The SOTU Speech I'd Love To See The POTUS Give

The State of the Union speech is happening later tonight, and I'll be paying attention like all of us political junkies and the pundit class will be.

President Obama will steer this one right now the middle and try his best to stay with the 'No Drama Obama' image despite the massive hate the Teapublicans and their conservafool acolytes have hurled his way. 

But just once I would like to see him give a SOTU speech in which he went Chicago Southside on their behinds.   How would that sound?

***

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, fellow citizens: 

I have had it with trying to be nice to these Teapublican jerks, and I'm going to go Southside on them in this State of the Union Address and call some folks out.

The State of Our Union is strong but divided due to these racist GOP fools doing everything possible to get back at me for whipping Mitt Romney's behind in the 2012 election cycle.  

They hate me so much they were willing to destroy the economy of the United States and the world just to deny me ANY success by following Sen. Ted Cruz's lead and shut the federal government down.  These mitches are so filled with hatred that they won't pass the Jobs Bill this country needs, immigration reform, reasonable gun regulation, increasing the minimum wage, rebuilding infrastructure, passing ENDA or do anything else that will generate good jobs at good wages because it's what I want to see done and they are beholden to the Koch Brothers and their 1% corporate paymasters. 

Something else I want to see done is fix the problem with the Voting Rights Act tossed into our laps due to another jacked up Supreme Court decision.  But you know the Republicans don't want that to happen because they know you'll with vote their behinds out of office this November

My fellow Americans, I know you want and would like to see bipartisanship bloom like the cherry blossoms inside the Beltway, but I can't keep offering my hand to people who instead of shaking it and doing what's best for the country and moving us forward together, take their hand instead to slap me across the face with it, spit in my face when they are done, and then laughably accuse me in their propaganda outlets of not wanting to work with them. 

Well, that's over.  They want to lie and accuse me of being a Chicago politician, well, they are about to see it live and in living color in 2014.   If they won't act to move this country forward in a bipartisan way, then I'll do it my damned self.   I'll use my executive authority to the full extent constitutionally permissible to move America forward.   There's more than one way to beat an obstructionist Republican, and I'm going to prove that to you.

And as I handle my business inside Washington DC, I ask you to do your part by putting pressure on your congressmembers and senators to act on the legislation already passed by the Democratic Senate that is bottled up in the House because Speaker Boehner refuses to bring it to a vote.

If Speaker Boehner continues his recalcitrant ways through the rest of this year, then you get the opportunity on November 4 to vote him and the Republicans out of power on November 4 so that we can return the speaker's gavel to someone who will pass the legislation we need to move this country forward in Nancy Pelosi.

It's past time to end the war in Afghanistan and bring our troops home.   And when we do so, we give them everything we promised them in terms and they signed up to go into the military for in terms restoring all the GI Bill funding.   They earned it fighting to defend our freedoms, we promised that money to them, and we need to make good on that promise. 

And speaking of our military, it is past time to allow transgender Americans to opportunity to openly serve their country.  The time has come to allow patriotic transgender Americans the chance to openly serve their country like anyone else inside the borders of this nation we all love.   It is also time for our military to allow those transpeople who are hiding their true selves in order to stay in military service to be able to come out and openly serve our country.   Just as was done with DADT, we do so after consultation with our military leaders to expeditiously come up with the best practices, policies and ways to integrate trans Americans into the greatest armed forces in the world.    

We also need to act decisively to end the horrific situation that our daughters in uniform face when it comes to sexual assaults going unpunished.   American women sign up to serve our country, not  face sexual harassment and assault and have their superior officers turn a blind eye to it when they seek justice for what happened to them.   If you are not willing to act inside the military justice system to fix the problem, then we'll need to give our women warriors other options if their superior offices are thwarting prosecution of those crimes.

I've already alluded to it with transgender Americans in the militray, but if we are are going to lead the way in fighting for the human rights of LGBT people people around th world, we have to lead by example here at home.    It is past time that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans be afforded first class citizenship in the United States of America.  It is ridiculous that ENDA has not been passed, that many states still refuse to allow people to marry the person they love for specious reasons or use their faith as a fig leaf to cover their bigotry and prejudice. 

It is inexcusable that transgender people are facing the levels of hate violence they do.  Transpeople should have to hide because they fear that what happened to Islan Nettles will happen to them.   They should have to jump through hoops just to get identification that matches who they are now or if they are immigrants working hard to build new lives for themselves after fleeing anti transgender oppression in their birth nations being deported back to them.. You are first class human beings who deserve first class citizenship in our nation, and it's past time that happened. 

