Why Isn't Gwen Ifill Being Suggested To Host 'Meet The Press' ?

The iconic NBC Sunday morning interview show Meet The Press under current host David Gregory has slid to a distant third in recent ratings for the Sunday morning news talk shows, and rumors are flying amongst the chatterrati that Gregory is about to get canned for it.

The rumored replacements for Gregory should this turn out to be true are Joe Scarborough and Chuck Todd.

Time for me to go into Maya Wilkes mode at the thought of either of them in that iconic Meet The Press chair. 

If NBC thought their ratings are bad now with Gregory, if they make that colossal programming mistake, wait until they tank still further with either of those two in the Meet the Press anchor chair.

Instead of putting another conservative leaning white male in the chair, I submit NBC needs to do something bold since they are bringing up the ratings rear anyway.

Those Sunday morning talk shows are highly influential programs and set the tone for political inside the beltway discussions and Capitol Hill debates.  Those shows have been dominated for far too long by white male 50+ conservative Republicans, and it's past time to clear the stagnant vanillacentric privileged air and add the thoughts and opinions of other people who live in this diverse country of ours. 

It's past time to put a journalist of color or a female one in that chair to break up the Washington Conservative Boys Club and bring perspectives and questions into these discussions that white male journalists because of their privilege and other societal blind spots wouldn't think to ask.  .  

Rachel Maddow seems to be the person that chattering class peeps are frequently thinking and talking about as a possible candidate to replace Gregory in that chair should NBC execs pull the trigger and fire him.  

I have another suggestion for a possible replacement that people are ignoring:  Gwen Ifill. 

Gwen Ifill is a longtime journalist and political analyst who moderates and is the managing editor of Washington Week on PBS.  She a Simmons College grad who has worked for NBC, the Washington Post and the New York Times.  She is the co-anchor with Judy Woodruff of the PBS NewsHour.   She has also been the moderator of the 2004 and 2008 Vice Presidential debates.and has appeared on Meet The Press herself.

So with that pedigree, why hasn't she been suggested to take over the hosting duties for Meet The Press?

Do I have to state the obvious here? 

As for the two rumored leading candidates to take over the Meet The Press spot, neither Chuck Todd or Joe Scarborough moderated TWO Vice presidential debates as Ifill has.  Neither have worked for the Washington Post (1984-91), the New York Times (1991-94) and NBC (94-99) as Ifill has in addition to hosting two PBS news shows?  

And if NBC did name Ifill, it's a win-win on multiple levels.  They get to make history, take a bold step toward diversifying one of the whitest hours of television, bring one of their former journalists back, and are guaranteed to get a ratings bump because liberal-progressive peeps like me who got tired of Gregory and the conservative white men he panders to will come back to the show, especially if Ifill is hosting it.  

Ifill hosting it will also draw new non-white viewers who turn past Meet the Press to watch the more diverse Melissa Harris- Perry show on MSNBC

So NBC programming execs, what are you waiting for?

About Time SNL You Addressed The Lack Of Diversity

This weekend I'm going to get a chance to see for the first time since Maya Rudolph left the show in 2007 something I've only seen four other times in SNL's 39 year history, and my watching the show goes back to its inaugural season in 1975.  

A Black woman as a cast member.

Sasheer Zamata will be joining the NBC Saturday Night Live cast this weekend in a long overdue move and congratulations to her for getting the nod after that secret audition they held last month to address their lack of diversity problem in the onscreen cast. 

What is even more important were the other hires made immediately after Zamata's. 

They addressed a problem that I made mention of at the end of my December 12 post.

By the way, may also help immensely if you diversify your team of SNL writers while you're at it.

Guess somebody was paying attention to the end of my post discussing the December audition.  Two African-American women, LeKendra Tookes and Leslie Jones were hired as part of the SNL writing team and started on Monday.

Tookes and Jones were also part of the December audition and caught the eye of SNL's producers.

