BTAC Needs Support, Too

We are rapidly closing on the April 29-May 4 dates for the third annual Black Trans Advocacy Conference in Dallas, and I'm looking forward to seeing my trans peeps and our allies there at the Doubletree Campbell Center.    But I was bothered by this e-mail that was shared on the BTAC page.

Email response to invitation to BTA Awards.
_______________________
"I don't know why I am receiving these e-mails. I am a transwoman, but I am white. I am sure that I wouldn't be welcome at you Gala in May." ________________________

You Are Sure of it?????My friends, racism exist. We are here to help end it! We get so much of this but on this one, we are sharing it so that we can grow from it together.

It is not racist to affirm black and trans identity. IT IS racist if you don't support it and exclude yourself from programming based on the affirmation of race. Please know that Affirming Black and Trans Identity, Black Trans Community Organizing, Black Trans Advocacy is a GREAT thing and takes us all to support for full equality to exist. Our goal is to obtain full equality and to become instruments of social change. If you support equality, make it a priority to get involved. It is counterproductive of our cause if you exclude yourself from our programming. All are invited, welcomed, needed and loved. One Earth. One People. One Love. #btac2014  

The point I'm going to make in this post is that the Black Trans Advocacy Conference needs support, too.  

Just as you would like for me and the rest of the non-white trans community to support events like Southern Comfort, First Event, and countless other regional conferences and panel discussions that you organize that don't reflect our culture or at times the issues of importance in our communities, we expect reciprocal treatment when we organize or host events such as BTAC that may not reflect yours. 

If we don't see your face in the Doubletree Campbell Center place because you incorrectly assumed as a white trans person you're not wanted at BTAC,  how else are you going to learn about the issues that affect my community, meet some of the people who are working to tackle and solve those problems, and have substantive conversations with the people who are our Black trans leaders? 

You're going to miss this year's keynote speeches from Dr. Kortney Ryan Ziegler and Cheryl Courtney Evans.  You'll miss the Black Diamond Ball in which awards to our community's heroes and sheroes will be handed out.  You'll miss the tell it like it T-I-S is commentary in our town halls and panel discussions.

And you'll miss a golden opportunity to network with not only people in our community, but our allies who do show up to support the BTAC and help us get our learn on.  

And you'll miss your chance to settle what is sure to be one of the big BTAC conference debates.  Which burger is better, In-N-Out or Whataburger? 

FYI, there's an In-N-Out burger location just up the North Central Expressway feeder from the hotel.    

I said in this post and will repeat and remix this salient point for your reading pleasure:  Having strong, confident, politically aware and vibrant Black, Latin@, Asian-Pacific trans communities telling our stories strengthens the entire pink, white and blue flag waving trans community as a whole.  It also strengthens our various non-white cis and SGL communities and any other one we choose to ally with. 

We trans people of color would rather work together to build community with our white trans brothers and sisters and our cis, bi  and SGL allies to advance our common goal of human rights for all.  But we are no longer doing so as disrespected, enfeebled junior partners   

It has become necessary for us in the second decade of the 21st century to have conferences like BTAC in order to discuss the issues that ail our community, learn, network, reconnect with each other, come up with solutions, and own our power so that we can permanently solve those problems.   

We're just doing the same thing the white trans community has done since the late 80's-early 90's.   The Black trans community didn't say you COULDN'T come, and neither did the BTAC organizers.   We want as many peeps at BTAC as possible because we are exceedingly proud of this now three year old conference, want it to grow and want to show it off to the world. 

The fact it's in a blue oasis in my red soon to be purple home state with a rich trans history makes it even more important it survive and thrive . So assuming you wouldn't be welcome at BTAC is not only asinine, but problematic.       

The bottom line is that stronger non-white trans communities benefit the ENTIRE pink, white and blue flag waving trans community.   The sooner you get that point, the sooner we can move trans human rights forward in our nation and around the world  

See you at the Doubletree Campbell Center next month.  

Pick When Stand Your Ground Won't Work

It's time to play TransGriot Final Jeopardy

Here is your TransGriot Final Jeopardy clue.  .  

The situation in which the ALEC pimped Kill A Black Person With Impunity Stand Your Ground Law will NOT work to keep the shooter out of jail.

