Commentary by Deoliver47, Black Kos Editor
To my Feminist, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit, Trans and Gender Non Conforming loved ones, family members, community members here on the BKOS porch, friends and comrades in the greater Dkos community.
This is not a rant. I tore that version up. It was going to be a short angry rant. I tore that up too. It is now very long. It will meander. Bear with me please.
I am going to try to set a few things straight from my perspective. I tend to get angry when someone attacks a loved one. I rarely get angry when someone attacks me – I simply defend myself, and move on. But when people I love are attacked I go on the offensive, and I’ve been on the offensive for 50 years, and I’m 62 years old.
How I Became a Rainbow Person
(some of you reading here for the first time may not know my history. Those who do, feel free to skip this section)
When I was a young girl in my parents home when my father was in the theatre, I was surrounded by people of all colors, religions, atheists, leftists, and those who at that time called themselves homosexuals. My parents friends were actors, singers, poets, playwrights, activists, socialists and communists. My blood family was multi-racial. My extended family included every ethnicity, and gender orientation. This was my enculturation.
Imagine my surprise when I had to face the harsh reality of life in America. A world filled with hate, only alleviated in oases of sanity, that were few and far between. Those safe-spaces were provided by family friends and fictive kin, who were united by love and respect, and who fought fiercely against inequity. They were my teachers. All of them were "different" or "othered" by the larger society in some way. That "othering" took different forms, but the end result was the same. I don’t care what "ism" you want to tack on it.
As I grew older, old enough to fight back I joined many movements – not one. How could I pick and choose? So I stretched myself across issues and color lines, across languages and genders. Ban the Bomb, the NAACP, SDS, CORE, SNCC, The Third World Women’s Alliance, the Young Lords Party, Third World Gay Revolution, ACT-UP, The American Indian Movement, I Wor Kuen...they were all connected in my head, like threads on a loom; and I come from a family of weavers.
As I grew into young adulthood, my journey through life brought me partners and significant others, of all colors and ethnicities, some straight and a few were bi-sexual. I was planning to do a diary, but never posted it, about Storme DeLarverie, known to many as a Stonewall Veteran, but when I saw her first she was the only woman in the Jewel Box Revue. A black lesbian filmmaker associate of mine did a documentary about her life (I had a crush on Storme as a young college student). I didn’t publish that diary. Maybe one day when things cool off around here I will.
Thinking back on that crush, I realize that it opened my heart in later years to transgender activist Sylvia Rivera, another Stonewall Vet, who was a comrade of the Young Lords Party. Knowing Sylvia and being there during the early days of the formation of Third World Gay Liberation broadened my perspective.
After Gay Liberation Front folded and the more reformist Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) became New York's primary gay rights group, Sylvia Rivera worked hard within their ranks in 1971 to promote a citywide gay rights, anti-discrimination ordinance. But for all of her work, when it came time to make deals, GAA dropped the portions in the civil rights bill that dealt with transvestitism and drag—it just wasn't possible to pass it with such "extreme" elements included. As it turned out, it wasn't possible to pass the bill anyway until 1986. But not only was the language of the bill changed, GAA—which was becoming increasingly more conservative, several of its founders and officers had plans to run for public office—even changed its political agenda to exclude issues of transvestitism and drag. It was also not unusual for Sylvia to be urged to "front" possibly dangerous demonstrations, but when the press showed up, she would be pushed aside by the more middle-class, "straight-appearing" leadership. In 1995, Rivera was still hurt: "When things started getting more mainstream, it was like, 'We don't need you no more'". But, she added, "Hell hath no fury like a drag queen scorned".
Sylvia’s dreams have not yet come to fruition either. Support the Sylvia Rivera Law Project named in her honor.
From the Young Lords Women’s Caucus we were able to support the formation of a Gay and Lesbian caucus in a militant primarily Puerto Rican organization. From there I was able to support my lesbian sisters in the Black Panther Party. Life was not all revolution, though it may have seemed that way at the time. My cousin was one of the bouncers at the Bon Soir in Greenwich Village, where the lines between straight and gay young black latino youths melted to the sounds of Latin boogaloo and salsa. Other nights were spent at clubs like the Hilltop, no men allowed.
