April Ryan Calls Out Trump Racism

Today is the one year anniversary of Dear Orange Misleader's inauguration as POTUS that I thankfully missed because I was in a meeting at $CC17 at the time it happened.

I felt this presidency was going to be a disaster, said four days before his election that the humanity of trans people was on the ballot, and I haven't been wrong about that. 

On CNN today a discussion about Trump's first disastrous year in the White House  ended up with CNN contributor April Ryan finally getting tired of Jack Kingston's ongoing attempt to defend Trump from being called what he is, a racist.

Sister April let him have it.   And here's the video to check it out.

"Least racist my azz

Why The Dove Commercial Was Racist

There are some of you out there wondering what the fuss was concerning the Dove commercial ans why it was getting put on blast across the Net.

Time for a quick history lesson.

Blackface has been used to demean, denigrate and disrespect Black people for over a century.   And part of that anti-Blackness campaign was using that imagery in advertising campaigns .

And when those derogatory images were used in the soap commercials of the late 19th and early 20th century, they usually showed the product turning a dark skinned person white. 



That's why the Dove commercial  was offensive despite the message they were trying to send.   If they had not gone to the white woman after the Black woman  in the commercial, they probably would have dodged the uncomfortable 21st century version of the old racist 'wash the Black off you' soap commercials they ended up with.

It also speaks to who was in the room when they came up with the concept of this commercial.  There obviously either weren't any Black folks in the room, or ones familiar with this problematic racist history when they came up with the concept for it.

And because of the overwhelming whiteness of the advertising industry, I suspect that was the case, and there was  no culturally competent person in the room.

It's Not Necessary For POC's To Say 'Not All White People Are Racist'...

When we as non white people are discussing the very real ways we have been negatively impacted by racism.

We non white peeps are well aware of that 'not all white people' point and have that in the back of our minds as a given before we even start trying to have that race conversation.

Saying 'Not all white people are racist' becomes a problem when we are trying to have that grown folks conversation about race and racism in mixed company, and you as a white person will with regularity defensively drop that comment in there or deliberately do so in an attempt to derail the conversation.

And we can't fix the racism problem in the US if we can't have an intelligent conversation about it.

Please don't even get me started about that BS Webster's Dictionary definition of racism that is not based on reality and damned sure wasn't written by a person of color who has been negatively impacted by it.

And you white peeps don't use a dictionary when you're debating other topics, so why is it that when race and racism is the issue and the discussion is happening in racially mixed company, the POC eyeroll inducing next thing that happens is that the dictionary definition of racism gets deployed by that white person or badly misquoted?

FYI, If you deploy it in the midst of a grown folks convo about race, it's akin to Godwin's Law.  You have automatically lost, and on top of that have shown yourself in the eyes of the person's of color in that race discussion to be clueless about racism.

Just so we're clear about what racism is, I'm using this Sociology 101 definition of it.

Racism is bigotry and prejudice PLUS systemic power and population numbers used by a majority group to retard, roll back or eviscerate the societal progress of a minority group.

An example of what I'm talking about would be the voter ID laws passed by Republicans to keep Black and Latinx people from voting.

So when non white people say that we cannot be racist, they are correct in that statement.  Non white people can be bigoted and prejudiced, but we do not exist (at least until 2040) with the population numbers to consistently turn our bigotry and prejudice into societal policy.

Because of your white skin and sitting at the top of the societal totem pole for centuries and majority population numbers, you have accumulated privileges above and beyond what a person of color has

That is also true in TBLGQ world that we have racist white peeps in our ranks.

And yes, there are racist white people who wear Brooks Brothers suits and Jimmy Choo pumps. They aren't carrying tiki torches, Confederate flags or giving Nazi salutes in public, but they are far more dangerous to non-white people because they wear police badges, sit on judicial benches or have the power to write legislation at the local state and federal level.

Or are sitting in the Trump administration as policy advisors.

And nope, haven't forgotten about the 53% of white women who voted for Trump last November, or who like Tomi Lahren and Megyn Kelly open their lipstick coated lips and get paid mad loot to spew racist crap out of them on national TV networks like FOX Noise.

Just because you are dating, married to or having sexual relations with a non-white person doesn't mean you get to hold your partner up as a human shield to attempt to absolve you of some racist crap you may have done or said.
  
