Willie Lynch Must Die!

One of the lessons my father repeatedly drove home to me and my siblings was never accept anything that's written or broadcast in the media at first glance. My freshman year psychology professor reinforced that lesson with a memorable lecture entitled 'Be A Skeptic'.

As long as I have been on the Net, this Willie Lynch letter repeatedly finds its way into my e-mail inboxes, in general discourse with fellow African-Americans on and off the Net and in speeches like Minister Louis Farrakhan's 1995 Million Man March one. I just recently read a February 2008 Ebony magazine issue that refers to it in a Two Sides column debate on whether light-skinned Black people have an advantage.

When I first read it back in the late 90's. my skepticism antenna that has served me well over my lifetime was clanging loud alarm bells as I read this.

First let me post the full text of the alleged 1712 speech so y'all can read it for yourselves, if you haven't seen it yet.

The William Lynch Speech:

"Gentlemen, I greet you here on the bank of the James River in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and twelve. First, I shall thank you, the gentlemen of the Colony of Virginia, for bringing me here. I am here to help you solve some of your problems with slaves. Your invitation reached me on my modest plantation in the West Indies where I have experimented with some of the newest and still the oldest methods of control of slaves.

Ancient Rome would envy us if my program were implemented. As our boat sailed south on the James River, named for our illustrious King, whose version of the Bible we cherish. I saw enough to know that your problem is not unique. While Rome used cords of woods as crosses for standing human bodies along its highways in great numbers you are here using the tree and the rope on occasion.

I caught the whiff of a dead slave hanging from a tree a couple of miles back. You are not only losing a valuable stock by hangings, you are having uprisings, slaves are running away, your crops are sometimes left in the fields too long for maximum profit, you suffer occasional fires, your animals are killed.

Gentlemen, you know what your problems are: I do not need to elaborate. I am not here to enumerate your problems, I am here to introduce you to a method of solving them. In my bag here, I have a fool proof method for controlling your Black slaves. I guarantee everyone of you that if installed correctly it will control the slaves for at least 300 hundred years [sic]. My method is simple. Any member of your family or your overseer can use it.

I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves: and I take these differences and make them bigger. I use fear, distrust, and envy for control purposes. These methods have worked on my modest plantation in the West Indies and it will work throughout the South. Take this simple little list of differences, and think about them.


On top of my list is ‘Age’, but it is there only because it starts with an ‘A’: the second is ‘Color’ or shade, there is intelligence, size, sex, size of plantations, status on plantation, attitude of owners, whether the slave live in the valley, on hill, East, West, North, South, have fine hair, coarse hair, or is tall or short. Now that you have a list of differences. I shall give you an outline of action-but before that I shall assure you that distrust is stronger than trust and envy is stronger than adulation, respect, or admiration.

The Black slave after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self re-fueling and self generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Don't forget you must pitch the old Black male vs. the young Black male, and the young Black male against the old Black male. You must use the dark skin slaves vs. the light skin slaves and the light skin slaves vs. the dark skin slaves. You must use the female vs. the male, and the male vs. the female. You must also have your white servants and overseers distrust all Blacks, but it is necessary that your slaves trust and depend on us. They must love, respect and trust only us.

Gentlemen, these kits are your keys to control. Use them. Have your wives and children use them, never miss an opportunity. If used intensely for one year, the slaves themselves will remain perpetually distrustful. Thank you, gentlemen."

***

Professor Mamu Ampin also shares my skepticism on this speech along with history professor Dr. W. Jelani Cobb of Spelman College.

Both gentlemen point out some interesting things about this letter. Willie Lynch was supposed to be from the West Indies, but it wasn't specified what part of the West Indies he was from.

If Lynch exists and he was West Indian, he would be writing and speaking BRITISH English. 'Color' in British English is spelled 'colour'. This was the eyebrow raiser for me.

The reference to seeing a 'dead slave hanging from a tree' is a giveaway as well. Lynching didn't become prevalent in the United States until the late 19th century. In addition, slaveowners at the time didn't refer to my ancestors as 'Black', they used the term 'Negroes' in their writings. 'Black' only gained widespread usage as a descriptive terms starting in the late 1960's.

There are references to 20th century travel terms such as 'refuelling' or words being used that didn't gain acceptance in modern English until well after the purported date of the speech. In addition, the South didn't become a distinct political region until well over a century after the alleged speech. All of the 13 colonies were slaveholding entities in 1712. The second largest concentration of slaves in the colonies at the time was in New York, where they suppressed multiple slave revolts, (are you reading this Kenneth Eng), including one at the time of the speech.

Neither the first hand writings about slave owner control tactics by people such as Olaudah Equiano, Mahommah Baquaqua, and Frederick Douglass or abolitionist ones either quote or mention a 'Willie Lynch Letter'.