They are starting as writers, but don't be surprised if you don't see them in front of the camera one day.   Tina Fey got her start as an SNL writer.  

And yeah, the white menz are hatin' already and flinging the affirmative action hire shade.   Hey, if comedy writing wasn't an exclusively white male dominated province, wouldn't be necessary for us to point that inconvenient for you fact out.  As far as I'm concerned, the more diverse the writing team, the better and anything that changes that vanillacentric dynamic is a good thing.  

One of the major reasons I stopped watching the show was the lack of cast diversity and it ceased being funny to me.  The November SNL show that Kerry Washington hosted was the first time since Maya Rudolph left I've even bothered to flip the TV to NBC to watch it. 

SNL shouldn't stop with just Black talent and writers.  There is a need to have more diversity reflected onscreen and behind the cameras.  Latinos are the largest minority group in this country, but there has never been a Latina cast member on Saturday Night Live in the nearly 40 year history of the program.  We could also use Asian cast members as well, because they are also woefully underrepresented in the show's cast.

So yes, time to get busy making that happen.  

Diversity will make SNL better, and hopefully return this iconic show to the glory days as America's preeminent comedic satire show and improve its ratings at the same time.

Yo Hallmark Channel, Next Year Can We Get More Diversity In Your Christmas Movies?

Yes, Black people fall in love, get married, buy  romance novels, and like watching romance movies, too.   It would be nice to see ourselves occasionally represented in your made for TV romances especially since we persons of colors are part of the 87 million homes that have Hallmark Channel as part of their cable package.
--TransGriot, October 15, 2012, "Yo Hallmark Channel, Black People Fall In Love, Too"

As an incurable romantic, I do like reading romance novels and love a good romantic movie from time to time as an escape because the topic I write about are serious in terms of human rights issues.

Hallmark Channel bills itself as 'The Heart of TV'  and built its cable brand on broadcasting made for TV romance movies it produces along with broadcasting classic TV shows like Frasier and The Golden Girls.  It is part of many cable TV packages and has 86 million viewers.

It also likes to do holiday themed programming.  Its popular and highly rated 'Countdown To Christmas' lasts from the first weekend in November to Christmas Day as the network broadcasts 24 hours of Christmas themed movies. 

From December 26 to January that shifts to the 'Countdown to New Year's Day' which ends with the broadcast of the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, CA.  In February it's all romance all the time leading up to Valentine's Day.

But no matter what the theme, there is one consistent, nagging issue about that themed programming that becomes glaringly obvious in 24 hour rotation.  

The overwhelming whiteness of it.

I noted that in my post last year about it, and I see that nothing's been done to correct the problem I noticed last year.   This year's 'Countdown to Christmas' themed movies probably made Fox Noise and Megyn Kelly smile because they had the diversity of a Republican Party convention.

Black folks meet, fall in love with each other and get married during the holidays, too. As a matter of fact that simple point is what keeps royalty checks consistently flowing into Kayla Perrin's and other Black romance writers bank accounts.

As The Best Man Holiday and its $69.8 million box office emphatically continues to prove, we African-Americans do have universal stories that will appeal to a wider audience and want to see ourselves represented on the small and silver screens..

The same is true of the Latino and Asian community and movies that are performed by an all-Latino or all- Asian cast.   They would like to see themselves represented in the media they watch, too 

In fact when I do discover movies such as Nothing Like The Holidays, which was a Christmas movie released in 2008 with a predominately Latino cast, I see them as a refreshing change, because romantic movies with all white casts are so been there, bored with that.

So next year Hallmark and into the foreseeable future, what I and many non-white viewers of your channel want is so deceptively simple when 'Countdown to Christmas' 2014 rolls around.

Can we get some holiday movies made by you that reflect the diversity of this country?

And when I say diversity of this country, I don't mean an all or predominately white cast with a token Black, Latino or Asian actor in the background for half a second as the white leads are making goo-goo eyes at each other. 