That's reality that elements of you in the white community are unrepentant racists.  Any non white person talking about that reality and how it affects them personally, or the salient point backed up with numerous tiki torch bearing examples that far too many of your white skinfolk are gleefully racist is NOT racism, and y'all need to chill with that conservabullshyt.

So the next time a person of color starts taking about racism, know this salient point before you dive in to comment white peeps.

We non white folks are already aware of the fact before we even open our mouths to intelligently critique whiteness and white supremacy that some of y'all white folks are doing the work to dismantle white supremacy in your own lives, and we applaud you for that.  We just need y'all to get your misguided cousins and have those hard conversations with them.

We also don't need you saying 'Not all white people are racist' in a mixed company conversation that we need to have in the public sphere and on social media about how bad racism is and how it negatively impacts our POC lives  .

They Still Mad Because Jesse Williams Spoke Truth

I've been amused by the reaction by bigoted white peeps and the Conservafool Outrage Machine about the recent BET Awards speech Grey's Anatomy actor Jesse Williams gave when he accepted his 2016 Humanitarian Award.

Someone named Erin Smith (if that's her real name) laughably started a Change.org petition seeking to get Williams fired from his Grey's Anatomy gig for his 'racist' speech.






















Shonda Rimes, Jesse's boss, is unmoved by your shedding of tasty white tears, and neither is the president of ABC Entertainment who by the way, is also a sistah.

Yo Erin, a note for you and 'errbody' else that shares your misguided definition of racism:  Racism = Bigotry and Prejudice + systemic power used by a majority group to retard, roll back or eviscerate the societal progress of a minority group.

It is not a epithet white people like you shadily throw at Black people they are pissed off at because the Black person in question called out the negative behavior of white people and their fee fees got hurt.

That's the definition I and many others learned in Sociology 101 and it's obvious you either chose to ignore or were asleep in sociology class during that classroom discussion about racism.


To quote from Jesse's acclaimed BET speech:

And let’s get a couple things straight, just a little sidenote – the burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander.That’s not our job, alright – stop with all that. If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest, if you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down.

And since you don't have an established record of critique for our oppression, have several sections of seats and sit your azz down.

The reality for non-white Americans that we deal with every day is that white skin matters in America.  Societal privilege based on melanin-free skin color, AKA 'whiteness' exists, and white supremacy is based on maintaining the dominant position of white skinned folks in this society.  Whiteness is part of that system of oppression and goes hand in glove with white supremacy.

Jesse Williams spoke truth that night on the BET Awards stage, and the bottom line is that you, the peeps who signed that misguided petition and the conservative movement can't handle it.

Why Y'all Shocked Violence Happened At A Trump Rally?

I was paying attention Friday night when well organized protesters shut down a Donald Trump Chicago rally that was on the campus on the University of Illinois-Chicago campus.

Frankly I wasn't shocked it happened and I've been surprised a racially charged outburst hasn't happened sooner..

Donald trump has been race baiting for several months at his Tea Klux Klan rallies, the white dominated media was silent or in FOX Noise's case, deliberately obtuse about what was blatantly obvious to any person of color in this country, and you're shocked that the people you're race baiting weren't going to do something about it?

And on top of that, you actually thought that you would be able to do you're usual racist campaign shtick at an arena smack dab in the middle of the ethnically diverse South Side?

And yeah, here's Rachel Maddow laying out the escalating Trump race baiting over several campaign events.




Trump and the Republican Party tried to spin this as his free speech being messed with.  Both Trump and the GOP conveniently neglected to mention that the protesters were also expressing their First Amendment free speech rights to protest his ongoing race-baiting..

But the bottom line is this racial tension in the USA didn't just happen.  The Republican Party has been race baiting their way to political power since the Dixiecrats migrated to the GOP in the late 1960's as the Democrats embrace passing civil rights legislation.  You have also engaged in an ongoing campaign of massive resistance aimed at President Obama.

So nope, not shocked at what happened in Chicago last Friday.

