Pride and Prejudice

So another Pride has come and gone and I am not left with the usual ennui, I am angry.

Usually my participation in the whole shebang is minimal. I have my Job#1 involvement, which is some minimally invasive production having to do with Youth Pride in Boston (not to be confused with "Boston Pride" or even really connected as it's in May), a bus trip to NYC for a taste the bigger more diverse NYC Pride with the young people I work with and Job#2, in which I spend the day scurrying across a stage fore 8 hours plugging various cables in and out at Boston Pride.

This year however required a deep dive into the murky waters of the Pride Machine. The seemingly endless days of parties, fund raisers, awards and other special events. Where I live there isn't just one Pride there are many.

This town being the egg carton it is (no one should really touch), there's Unity Pride (Black Pride) Latino Pride, Boston Pride and of course the Dyke March. I do my best to avoid them all (with the exception of Latino Pride which is in May as well) but as luck would have it my best friend was the keynote at the Dyke March, I received an award at a Unity Pride function and see above (Job#2)for Boston Pride.
So I was in the thick of it despite my best efforts.

PRIDE

I don't like the spotlight so receiving a award for anything is anxiety producing for me. This award was given to me by Sistah Summit, a community of women some of whom I've grown to love, some I try to avoid but all I respect. I sit on several committees with these women, WOC for Reproductive Freedom, WOC Round Table etc. So despite the stress it produced, to be honored by them is a pretty cool thing.

My best friend complete with a cast on from a newly repaired torn Achilles tendon, gave a great speech at the Dyke March which is one of the least diverse productions in terms of POC participation of the Pride Machine.
At the march she called for more honest discussions in the ways in which gender identity can impact LGBT people of color. This is some of what she said. "It is a very difficult predicament as a black dyke, when there have been white lesbians and they then become white men, It's not an easy transition to say, Let's be allies and let's all hunky dory. And I think that that's a hard thing to say but it's a real thing. You can not just walk up to black women or women of color and be like, All right, I'm down with sisters, I'm down with the power. You got to prove that shit. And I don't know how we go about that except by continuing to be real with each other." In addition, lamenting over the lost generation of "Butch Dykes"
This is a conversation we have had many times so I was proud to hear her speak of those issues at a rally filled with white dykes, white gender queers and white transmen.
I'm also proud of the soggy, unreasonably early, long ass bus ride we took to NY Pride on Sunday. The young people at my center loved it. My quote of the day "There are mad Brown people at NY Pride too bad Boston isn't like this".

PREJUDICE (Racism)

Unity Pride and Latino Pride were started as a response to the lack of inclusion and relevant political tone of Boston Pride (Not everyone wants to get married or feels its the most pressing issue on our plate).

Let's begin with Latino Pride and Youth Pride. After many assurances last year that there would not be any scheduling conflicts again the mostly(99%)white organizers of youth pride scheduled it on the same weekend as Latino Pride.
Response "sorry we must have forgotten"
And then they wonder why they are not getting the "urban youth" to attend. Perhaps if there were programming for the "urban youth" and not just offering to have them perform as entertainment, there would be more interest. Perhaps by scheduling it on a different weekend than Latino Pride the so called "urban youth" would not feel split and our Latino brothers and sisters would not feel as disrespected. But with overheard responses like "What's next Asian Pride?" probably not.

On to Unity Pride, after much discussion regarding a piece of the "Pride Pie" and wanting a more inclusive crowd the mostly white organizers offered to give up a piece of the park to Unity Pride. This was to be the site of Unity Prides community cookout. It was sold as a prime piece or real estate but in reality was on a hill away from the main celebration with the only access being by foot. Kinda of tough to get all the equipment need for a cook out in place. So I guess you can come to the dinner but you must sit at the child's table.

Dyke March, a great speech if you could hear it. The organizers were slow to respond when asked several times to turn up the sound. The white rock band however got a 45 minute sound check and they had no problem making sure the comedian was heard. And the large group of women/men who after listening to 5 minutes of the speech decided to sing and blow whistles, that was just shameful and to answer the question what's a "Butch Dyke" ? I am.


No I don't hate white people, well not all the time.
I live with a couple (by attrition and choice). I work with many, and have several friends who are.
But make no mistake, my struggle is not your struggle...The most pressing issue for me is not the right to register at Tiffany's or to get my chest surgery paid for by insurance.
So the half baked offers of inclusion don't work for me.

I am concentrating on the spread of HIV and HPV in my community.
The issue of classism and racism in health care for the trans folks of color.
Employment, Education and Affordable Housing for the young Brown people I work with. The war, the environment and so on and so on.....

Don't invite me to your table just to watch you eat.