If you don't have the writers on hand to produce those scripts with the (and this is vitally important) cultural nuances of my people, then get writers to produce those Christmas romance scripts who are culturally competent to make it happen and hire directors well versed in those non-white cultures to make them.

So Hallmark, can you do that for your non-white viewers, who are part of the 86 million people who watch your channel?

Trans POC Speakers Need To Be Seen, Heard And Paid At TBLG Events

Had an enjoyable two hour conversation with Tona Brown late Sunday afternoon.   It eventually turned to discussing the appalling and frustrating to us topic of lack of opportunities to do keynote speeches on college campuses, at TDOR's, trans and SGL conventions, seminars, community dinners, awards shows, rallies,  marches or LGBT pride events.

I've been blessed to have the opportunity to do a few trans conference keynote speeches along with three TDOR keynotes, some collegiate ones and participate in major conferences such as the 2012 Netroots Nation and two NBJC OUT on the Hill events.  I enjoy doing them and I and my trans POC colleagues would respectfully like the opportunity to do more of them.

As I mentioned before, the trans narrative in this country for the last six decades has been told from an overwhelmingly white trans feminine perspective with slightly more ink in the last few years for the white trans masculine one.   Our Black, Asian and Latino trans brothers get little if no media love period.

But yet, it is our POC trans world stories that need the most telling   From CeCe McDonald to the 1965 Dewey's Lunch Counter Sit-In and Protest to present day trans leaders and icons simply expounding on our transmasculine and transfeminine journeys, the stories of trans people of color need to be added to this overwhelmingly monoracial conversation about trans issues that could stand after 60 years to have some fresh perspectives injected into it.

There is the need for views on various trans and non trans issues with flavor it to be expressed by trans POC's in order to break down the trans ignorance that still persist in gay and straight elements of our own communities of color.  Just as you get to do, we want the ability to tell our own histories and discuss how the issues of the day impact us.  

We trans people of color deserve the opportunity to point out to all the communities we intersect and interact with we exist, are intertwined with and part of the diverse mosaic of human life.

We also wish to point out that as people of color of trans experience, we are concerned about the success of the greater communities we intersect and interact with.  We strive to and want to be the role models and thought leaders providing the visionary leadership to inspire others to do just that.

Even when we do get the e-mail or the phone call, when we tell you what our fees are, it's upsetting to us to note that you balk at paying us what we're worth, but will pay the Dan Choi's and white trans women of the world large fees to do so without blinking.  

Black trans musicians and performers are also upset about Pride events that won't hesitate about paying the $50-60K it takes on average to get a well known cis female musician to perform at their event but haven't (or won't) consider having a trans musician or keynote speaker or color in order to keep that GLB cash or T-bills circulating in our own community.   

Black Pride orgs not only do the same thing, but infuriatingly will claim poverty or attempt to play the Black solidarity card when they call us to possibly perform and we ask for fair compensation of our time and the work we put in on our ends to make their event a successful one.  

They'll also claim poverty when they want trans activists to speak but we know and see it on their Pride promotion websites are charging covers of $15 a head or more to get into many Black Pride events.

That lack of trans POC speaker diversity is at its most infuriating best when it comes to Transgender Day of Remembrance Events.  The overwhelming number of people dying are Black and Latina transpeople, but when it comes time to have the events, you walk into a TDOR memorial venue and see an event that because of its glaring lack of diversity frustratingly reminds you of a Republican Party convention. 

And naw, it's not just Moni noticing that.  Our SGL and African-American cis allies are noticing it, too.

I don't know how others feel about TDOR's, but I'm willing for that event to forgo my speaking fee if you cover my transportation to get me there and back to H-town and I get a place to stay.  I am that serious about being willing to lead by example and have people from trans communities of color being part of the TDOR's helping memorialize our fallen sisters. 

Frankly it's past time we had more non-white transpeople participating in TDOR events and talking about the people we've lost.