I Repeat White People: Just Say No To Blackface

'But I'm willing to bet some arrogant vanillacentric privileged fool will ignore this advice and find themselves in a media caca storm for doing exactly what I'm warning them not to do.'--TransGriot September 24, 2015  'For Halloween 2015, Just Say No To Blackface'

Didn't I call it?   Post wasn't even up a week before the first fool got busted for not saying no to blackface in the person of Friedel Kushman, who couldn't say no to blackface, bragged about doing so on Facebook and paid for her lack of Halloween vision with her job.

Now comes news that a UCLA fraternity and sorority that jointly hosted a 'Kanye Western' party couldn't resist the urge to wallow in offensive stereotypes.

Damn White people, just say no to blackface.   Your future career prospects, unless you're applying for internships in the Republican Party or some conservafool think tank, depend on it.

The Sigma Phi Epsilon frat chapter on campus is suspended pending an investigation and Alpha Psi sorority will probably suffer the same fate in addition to having their blackfaced bigotry blasted all over the Southland in local LA media.

Once again White people, just say no to blackface.  It is offensive to my people, there is no justification for it under ANY circumstances, and my people's lives and culture are not a costume for you to put on and mock.

And I'd be willing to bet if you had to permanently live our Black lives 24/7/365, y'all couldn't handle one hour of it.

But alas. I'll probably have more instances of white people running wild with blackface and getting in trouble for it posted on this blog before October 31 gets here.

The Confederate Flag Represents A Heritage Of Hate

Been keeping up with the terrorist attack in Charleston, SC that led to the deaths of nine people at Mother Emanuel AME Church by white supremacist Dylann Roof.

It has been interesting to see how fast the conservafool media has been quick to revoke his white male card and try to disassociate themselves from the fact he was one of theirs, weaned on FOX Noise and other anti-Black hate speech.

First they tried to avoid even calling it a terrorist attack, but had to drop that attempted talking point when his anti-Black manifesto came out.  

Then it was the conservafool media trying to paint Roof as a `lone wolf`, `disturbed`,`mentally ill`, et cetera.

Nope, he`s a ` Real American` and all yours.  Deal with the consequences of pushing nonstop anti-Black hatred for fun and political advantage combined with lax gun laws leading to dead Black people.

Now that it has also resulted in renewed attention on the Confederate flag as a symbol of hate that needed to die 150 years ago, we hear the whining coming from groups like like the Sons of Confederate Veterans trying to pimp that `Heritage Not Hate` BS.

Don't even try it.  The Confederate flag not only represented a group of traitorous states that fomented an armed rebellion against the US government, they did so for the sole purpose of keeping my people perpetually enslaved.

You are still bitter you lost 'The War To Perpetuate Slavery`and have been taking your Civil War defeat out on Black people ever since.

And when my people began to march against unjust Jim Crow laws in the 1950s and 1960s, you unfurled that flag across the South as a big middle finger to us and the country.  You rallied around that racist flag in order to don pointed white hoods and conduct terrorist attacks aimed at Black people an intimidate righteous white people into silence.

That flag has a 150 year heritage of hate, and it is past time that it be consigned to the dustbin of history.  It is also past time we tell the truth about that flag being anything but honorable.

Don't Go There With Dolezal, Transphobes!

The Rachel Dolezal kerfluffle has started another national conversation on race with all its complicated layers   It incorporates appropriation.  It hearkens back to the bad old days in which light skinned Blacks, in order to escape the crushing discrimination and cruelty aimed at our people, would pass for white in order to not only get a respite from that anti-Black hatred, but gain better access to opportunities for themselves.

Now what Rachel Dolezal has done is she has flipped the script on passing and that is messed up on many levels.  Unless she does a DNA test that proves she has some African heritage, she is a white woman who not only appropriated our culture, she did so for her own personal gain to get into Howard, as a professor at Eastern Washington University, her position at the NAACP Spokane branch, and used blackface to do it.

It has also shined a light on the bull feces laden concept of 'transracial' at the same time being deployed by some whites trying to justify her behavior.and opened the door to the discussion in the Black community about what Blackness is and isn't.  It has people looking side-eyed at our light skinned brothers and sisters, who already deal with enough crap in having their Blackness questioned and scrutinized.

I say transracial is bull crap because race is not just solely a social construct, it also has a biological component as well.   Transracial is nothing more than white peeps wanting to come up with a fancy new name for appropriation.  They want to have the ability to mimic another racial identity without having to deal with the historical societal baggage that comes with it.