So there's a mountain of evidence that points to this letter as a late 20th century forgery, circa 1990-1995. So the next time you see this 'Willie Lynch letter' in your e-mail box or being quoted, delete it or take that portion of the piece with a grain of salt.

While the overwhelming evidence leans to the fact that the Willie Lynch letter is a fake, what happened to my ancestors over the last 200 plus years definitely wasn't.

Geaux Tigers!

Congrats to the LSU Tigers, who won another national championship at their dome away from home in New Orleans by beating down Ohio State 38-24. The 2003 BCS title game the Bayou Bengals won was also played in New Orleans as well.

As for poor Ohio State, who is now 0-9 in bowl game competition against SEC schools, it's kinda obvious to me as someone who grew up watching SEC and SWC-Big 8-Big 12 football what Ohio State needs to do to change this situation.

Build a team that can beat an elite SEC school.

I get to see a lot of televised Big Ten football games since moving up here to Da Ville. I have Indiana up the road from me in Bloomington, Purdue a little farther up I-65 in West Lafayette and Ohio State is a six hour drive from me as well. I also get to see a lot of SEC games with Kentucky playing only 76 miles east of here in Lexington and Vanderbilt 2 hours south of me in Nashville.

One thing I've noticed is the glaring difference in speed when you compare the two conferences. Ohio State teams are built to play three yards and a cloud of dust Big Ten football. The pass is more of a surprise weapon in the Big Ten rather than a creative, integral part of the offense as it is in other power conferences like the SEC.

Speed kills, and since SEC teams have it across the board in abundance, they play a faster tempo game. Everything in the SEC is geared to utilize or stop that speed. If you noticed last night, LSU corners were shutting down Ohio State receivers by playing lots of one-on-one man coverage. If that had been an SEC, Big 12 or Pac 10 team team they couldn't have gotten away with that for an entire game.

While what I've stated is obvious, it's easier said than done. LSU teams are built with some of the high-quality Texas high school talent that somehow manages to escape the Lone Star State like LSU quarterback Matt Flynn, who is from Earl Campbell's hometown of Tyler, in addition to the best Louisiana high school players.

While we get Big Ten games televised there, most boys grow up wanting to play for the Longhorns (yecch), Texas A&M, other instate Texas schools or another Big 12, Pac 10 or SEC one. Ohio State's not high on the list of schools for an elite Texas player who has the speed they covet and need to play there.

LSU is more attractive to Texas high school players because it's closer to Texas (especially the talent rich Houston metro area, the Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange Golden Triangle and East Texas), has the allure of New Orleans being only 60 miles from Baton Rouge, and has won some titles recently.

Not to take anything away from Ohio State, they're an elite program. They've won a title and made it to the BCS Championship game in back to back years. That's a major accomplishment and they're doing something right. But for Ohio State to take that BCS trophy back to Columbus will require them to build a quick, versatile team that can do more than just win in the Big Ten.

Let's Party...You Plan It

photo-Suga Shack by Ernie Barnes

One of the things that irritates me about some of my transpeeps and others in the at-large transgender community is this lack of understanding of the importance of planning.

I hear a lot of complaining in some African-American transgender circles about why we don't have a community infrastructure similar to our white counterparts.

Some of us who can afford to go to an SCC will attend, then while hanging out with each other surrounded by an ocean of white faces wonder why we don't have a similar event like this that reflects our cultural background and discusses our issues.

While the various factions in the African-American transgender community is one factor that has impeded our progress toward building that kind of infrastructure, one of the major reasons why I believe we don't have it is the lack of people willing to commit their time, money and sweat equity into helping organize these events and commit themselves to doing the work necessary to keep them viable.

We all like a good party, pageant, ball, seminar or convention. I'm no exception to that sentiment, but these events just don't materialize out of thin air. As I know all too well, they can take up to a year to plan and cost money to put on and advertise.

The other thing that annoys me is the peeps who criticize every element of the event. They complain about the cost, bitch about why this speaker, seminar topic, or service wasn't available, the food, et cetera but were 'too busy' to help participate in the planning of it.

When we put together the first Transistahs-Transbrothas Conference that took place in Louisville in 2005, we did it in nine months, but really needed a year. It was hurt in the planning phases by many of the peeps who initially committed to help being MIA for various reasons when crunch time came.

I ended up as a one woman ad hoc crisis management committee, airport shuttle service, DJ and emergency seminar presenter. I did more work during the four days I was off from my regular job for the 2005 TSTBC than I did when I returned to my job when the conference was over. It was moderately successful and we had a subsequent one in 2006. I didn't really get a chance to enjoy myself at the history-making first event and was a little unhappy that TSTBC didn't turn out quite the way I envisioned it. The people who attended were pleased, and that gave me the validation I needed to know it was worth it.