Then came a change; a change that would affect us all. First called GRID, then it was AIDS. I attended the first major meeting of feminists in NY who were attempting to cope with gay men dropping like flies. It was contentious. Quiet as it’s kept back in the day there was little contact between the gay male and lesbian community. They were separate and unequal. AIDS was the clarion call to step up to the plate and forged bonds that weren’t really there before in most cases. A few feminist separatists refused to join. Anything with a penis was anathema to them, and they declined to answer the call. But the majority understood their shared oppression and marched to ACT-UP, marched arm and arm in Pride, and went on to do battle against a system that wanted to see gay men dead. Go back and read the history.
Maxine Wolfe in the historyof ACT-UP, tells the story well, in documenting her own journey.
Joan [Nestle] just came across it the other day –
to Womannews, which was the newspaper that was happening at the time – saying, why should we do anything about AIDS? Gay men, we have nothing to do with gay men, and who cares what they do, and it’s their problem, and whatever. And, why should we waste our energy taking care of men. And, I remember that Joan and I wrote a letter back saying, how many Nicaraguans do you know? Because everybody was doing work on
Nicaragua, is didn’t seem to matter that they didn’t know any Nicaraguans.
But that wasn’t the only problem. ACT-UP's women’s caucus had to address the exclusion of women with AIDS from the medical equation and also pointed out the role of racism within the gay community which was excluding the concerns of people of color with AIDS – which included not only gay men of color with AIDS, but also men and women who were IDU’s. This spoke to issues of social class as well. The struggle continued.
We faced similar problems in Harlem. The doors to black churches were slammed shut in our faces. We didn’t leave. We organized, using the networks inside the churches of gay choir directors and organists and the mothers of sons who were infected. Mother Hale, a life long Baptist, spoke out to help the children, and to pushback against stigma. We didn’t throw our hands up and walk away, nor did we attack the churches for their fear. There was fear everywhere. We educated, and we persisted. And we won the first battle. Attacking folks is not a good strategy to organize. Persuading and educating is.
As a result of this activism, I made a major change in my life, went back to grad school to become a medical anthropologist, with a focus on HIV/AIDS, and joined SOLGA, the Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists.
With other friends and activists, straight and LBGTQ, I continued to organize. Because we knew how to organize we had a long term strategy.
Have we broken down all those walls completely? No. Has there been strong enough support for people of color with AIDS? No.
So the struggle continues. End of my personal/political story.
Daily Kos/Black Kos
Which leads me to the present day here at the "As the Controversy Churns" world of Daily Kos. . There was a diary posted here on Daily Kos by Joan Mar. She deleted it before I got to read it. I found it however in an internet cache. Sister Robinswing has been attacked for rec’ing that diary. Other’s who did so have been called homophobes. Black Kos was threatened in that diary, and as a move to defend Black Kos, Joan deleted her diary.
Joan had the courage to address some things that makes some folks uncomfortable. Not like it hasn’t been done before. The intersections of racism, classism and gender must be discussed and not denied.
In The Masters Tools, soothsayer99 cites Audre Lorde. Go read it. While you are at it, check out the Audre Lorde Project, in Brooklyn.
In Shanikka’s pushback diary, Facts Belie the Scapegoating of Black People for Proposition 8, that created a lot of controversy there were people from both BlackKos and the LGBT communites who did support her, during the flood of angry vitriol.
Now to the hard part.
Are there gay white people who are racists? Yes. Are there gay white men who get white skinned male privilege – yes. Are there gay black and brown and red and yellow people who get attacked for the color of their skin, no matter their sexual orientation - yes. Are there LBGTQ's of color who are ostracized and sometimes attacked within their own communites – yes.
Yes..yes..Yes.. Yes...
But so what? Where do we go from "Yes" and finger pointing to action and building unity?