Of course, if you slide me a down low check for that TDOR speech I'm not going to turn it down either.  Like I said, I have bills to pay and a blog y'all like to read to maintain.


As I said in a previous post on this subject and that point still remains true a year later, non-white transpeeps have bills to pay and need to replenish our bank accounts like just like our white trans community counterparts do.  

So for those of you in decision making positions, don't forget there exists a vast qualified pool of non-white trans and SGL people who can confidently and competently speak or perform at your various events.

You just need to take the initiative to call them and once you do, pay them for their time.

This Racist Joke About A Plane Crash Isn't Funny

Somebody either at KTVU-TV or the NTSB is in serious trouble for a racist joke that ended up getting broadcast as news on a San Francisco television station.    

Some genius thought it would be hilarious to come up with offensive names for the pilots of Asiana Flight 214 that crashed in San Francisco last Saturday with now three people dead.

NTSB policy is to not release the names of pilots or crewmembers involved in aviation accidents to the media. When KTVU-TV called Friday morning wishing to do just that and get that information for their ongoing local reporting on the story, according to a NTSB press release a summer intern acting outside their authority erroneously released the names that ended up being read during their noon broadcast.

When they realized the embarrassing error, KTVU-TV apologized on air and on their website blaming the NTSB

Despite the finger pointing at each other, both organizations quickly apologized and owned up to their parts in the station being pranked. 

But you also have to ask yourself how diverse is KTVU-TV's staff if a racist list of names got through their multilayered fact checking verification process in a station that has a broadcast area with a sizable Asian population?

It also isn't funny because three people have died so far in this aviation accident with six others still hospitalized and being treated for their injuries as the NTSB investigation into the crash continues.

NTSB has promised action to ensure it doesn't happen again.  But whoever did it better start updating their resume. 

TransGriot Update: The Asian American Journalists Association is justifiably pissed off about what happened and isn't buying the clueless act of the NTSB or KTVU-TV.   Somebody in one of those orgs came up with the offensive name list.    

CNN-The Caucasian News Network

When my family installed cable in our home back in the early 80's, one of the things as a news junkie I absolutely loved was CNN.  From James Earl Jones distinctive voice in its commercials announcing 'This Is CNN' to having Bernard Shaw as one of its early anchors.  It was one of the channels I turned to when I wanted to keep up with what was happening in the nation and the world.

But that's over now.   I've been more than pissed at CNN for a lot of reason from the rightward drift in its coverage, CNN President Jeff Zucker's initial hires only being white journalists to its refusal to have non-white anchors on except on the weekends and in the mornings.

The CNN relaunch ad that is at the top of the post didn't help, since the only non-white folks in it are Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Christiane Amanpour and Fareed Zakaria.  It also served to bitterly remind us in the African American community CNN has lost Black and Latino anchors off its airwaves such as TJ Holmes, Tony Harris, Rick Sanchez, Soledad O'Brien and  Roland S. Martin in stark contrast to rival MSNBC embracing diversity. 

My fellow Houstonian and 2013 NABJ Journalist of the Year wasn't shy in verbalizing his thoughts as to why CNN has had a problem with diversity.

"You have largely white male executives who are not necessarily enamored with the idea of having strong, confident minorities who say, 'I can do this,'" he said. "We deliver, but we never get the big piece, the larger salary, to be able to get from here to there."



People of color are all over MSNBC in a variety of capacities from contributors to anchors such as Tamron Hall, Rev. Al Sharpton, Melissa Harris-Perry, Karen Finney, Victoria DeFrancesco Soto and Joy Reid just to name a few of the faces you'll see there along with Martin Bashir and Alex Wagner.  It's also led to an astounding 61% growth in MSNBC's African-American audience as well. 

The dearth of CNN African-American and Latino anchors has led me to stop watching what I sarcastically call the 'Caucasian News Network' and go elsewhere to channels like MSNBC, for national and international news.  I'm not supporting a channel that won't hire or use pundits who look like me.   