The point I'm making is that if the African-American transgender community desires to have these events (and organizations, et cetera) planning is not only a necessary evil, but a critical part of the process.

The who, what, where, when, why and how much will it cost questions get asked and worked out in planning meetings. The outline, theme and scope of the conference gets fleshed out and takes shape during these meetings as well so that the event runs smoothly.

And most importantly, the financial controls are established, accounts set up and monitored so that the organizing committee not only knows to the penny how much money is in those accounts, but where the money is going with the highest standards of ethical behavior. The cost/benefit analysis work is done to ensure we get the most bang for the buck. The nuts and bolts details are also hammered out in these meetings as well.

It sounds boring and tedious, and to be honest, sometimes they are. Sometimes these meetings can get quite animated and contentious when you have opposing views being discussed. But if you want to put your community's best foot forward and create a signature event that will stand the test of time, it has to be done.

Planning meetings aren't necessarily boring affairs. I've helped participate in some SCC planning sessions in 2000 and 2002 along with the TSTBC ones and some preliminary discussions here for a Louisville Black Pride event. Some of them were more fun than the actual conference. I'll tell you TransGriot readers in a future post the story about a 2002 one that happened on my birthday.

While I've discussed conventions, the same rules apply to smaller scale events as well. Even parties, pageants and balls require some level of planning and organization in order for them to run smoothly.

The bottom line is that if we want more SCC style conferences, seminars or similar events in our community, we need COMMITTED and DEDICATED cadres of people doing the behind the scenes grunt work in order to make them a reality.

It's Barack!

Happy New Year TransGriot readers!

One thing I promised y'all I'd do a few months ago was let you know on New Year's Day which candidate I planned on supporting in the primaries and hopefully through the upcoming presidential election this November.

It was a tight decision that I went back and forth on a number of times, but I'm supporting Sen. Barack Obama.

While some of you may have thought because of my heritage that I automatically would have been supporting him when he first announced, you would be making an incorrect assumption. I put a lot of thought into this decision and I've been wavering between him, Sen. Hillary Clinton, former Sen. John Edwards and Gov. Bill Richardson.

Every one of my semifinalists had something on one level or another that bothered me. I've always liked Sen. Clinton, but the early HRC endorsement of her raises questions in my mind. In Gov. Richardson's case I like his broad based experience, but he botched that HRC softball debate question.

I like John Edwards, but I question whether he has the desire to be president. He and Sen. John Kerry in 2004 didn't fight hard enough to keep Bushie boy and friends from stealing Ohio (and the election) despite massive evidence of fraud, GOP African-American vote suppresion tactics employed there, mysterious voting machine malfunctions that came from a company whose CEO promised to do whatever it took to deliver Ohio for Bush, and the sellout secretary of state being the chair of the Bush campaign in Ohio.


In Sen. Obama's case, it was not confronting Donnie McClurkin's homophobia more forcefully at the South Carolina campaign event. He compounded the mistake by sending an HRC-recommended white gay minister, Rev. Andy Siddon to speak to a predominately African-American crowd that required not only an African-American minister to refute the idiocy, but one with stature like a Michael Eric Dyson, or a GLBT one such as Bishop Yvette Flunder.

I'd already heard him call out the misguided ministers of the Hi Impact Leadership Coalition on more than a few occasions, so I narrowed it down to Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama.

Another reservation I have about him is related to my long term experiences as an African-American of seeing African-American candidates be embraced by White Americans, but they are held to a much higher standard of behavior and expectations than they have for a white candidate, even if the African-American candidate is a higher caliber one than the white candidate.

An example of this was the 2006 Tennessee US Senate campaign of Rep. Harold Ford, Jr.

Ford, who is the current DLC chair, downplayed his African-American roots, ran an almost perfect centrist campaign, and built a 9 point lead going into the final week leading to the 2006 election. But as any African-American politicial scientist or any poli-sci student will tell you, when an African-American candidate is running against a white candidate REGARDLESS of party, the African-American candidate has a 10 point deficit going into that race.

Republicans will quickly dip into the race baiting bag of dirty tricks when they are losing as well. They know as well as I and other African Americans do that there are some people in this country who will not vote for ANY African-American candidate, irregardless of how qualified they are.

All it took was the GOP running the race baiting 'Call Me' commercial to sink Harold Ford's chances of becoming the first African-American elected to the Senate from a southern state since Reconstruction.



While I'm impressed with the fact that he's garnered a lot of white support in his bid, I'm still skeptical as an African-American that this support, what people say in polls and on-camera interviews will turn in the privacy of the election booth into enough votes in the primary season and the general election on November 4 to see him at noon on January 20, 2009 take the oath of office as president of the United States.



