controlled to dump the controller. I felt like I was singing with sweet honey n the rock. You know that song they do about domestic violence? I think it's called RUN. A sorry end to a party that had so much potential. It got even more sorry when we began discussing the end of the party. It was time to go. I would be leaving but the only person with a car was the controller and there was no room for me and my brother who was at the party with me. So I was told that I had to take a cab by someone who knew I had no money. So they had to give me money. Very uncomfortable for me. God I hate shit like that. So I had a night that started out really cool and ended really ummm, not cool.

2004-06-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

A good book

2004-06-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

I think that I would rather have a good book than good sex. LOL I'm serious. I am reading this book now called My Soul To Keep by tanarive due. I really don't know if my assessment is acurate because it comes after the drudging work reading Alice Walker new Now Is The Time To Open Your Heart. The book is a lovely sentiment really but Alice has done much better. I mean there was not a single plot. The book has no plot. Can you imagine trying to read a book that has not a single plot to compell your reading onward. I don't think that this a a good direction for alice walker. I mean By the light of my father's smile had a very weak plot that did nothing for me and now this. Now is the time to write another good book. Really after Meridian, Temple, and Purple, let's not even talk about The THird Life of Grang Coapland. Aren't artist suposed to get better as time goes by? Not only is she really not a nice person, I've met her several times to get books autographed at signings and she is very un-friendly. She's said some pretty snyde things to me that she would probably not even remember, but I've always lived for her writing. I mean Grang Copeland was transformative. If every Black Man on the planet could read that 1 book I think that we would transform over night. But this.

At any rate I was talking about Tananarive Due's My Soul TO Keep. This book is wonderful. I mean Black Fantasy-Fiction. Who ever writes this. I mean with contemporary Black characters, references to black pop culture, and a mythology that deals with Black men from North Africa who have been bestowed with the gift of immortality through a ritual in which the "Blood of Christ" has been injected into them at the moment just before they died from ingesting poison laced bread. Now they move as a society of immortals bound together by blood and secrets. I love it. I've never read anything like it. Cept Octavia Butler of course. Alice walker touched that way a little with the Temple of My Familiar.

Any ways. I'm tired of writing more to come.

Yup

2004-06-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

Yup I can see that this is going to be fun. I have to run because my ride is leaving me but I will be posting many ummm post here soon. Keep your eyes peeled people. This is a very exciting thing for me.