Now there seem to be a few folks here who want to fan the flames of division and discord, while others of us who want to build strong coalitions try to put out their brushfires while we take on the larger battle – the fucked up country we live in that still has too many people in it who voted for John McCain and Sarah Palin, that still has too many racists and homophobes. That still has powerful churches, like the Mormons (who don’t pay taxes) who can pour millions of dollars into stopping folks from getting married, that still has people, broadcasters and "Ministers" who pray daily for the President to be assassinated.
Another example.
Recently someone came into a diary by Princessglitterboots and hide-rated another member of Black Kos whose screenname is also Princss. Why? Because anyone with "Princess" as a part of their screen name is a homophobe, was the rationale.
Princessglitterboots wrote an eloquent diary about his own journey dealing with racism called, Taming The Beast Within. Go back and read it.
And it goes on.
We now have some people stirring up shit yet again, this time in a , pointing fingers at Black Kos, which has been conflated with "Obamabot" since black people elected Barack Obama, with the help of others, and tend to support Barack Obama against racist attack; that has been twisted into a meme that "Black Kos" is homophobic, as a consequence.
ARGH!
Well I can keep writing, "go back and read" something or the other ...but will that solve anything?
No. Probably not but you can’t blame me for trying.
Let me clarify something – yet again, if you’ve made it down the page this far. "Black Kos" is a title of this diary series. The majority of people who post here are white. Close to half of the people who post here are LBGTQ. This community is an example of coalition building. Many Black Kos members are also members of the GLBT and Friends at Daily Kos community.
Time to find common ground. Time to get past hurt feelings if possible.
Folks here at BKos have gotten past a lotta bullshit, that blocks communication. We don’t bristle when racism is discussed. We listen. Problem is, outside of the BKos comfort zone, discussing racism and white privilege is a dangerous endeavor. On the main site, there are those who lay in wait to challenge any mention of racism or white privilege – no matter who is being discussed. Some members here have bravely done diaries to address this – most recently Bluejerseymom’s hit the rec list.
We don’t bristle when white privilege is discussed. We accept that it exists for all white people, straight gay or otherwise. We don’t deny homophobia either – we fight against it.
Problem is some folks don’t like "how" we do it. 'Cause they want us to do it "their" way.
Well, I have a real problem with that. I also have a problem with the idea that if a GLBTQ person attempts to address racism they are immediately called Self-hating and told they are gonna get their rainbow card removed. I have had the same battle in the black and latino communities for daring over the years to address problems we still have around skin color, hair, colorization, machismo and domestic violence. Colonized mentality (as defined by Fanon) is difficult to erase. My most recent battle was last week, when I got into a head-to-head with a major "hip-hop" cultural icon, who kept telling me women needed to stay in "our" place. My "blackness" gets challenged the minute I address feminist issues. My "skin color" (I am a light brown beige sister) once placed me in a position of having a gun shoved in my face, and only the quick intervention of Malcolm X saved me from being shot.
I get angry at times here on Daily Kos and do go off on a rant. The increasing lack of understanding about where many black folks are coming from re the President is causing deep pain. Simply because those of us at Black Kos don’t spend our time lashing out at President Barack Obama we have been classified and stereotyped with a string of unflattering labels. You know the deal. The "cult worshipper" crap.
Soooooooooooo, where do we go from here? Some can call us homophobes and get nowhere. Some can throw Obamabot around. We can hole up in here and be happy. Other folks have announced they are only going to come to Daily Kos to read Black Kos and ignore the main site.
But where does that get us all? At a stalemate. It sure isn’t going to build anything positive.
Gay folks still can’t get married, most places. Last time I looked, the ERA didn’t pass either. Folks are still dying of AIDS. Folks are still locked up in prisons in record shattering numbers (most from my communities) The environment sucks, global warming continues, and kids in our schools don’t have books.
Piss poor organizing. Bye bye rainbow and welcome icy shards.
Go back and read history. Learn from what it can teach you. Massive change, even incremental change is built by strong coalitions, or federations, or solidarity movements or whatever label you want to hang on them – they work.