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The Wedding

 
 

Employ A Negro Month

Not to be confused with the brilliant web site www.rent-a-negro.com/ . No this is the time of the year for all to pay homage to the African-amerikkkan. For 28 short days we are honored for our many contributions to society. How convenient Coretta died during this month when all the prepared speeches about our importance could be modified ever so slightly to include her and her late husband. Too bad Richard bowed out early or he could have been lumped in also.
This is the time we learn about all the famous and infamous A-a's and what made them that way . Little attention is paid to us "every day folks". The exception of course is when we have done something egregious. So when I traveled the 3 plus hours to NY on Sunday to see exhibit "African American Vernacular Photography" at The ICP I did not set my hopes high as it is Black History minute so....
The exhibit is a collection of photographs from 1880-1930's of just regular folks living regular lives. Many photos of weddings, solo and family portraits, funerals, parties, graduations and other occasions in the private lives of Black folks. Many of the photos done in the style of Van Der Zee but not attributed to him. They reminded me of old photos of my parents (who actually sat for Van Der Zee) and their parents before them. They are beautiful images of folks at their best. Proudly staring into the camera with a determined air of confidence and grace or looking lovingly at each other as if nothing else in the world mattered. At that moment nothing else did. Some of the photos made me feel quite emotional which is what good art is intended to do, but the unintentional tug of the photographer into the lives of these individuals is what moved me most.
These are private photos not intended for public view, a glimpse into the lives of our ancestors ..The ones we don't hear about during Black History Minute. Taken without thought that some day they would be hanging on the wall of some museum or even viewed at all outside of family and friends. Not to diminish the accomplishments of our more famous ancestors but this was to me a more meaningful example of how to celebrate our unique contribution to the world as we know it. Just regular folks doing what regular folks do...Beautifully

* If you want to check out rent-a-negro.com put it in your navigation box for some reason it won't go to it on it's own.

Fuck Quiet Dignity !

 
 

Just Another Day

Rosa Parks is dead...I saw the news paper reports about it and watched the TV news accounts of it. I did not really think about it until I read a friends blog.
Ms. Parks lived a life of "quiet dignity", that's the phrase the media used over and over again. How quiet was it really? Was she screaming inside at the most certain injustices that she lived every day before and after that historic bus ride? How much of the indignities do we keep inside, never letting but our closest allies know our true feelings? When do we get to stop suffering in silence ?

Don't get me wrong,I am not nor will I be a so called "shrinking violet" there are many times when I am to all appearances, in the role of "Angry Black Woman"(although I think that would be a great super hero persona)but the some of the time I feel forced into (due to time or place) a inwardly angry silence.
Example: I'm at a work function and I am asked to bring a contingent of the young people I work with to meet and mingle with some of the Board Members. I know it's "parade the young brown queer faces it looks good for the agency time" so in silent anger I comply.

white board member : So are most of these kids homeless?
me: No, some live at home some live in college dorms, some have their own apartment and some live with extended or families of choice.
white board member: Really, well are a lot of them involved in the DYS system?
me: No
white board member: So what are they into? What do the like to do?
me : Well that young man is a college student, that young woman just finished massage therapy school and that young man is in high school, a tap dancer and wants to be an interior designer.
white board member: Really ...Did he bring his tap shoes?
me: I got to go.

So here's to all the lives lived in "quiet dignity", take a deep breath because sometimes it's hard to keep the screaming inside....

Life Un-Scripted

Not being a big Kanye West fan I was half listing to what appeared to be just another round of the very scripted speeches made by folks working the fundraiser for the Katrina "evacuees" (notice at some point they stopped referring to them as refugees..Too inflammatory I guess) when my focus sharpened. Kanye said on national TV what up till then had only been voiced on such a public level by the folks living the nightmare, "George Bush doesn't care about Black people or poor people". Of course you folks living on the west coast never got to hear it as the comments were removed as soon as folks recovered from the shock. I mean damn we all know it's true but how can you say that kinda shit publicly ? Your liable to start some serious trouble with that kind of talk. NBC could hardly wait to disassociate itself with what was said in the form of an official statement "Mr West went off script... blah, blah, blah." We all know its true, the white reporters first on the scene knew it and in their shock and horror at the situation articulated that very sentiment but they eventually regained their composure and went back to the "non-bias" reporting of the crisis (Black folks looting vs white folks finding)... They didn't dare send any Blacks from the major networks to report, who knows what they might of said with the stranded being their people and all. And when the Mayor and several other city officials both white and Black said the unmentionable it was explained away as being a result of the extreme stress they were under. This is not a dialog white amerikkka wants to have and when it is forced upon them the majority would rather look the other way. Mr West had a captive audience for his remarks and thank god the censures were only watching for swear words and not content or we on the east coast would have never heard it. At this point it looks like the big white wash has begun, the news magazines are now filled with the feel good stories of people being reunited and such...The majority of the stories are about white folks who lost their beach houses. I'm not saying poor white folks didn't loose everything but it appears that no one wants to talk to the poor,Black, Latinos or Asians who lost ...That would be too raw , too real. As Barbara Bush said "most of these people are better off in the shelters than they were before the hurricane" The white house is making sure that everyone knows her comments were also "unscripted". Sure that $2000 debit card will make a world of difference to someone who's entire life is gone...I mean who needs family, friends, neighbors and a home when you got some free money. I can't wait for the backlash surrounding that. And now the white house has hired a new PR director to "change the worlds view of how the US government has handled the hurricane " Too late ... The worlds view of the US was set after Jr went into Iraq and well before ..The hurricane only reinforced the view that if your not white you don't really matter...Not to mention the offers of help by other nations that were ignored by the arrogance of this administration...So thanks Kanye for the "unscripted remarks" They were heard loud and clear...Too bad it feels like you were preaching to the choir not the sinners