Yeah, he got elected to the senate in Illinois, which has elected an African-American to represent it in the Senate before in Carol Moseley Braun. Obama won in a landslide, but let's get real for a minute, he was running against Alan Keyes. I could have beaten Alan Keyes in a statewide election.

But despite my fears that this race baiting will happen again if he gets the nomination, I'm supporting him. I'll get an idea on January 3 just how serious peeps are about their support for him when the Iowa caucuses happen and the New Hampshire primary later this month.

If he can take these two events heading into the South Carolina primary, then I can begin to have the audacity of hope that America truly is seriously considering putting a African-American in the Oval Office.


I've liked him ever since I saw his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. He had a hard act to follow oratorically in terms of Rev. Al Sharpton and I was impressed by his oratorical skills. I also chatted with my family members in and from Chicago who had positive things to say about him as well.



I've read his books and I'm in the process of doing more research on his policy stances and his record. I think he has some wonderful ideas along with the entire Democratic field to clean up George Bush's mess and get this country moving in the right direction again.

And Michelle Obama would make an excellent First Lady. ;)

As to people who would point to his being only a first term US senator, Abraham Lincoln only served one term in the US House and lost a US Senate race in 1858 before he was elected president. Those of us who study history know how his presidency turned out. This current misadministration was the most experienced in history, and look how they jacked stuff up.

But it's all up to the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire to get this party started.

Whether they follow up their words with positive action or not, I'm supporting Barack Obama during this primary season.

Why Didn't You Tell Us?

I have a confession and an apology to make to the transgender community.

I'm one of the people that was alerted to the fact that ENDA was in trouble back in May and there was a problem with us being included in it.

I've gotten a lot of questions in the post-mortem over this latest ENDA disaster about why those of us who discovered what was about to go down didn't do more to get the word out to the community and possibly avert what happened.

What for?

This community believed every negative word ever uttered about me, AC, Dawn Wilson, Vanessa Edwards Foster and anyone either associated with NTAC or who didn't buy into the 'HRC is our friends' mantra.

So my thoughts were at the time, why burn up my money, gas and valuable vacation time sticking my neck out there for peeps that didn't appreciate it?

Why set myself up to get criticized by a community that only a few months ago was loudly calling for NTAC to disband and join forces with the all-knowing, all-powerful insiders of the greatest civil rights organization since the African-American civil rights movement?

You believed the hypnotic 'HRC is our friends' PR spin and we were the salmon swimming upstream against the prevailing tide of transgender public opinion. You failed to ask the skeptically critical questions when the news coming from inside the beltway was "We're included, it's a slam dunk."

That slam dunk attempt got slapped into the cheap seats by Barney Frank.

The transgender community has an annoyingly bad habit in its internal discourse of discounting, shouting down or dismissing any voice that isn't white or has a penchant for saying what it doesn't want to hear.

That tendency bit them in the butt this time. The transgender community also has a major race problem that was exploited by our opponents on BOTH sides of this issue.

So when I (and others) were confronted with a situation in which I was being called 'crazy' and an 'uppity n-word' by a certain person being hailed by the community as the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, greatest civil rights leader since MLK, who they believed with all their hearts would lead us transgender people out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land of civil rights equality and can do no wrong, then what was the point of sounding the warning if they believed that feces?

It would have gotten the same reaction from the transgender community that AC, Dawn and I got from Babs Casbar in the Longworth Building cafeteria when we told her during the NTAC Lobby day what we'd discovered. When she asked where we'd gotten our info and we told her, her reaction was, "What do they know?"

Okay, this person is active in the Stonewall Democrats, and she didn't know who the Congressional Black Caucus was or the level of power this organization had acquired since the Democratic takeover of Congress?

Babs did send me an e-mail after everything blew up that we were right, but being right and having the ability to say 'I told you so' doesn't make me feel any better about this disgusting mess. Obviously the CBC reps knew more and were willing to share with fellow African-Americans what your vaunted 'insider' legislators wouldn't tell you.

So much for the image of NCTE being the 'insiders'

Even if we did tell y'all, all you peeps who drank the 'HRC Is Our Friends' Kool-Aid would have done is shrugged your collective shoulders, did a 'There they go again' Reagan imitation and blew it off because that info came from 'those crazy NTAC people.'

But it's not like I and others didn't try to sound the alarm. I wrote about the possibility of us being screwed in my TransGriot print column in THE LETTER that was published in July 2007. I posted it on my blog as well.

And here's the paragraph in which I sounded the warning:

But one thing I repeatedly heard in several offices I visited during the recent National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) Lobby Days May 15-17 disturbed me. Several staffers informed me that Senator Kennedy’s bill DOESN’T mirror HR 1592 by including the words ‘gender identity’ and the definition for it as set forth in Section 3.6 of the House bill. I hope by the time that this column is read that it turned out to be just a rumor and the bill does mirror the one that passed the House May 3.
But what if that information IS true?