But they take work. Hard work. And some organizing street smarts.
Now if I was sitting in a black church, and I heard someone ranting about "fuck god and all religious people are crazy, and all you black church people are shitting on me and my one and only goal in life which is to get married", I’m doubtful I’d feel inclined to embrace you. If I was a black gay couple with AIDS and I heard gay folks ranting about cutting off AIDS funding to other black gay folk in Africa with AIDS, doubtful I‘d feel much solidarity with the speakers.
I might wonder, as I head off to a demonstration about the latest cop shooting of an unarmed black or latino why the white progressive community wasn’t out there fighting alongside me. Because black and latino and native american and asian folk seem to "get it". Plenty of us are GLBTQ and we’re fighting on many fronts.
Why aren’t women of color organizations getting sorely needed support; the focus on Stupak recently has negated Hyde. I also would have a problem if I were a white GLBTQ person who has been an activist for years working across borders and boundries, who feels they are getting swept up into blanket condemnations.
Let's stop. Ponder a lot of this, and find out just where we can come together.
Years ago – 1970 to be exact, Third World Gay Revolution was on the right track.
(excuse the 60’s /70’s rhetoric )
We want liberation for all women: We want free and safe
birth control information and devices on demand. We
want free 24 hour child care centers controlled by those
who need and use them. We want a redefinition of educa-
tion and motivation (especially for third world women)
towards broader educational opportunities without limi-
tations because of sex. We want truthful teaching of
women's history. We want an end to hiring practices which
make women and national minorities
- a readily available source of cheap labor
- confined to mind-rotting jobs under the worst
conditions.
We want full protection of the law and social sanction
for all human sexual self-expression and pleasure between
consenting persons, including youth. We believe that cur-
rent laws are oppressive to third world people, gay people,
and the masses. Such laws expose the inequalities of capi-
talism, which can only exist in a state where there are
oppressed people or groups. This must end.
You may not like the parts about capitalism, or the mention of revolution, but think about what they said, minus the parts you might not cotton to.
There are women’s concerns expressed here vis a vis reproductive rights and childcare, and workers concerns, and education...that’s how you begin to build coalitions.
Haven’t heard much of that lately. And "progressives" throwing ACORN under the bus wasn’t very bright either. Because ACORN is made up of a rainbow of folk. They just happen to be poor and rainbow colored. Plenty of their members are LBGTQ.
I’m going to stop here. My apologies for this being so long but I had no idea where this was going when I promised I would write it. I have always been long-winded, and get more so as I get older.
The rainbow porch awaits.
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News and Events by Amazing Grace, Black Kos Editor
Photos: Barack Obama's First Year in Office
Why Black Folks Should Celebrate Houston’s Gay Mayor This weekend Houston made history, electing Anisse Parker the first openly gay mayor of a major American city. The Texan coup was a clear victory for advocates of civil rights and marriage equality, but also stands to erode the consistent—and incorrect—presumption that black Americans are reflexively anti-gay. Parker won the runoff election with nearly 54 percent of the vote in a city that is 25 percent African American—against an African-American opponent, no less. Despite a series of mailings and smears targeted at Parker and engineered by conservatives, the 40 percent of black voters who were undecided in mid-October seem to have gravitated toward Parker and pushed her over the top. What’s more, late-stage polls suggest that 77 percent of voters "didn’t care about Parker’s sexuality."
Tanzania puts faith in jatropha plant The ancient crop jatropha grows wild here. It is extremely hardy and can survive in dry, barren soil - even though other plants cannot. It used to be considered as bush with no commercial potential. But the global search for clean energy has changed all that.
That is because the seeds can be harvested to make biofuel. It has meant that farmers are now taking to the crop with gusto.
China’s Changing Views on Race
As China expands economic ties with the rest of the world — including Africa, where it has considerable investments — how might increased immigration alter Chinese perceptions of race? How has the society historically dealt with ethnic differences?
Copenhagen's Class Divisions: Developing countries at the Climate Change Summit want to be heard—and compensated.