And it stuff gets too real for them, they can always run back to whiteness.  People of color have to play with from birth until death the genetic, sociological and racial hand they are dealt.

By Dolezal faking and shaking about being a Black woman, which no white woman has an inkling about the challenges of and white feminists have repeatedly demonstrated they don't, she has made it harder for the stories of cis and by extension Black trans women to get the media attention they deserve.

Speaking of media attention, she has also by her actions and the media getting wind of it, killed the national discussion building in the wake of the police brutality aimed at Black teens in McKinney, TX.   But maybe that was the intent of the right-wing media that brought this whole issue up in the first place.

The sad thing is that Dolezal didn't have to go to those outrageous lengths to be down with my people.  There are hundreds of examples throughout history of white folks being themselves, and using their power and privilege to become allies helping the African-American community and other communities of color overcome oppression.  

And FYI, several of the NAACP's eight founders were white.

It has also opened the problematic door to another discussion that is pissing me off in terms of using this Dolezal situation to attack transpeople and invalidate our sincerely held identities as men and women of trans experience.

Every gender transition is different.  For those of you trying to peddle that false equivalency of what Dolezal did with being transgender and use Caitlyn Jenner's name in vain while doing so, you can stop that madness right now.  Being trans has a medical component to it as the decades of ongoing medical research on transsexuality points out.  Let's not forget that race also impacts a gender transition.

And as that medical evidence is increasingly pointing out, trans women are women, trans men are men, and the genitalia between your legs or your chromosomes doesn't necessarily correspond to the gender identity between your ears.

Unlike Dolezal, a trans person has to have counseling under a certified gender therapist, hormone replacement therapy, other optional procedures to look their gender best, and live in the targeted gender for at least a year before that gender therapist will sign off on you getting genital surgery. 

We transpeeps are living our authentic lives, not a script-flipped remake of Imitation of Life like Dolezal was unless a DNA test proves otherwise.

So no transphobes and peeps trying to use this convoluted situation to pump up the BS transracial crap and take a swipe at transpeople at the same time, don't go there.  .

White People, Before You Start Throwing Racist Stones Over Baltimore, Check Yourselves

"It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard."
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr,  'The Other America' , March 14, 1968

Yesterday afternoon the anger of the April 19 death of 25 year old Freddie Gray, who suffered a spinal cord injury while in Baltimore police custody exploded into a riot after his funeral.

As the rebellion played out on the nation's TV screens, a 10 PM-5 AM EST curfew was announced by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a state of emergency was declared by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R) and the Maryland National Guard was deployed, once again there were some white folks determined to show their Archie Bunker sides on social media.

I know you mofos ain't trying to talk trash about Black folks in Baltimore who are as Dr King pointed out in that 1968  'The Other America' speech mere weeks before his assassination,  are in violent rebellion mode once again because of being sick and tired of watching Black people die at the hands of predominately white police forces and them getting away with it, and feeling powerless to the point they feel this is the only way they can get attention.

And FOX Noise won't tell you this because they were busy race baiting as usual, but there was another march going on in West Baltimore yesterday that involved a group of local clergy.

Yeah, can you hear us now?   Baltimore has a history of police brutality aimed at communities of color to the point the city is paying thousands of dollars in settlements to the victims of it, a man had his spinal cord severed while in police custody back on April 12 and people are supposed to sing kumbaya about that?   If you're more concerned about property damage than non-white people being killed by police without retribution, then your moral compass needs some serious recalibration.

And I don't want to hear one syllable on social media or the media attacking the Black community for this when white people have rioted because their favorite sports teams won or lost and you are never called by society to take personal responsibility for your own fracked up behavior.

What is pissing me off is the racist invective getting launched in social media by smirking white folks drunk on vanillacentric privilege and ignorant of their own people's riot filled history.

So before you even think about hurling racist invective at Black people in rebellion over something that has been building for years in Baltimore , have a seat.

A Modest Proposal For Solving The Houston Pride Grand Marshal Diversity Problem

I was in the house Thursday when the problematic unveiling of this year's Houston Pride Grand Marshals happened, and expressed myself (and as I've been hearing privately) and the sentiments of much of Black LGBT Houston and our allies in a post.