There are some gay and lesbian people that would be ecstatic if that happened. Some of them have expressed the attitude that the term doesn’t belong in ‘their’ ENDA bill. That’s a fundamentally short sighted, selfish and myopic viewpoint.

That's what I wrote in July 2007. As a matter of fact, Dawn, AC and I along with other NTACers were disturbed enough to consider putting together a team of lobbyists to storm the Hill unannounced before the August recess. But since NCTE was on the Hill and the community conventional wisdom was arrayed against NTAC, against our better political instincts we punted the ball and let NCTE run (and screw up) the show.

In hindsight, we should have followed our instincts, ran our clandestine lobby day, reported our findings after it was done and said to you NTAC critics who would have bitched about what we'd done 'screw y'all, we're trying to get this ENDA bill passed.'

Others may not be forthcoming about their mistakes, but I will own up to mine.

I apologize to the community for not doing enough to FORCEFULLY get the word out there. That won't happen again.

But even if I or others come up with the info and put it out there, whether you like it or not, you are minorities now. It is critical to your survival and it's your responsibility as American citizens and voters to acquire info, use your God-given critical thinking and reasoning skills to filter it our and act (or not act) on it.

End of 2007 Musings

In a little more than 17 hours we say goodbye to 2007 and hello to 2008. It's been an interesting but tumultuous year not only for the transgender community but for me personally as well.

I started the year with a newspaper column I loved, a job I didn't like and 15 pounds heavier. I lost that job three days into the New Year and got my current one, lost the weight through the course of the year, got a year older and unexpectedly lost my column in September.

And still I rise.

While I don't have my column any more and I miss writing it once a month, I still have this blog. There was a silver lining in the loss of the monthly column although I'm majorly pissed about the way it went down. It allowed me to focus more of my creative energy on TransGriot and other writing projects. I've been blessed to see my readership grow from just 100 hits per day from the time I installed my counter on January 17 to 400 per day.

I set a record for one day hit totals twice. I received 1200 hits for my posts on the Miss Universe pageant and broke it when I received 1500 hits on the blog for my history on HRC-transgender community relations. I composed my 500th post since starting TransGriot. And best of all, thanks to the blog, I'm blessed with the ability to intelligently expound on a wide range of issues. I also get the bonus of corresponding with and meeting some wonderful people and fellow bloggers I wouldn't have otherwise.

The transgender community has gone through similar ups and downs. Here in the States we've not only seen increased coverage of transgender issues in our media, but several television shows that have or debuted with good and bad transgender characters. We've seen a transperson get elected statewide in Hawaii but lose locally in Riverdale, GA and Aurora, CO. We've had several cities and states pass inclusive rights legislation.

But in late September our world got rocked by being messily cut out of ENDA by so-called allies. It's triggered not only a schism in the GLB_t community, but a long overdue American transgender community reexamination of how we do business as a community, how inclusive we really are, what tactics we use to pursue our twin legislative Holy Grails of a transgender inclusive ENDA and hate crimes bills and our place in the GLBT community. We transpeople are also searching for, as Aretha Franklin so eloquently sang, R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

It's been a mixed bag of success and failure in the worldwide community as well. We've had legal reversals mixed with success. They too have experienced increasing popularity and media coverage as well. But at the same time while my transgender cousins in Jamaica and on the African continent are catching hell, my African cousins are garnering more positive press as well. (hey, that rhymed)

Around the world, it's becoming more obvious by the day that being transgender is a worldwide medical issue that calls for a compassionate medical, social and legal response, not faith-based hatred and condemnation. Despite what the Catholic Church, fundamentalists and many conservative pundits think, we exist, we have human rights and we aren't going away.

That's one part of the worldwide struggle that will continue into the New Year, and we'll also see the various societies and governments around the world adjust to varying degrees of success or failure.

As for the Phenomenal Transwoman herself? I've been spending the last few days in my traditional end of the year assessment of my life. Been reassessing goals, rechecking my New Year's resolutions I wrote down at the beginning of 2007 and seeing how much progress I made (or lack thereof) toward achieving them.

I'm also at a personal crossroads in my life on a few fronts. Over the next year I'll be working diligently toward successfully resolving those issues. The issues need to be resolved in order for me to continue maintaining my forward progress toward evolving into the type I woman I want to be.

But the best news about 2008? It's a presidential election year.

Media Exposure...Or Lack Thereof

Media exposure is something we African-Americans know about all too well. We've been hit with the negative end of it far too often during our 400 years on American shores or deafening silence when it comes to our positive attributes.

