Angelica Ross Featured In Sophisticates Black Hair Magazine

When I stated life as my true self 25 years ago, one of the things I started doing was picking up copies of Sophisticates Black Hair from my local Walgreen s and CVS magazine shelves

Sophisticates Black Hair Magazine, or SBH for short , has for over 30 years featured  hair styling and makeup tips geared toward Black women , but features our Black female celebrities looking fab at various events and on our fave television shows and movies..

It also has an issue dedicated to the Ten Best Styled Women of the Year

So it was a big deal when Angelica Ross announced that she has an article in the latest issue of SBH with our forever FLOTUS on the cover

Congrats Angelica!  Looking forward to the day when you are on the cover of Sophisticates Black hair magazine.

'Back To The Future II' Was Right! Cubs Win!

While I was watching that thrilling World Series Game Seven that ended over a century of frustration for the Chicago Cubs, it hit me that the Back To The Future II movie that was set in October 2015 had a scene in which the news video board in Hill Valley flashed news of the Cubs winning the World Series.

It was against a team that didn't exist at the time the movie was released in 1989 in the Miami Marlins,.  The Marlins only came into existence two tears after the movie debuted and they are a National League franchise. not an American League one.

Something else the movie got right along with the handheld tablet computers and multiple television channels,   Still waiting for my hoverboard and the self lacing Nikes.

The movie predicting the Cubs being world champions was off by a year and in real life it was against the Cleveland Indians ,but at this point long suffering Cubs fans don't care.  They have waited 108 years for this moment to happen and I definitely feel their joy.  I experienced it myself when the Rockets finally broke through in 1994 and ended our H-town sports title drought..

Waiting for the Astros to finally win that elusive World Series title after a series of frustrating playoff losses..

Back To The Future II was right   The Cubs are champions of the American baseball world. Somewhere Harry caray is smiling about that along with Cubs fans there and around the country.

Selena MAC Collection Is A Hit!

If you don't think the Latinx community still doesn't have mad love for all things Selena, here's more evidence they do.

Was checking out a picture from my homegirl Chelsea Noriega posted on her Facebook page of the line in a Boston store where she and countless other people are waiting to purchase items from the MAC Selena Collection which went on sale in the stores that sell MAC Cosmetics stores today

The MAC Selena Collection lunched September 30 in Selena's hometown of Corpus Christi, TX, and went on sale online the next day.   I'm not surprised about hearing it sold out online in its first day of availability.

The MAC Selena collection was a collaborative effort of MAC and Selena's sister Suzette Quintanilla, who wanted the collection to reflect the bold makeup choices her sister made and effortlessly pulled off.

The three lipsticks in the collection are named after Selena songs.  The dark red one is Dreaming Of You, the light red is Como La Flor, and the dark brown is Amor Prohibido  

 It includes two eyeshadows, a purple one named Selena. and a pink one called Fotos Y Recuerdos, and the Techno Cumbio.blush duo that's part of the collection comes in Ven Conmingo and Blunt

"I wanted the colors to be about her personality, what she wore on and off stage," said Suzette Quintanilla about the collection.

MAC is working now to restock to satisfy the customers disappointed that they couldn't get the collection when they attempted to purchase it online.

And judging by the line from the location where Chelsea took the picture, MAC will probably have to do some major restocking of stores across the country over the next few days as well..

H/T Chelsea Noriega for the photo.  And yes, Chelsea got her Selena MAC collection items 

My Thoughts About 'The Danish Girl'

The Danish Girl movie about pioneering trans woman Lili Elbe is being released this Friday, and it is already getting some Oscar buzz for its star Eddie Redmayne.

There has been a lot of commentary in Trans World about our irritation over Hollywood once again using a male actor to play a trans woman, and I share that irritation.  I would like to see more trans actors getting roles, especially when it comes to a trans woman playing a trans role on the silver screen or the small screen.

I'd also like to see reciprocity in trans actors getting to play cis roles since the excuse justifying this that comes out of cis people's mouths is 'the best actor should get the role'.   Okay, if that is the case, when will we see more trans persons, when they are  best person for the role, playing cis people?

Bella Maddo proved that we can do it, if given the opportunity.

I do have to admit I'm also somewhat conflicted about The Danish Girl as the opening date for the movie is fast approaching.    I'm curious about how this movie about one of our historical figures will be received.  .



Based on the increasing Oscar chatter and it getting moved up from a January 1, 2016 release date to one on Thanksgiving weekend, it may potentially be a lucrative reception.

The societal one is to be determined.

The Roberts Test For Trans POC In Media

I read an interesting post over at Womanist Musings in which she revised the Bechdel Test for disabled people .   It was built off of a post Tami Winfrey Harris wrote for Clutch magazine that created a Winfrey-Harris Test for POC's.