And why should we do all this?   We are approaching 50 years since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and signed into law by president Lyndon Baines Johnson.  I , my children and yours are the beneficiary of the changes in American society that the Civil Rights Act and other subsequent groundbreaking legislation engendered..

And let us keep building together a more perfect union.  This country works best when we are also contributing our ideas, talents, sweat equity and elbow grease into putting in the work to make as Barbara Jordan said. an America as good as its promise. 

We should have as our guiding North Star striving to make an America better than its promise.   Let's start that wok tonight as we leave this chamber.  

God bless you my fellow Americans, and God bless the United States of America.  

Please Don't Tell Me, "I'm Color-Blind"!!

TransGriot Note:  I loved this creative piece Cheryl posted in a Facebook thread, and this one needed to be shared with the world.

Please Don't Tell Me, "I'm Color-Blind"!!
By Cheryl Courtney-Evans

PLEASE don't tell me, "I'm color-blind"!!
It doesn't make me believe you respect me,
To tell me you don't see color.
... I don't want to be invisible,
And black is a part of who I am.
Yes, I am a transgender woman,
But that's not all that I am.
I am a part of the African-origined diaspora
That descended from kings & queens in their blackness
Although some of my people may have been slaves there,
It was a different type of slavery experienced here.
But I don't want to ignore the richness of the lives
Born of the pain lived in a new home either.
It spawned the color we bring to our music, love & lives.
It is not to be ignored, and when someone tells me,
"I'm color-blind", they're telling me they want to ignore
The TOTALITY of my being.
So don't tell me this, let me know you SEE me,
Yet respect ALL of me, as I would respect YOU!

Fiction Writing-Take Me Away

In the mood to do some fiction writing this weekend.  Time to get reacquainted with some characters I created a few years ago and see what's transpired in their lives since the last time I wrote about them.

I also have the option of taking another path and taking the time to say hello to some new ones.  In addition to creating and getting to know them, I get the pleasure of figuring out their likes, dislikes and what exciting things are transpiring in the world that I can create and they'll interact in.

No matter which route I take, the bottom line is that it's been too long since I've done some fiction writing and I did promise myself I'd make more time to do so in 2011.   I just need to do some writing that unleashes some creative juices on a regular basis instead of the 'just the facts' and the editorial pieces I've been doing a lot lately.   

The news has been coming fast and furisously on many issues.  I'm happy to post it here at TransGriot with my analysis for your reading pleasure, and not  thank whose of you who drop by on a regular basis, I thank those of you in this Great Recession who have dropped your hard earned change in the tip jar as well.    

But inside me is a frustrated fiction writer yearning to breathe free....hold on a minute.

Lorynn, what do you mean I'm overdue with 'your' sequel to On The Wings of Love?   Damn, always the diva. 

As I was saying, there's a frustrated fiction writer yearning to breathe free.  Have some ideas for a few stories and they will include some positive trans characters of color since they are sorely needed in the fiction world.
. 
Just need to take some time and create them.

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

There's a saying that truth is stranger than fiction.

When I'm in fiction writing mode and think that the chapter or scene I'm creating for whatever short story or novel manuscript may be too outlandish, I soon discover when I compare my scene to real life, umm, no it isn't.

I have one novel manuscript in which I have in laws running against each other for public office. Not long after I penned that imaginary race chuckled when I heard about an estranged husband and wife running against each other for public office.

Talk about drama.

But that's why I love fiction writing.   You get to set up the scene and let the characters go to work in it.   Sometimes they'll take off in directions you didn't expect, either.

Feeling Fictional Today

Today I'm going to spend some time hanging out with Lorynn Thibodeaux, Nia Shakur, Marland Devereaux, David Millard, Niki Banks, Michael Lee and the rest of the gang back in H-town and I won't be hopping a flight home to do it.

All it will take for me to accomplish that is sitting down at my computer and using my imagination to visit the world I created for them in the novel I'm working on called On The Wings Of Love.

I love reading romance novels by author Kayla Perrin in my non blogging spare time along with novels by my other fave authors Eric Jerome Dickey, Omar Tyree, E. Lynn Harris and Marcus Major.

While I'm garnering an increased profile in the blogosphere as a non-fiction writer (and thanks to all you peeps who do stop by TransGriot on a regular basis and even leave comments from time to time, hint, hint) I also love unleashing my creative side and writing fiction as well.

Wings is actually the third novel I've composed, but it's the first in which I didn't have a main transgender character in it. I'm actually working on another one that's centered in 1980's Montrose that focuses on the Black transgender/SGL community there. It's centered on a transgender character named Ebony from my first two novels whose story just begged to be expanded from minor character status. Wings is one in which I drew on my 14 years in the airline industry and all those stories and myriad incidents I've witnessed that beg to be told.