That's true of the transgender community as well. It's one of the reasons I was a co-host on an FM radio show back in my hometown from 1999-2001, started my blog two years ago and up until September wrote a monthly column for almost 4 years in a local GLBT newspaper.

While there are more than a few transgender podcasts and Internet radio shows, the only radio shows I've gotten to do on a regular basis is Ethan St Pierre's and Becky Juro's once. Kat Rose and I have been trying to synchronize our schedules so that I can appear on hers as well.

After I did Becky's show back in May (and the topic was on racism, BTW), I read the comments on her blog about it later. I had one detractor who flat out wrote they couldn't stand me because in their words, 'I acted like I spoke for the entire African-American transgender community.'

Hello?

One of the reasons it seems as though I 'speak for the African-American transgender community' is because representatives of the African-American transgender community don't appear on these shows often enough.

I'm one of the peeps (along with Dawn Wilson) who's a proud African-American transperson not only willing to be on the air speaking for the community, but has the media background, the education and the experience to not only articulately represent my African-American community but the transgender one as a whole.

But one of the problems is that when these media opportunities come up, rarely are African-Americans chosen to be the spokespeople for the community at large. We saw that over and over again this year with Larry King and other mainstream talk shows. Only Tyra Banks featured African-American transpeople on her transgender-oriented shows this year.



So when we do get that rare media op, we have it in the back of our minds that we have ground to make up. We make sure that we are on point with our facts, are knowledgeable, get some points in about our experiences as African-American transpeople, and cover as much ground as possible in the time we have slotted for us on the various transgender oriented shows. We also want to make sure we don't have a Sherri Shepherd moment on these shows as well.

The point is whether you want to admit it or not, there are TWO Americas. Black and White Americans look at the same issues through different prisms. The same is true of Black and White Transgender America as well.

But since some white transpeeps disagree mightily with what I have to say, I have to wonder sometimes if there is a conscious effort afloat to keep me (and Dawn) at arms length from those media opportunities until they can find a more pliable Condoleezza Rice clone to give 'the African-American transgender viewpoint' in a more palatable version to white ears.

My views are not the ONLY African-American transgender ones. If you spent time on my TSTB list you'd discover I have people calling me out on a list I founded. I'm not the first or only African-American transperson that's been interviewed by a newspaper reporter or had a mic or TV camera stuck in their face. I've just been more willing to speak on the record when the camera starts taping or the tape recorder starts rolling.

My point is that the transgender community is NOT a monolithic one. Transgender people come in a variety of flavors and shades as well. If you are serious about getting transpeople included in any civil rights bill in 2009, that message has to be relentlessly hammered home in 2008 by a rainbow of transgender people.

The only faces that Mr. and Ms. America see of transpeople can no longer be just white ones.

Bah, Humbug

Hey TransGriot readers!

Sorry I've been MIBA the last couple of days. Haven't felt much like writing. My mood has matched the crappy weather we've had around Da Ville lately. The sun's out today, but it's still colder than HRC's heart. One thing that did come out of it my self-imposed temporary exile was a short piece I'll be posting in the next few days.

Every now and then a writer hits the creative wall and you need to step back for a few days until the creative juices and your love for writing takes over again.

But what I've been experiencing the last few days was more than mere writer's block. It's that combined with the Christmas blues, lack of satisfying progress in the activist part of my life, a little non-activism related drama in my life, being out of hormones until next payday and homesickness. The weather didn't help either, as I mentioned in the opening paragraph. Saturday we had a half-inch of sleet and slush coating the roads in Da Ville, but fortunately the temperature didn't get below freezing and create a traffic nightmare.

I'd even cut off the TV and the computer off. It had me feeling like George Bailey in the classic Christmas movie It's A Wonderful Life.


No peeps, the only thing I'm gonna do on a bridge is drive my car to the other side of it and back. ;) I love myself too much to even comtemplate something like that, even if I am depressed from time to time.

It took me a few days, some prayer, talking to my homegirls, some chocolate chip muffins and two gallons of Blue Bell ice cream (chocolate chip cookie dough and homemade vanilla, of course) and some creative writing for me to work things out. but the creative writing juices are starting to flow, I'm back to almost being the Phenomenal Transwoman and Christmas is only a week away.

Now that I'm feeling better, you'll see me posting on the regular again. But if anybody wants to send me any Christmas gifts, a round trip airline ticket to Houston will work.

'The View' To Ignorance

When and where I enter, then and there the entire race enters with me.

It's too bad Sherri Shepherd hasn't read this quote from Anna Julia Cooper since it's not in the Bible. Come to think of it, based on her statements on The View, homegirl needs to expand her reading list.

I'm actually pining for the days when Star Jones was sitting at that table.



Sherri Shepherd is not only an embarrassment to herself, she's also an insult to every intelligent Black woman in this country, myself included.