It ain't just me complaining about the ethnic cleansing that's happened at CNN.  The National Association of Black Journalists and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists also ain't liking what has happened at CNN either.

In a multicultural nation, it is vitally important if you want balanced news to have viewpoints coming from a diverse group of people.   News executives, 'diverse group of people' doesn't mean old white men, young white men, liberal white men, or conservative white men with a white female or two thrown into the mix.

It means Black and Latino folks need to be at your news anchor desks since we do represent a sizable chunk of the US population.  I can even tolerate conservatives as long as somebody is sitting at that desk to counter their crap.  

I also want somebody sitting at that desk that reflects my lived experiences as well. 

Make Sure You Have POC Trans People Participating In Your 2012 TDOR Events

I said this last year concerning diversity at community TDOR memorials, and this message bears repeating since we are rapidly approaching another Transgender Day of Remembrance memorial day and planning for them is either well underway or just getting started in many locales. 

I'm passionate about the Transgender Day of Remembrance for many reasons, and one of them being that it's African descended transwomen that are disproportionately being killed and the silence about it is deafening. 

Since the majority of the anti-trans violence victims we will be memorializing November 20 or the weekend leading up to that day will predominately be non-white, can we have that diversity reflected in the people who are taking part in the TDOR ceremonies, too?

And it needs to be more than just one POC and call it a day.   

How you accomplish that task of making your events diverse ones that reflect your community, that's on y'all.  But the gist of this post is to plant the seed in the minds of those of you who are planning TDOR events in your towns or college campuses to ensure they don't end up as monoracial as a Republican Party convention.   

If we say the trans community is a diverse one, we believe that our community diversity is our greatest strength and the decisive difference between us and our oppressors, then we need to ensure that community diversity is reflected at Transgender Day of Remembrance memorial ceremonies as well.

It's vitally important they be as diverse as possible because it's one of the few times our community gets coverage from local news media.  If that happens for your TDOR event, you want to be damned sure that the image being captured of your trans community by those HD TV cameras and the clicks of digital camera photos destined for your local newspapers and blogs is a diverse, inclusive one.

NABJ Comments On The Lack Of Debate Moderator Diversity

I had my say about the problematic lack of diversity when the presidential and vice presidential debate moderator selections were announced.  So did the NAACP and Univision's president on behalf of the Latino/a community. 

It was appalling that in an election year which will feature the most diverse electorate ever in American history and has an African-American president running for re-election, those October debates with have no African-American, Latino/a or Asian journalists posting questions to the 2012 presidential and vice presidential candidates. . 

In case you're wondering, the last African-American male journalist to serve as a presidential debate moderator was CNN's Bernard Shaw in 1988.

Former ABC News anchor Carole Simpson was the last African-American female to moderate a presidential debate, doing so in 1992. 

Gwen Ifill of PBS has moderated two vice presidential debates in 2004 and 2008.  

The National Association of Black Journalists are definitely not happy about the vanillacentric debate moderator selections whitewashed by the Commission on Presidential debates either, and here's what they had to say about it on August 17:

NABJ is disappointed that the journalists chosen to participate in the presidential debates don't reflect what has become the most diverse electorate in U.S. history. 

While we commend the selection of the first woman moderator in 20 years, we find it unacceptable that no journalists of color will be involved. The Commission on Presidential Debates, which announced the selections this week, blamed the omission on "debate arithmetic." Frankly, the math doesn't add up.

There is no absence of qualified journalists of color, or those with experience as debate moderators, such as NABJ Hall of Fame member Gwen Ifill, of PBS.

By excluding journalists of color, the commission failed to satisfy an important public interest given that racial and ethnic minorities will contribute roughly one quarter of the votes cast on Election Day. Any credible analysis has shown that their turnout, or lack thereof, will be a decisive factor in the presidential contest. This year, both presidential campaigns and their parties are devoting more resources than ever to reaching non-white voters.