Remember your answer must be in the form of a question




Time's up, so what was your answer?.

Annie Is Black, And The Pointed White Hoods Come Out

A remake of Annie is about to hit your local multiplexes that when it was in the discussion stages, Willow Smith was rumored to be in the running for the part but it went to Oscar Best Actress nominee Quvenzhané Wallis.

And now that the trailer has come out for this movie coming soon to your local multiplex starring her and Jamie Foxx, I was shocked but not surprised to read that elements of white America are losing their damned minds on Twitter about it.

So the same whiteness that has no problem with Jared Leto being cast as a trans woman or defending 70% of movie roles going to white males, arguing that 'casting should be color blind' and 'the best actors should get the part' now has a racist foaming at the mouth problem with Quvenzhané Wallis being cast as Annie?   

Sigh.  The War on Blackness continues.

The same White America that last week was tying itself in pretzel logic like knots trying to justify a white man playing a transwoman as moi and the trans community complained about it, had no problem with that same white male winning an Oscar for that problematic portrayal, smugly told the trans community to 'get over it' while hiding behind Calpernia Addams' skirts to do so, is now having a vanillacentric scented hissy fit because a Black girl is playing Annie.

Their pointed white hoods are showing along with their white sheets. 


I'd need another post to document all the times that white people have played Black or other ethnic characters in movies.

John Wayne as Genghis Khan ring a bell?    Liz Taylor as Cleopatra?  Natalie Wood as Maria Nunez in West Side Story?  Laurence Olivier donning blackface to play Othello?   

Another example was Ava Gardner being chosen over Lena Horne and using the makeup Max Factor developed for Lena to play the mixed race character Julie LaVerne in the 1951 movie Show Boat when hello, Lena Horne practically was living that character's life.   
 
It's not like this is the first time a classic film has been remade with an all-Black cast.   There was the musical The Wiz that was turned into a 1978 film starring Michael Jackson and Diana Ross. 

Most recently the movie Steel Magnolias was reimagined with an all Black cast featuring Phylicia Rashad and her daughter Condola Rashad, Queen Latifah, Alfre Woodard, and Jill Scott. 

IIt also speaks to another problematic issue that if the movie in question doesn't have Blacks interacting with Whites in servitude, deference, or emotional dependence, it results in whites leaving in droves after it starts.


I witnessed that phenomenon firsthand with the movie White Man's Burden. It starred John Travolta and Harry Belafonte in which the societal script was flipped and it was white peeps living in the hood and Black folks living in Beverly Hills.
I noticed whites leaving the theater and heard one brother say to one white guy exiting the theater, "What's wrong? Can't handle this movie? This is what we deal with everyday in America."
Another reality that needs to be dealt with is that in 21st century America, many of the orphans in those homes and the foster care system look like Quvenzhané.

As white people in this country, you can count on the fact that every week, a Hollywood movie will open that has casts who predominately look like you, and share your ethnic heritage and background.   I don't have that luxury as a person of color.  

An Annie that reflects my ethnic background is quite interesting to me, Black parents and the Black girls Quvenzhane's age who will see themselves reflected on the silver screen for once.

That should be celebrated, not racistly denounced..   

Nobody Wanted To Answer The Jeopardy Black History Category Questions

I have been a fan of the show Jeopardy since my childhood, and still have dreams of appearing on the show someday.   When I watch it, I like to test my knowledge by trying to answer the questions as the players are trying to do so on air.  

I still laugh about one day in the ticket counter breakroom during my airline days when Jeopardy used to come on at 3:30 PM here and a group of us were huddled around the TV set to do precisely that.  

It got to the point where myself and my fellow CSR Rick Owen were nailing the questions in the categories broadcast on that particular day.   We were doing such a good job of it my coworkers started waiting for either me or Rick to answer before they would guess.

I bring you down Moni Memory Lane to set up an interesting and sad commentary on modern day race relations in the USA. 

From time to time Jeopardy does tournaments, and one of those is the collegiate one in which college students do battle on the show to be crowned the collegiate Jeopardy champion.

While the three collegiate semifinal contestants easily breezed through the question topics such as 'Kiwi Fauna', 'Talk Nerdy To Me' and 'Weather Verbs', the trio awkwardly left the African American history category alone until they were forced to answer questions in it, and those weren't really difficult.
They missed on the Rhode Island Regiment one (which I answered correctly because of the Ocean State reference) and the one on the Scottsboro Boys. 