Every time she says something ignorant and stupid, she not only provides fodder for our detractors, she gives them ammunition to validate every negative thing that our detractors have ever written, uttered or thought about African-Americans regarding our intelligence.



My displeasure with her predates the insultingly stupid 'I ain't having my son wear a dress' comment in reference to a discussion on transgender children. As a teacher's kid, I have a low tolerance for naked displays of ignorance. Seeing this from Ms. Shepherd on a narionally televised TV show and justifying it by hiding behind the Bible just works my last nerve. I'm a Christian, but I don't subscribe to the view (pardon the pun) that you must turn off your brain to express your faith.

For example, Dr. King was not only a great minister and orator, he had an intellectually keen mind as well. There are scientific references laced throughout many of his speeches. I used to enjoy talking to AC's late father in law because he was not only a distinguished geology professor, but a devout Catholic as well.

So I fail to understand why some Black Christians feel the need to buy into this white fundamentalist anti-intellectual hate on people definition of Christianity.



But back to Ms. Shepherd. I suggest you take a trip to a museum, preferably the Smithsonian in DC or the Field Museum in your hometown of Chicago, not the Flintstone's one in Northern Kentucky. A trip to the Adler Planetarium is a must as well. I would also suggest you balance your Bible reading time with books on history, geography, astronomy, human sexuality and Black history.

No check that, you need to read more books besides the Bible, period. For good measure you need to annually buy a copy of the World Almanac as well and read them from cover to cover like I do. An Internet connection wouldn't hurt you either.

Better yet, can we not only see more of Whoopi but bring back Jacqui Reid, Gayle King, or any intelligent sistah? If ABC and Barbara Walters are gonna keep this walking stereotype on the air, I want some intelligent sistahs on the show for balance.

Talking About My Peeps

Mes Deux Cents had a post on her blog that talked about her observation that some of our people have abandoned our core values.

As I said in a response on her blog, I believe and know for the most part we African-Americans still value hard work, education, faith, family and fairness. You not only wouldn't know that listening to right-wing talk radio, the definitions of those terms have been skewed to reflect a narrow political viewpoint.

To me, one problem I see is that I believe that our generation failed to pass on the lessons of our tortured history in America to our kids and we African-Americans are paying dearly for it.

In the 60's we achieved the easy goals of the end of Jim Crow desegregation. The powers that be could live with that.

The economic empowerment one is tougher. Those that have the power and the cash aren't gonna give it up without a fight. While we were happy that 'we'd overcome' and were 'moving on up' and out to the 'burbs, the Forces of Intolerance were plotting and planning to reverse those gains.

If our peeps had read the history of the post Civil War Reconstruction period we should have been even more forceful and vigilant about protecting our hard won gains during the 70's. Instead, our failure to learn from our history resulted in us eerily repeating in the 80's and 90's what happened during that First Reconstruction.

The rise of the conservative movement was a reaction to our civil rights successes. They also learned important lessons from their mistakes in the 60's in terms of having the churches on our side and the importance of control of the media messaging. The progressive side is belatedly waking up to that truth, albeit late in the game. Our side is just now getting the critical mass they need to counter it.

The Forces of Intolerance are also using the African-American community's historic tendency to gravitate to church-centered leadership as a cynical divide-and-conquer tactic. Its major goal is to split our community and alter the Black church's ongoing historic mission of speaking truth to power and advocating for the least of us.

We should know from our history that the more conservatives hate on a Black leader (or ANY progressive leader) the more we should pay attention to them. Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson are on the right track. While I don't agree with everything they say or do, I know they share my concerns about uplifting our entire community.

I can't say that about the megachurch ministers. They are out of step with the mainstream Black community. I get tired of people attacking 'the Revs' for actually doing what the Black megachurch minsters SHOULD be doing instead of building arena-sized churches and doing their Uncle Thomas impressions at conservative events.

Yeah, we have some problems we need to address as soon as possible. We have accomplished major things over the last century through our community unity and I submit that we African-Americans aren't as divided as some people pessimistically think we are. But we have major work to do in terms of cleaning up some in house problems and healing superficial rifts that are causing fissures in our community cohesiveness.

Addicted To Blogging? Moi?

70%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Well, seeing that I have 400 plus posts this year compared to the 125 I did in all of 2006, hmm. maybe I am. But I wouldn't call that an addiction.

I just simply like to write, have a lot to say about various things going on in the world around me and have a lot of fun doing it.

My Might Have Been New York Life

There are times in your life in which decisions you made or didn't make affect your future either negatively or positively. There are also times that decisions your parents make can affect your life as well.

Sometimes I reflect on one of those parental decisions that may have taken my life in another direction. A while back my dad told me about a job offer he'd gotten in the 70's from a New York radio station that he seriously thought about taking. For peeps in the radio world, while my dad's AM drive time show in H-town wasn't exactly bush league, working in a major market such as New York is a big deal.