Less Than Zero

New Orleans is a car wreck that everyone can't help but watch . The images are horrific and solicit comments like "Where are the relief agencies?" "Why is it taking so long for someone to help these people?" And my favorite "It looks like a third world country". I am in shock but none of this surprises me. Louisiana and Mississippi have the two highest rates of children living below the poverty level in the U.S.at approximately 30%. New Orleans is a city made up of 67% Black folks and again 30% of them live below the poverty level. So yeah I'm not surprised at the slow response after and no response prior to Katrina's arrival. Yes folks were told to leave the city before the storm hit but that is only possible if you have the ways and means to do so. That there would be thousands of people who could not get out is something that should not have been a surprise to anyone. That the powers that be made no proactive plan to remedy this is sickening but again not surprising after all this is a country obsessed with race and class as evidenced by it's not so equal treatment of people of color around the world. Amerikkka will not be there for you unless you have something worth helping you for...like oil. Opening the Super Bowl as a shelter and not providing even the basic necessities like food,water and basic healthcare was insane at best...at worst genocide. Now comes the media with images of Black and Brown faces "looting". Is it so surprising that when people ask for help and don't get it they then will take what they can? Only after that did the powers that be deem it appropriate to send in the National Guard to take back the city from the "hands of anarchy". This the city that the speaker of the house stated "wasn't worth rebuilding" needed not food or water for it's citizen's who have been without for 5 days but protection from a "lawless mob taking over the streets". Not a thought to the people dying in the streets. Where have you been FEMA? How do they answer the inquiries of the foreign press who ask "Why is your government not doing anything to help?" Is the reply "All of our efforts are directed to Homeland Security at this time and that issue in Iraq?" I suggest they read the poem called Home..Land..Security.. by Letta Neely and get a clue to what humane and ethical treatment of all people is about and why folks get so angry when it is denied them. I know that won't happen ...So this month my rent will be late and I'll skip a car payment knowing I will still have a roof over my head and enough food to eat. My pay check will be better spent in Biloxi and New Orleans. Not much..I know..

 

Mississippi is still burning...

So ten days ago I attended my sisters wedding,it took place in a little town called Canton in the not so great state of Mississippi. I did not look forward to the trip, not because I had never met the "husband to be" although that did cause some trepidation but the location. My family is originally from NYC and with both of our parents dead this setting was for the benefit of the "HTB". Having never been to "Ole Miss" nor many places down south, all I could conjure up were images from TV documentaries on the Civil Rights Movement, movies and books I had read. Not that I expected to see hooded klansmen riding through town in pickup trucks(well maybe on some level) but I did know it would be a place where my welcome was tenuous at best. Not to mention that every single friend I know when told of my up coming trip stated incredulously "Why?" followed by "Don't go anywhere alone".
As I stepped off the plane in Jackson what hit me first was the heat, robbing my breath and making me break out in a sweat and this was just the airport. It was 92 degrees with 90% humidity, not helped by my east coast uniform of black on black. Spring has not yet sprung in Boston so I was woefully unprepared. I immediately felt different, self conscious in a way I haven't felt since I was an adolescent. It could have been my tattoos, my obvious gender bend (being a butch dyke) or my color but whatever it was I felt uneasy. I read every look by a white person with suspicion as if their sole purpose was to do me harm. Completely ridiculous in some ways as I just had a very pleasant conversation with a white man from Jackson on the plane, but even he stated that his hometown was very "backwards " in some ways. I finally retrieved my bag and made my way to the exit searching for the familiar faces of relatives not seen in years but who's faces are etched permanently in my mind. Picked up by nieces who's ages are not far from mine, we made our way in the icy comfort of rental car AC to Canton about 30 miles to the north.