Some of y'all can roll your eyes all you wish, but we have a problem when in this diverse city, it has been 22 years since the last African-American female was elected Houston Pride Grand Marshal on the feminine side in Rev. Carolyn Mobley, and I'll have to go through the historical record to find out when the last African-American male was elected.

So since I brought up the fact we have a problem, I'm going to suggest a possible solution for it.

For starters, you have to bear in mind that not everyone in LGBT Houston lives in Montrose.   If you're publicizing it in the traditional gay print media sources like OutSmart, the Montrose Gem, et cetera, those don't get distributed to neighborhoods of color.  

You also have to take into account not everyone goes to a gay club or the Montrose Center, where those gay print publications are accessible for pickup.

Yes, you could go to TBLG friendly sites like Project Q and TransGriot, KPFT-FM, post it on the Pride Facebook page, Twitter feed and other social media outlets, but once again, not everyone is on the Net, or in many cases aware of what's happening in Houston's LGBT community for a variety of reasons.

Now here's my suggested proposal, and it's an idea that JD Doyle and I were discussing a few days ago. 

First order of business is that the Pride Committee must become more diverse, not only ethically, but class wise as well.   It's a red flag when Houston Pride is cricket chirping silent about a human rights ordinance (HERO) that will benefit the entire Houston trans, bi and SGL community.

The male and female Grand Marshal can remain a Houston areawide election process, but steps have to be taken to ensure that LGBT communities of color have a fair shot in selecting them.   Use the newly created Diversity Committee to select elective marshal candidates from across our diverse Houston BTLG community, and give the Diversity Committee the power and responsibility of adding two to four marshals from communities of color when the elective process fails.

Once those Grand Marshal candidates are selected, announce those elective candidates and the voting period dates at a Pride Perspective community meeting, on social media, and on KPFT-FM's Queer Voices. 

That's my suggestions on the subject, and here's hoping that Pride Houston will engage in some hard solid thinking on the subject that will result next year in a more diverse group of Pride Parade Grand Marshals.

Why It's Inaccurate For A White Person To Call Blacks Racist

If I had a dollar for every time  I have called out the deleterious effects of whiteness and white supremacy on this blog and been inaccurately called a racist by white people inside and outside the LGBT community who have ZERO lived experience with navigating it, I'd be a multimillionare by now.

Once again, racism is  not an epithet pissed off white person utters at a non-white person that calls them on their crap.  If you believe that bull feces, you've been watch too much FOX Noise or are swimming in too much unacknowledged vanillacentric privilege.

As a TransGriot public service, here's the Sociology 101 definition of racism.

Racism= bigotry/prejudice + systemic power  (economic, judicial, police, military, legislative, sexual) used by a majority group to deny, retard or roll back the human rights progress of a minority group.

In the USA and much of the world, historically that group has been white people  Black people can be bigoted and prejudiced, but we have never had the power as a group to negatively impact white lives as a group. 

Only white people have had that power, and they have (and continue to) gleefully at times use it

And you will get the eye roll, called out in cyberspace or laughed out of the room if you even try to deploy a dictionary definition of racism with me or any other Black person to invalidate our lived experience with it.

To underscore what I'm trying to get across to you in this post, here is Dr. Joy de Gruy Leary  explaining to a group of people discussing police brutality and the shootings of unarmed Black people how racism plays a role in it by pointing out the power element.

There Will Never Be An OU Chapter Of SAE, Either

Was infuriating to see  not even 24 hours after the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and President Obama's speech the not so surprising action of white frat member gone racist on viral video.

And I wasn't surprised when I heard it was Sigma Alpha Epsilon, a fraternity that proudly touts its association to the Confederacy on its website and has a long history of racist and nekulturny behavior.



In this latest episode of frat boys gone wild, after the video of their racist ditty went viral, OU President David Boren took swift and decisive action to call out the bad behavior, give SAE until today to pack their stuff and leave their frat house, and started an investigation to determine who the miscreants are.

SAE National also condemned the behavior of its now shut down OU Chapter

“Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s national headquarters has closed its Oklahoma Kappa chapter at the University of Oklahoma following the discovery of an inappropriate video,” according to a statement on SAE’s website. “In addition, all of the members have been suspended, and those members who are responsible for the incident may have their membership privileges revoked permanently.”

