'The New Black' Documentary Trailer

I've been aware that this Yoruba Richen documentary film was in the making, and was a little bummed when the initial opening film festival tour rotation for The New Black was Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C. and San Francisco with DC getting a second chance to see it during the recently concluded 2013 edition of OUT on the Hill.

A trailer has finally been released for The New Black and when it hits your town I would recommend you see it.

It discusses how the African-American community is grappling with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in light of the marriage equality movement and the fight over civil rights.

It also asks the more pertinent question of why are African-Americans, and especially the Black church being made the faces of anti-gay hatred and who benefits from that? 

It was filmed during the 2012 marriage equality battle in Maryland and has a few familiar faces in it for me as I watched the trailer.  Maryland eventually became one of three states during the 2012  election cycle that approved marriage equality by a 52%-47% margin.   

We New Black Transwomen Define Us, Not You

The New Black Transwoman is an outspoken advocate for the dignity of herself and all transwomen, and refuses to submit quietly to anti-trans oppression and injustice.  

She is grounded in her spirituality, constantly evolving on her feminine journey and strives to be a compliment to Black womanhood and not regarded a joke or detriment to it.  

She fearlessly tackles the shame, guilt and fear issues we face and expresses pride in being a Black transwoman.   --TransGriot. Birth of the New Black Transwoman   July 20, 2012

It seems as though some peeps have a problem with New Black Transwomen standing up for ourselves, owning our power and calling out people who disrespect, denigrate and dehumanize us. 

And sadly, some of those people are in our own Black LGB and Black community ranks    

If you fall into that category and have a problem with African descended transwomen standing up for themselves and their humanity (and you know who you are) that's too damned bad. 

We are no longer going to allow disinformation and misgendering of Black transwomen to go unchallenged.by friend, foe or frenemy inside or outside this community.  We are tired of the media misgendering our people in life and death and getting a 'tude when we call them on their bull feces.  We are tired of misguided Black politicians hypocritically voting against human rights laws and ordinances that will go a long way toward helping to solve many of the problems that ail our community because you fail to grasp the concept that Black trans issues are Black community issues.  

We are more than fed up with the misguided gay and straight Black cisgender people who arrogantly assert they know more about our trans lives than we do.  We're sick of their loud and wrong commentary about Black trans women when they have never walked in our pumps and won't STFU and listen when we try to tell them our stories.  

Enough is enough.   If you truly wish to be a standup trans ally to our community and intelligently talk about chococentric trans issues, 'ejumacate' yourself first. 

Google and Bing are your easily accessible tools to help you gain that Trans 101 and beyond knowledge you'll need to facilitate these much needed Black family conversations.  

There's also an increasingly long list of African American trans women of all ages who are eminently qualified and willing to discuss our lives at a Trans 201 and beyond level and the challenging issues we face.

And that's before we even get started talking about the issues that our trans sisters in the rest of the African Diaspora face in the Caribbean, the Americas, and Continental Africa.

We New Black Transwomen define us, not anyone else.   We are the experts at living our trans feminine lives and navigating our 21st century world in them.  If you're spouting falsehoods and lies about our trans feminine community, we have every right to confront and call it out because we are tired of your lies and disinformation getting our trans younglings killed.

The ongoing online and offline internal trans definition conversations are happening in our own ranks as we speak.  They are happening on our Afrocentric print and video blogs, in our online groups, at conferences, at community meetings and amongst each other.  

We New Black Transwomen are part of the diverse mosaic of human life and interwoven in the kente cloth fabric of African-American life.  We desire sisterhood not only with each other but with our Black cisgender sisters. 

We New Black Transwomen simply want to live our lives in peace and relatively drama free tranquility.   We not only want to see our trans younglings get to experience their 30th, 40th, 50th and 60th birthdays, we want to work toward our ultimate goal of being a valued part of the greater society.
 
The sooner you realize that, the sooner we New Black Transwomen can use our talents, education, and skills to benefit not only our own community, but uplift ourselves and our people as well.  

Pulling Up Saggin' Pants Won't Fix What Ails Our Community

Like much of the Black blogosphere I'm majorly pissed off at Don Lemon for co-signing with a longtime race-baiting bigoted detractor of our community in Bill O'Reilly and giving him cover, not for what was said.

Hell, to be honest, I've trashed saggin' pants on this blog in a song rewrite back in 2009.

But at the same time it is logic defying ridiculous on its face to state that pullin' up saggin' pants as JSmooth eloquently pointed out will magically erase the systemic centuries old racism that negatively impacts the African-American community. 

It is also disingenuous of white conservatives to lecture my community about Black-on Black crime when you don't do the same hand wringing over white on whit crime or have control of your own hoodlums as evidenced by the recent Huntington Beach Riot.

Neither do I see white conservatives stepping up to do something about the far too numerous instances of white males shooting up schools, movie theaters and other places with automatic weapons because of your fetishistic attachment to guns, or vigorously calling out the terrorists who look like you in your own midst.

Shoot, from where I sit, y'all need to take a look in the mirror before you even part your lips to insultingly spit the words 'criminal culture' at my people in a sentence ever again.

The things that will fix what ails Black America is long term investments in public and secondary education, making secondary education affordable like it was for my generation, having good manufacturing jobs at living wages, fixing the broken justice system, unhindered and fair participation in the political system and treating African-Americans with respect instead of like suspects.

That's going to take money and sustained government action to make a reality, and we know you conservafools are more like the Star Trek Ferengis than patriotic Americans concerned about the long term health and stability of this country.