It had gotten to the point in my parents decision making process that they were researching the cost of homes in Brooklyn and other areas of New York. Mom was making inquiries about what the New York State requirements were for continuing her teaching career there. Dad, like myself is a native Texan and native Houstonian, and he thought long and hard about the pros and cons of it before he said no.

There are times when I watch Paris Is Burning and play the 'what if' game. I start thinking about how different my life would have been if Dad had said yes to that job offer.

I probably would have been spending my teen years in Brooklyn or somewhere in the New York metro area. I could see myself hanging out on the Chelsea Piers in Greenwich Village, just like I hung out in Montrose after my high school graduation. I can see myself being drawn to and probably getting involved in the ballroom scene instead of reading about Carmen Xtravaganza in a mid 80's Village Voice article on a Houston bookstore.



Then again, just as I wonder from time to time what my life would have been like if I'd been born female, all this is doing is exercising my brain cells. A lot of what makes me the Phenomenal Transwoman I am was shaped by the fact I grew up in Texas. Taking me out of Texas in my teens alters some of the life experiences that form my worldview and how I look at the world.

Being in New York for the emergence of hip-hop and house may slightly alter my music tastes, but I don't get to experience the denial of my voting rights in 1984 that fuels my passion as an activist. I trade seeing Kirk Whalum live in Houston jazz clubs and trips to New Orleans for the pleasure of seeing Phyllis Hyman perform live in the Village. I don't get as much face time with my grandmothers and my godmother who are important to the development of my love for Black history, my spirituality and political views. But that negative development is offset by the Schomburg Institute being a subway train ride away for me.

When I was trying to decide in my senior year where to attend college, Howard was one of my final two schools but I opted to stay home and attend UH. I probably end up at Howard since I'm now a five hour drive down I-95 or an Amtrak train ride from that campus instead of halfway across the country. And probably because I'm in Washington on a premier HBCU campus I get more immersed in politics and have opportunities to work as a congressional aide.

So yeah, sometimes I think about those interesting permutations my life could have taken, but the end result is that I most likely would have still ended up being the TransGriot and blogging about my life experiences as a proud transwoman.

They just would have been from a New York perspective instead of a Texas one. ;)

TDOR..My Thoughts

Today's TDOR is 48 hours away from Thanksgiving Day. Short of having good friends, some family members in my life, a good job, a roof over my head, food to eat and relatively good health I don't feel like there's much to be thankful for.

We've been 'gayjacked' out of an ENDA bill that our community desperately needs and told because we fought tooth and nail to stay in it, we're going to get frozen out of federal civil rights legislation until 2013. We also paid $20K of hard earned T-bills for the privilege of getting screwed by HRC, and we already have some elements of the transgender community with short memories trying to say that we need to work with an organization that repeatedly screws us. Here in Louisville the JCPS is prepared to go forward with protections for GLB workers, but not transgender ones as the Forces of Intolerance gear up their faith based hatred and lies to stop it.

The weather here in Da Ville is warm and sunny, but it doesn't match my mood at all on this day. I know I shouldn't be letting this depress me, but it does because I care. I look at the pictures of Riley, Jazz, Rochelle, Kim and all those other transkids now in elementary, middle or high school and wonder if they will still be facing the same bull we are dealing with ten, twenty-five or fifty years into this century.

On this TDOR we're adding another dozen names to the ever growing list of people killed by anti-transgender violence. I think about the night I almost joined that list back in 1996.

I think about all the drama that has transpired over the last two months and how it's going to indirectly fuel the negative perceptions that will lead to more deaths of transgender people for the remainder of the year and into 2008 as well.

I think about the ignorance being spouted about transgender people from folks in my own community. People who should know better than anyone what it's like to be reviled for who you are and have compassion for this situation. It also saddens me to know that 70% of the people on this list are people of color as well.

But as Dr. King so eloquently stated, while we must accept finite disappointment, we must never give up infinite hope.

Those are the words that I hold on to along with my unshakeable faith that this situation will turn around in my lifetime. I believe that the day will comme in which we transgender people are seen as God's children and valued human beings, not the punchline to a joke or targets of irrational violence and faith-based hatred.

I pray that we will be able to unleash our spirituality, creativity, work ethics, pride in who we are and competitive drive to make better lives not only for ourselves, but uplift this society as well.

I also want to see the day that killing a transgender person is not seen as socially acceptable behavior and the person who does so gets the same level of punishment as someone who kills a non-transgender person.

I also hold out hope that one day the TDOR ceremonies won't be needed. But alas, I fully expect that we'll be doing this again at the LPTS and other locales around the world next year.