It isn’t often that Russians climb in bed with Rwandans. Yet, as the much-hyped United Nations climate summit convenes in Copenhagen this week, 56 world newspapers united against the growing threat of catastrophic climate change. An editorial urging global action to deflect the worst effects of fossil fuel dependence appeared in major news outlets, including ones in Moscow and Kigali—and in 10 other newspapers published from the African continent. "This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west," the text, originally drafted by the Guardian UK, read. "Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone."
France's Louvre museum returns five frescoes to Egypt France has handed over to Egypt five disputed, frescoed fragments that were held by the Louvre museum in Paris. French President Nicolas Sarkozy presented one of the slabs, or steles, to his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak, who was on a visit to Paris. The Egyptians had demanded the return of the Pharaonic fragments and had broken off ties with the Louvre. They are believed to be from a 3,200-year-old tomb of the cleric, Tetaki, in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor.
Successful, black and lonely Helena Andrews is 29, single, living in D.C., and might be the star of a black "Sex and the City" -- stylish, beautiful and a writer desperately in search of love in the city. Andrews's life appears charmed: The film rights for her memoir, "Bitch Is the New Black," a satirical look at successful young black women living in Washington, were purchased before the book was finished. Shonda Rhimes, the executive producer of "Grey's Anatomy," is set to produce the film and Andrews will write the screenplay.
The legacy of Otis Redding Otis Redding, legendary soul singer, died 42 years ago. Otis Redding was proud to be a country boy. "You know what, Otis? You're country," lashes Carla Thomas in her 1967 duet with Redding, "Tramp." "That's all right," Redding quickly responds. "You're straight from the Georgia woods." "That's good," Redding says. He meant it. He was born in Dawson, in southwest Georgia, and raised in the central Georgia city of Macon.
Voices and Soul by Justice Putnam, Black Kos Tuesday's Chile, Poetry Editor
Cause and Effect is a powerful dynamic; it informs all the Physics of
human interaction. This week's poem by Marilyn Nelson
is a meditation on that dynamic and how, when least expected, the Physics
of human interaction can produce a...
Minor Miracle
Which reminds me of another knock-on-wood
memory. I was cycling with a male friend,
through a small midwestern town. We came to a 4-way
stop and stopped, chatting. As we started again,
a rusty old pick-up truck, ignoring the stop sign,
hurricaned past scant inches from our front wheels.
My partner called, "Hey, that was a 4-way stop!"
The truck driver, stringy blond hair a long fringe
under his brand-name beer cap, looked back and yelled,
"You fucking niggers!"
And sped off.
My friend and I looked at each other and shook our heads.
We remounted our bikes and headed out of town.
We were pedaling through a clear blue afternoon
between two fields of almost-ripened wheat
bordered by cornflowers and Queen Anne's lace
when we heard an unmuffled motor, a honk-honking.
We stopped, closed ranks, made fists.
It was the same truck. It pulled over.
A tall, very much in shape young white guy slid out:
greasy jeans, homemade finger tattoos, probably
a Marine Corps boot-camp footlockerful
of martial arts techniques.
"What did you say back there!" he shouted.
My friend said, "I said it was a 4-way stop.
You went through it."
"And what did I say?" the white guy asked.
"You said: 'You fucking niggers.'"
The afternoon froze.
"Well," said the white guy,
shoving his hands into his pockets
and pushing dirt around with the pointed toe of his boot,
"I just want to say I'm sorry."
He climbed back into his truck
and drove away.
-- Marilyn Nelson
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Featured Artist
Sculptor Richmond Barthé
was a gay African-American sculptor and leading light of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930’s. He gained critical acclaim for his public works, including the Toussaint L’Ouverture Monument in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and a figure of the actress Rose McClendon for Frank Lloyd Wright’s path-breaking home, Fallingwater.
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Front Porch Music
Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Patti Labelle at Live AID
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The Front Porch is now open for hugs and conversation.
Sistah Robinswing is on her way to visit her grandkids, and won't get to the porch till later tonight, so she won't be in her usual chair this afternoon. Wishing her a safe journey.