And yes, the names and physical descriptions of the guilty will be changed to protect them.

I've also surprisingly discovered you have to do just as much research or even more for a fictional story than I have to do for some of my blog posts. If you have it set for a certain time period, nothing spoils a story more than for an out of place reference that a savvy reader picks up on.

Wings is set at a fictional Houston based airline and focuses on the romantic travails of New Orleans born Lorynn, who doesn't like Black men. After a nasty breakup with a pilot she caught cheating on her, she meets David Millard, a ramp agent with a mysterious background who is non-revving on a San Francisco-Houston flight she's working on and is attracted to him.

David has issues with light skinned sisters since one broke his heart back during his Southern University college days. That sister, Marland Evangeline Devereaux is newly divorced from her pro ball playing ex, now living in Houston and wants him back.

Then there's gate agent Niki Banks, who's looking for her perfect man, but has yet to realize he's a lot closer than she assumed. There's also Lorynn's roommate and best friend Nia Shakur, who not only dispenses sisterly advice, she's trying to make a love connection with a handsome divorced gate agent who doesn't want to be diverted to Heartbreak City again. At the same time she's being pursued by her ex Quinton, the HPD cop.

The fun thing about writing fiction is that after you create the characters and set up the basic premise of the story, then you go from there. Sometimes the characters...hold up peeps.

Lorynn, what do you mean you have a problem with how I described you in the initial paragraph. Did you not say that the only thing a Black man could do for you was wash your car and shine your shoes? And wasn't the pilot you were dating married?

That's what I thought. Stop rolling your eyes at me, diva. You'll get your chance to prove 'errbody' wrong. So chill, have a beignet and a smile and trust me on this.

Now where was I? Oh yeah, sometimes the characters take you places you didn't expect to go once you start writing and they start interacting with each other.

It's fun to watch it happen as well.

Paternal Hymn For Transgender Daughters

TransGriot Note: This was posted to TSTB since today is Father's Day. Unfortunately I don't know who the author is so I can give them proper credit for this wonderful piece, but it definitely needed to be shared with the world on this day.

Most holidays are bittersweet occasions for transpeople. In terms of our families, next to Christmas and Thanksgiving, Mother's Day and Father's Day can be tough, especially if you have a chilly to nonexistent relationship with your parents as a result of your gender transition.

The person that sometimes has the hardest time with a M2F gender transformation is Dad, since they invest so many of their time, hopes and dreams in raising their sons.

So this is dedicated to all the Dads out there on your day.

***

This is for our fathers who never knew our name
But had so much influence on the road down which we came.

This is for our fathers who shoved us out the door
And bid us learn about the world, the universe and more!

This is for our fathers who taught us to love books
And never judge their contents by the way their covers look.

This is for our fathers who never knew our name
But had so much influence on the road down which we came.

This is for our fathers who taught us “Yes we can!”
Despite the fact they often tried to make of us a man.

This is for our fathers who taught us wrong from right
And reminded us that there are times when you have to stand and fight.

This is for our fathers who never knew our name
But had so much influence on the road down which we came.

This is for our fathers who taught us to be strong
And never to bow our bloody head though we’ve been treated wrong!

This is for our fathers who taught us to read maps well
But never could map inside their heads the place we served in hell.

This is for our fathers who never knew our name
But had so much influence on the road down which we came.

I thank God for our fathers who never knew our name
And I pray God that they never find is us true cause for shame.

Cause we’re our father’s daughters, our mother’s daughters too
Though the world raised a thousand hymn to mom; dad we raise this one for you!

So this is for our fathers who never knew our name
But had so much influence on the road down which we came!

In Memory of Rita Hester

by Nancy R. Nangeroni
from Gendertalk.com

Skating late last night
I retraced the vigil path
Found two candles burning on Rita's step
So I added one more
and wondered how it felt
to feel the knife strike so close to home.
They called her a man
Called her a transvestite
They said she lived a double life
But we know better
We know the truth
We know why Rita died.

I still hear your mama's cries
Haunting the canyons of my mind
You were just too much girl
For somebody else's world

I gazed into the windows
of the bar where you were last seen
I searched each patron's eyes for signs of guilt
I heard again your mama cry
"Who took away my child?"
echoing off canyon walls of brick and steel

I still hear your mama's cries
Haunting the canyons of my mind
You were just too much girl
For somebody else's world

I still hear your mama's cries
Haunting the canyons of my mind
You were just too much girl
For somebody else's world