The University of Oklahoma has already lost one highly touted football recruit as a result of this incident, and it remains to be seen how many more they lose.

And something else that remains to be seen is whether the person or persons that started this latest mess that an SAE chapter has found itself in gets punished.

Dale Hansen Calls Out The Flower Mound Bigots

You'll recall I wrote about the bigotry eruption that occurred at the recent February 13 Flower Mound-Plano East boys basketball game that got deserved national attention and condemnation.

Now longtime WFAA-TV sportscaster Dale Hansen has added his voice to those condemning what happened in that town.  You'll remember Hansen on these electronic pages  for his commentary in support of NFL draftee Michael Sam.

Now he's calling out what happened in Flower Mound.

Racism Rears Its Pointed Hooded Head At TX HS Basketball Game

Some of us in the Lone Star State sarcastically refer to North Texas, because of its proximity to the madness in the Sooner State, as Baja Oklahoma.

Much of the state house and senate legislative representation in that part of the state is unfortunately Tea Klux Klan, and we all know how racist the Tea Party is.

It seems that the Tea Party racism pimped by FOX Noise, the Tea Party and right wing talk radio to their parents is filtering down to the younglings.

At a boys basketball game played on February 13 between Flower Mound HS and Plano East last Friday that went into triple overtime, some nekulturny Flower Mount HS knuckleheads held up 'White Power' signs that were spotted by the visiting Plano East players and their fans.

“I saw ... [the signs] during the game, and I just didn’t think anything of it until I heard ... [a] racial slur at the free throw line,” Plano East junior player Devin Gifford said in an interview. “I didn’t say anything; I just let students be students.”.  

Gifford posted the photo of the signs on Twitter with the caption, “This is ridiculous I thought we passed the racial stage of society.”

Sadly Kevin, we still haven't evolved to become the beloved community that the Rev.Dr. Martin Luther King Jr talked about.and we have a lot of work to do to get there.

While Flower Mound administrators quickly confiscated the offensive signs, they were still up long enough for them to be photographed, posted and subsequently commented about on social media.  

Flower Mound's head coach issued an emphatic condemnation of the incident via Twitter, and Lewisville ISD Interim Superintendent Kevin Rogers issued this written statement yesterday.

As Interim Superintendent of a very diverse school district and community, I have been involved with our internal investigation regarding the unfortunate occurrence at Friday night’s Flower Mound High School vs. Plano East varsity boys’ basketball game. I want to be clear that this type of incident – however it has been perceived – has not and will not be tolerated in LISD. We have always had high expectations for our more than 53,000 students and hold them to those standards both in and outside of the classroom.

As we stated yesterday, the investigation of this occurrence is still underway, and we fully intend to act on our findings. We regret that this unfortunate event has been elevated to this level on so many social media circles.

I am disheartened that the perceived actions of a few may reflect poorly on two great schools – Flower Mound and Plano East High Schools – school districts and communities. Ultimately, please know we have the highest respect for the students, staff and community of Plano East High School.

The game was a75-73 Flower Mound win, but nobody will remember that this triple overtime boys varsity basketball tilt was considered one of the best games of the 2014-15 Texas high school basketball season.  

This reprehensible incident has overshadowed the result of the game, and has once again in the wake of similar racist incidents at high school games in other parts of the country, shined a necessary spotlight on race and race relations in the US and the lack of societal progress in solving the problem.

FBI Director Comey's Speech On Race And The Po-Po's

FBI Director James Comey basically said the same thing Attorney General Eric Holder said a few years ago, but peeps are going to go gaga over this narrowly tailored speech on race and law enforcement because a white male said it.

Director Comey traveled to Georgetown University on February 12 and spoke to the assembled crowd about the need for law enforcement officers and the citizens they serve to discuss the historic and problematic disconnect between the police and communities of color.

Will be interesting to see the freak out the conservafools have about this speech.

Is It Time For The Huey P. Newton Gun Club To Visit Austin?

“no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.” - See more at: http://disinfo.com/2011/08/the-black-panthers-and-the-gun-rights-movement/#sthash.1hCCErCD.dpuf

"I see no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying a loaded weapon."
California Governor Ronald Reagan (R), May 2, 1967

There have been loud calls by the Tea Klux Klan and the conservafools that run our state legislature (boo hiss) to enact Open Carry laws here in the Lone Star State because believe it or not, my home state is one of just six in the nation that do not allow you to carry modern weapons without a permit..  