Canton, Mississippi is known as the "City of Lights" this according to the sign made up of Christmas tree lights as you enter the town limits followed by an equally lit rendition of Mount Rushmore. I could find no comparisons to Paris which was up till the only "city of lights" I knew but held my judgment in hopes of the spectacular. Apparently the moniker comes from the rows of previously mentioned lights strung across the tops of the buildings in the tiny downtown area. I guess an expected let down. Made it to the hotel located on the outskirts of town it's a new structure most likely built to accommodate out of town executives for the new Nissan plantation, I mean plant. Nissan appears to be the only real source of employment since most of the cotton mills have closed, and picking cotton to export does not seem to be very appealing to the younger generation of Canton or the many Mexicans that have emigrated to this little town. Again that feeling of being different comes as I am scrutinized by the manager and several employees as I check in. After producing more than the customary forms of ID I am allowed to check in. Some rest needed as I have been up since 4am and that was with 2 hours sleep.
After a 45 minute nap it's off to rehearsal and dinner. Driving through town you can clearly see the delineation of class and race as we leave the town center with its historical buildings and white faces to run down shacks, trailers and an occasional neatly manicured lawn and tidy little house. All the faces are brown now. We pull up to the church which I have since found out is Catholic but with the name Holy Child of God fools me into thinking it's Baptist or Pentecostal. There is a tall fence around the perimeter that was build in the not so distant past to shield white eyes from the spectacle of Blacks attending a Catholic church. Time to meet the in-laws. My family out numbers those of the "HTB" having flown or driven in from all parts of the country to see little sister marry. I'm unsettled at the prospect of seeing so much family at once. We are not close, some I have not seen in over 20 years, and I tend to become overwhelmed in crowded situations and here I have nowhere to hide. But I know it's not about me. I have not compromised who I am in any form including dress so upon meeting the in-laws I am met with stares of curiosity from some and what appears to be disdain from others. Fuck it I think, if someone wants to have a dialog I'm ready and willing... but no one does. I then begin to realize it's not just me in the deep freeze about being a dyke but my whole family is getting the same vibe tossed at them. Kinda a "Just who do these halfbreed, light-skinned, Jewish, Yankee, uppity Negroes think they are?" Wait I think were all in the same boat, being black in amerikkka and all..But not here, not Canton, Ms. 2005. Its an old dynamic, 400 years old. It's the house vs the field and its perpetuated to this day in this small town and others across the "New South" I am slapped hard with my ignorance and detatchment from these realities. I check myself and my own issues with classism, internalized racism and try to understand. Eventually I do, though it still stings. There is that unwritten rule of how Black folks behave down here and my family does not conform. Witnessing harsh treatment of a young Black man by two white girls prompted my 15 year old niece to state "That wouldn't happen where we are from because the white people are afraid of the Black people back home" When I relate that comment to a friend , she tells me of the racist treatment handed to two Black church ladies in Pennsylvania over of all things, where they could sit on a bus. That brought up memories of my own DWB arrest and treatment at the hands of Massachusetts state troopers. Memories that to this day can send me to some dark place that at times can be very hard to see my way out of. I guess the correct statement should be amerikkka is still burning in NY,PA,MA,CA,MI,OH,TX and on and on...The wedding happened...There were no major throw downs...The bride and groom returned to their home, thankfully 6 1/2hrs away...And as far as I can see I'll never have to go to Ole Miss again...As for my family I probably won't see them again until we are brought together by another wedding or funeral...

White Boys, Kites and Country Music

Apart from my work with GLBTQQI youth of color I also work for a sound company. This past weekend I was working "The Kite Festival", a yearly community event sponsored by two of the local "Urban Music" stations. The sound crew consisted of myself and two white boys. Here are a few snippits from my experience.

Me: We only have one wireless mic. Not good as we have a lot of Hip Hop acts today.

19yr old white boy: Well too bad, the Hip Hop generation needs to learn to share.

Me: What generation would that be? Hip Hop is over 30 yrs old.

19yr old white boy: oh ..well..whatever..

Me: (During a check of the sound system) You can't use that CD to test (it's a white man singing country music). Plays it anyway... No really you need to stop... I'll get a more appropriate one ...

22yr old white boy: It's the only one I have ..Why does it matter?

Me: It's not ok with the client or the venue and country music has certain connotations...

19 yr old white boy: What are you talking about?? Music is music!

Me: Wow..Ok ..It's like this I wouldn't go to a gig say at the "Grand Old Oprie" and use N.W.A. to test the system.(As I slip in some family friendly Earth Wind and Fire). Folks here are just not down with the country thing.

22yr old white boy: You mean Black people?

Me: Yes and Latino and everyone else up in this park including the clients.

19 yr old white boy: That's stupid, haven't you heard of the Robert Randolph Family Band. They play country music and they're Black.

Me: Yes I've heard of them and they play Blues with a heavy R&B influence not country.

22yr old white boy: Well I think it's stupid ... It doesn't make a difference.

Me: I can't talk to you about this anymore.


All in all it was a beautiful day to fly some kites, eat some jerk chicken and listen to Hip Hop....and ignore...