Host Alex Trebek trying to bail out the young contestants after the silence on the Scottsboro Boys question by saying "That was before your time"  was awkwardly problematic as well.   Many of the questions in the other categories they cleared were 'before their time' as well.

The show was taped back in November, but it airing during Black History Month made the ignoring of the category until the last moment more glaring. 

It also points out in microcosm the Two Americas double standard we grapple with.   These colloge eduated white kids aren't requred to, nor do they need to know anything about my people's history, which is also American history by the way.

But before I or any person of color can walk out of high school, much less college with a diploma or a degree, I damned sure better have more than a working knowledge of theirs

The fun starts at the 15:50 mark



 

This Is An Afrocentric Blog-Deal With It

There is an on point 1984 James Baldwin quote from a Village Voice interview n which he talked about race in GL World.  I'm going to substitute trans for gay for the purposes of this post.

"Their reaction seems to me in direct proportion to their sense of feeling cheated of the advantages which accrue to white people in a white society. There's an element, it has always seemed to me, of bewilderment and complaint. Now that may sound very harsh, but the trans world as such is no more prepared to accept black people than anywhere else in society."


Over the last week and a half elements of white trans world have been showing their asses and letting their pink, white and blue sheets show because they are jealously pissed off about the deserved and increasing media attention that Black trans people are getting.  

The cadre of white trans women in question are upset that Black transpeople are not only closing ranks and owning their power, they see it as they bump their gums in their not so quiet Facebook rooms that this long ago needed development in the Black trans community ranks as 'a threat'

The star of their offline Two Minute Hates has been moi and my GLAAD Award nominated blog.
Aww, I'm flattered and frankly LMBTAO that I'm the focus of your hatred.  But what I said before to you still stands:  You need Jesus.

And I revel in your irrational hatred.  Why #youmad because for the first time in the 61 year modern history of the trans rights movement that Black trans people and their accomplishments are getting increased media attention and love?

Do you not see the point that a strong Black trans community that owns its power, confidently wields it, helps destroy transphobia in Black cis and SGL ranks, and does the Trans 101 education tailored to our history and culture in those communities helps all of Trans World?

Or do you peeps have so much internalized hatred for Black people that you are role modeling the remixed James Baldwin remark?

If you are, too bad.   We're not gonna let your lack of vision turn us around from our urgent mission of building community and stopping the off the charts violence aimed at us.

Are you that upset because we are finding innovative ways to lead, forming our own organizations and building community infrastructure that reflects our culture, are increasingly tackling the problems that ail our community with the help of our cis and SGL allies, are writing New York Times best selling narratives, are breakout stars on TV shows and have GLAAD nominated blogs that people flock to for intelligent commentary about issues inside and outside the trans, bi and SGL community?

Yeah, obviously you do and this isn't a new development.   Moni ain't the only person that has called you out on your racism that you tried and failed to keep under wraps and don't want to talk about.

If that's your problem. you can #staymad then.    You can also KMBTA because if you don't like the fact TransGriot is an Afrocentric blog founded by an unapologetically Black transperson, and have consistently called crap out in this community, too damned bad.  Deal with it.

As a matter of fact since I mentioned this was an Afrocentric blog, here's the Mission Statement I compiled on January 2, 2011 for it:

The TransGriot blog's mission is to become the griot of our community.  I will introduce you to and talk about your African descended transbrothers and transsisters across the African Diaspora, reclaim and document our chocolate flavored trans history, speak truth to power, comment on the thins that impact our community from an Afrocentric perspective and enlighten you about the general things that go on around me and in the communities that I am a member of.  

Hey, I did warn you and I was blunt about what was going to happen on these electronic pages.  
   
TransGriot was founded on New Year's Day 2006 with the mission of elevating the voice, thoughts, visibility and policy concerns of African descended trans people across the Diaspora as its Prime Directive. I comment on the issues of trans people of color and developments around the world from my Afrocentric perspective as well.