And with racist idiots like the Fort Worth based Open Carry Texas walking around doing nekulturny crap like threatening state legislators that  are lukewarm to the idea, that's a good thing.  I'm not in favor of an open carry law unless there is a provision in it to do instant background checks that weed out people who shouldn't have access to weapons whose sole purpose is to kill mass quantities of human beings on a battlefield in the first place.

But with GOP control of both houses and a new GOP governor, if they propose and file it, if it has enough support it'll probably pass.

But I'm seeing something in our past history that might change their conservaminds about just how great an idea open carry is, and it's based on events that happened in California back on May 2, 1967.

To protest the Mulford Act, a bill that was being proposed to repeal the law that allowed for the open carry of loaded weapons on California streets, on that day 24 Black Panther Party men and six Black Panther Party women armed with .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns, and .45 caliber pistols arrived on the Cali capitol's West lawn, climbed up the capitol steps, and marched through the capitol building before Bobby Seale read Executive Mandate Number 1, a statement about Black people arming themselves against the anti-Black terror aimed at us before it was too late.

The Panthers opposed the Mulford Act because it targeted their armed police patrols designed to end the epidemic of police brutality and inform people of the constitutional rights,.  Members of the BPP would listen to police calls on a short wave radio, rush to the scene of the arrest with law books in hand and inform the person being arrested of their constitutional rights. BPP members carried publicly displayed loaded weapons on these patrols while being careful to stand no closer than ten feet from the arrest so as not be accused of interfering with the arrest.

Of course the sight of Black peeps with guns marching through the Capitol building combined with their police patrols, and Malcolm X's statements concerning  Black people exercising their 2nd Amendment rights scared the crap out of the powers that be, and they reacted in California by passing the Mulford Act  and they, along with the NRA pushing for increased gun control.

I noted that Open Carry Texas attempts to try to hold an armed march through Houston's historic predominately Black Fifth Ward neighborhood on MLK Day and Juneteenth and South Dallas ceased and desisted after the Huey P Newton Gun Club marched through South Dallas last August and members of the Houston New Black Panther Party chapter confronted the Open Carry Texas bigots at a meeting informing them they were not welcome in our neighborhoods while showing of their assault rifles

Maybe it's time for the Huey P. Newton Gun club to take a drive down I-35 south and do some lobbying for their 2nd Amendment rights as other Black 2nd Amendment advocates join them in Austin for a rally at the Capitol

Any bets on how fast the Lone Star Republicans will drop the idea of open carry when they realize that open carry laws cuts both ways and we Black folks also own guns?    

And how fast would they back off of Open Carry laws if those same Black open carry advocates marched through the ritzy Dallas area enclave of Highland Park, Houston's River Oaks and San Antonio's Alamo Heights or some ring suburban neighborhoods?

Maybe then and only then will those Republicans see the error of their conservaways and ponder the  wisdom of Saint Ronald of Reagan's words about guns 48 years ago.

All They Needed To Do To Keep Ferguson From Burning...

Was indict Darren Wilson.

But because whiteness and white supremacy was at work in this whole sorry affair, they didn't, and now you have another series of protests and riots breaking out in the city of Ferguson and elsewhere around the country

But it was clear that the fix was in when a biased prosecutor with a history of not  indicting police officers involved in shooting of civilians did everything possible to ensure that justice was not done in this case.  

And meanwhile, another African-American family is burying their son who was taken away from them by a racist cop, and then have to watch as FOX Noise and the rest of the media demonize their child.   And you wonder why I and a lot of other African-Americans today are singing along to NWA's lyrics today.

Yes, the POTUS has spoken and appealed for dialogue.   The Department of Justice is now investigating.  But we're tired of talking about our kids dying at the hands of white po-po's, and seeing vigilantes and those offices walking the streets with shyt-eating grins on their faces after they get acquitted by grand juries or juries more inclined to nullify than indict and punish their fellow white peeps.  .

Yeah right, the justice system worked.   But tell that BS to the parent who lost their child at your hands and you show absolutely no remorse for it. 