Yet the commission has minimized the significance of our nation's changing identity, as well as the role of minority journalists in informing an increasingly diverse public. We believe the commission wasted an opportunity to use its unique platform in a manner that encourages more citizens to participate in the democratic process.

"The commission had a chance to embrace the racial kaleidoscope that the American electorate is fast becoming, and chose instead to remain blind to it," Sonya Ross, chair of NABJ’s Political Journalism Task Force, said. "It is time to end this cyclical charade of treating equally deserving, equally capable journalists of color as if they are invisible, unqualified, or both. I would like to invite the commission, along with leading entities in political media, to join the task force in making a concerted effort to ensure a truly diverse set of presidential debate moderators for 2016."

So why is this lack of debate moderator diversity a big fracking deal to POC's?   In addition to the fact there has never been an Asian or Latino presidential debate moderator of either gender, non-white voters will be the decisive voting blocs in several swing states.

We need to hear the presidential and vice presidential candidates answer debate questions that are geared toward our policy concerns and issues as people of color. 

As NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous stated, “The lack of diversity among this year’s debate moderators is representative of the overall lack of diversity in news media. Whether it’s as primetime news anchors, debate moderators, or commentators on the influential Sunday morning political talk shows, people of color — and African Americans specifically — are strikingly underrepresented.”

That is what we POC Americas are complaining about, the lack of representation.

A debate setting is one of those times Republican candidates, who avoid non-white media outlets on a routine basis because they don't want to answer those tough questions from POC journalists, have to do precisely that, especially if the moderator is a person of color. 

Some of those issues and policy concerns (let's be real here) white journalists aren't culturally fluent in or it wouldn't immediately occur to them to ask those types of questions from our non-white points of view because we do live in two vastly different American realities.      

If you are going to run for president of the United States, then you have to be president for ALL Americans, not just a vanillacentric 63% slice of th population.   If you are setting up debates to ask the people running for the highest political offices in the land questions, the journalists asking those questions also need to reflect the diversity of our nation.

 

I Repeat-Diversity Is Sorely Needed In Our Houston Trans Community

I'm a native Houstonian proud of our Lone Star traditions, our trans community, its history and being one of the people who helped make some of that history.   I'm also exceedingly proud of the award winning leaders that we have produced locally that have in some cases achieved a statewide, national and international footprint and following.


I wrote a post last year discussing the hard, solid thinking I was engaged in about the state of the national Black trans community.  I pointed out more diversity was needed in our Houston and Texas trans community ranks and what I said back in March 2011 bears repeating once again.  

As I mentioned, I was blessed to get the opportunity of attending the 20th annual Houston Transgender Unity Banquet for the first time in over a decade last weekend. While I enjoyed seeing everyone who was at the Sheraton Brookhollow and meeting some new rainbow community folks and allies in the process, I was still concerned about the lack of diversity in the room. 

This is the Houston trans community's signature event and the Unity Banquet reminded me once again how monochromatic and vanillacentric in outlook my hometown trans community leadership ranks have become in terms of the folks who are out there representing its public face.  I also believe the 'pay to play' activism model has had the deleterious result of creating a fiscal participation barrier and shutting out low income GLBT people from shaping the Houston GLBT community and the policies it advocates.   

In non-white communities there is already the ossifying impression that the GLBT community is an overwhelmingly white one, and that perception plays into some of the pushback and resistance the entire  rainbow community gets in its human rights fights.  That perception problem is one our right wing opponents are increasingly trying to exploit and use as a wedge issue as they oppose our human rights push. 

In a multicultural city of over 2 million people such as Houston, when we are contemplating fighting for a rainbow community human rights city charter referendum that will require the votes of a multicultural coalition of progressive Houston voters in order to pass it, that's a problem that needs to be fixed now before that ballot initiative gets rolled out and taken to the voters if we wish to win that fight.   Failure to seriously address this problem will result in another electoral loss for this community and I don't want to see that happen to legislation we desperately need.   .