What's the Bechdel Test you ask?   It originated in 1985 from Allison Bechdel’s comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For” and is based on three simple questions:.

1. Are there two or more women in it who have names?
2. Do they talk to each other?
3. Do they talk to each other about something other than a man? 

Tami expanded the Bechdel Test in her Clutch magazine post to include the following four questions to ask in terms of POC representation in media created by her and several bloggers of color that included a certain Timmy's Ice Capp loving Canadian. 

          1. One or more named people of color
          2.  Who talk to each other
          3.  Who don't act in a service capacity (No magical brown people!)
          4.  Who are reflective of their culture and history, but don't communicate that through stereotyped action, such as an affected accent.   

Since the representations of transpeople in media are just as fouled up and especially for transpeople of color, introducing the Roberts Test For Trans POC's In Media to set up minimum standards for positive portrayals of us in these films, plays and television shows.  

     1.  Are there one or more named trans people of color
     2.  Who talk to each other
     3.  Who aren't shown putting on makeup
     4.  Who aren't killed off in the first five minutes of the show
     5.  Aren't played by male actors in drag     
     6.  Aren't the butt of a demeaning joke
     7.  Who aren't sex workers or drag queens
     8.  Who are accurately portraying the complexity of trans lives and reflective of their culture and history
                                                               9.   Don't communicate that through stereotyped or exaggerated actions such as speaking in drag queen English.  

If there are other rules for trans POC's in media you think should be there, leave them in the comment section.

The Black Church Isn't 'Uniquely Homophobic'

And I and many African descended Christians, cis, gay and straight are getting fed up with that far too often projected lie being aimed at an institution that is the centerpiece of our culture.

That distinction based on the overwhelming mountain of evidence is white dominated fundamentalist churches and right wing Christian denominations who have had a foaming at the mouth hatred of GLBT people and pimped it since the 70's for fun, profit, political power and influence.

It wasn't Black churches who spent $28 million dollars like the Mormons and Catholic Church did to finance the 2008 Prop 8 campaign in California.   

When it comes to pimping faith based homophobia and transphobia, no one excels at it better than white fundamentalist churches.   They not only are the architects and primary catalysts for many of the anti-TBLG human rights petitions and referenda, they finance them, provide the foot soldiers for the petition drives and campaigns and vote overwhelmingly to restrict and deny human rights coverage to others.

And as a group of white North Carolina ministers were prime examples of, persist in spewing hate speech from their pulpits. 

As people like Rev Al Sharpton, Bishop Yvette Flunder, Rev Dr. William Barber and a long list of pastors are emphatically demonstrating, that 'uniquely homophobic' meme aimed at the Black church is questionable 

Hollywood Teaching Us To Hate On Transwomen

You long time readers of this blog know how often I gripe and complain about negative portrayals of transpeople, and especially transpeople of color in the media.  I've often said and continue to point out that in may cases what happens in Hollywood is far more important to our civil rights struggle than what happens in Washington D.C.

The hate on transwomen meme is not a new there in Hollywood, but i bring it up in context with this interesting post by Cord Jefferson entitled How I Learned To Hate Transgender People 

The post points out how that revulsion of transwomen theme he first saw in the Ace Venture Pet Detective movie and The Crying Game may be a not much talked about link into the anti transwomen violence that we face in near epidemic proportions.






It's an interesting read and a look from a cis male perspective about the issue.

Black Peeps Aren't The Only Ones Coming Up With Creative Names For Kids

One of the things that irritates me is the mocking tone of some vanilla flavored folks in Internet discourse on the subject of children's names.   They act as though we African Americans are the only ethnic group that does creative spellings of common names, creates names or comes up with head scratching things to name their child.

Really?   Does Moon Unit and Dweezil Zappa ring a bell?   How about Apple Martin, the daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow?   Megyn Kelly of Fox Noise?   Ashleigh Banfield?  Trigg and Trask Palin? Reince Priebus?  Rumer Willis?   Former BYU football coach LaVell Edwards?

My sister had as a fifth grader a girl in her class named Mary Juana Sanchez.

And yeah, I've been introduced to or heard of Euro-descended girls with the names Tangela, Mercedes, Kesha and Ciara.

As Renee of Womanist Musings pointed out in her 'What's In A Name' post,

Black names are an attempt to reclaim what has been lost.  The children of the diaspora have the names of our slave owners and anglicized first names, and this is a direct result of a complete and utter loss of our culture.  To then turn around and demonize attempts to create names that reflect this loss is racist, and in the case of ridicule by other Blacks represents internalized racism.


I grew up around or worked with people named Kwame, Kenya, Romell and Rwanda that not only have class, dignity and pride in our culture but college degrees to go with them.   Conversely there are people with anglicized names who are as ghetto as hell.  



So nope, we aren't the only ones who come up with creative names for our kids, and it's past time we stopped getting ridiculed for it.