As Dr, King once said, "A riot is the language of the unheard."  Can you hear us now?

There have been protests in other cities including Houston over the non-indictment, but what we need to happen right now is the police departments of this country to stop treating African-Americans as live fire targets, and stop hiring bigots and giving them badges to patrol our neighborhoods.

Moni's In The Facing Race 14 House!

After handling my emcee hosting duties and having a late night trying to decide what fool gets the blog's Shut Up Fool award, it's time to get into the Facing Race conference and see some of the seminars before I have to leave for a slightly warmer Houston.

Yep, when I arrived in Dallas yesterday at Love Field it was a sunny33 degrees.

The sun is taking a vacation today.  Figures it would do that the first time this event is hosted in Texas.

And yep, this is my first one, so I definitely want to see  and hear what peeps are talking about at a conference dedicated to one of my favorite subjects in terms of eradicating racism from this planet for future generations.

You also gotta love a conference that renamed the ballroom at the Hilton Anatole Hotel the 'Anti-Imperial Ballroom. 

And I'm still getting kudos from last night's emcee performance.   Believe it or not that was the first time I've ever been asked to do it for a major conference, even though I've been hosting or emceeing events since I was 10. 

You can follow the #FacingRace14  hashtag to check out what people are talking about, texting and tweeting to each other and the world.   There's also a YouTube channel that they will be livecasting various events on like last night's plenary.and today's 3:30 PM CST.keynote speech from Dr Bernice Johnson Reagon and her daughters Toshi and Tashawn

They are three generations of artists and activists who have an interesting intergenerational story to tell

Okay, enough writing.   Time for me to get my learn on before I have to go...

C-SPAN GOP Caller's Pointed Hood Is Showing

Remember  over the weekend when Sen Mary Landrieu (D-LA) said that the major reason that President Obama was having problems in the South was because of his race, and the GOP and conservafool movement went apoplectic about it?

Well people,  Sen. Landrieu's observation just got majorly cosigned. 

In the afterglow of the Republicans bigoted white peeps fueled midterm win, in addition to their sore winning, many of their supporters have been letting their inner Klansmen out.   They have also exposed their acute cases of Obama Derangement Syndrome since Tuesday as well.  

One named Anthony from San Diego, CA did so on C-SPAN yesterday when he called President Obama the n-word on-air.

"This is about race. The Republicans hate that n----- Obama."
-Anthony, San Diego, CA C-SPAN GOP caller

And here's the C-SPAN video to prove it.



Well duh, you conservabigots have made that quite KKKlear you hated the man and by extension his family since November 2008.  It was clear in the runup to this 2014 midterm you were going to race bait..

So no, GOP, don't even try to tell me your or your political base's animus with the POTUS is not race based.   Because the teabagging members of  your base have no problem thinking or saying it.

And the next white conservafool that tries to argue with me that my assertion that the Republican Party is the political arm of white supremacy is wrong will get cussed out and blocked afterwards.

The bottom line is that conservatism IS a racist movement, and you have used white male resentment and anger to fuel it since the 1970's.   Anthony isn't just 'one bad apple' as you GOP defenders will try to claim, you have a Republican Party and a movement full of them in which proud members of your GOP ranks say bigoted, racist, sexist, misogynist, transphobic and homophobic crap on a weekly basis.   

You are reaping the continued harvest of the racist seeds you sowed with the Southern Strategy and your four decades of anti-Black rhetoric.

And yeah, you can't suppress the Black vote forever.   You will pay at the ballot box for it

Upcoming 2014 Facing Race Conference In Dallas

Only found our about this conference recently, but since it is happening in the Lone Star State up I-45 from me, I've been invited to attend this year's edition of the Facing Race Conference in Dallas.

The conference is taking place at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, with previous editions of this conference having been held in Baltimore, Berkeley, Chicago, Oakland and New York


It's organized by the Center For Racial Justice Innovation, and the mission of Race Forward is to build awareness, solutions and leadership for racial justice by generating transformative ideas, information and experiences.

This is the first time Facing Race has been held in either Texas or the southern US, and it should be an interesting few days of discussions.  It's also showing on its website as sold out. 

The Facing Race conference is happening November 13-15, and you know that if I'm in the Hilton Anatole Hotel house, I'll be reporting on the interesting things going on there.