Frustration is brewing among Houston's non-white transpeople.   It's fueled by not only the ongoing killing of our transsisters and the feeling that no one cares about it, it's also the lack of visibility and seeing trans role models who look like them.  Visibility matters and is necessary, especially to the people who don't see themselves represented in the organizations that are purported to represent them and speak for them.

If you think this status quo situation is okay, or you think that identity politics shouldn't be part of this rainbow community rights movement, you're naive or being obtuse about the fact that race matters, even in our little trans subset of society.   We get microaggressive behavior aimed at us every day by the parent society and our rainbow community subset of it, and just because we transitioned doesn't mean it stopped. 


But back to what I was discussing.   Diversity is sorely needed in our Houston trans ranks and it's sad I have to repeatedly state what is so no-brainer obvious.  

It's on you peeps that make up the leadership of these groups to ensure there is representation in them that reflects the ethnic diversity of Houston, the state of Texas and its TBLG community and but your behinds working to make that a reality.   

And yeah, y'all ain't the only people I'm going to call out on this state of affairs.  I'm going to put the non-white Houston trans community on blast too in a separate post. 

Here's the first suggestion as to how to create that diverse community.  Ask us.   But you'd better do it fast because the clock is rapidly ticking on your opportunity to do so with a fed up non-white trans community.    
What I can tell you is that if the diversity problem isn't dealt with, you will find yourself staring at a situation in which non-white transpeople will say frack it and form their own trans organizations designed to represent their interests and won't look back.

A Modest Proposal To Houston And Texas TBLG Orgs

I've been back home about 17 months and not only has the state and the city of Houston changed during the eight years I was a Texan in exile, the lay of the rainbow landscape in terms of the TBLG organizations in the city of Houston and the state of Texas has radically changed as well.

Much of the reason I've been quiet since my return to the Lone Star State was mainly because I was observing what was going on, gathering intel,  reestablishing my communications links inside the state and getting reacclimated to what was happening in Houston and Texas inside and outside the rainbow community. .

One of the things that is an undeniable fact about my beloved hometown and my birth state is that Houston and Texas are both diverse places.   Texas has been a majority-minority state since 2000 and Houston is an international city with now 2.1 million residents.  It has long been a place in which no one ethnic group in city wide politics can get people elected to office on their own without significant help or support from the others, much less since the late 70's without the support and endorsement on the progressive political side of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus.   

But you wouldn't know that perusing the boards of directors of the various orgs or the spokespersons for the various TBLG organizations here not only in the Houston area, but the state of Texas as well

One of the things that struck me as I attended the 2010 Houston TDOR ceremony for the first time since returning home was the fact that the victims being memorialized were predominately African-American and Latina, but the only people reading the names of those people we memorialized weren't.

And don't think it wasn't noticed.   I had African American and Latina trans people who were in the audience at the AD Bruce Religion Center with me that evening looking side eyed at me and asking, "what's up with that and what are you as our IFGE Trinity Award winning activist going to do about it?"

For starters, I'm not going to be silent about it any longer.   

Yes, we are one big contentious rainbow family.  Just as it is and continues to be important to see trans role models that reflect your ethnic group that you can be proud of and inspired to role model, it is even more important for trans communities of color to see role models that also positively reflect their culture as well..

I'm proud of the fact that Judge Phyllis Frye and Sarah DePalma were my activist mentors.  TFA's Cristan Williams, Vanessa Edwards Foster and Josephine Tittsworth are people I consider my friends and are trailblazing wonderful leaders in this community.  Stacey Langley, Katy Perry, Lisa Scheps and Meghan Stabler do the same on a statewide and national level. 

Lou Weaver, Rose Wall, and Jenifer Rene Pool have been providing outstanding leadership to this community with Jenifer taking it to another level and running for an at large seat on Houston City Council in this current election cycle. .  

But because Houston is a diverse city and Texas is a diverse state we are all immensely proud of, it's past time our trans and rainbow community orgs leadership ranks locally and statewide reflect that
 
You can say you don't discriminate all day long, have an open and inclusive organization with bylaws to match, but nothing will say that you really are that type of org more than having POC's involved in the decision making aspects of it and being visible non tokenized parts of it.

Transpersons of color need to see their own peeps standing at a microphone at the 2011 and future TDOR's.  They need to see some of our POC trans heroes and sheroes giving keynote speeches at a Houston Unity Dinner. 

They need to hear them talk about trans and other issues on KPFT-FM's 'Queer Voices' or  'After Hours'.  They need to see them being interviewed by local media in the wake of a trans community issue, see them doing lobby trainings, fighting for good laws or against bad ones locally or in Austin, be part of panel discussions, see them speaking on college campuses across the Lone Star State or watch them eviscerate right wing opposition in a debate.

And frankly, cis persons of color need to see that happen as well along with non-POC cis people.   They need to know that there are other flavors of transpeople besides vanilla and see the beautiful mosaic of diversity that is our Lone Star and Houston rainbow community .  

Recent incidents that happened involving local transwomen such as Tyjanae Moore and Mica Green have glaringly pointed out that leadership vacuum and the need to have trans spokespeople of color available to talk to cis and SGL communities of color and the media on trans issues. 

That visibility of POC transpeople is critically important in our trans education efforts to our person of color communities as well.    We are still fighting tooth and nail in our communities to overcome faith based ignorance and get it through our people's heads and embedded in their hearts that just because we transitioned, we didn't forfeit our pride in our heritage or aren't concerned with doing our parts to uplift our communities

Those Texas college campuses we transpersons of color need to be speaking on about trans issues and how they affect our community also include HBCU's like Houston's Texas Southern University and Prairie View A&M University.  

The NAACP chapters in Dallas and Houston need to see and hear us too and be made aware of the fact their constituency includes trans people of color who are catching hell right now..

My African descended congressmembers in Houston in Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee and Rep. Al Green already know they have one proud African-American trans constituent and so does my state rep and my state senator, the HISD school board members that represent me, Houston Councilmember Jolanda Jones and US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson.  My District D rep will find that out if she isn't aware of who I am already.

You have a choice right now.  You have an IFGE Trinity Award winning African American trans Texan who is interested in, wants to get off the sidelines and get back into the game on behalf of her sector of the trans community, her hometown and beloved state.  I  have the media platform in TransGriot, the media training, the contacts, the broad based knowledge, over a decade of experience, the broad based support and desire to represent the African American trans community in the Houston area and Texas to the best of my ability..   

We have a lot of work that still needs to still be done in our city and state and I'd like to do that in concert with others.  I want to help get us where we need to go to have a better Houston and bring back the progressive Texas I grew up in and loved.   That vision will take a diverse team to make happen.. 

But if you reject this offer or attempt to freeze me out of the process because you're frightened and 'scurred' of an outspoken TransGriot owning my power on behalf of my marginalized community and your desire to keep the problematic status quo situation going, I'm not only NOT going to be silent about it, I'll just do what my people have always done here in Houston and Texas for over 150 years and handle my chocolate business on behalf of my people.

This status quo situation is deleterious to and increasingly untenable to POC transpeople in Houston and the state of Texas. I'm hearing that more often from POC rainbow community members from across the city and state and we're beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of it.  

We will handle the erasure and marginalization in a way favorable to our community, and that part of the Texas trans revolution will not be televised.

It's past time that POC trans voices in Houston and the rest of the Lone Star State are heard, our concerns are ensconced in the policy directions these organizations advocate for and POC transpeople in Houston and Texas are major players in the groups that purport to represent us.

Your call.  You can either be part of the solution or part of the problem.  I'm simply pointing out the festering problem, making a modest proposal and offering my help in solving the dilemma you find yourselves in.

And the clock is ticking on this limited time offer.
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