I am unapologetically Black and trans.   I an not going to apologize for that or the over 7000 posts in my tell it like it T-I-S is Afrocentric tone that is in sync with the journalistic style and traditions of my people  

Neither will I separate my transness from my Blackness just to make a certain segment of misguided white trans world comfortable

You don't like the fact I said it or my opinions don't neatly line up with yours, I don't care.   Neither do I give a rat's anus that you have a problem with me owning my power on behalf of my community as I have done since 1998.  

I speak truth to power inside and outside TBLG World and I'm damned sure going to do it on a blog that I founded and have control over.  You have a problem with that, then have several seats and choke on that bottle of Vanillacentic Privileged Frost Haterade you're liberally drinking from

My award winning blog with over 4.4 million hits (and counting), my cyberhome, my rules.   The opinions expressed here are the result of my unapologetically Black behind residing on this planet inside the borders of the United States since 1962 and my two decades of life being a transperson while Black.

If you don't like the opinions expressed here, you are always free to exercise your option of reading the hundreds of trans blogs that reflect your vanillacentric privileged world view.

But you do so with the knowledge that this blog for eight years is proudly rooted (and always will be) in the African-American community.  It is edited by an award winning trans human rights activist with 16 years experience in the game, and who has been blessed with mad writing skills to boot.

This is an Afrocentric blog.   For those of you who like that fact, I thank you for surfing by my cyberhome on a regular basis to check out the posts that I and my guest posters leave here for you to peruse.

For those of you who wanna hate, deal with it.

What Else Is New? White Male Gets Away With Murdering Black Child In Florida

The reason you haven't seen much in the way of coverage of the Michael Dunn trial in Jacksonville on this blog is because I had the same sickening feeling it was basically going to be a replay of what happened in the Zimmerman case a few months ago. 

Same prosecutor in Angela Corey, same BS Stand Your Ground Kill a Black Kid With Impunity Law, and same cluelessness of the vanillacentric privilege White Americans walk in that considers the bigoted adult with the gun the sympathetic party and the unarmed African American teens as the scary aggressors.

The same white privileged cluelessness that allows the eight whites on the twelve person jury (the other jurors were two Black women, one Asian woman and one Latino) to believe that a racist butthole who fired ten shots at African-American teens listening to loud music in their SUV was 'a threat' to his life and his life was more valuable than the African-American kids he was emptying his gun clip at .

But Monica, some of you are probably saying, he was convicted of four of five felony counts.  Three of the convictions were for attempted second-degree murder of the other teens in the vehicle.  

Yeah true, but he wasn't convicted of the first degree murder charge that he should have gotten for killing Jordan Davis. 

And once again, prosecutor Angela Corey can throw Marissa Alexander under the jail for firing a warning shot through the roof of her home to defend herself and her children, but can't get convictions on two white men who killed Black children. 

As I said in the wake of the unjust Zimmerman verdict and will repeat once again, you want to get justice for Trayvon and Jordan?  Here's what must happen starting November 4. 

Vote the GOP bastards out in your state or area who support or voted for Stand Your Ground and voter suppression laws.  Vote out unjust Teapublican judges, DA's and prosecutors. Vote out Republifool congressmembers and senators in the 2014 midterms and beyond. 

Vote for candidates who will stand up for human rights and justice for all people. If you don't see those candidates, run for office your damned self.

Get control of your state legislatures and Congress back and fix what dictatorial Republican control, their Gilded Age 2.0 billionaire funders and a conservative Supreme Court broke.  

It's already galling enough to me this verdict happened the day before what would have been Jordan Davis' 19th birthday tomorrow.  We'll see what sentences gets handed down in this Dunn case before I decide how angry I really need to get over this verdict. 

Beginning Of The Inevitable Backlash

TransGriot Note: I said it a different way, but had to post this commentary from Jen Richards, the co-founder of the Trans 100 over the racist BS that erupted in the wake of the jacked up 'I'll deal with you' Morgan interview.

It was inevitable that other trans people would start coming for Janet Mock & Laverne Cox once they reached a certain level of visibility. Hell, we talked about it. Now that's it's come, it feels less saddening and more ridiculous. What I've just read is too absurd to dignify, and too transparently racist and self-centered to excuse, so I'll just make a few brief points.

1) If you're white and are upset by the attention on issues facing trans people of color, you need a serious reality check. When we talk about violence against LGBT people, we're really talking about trans women of color. That's who is being killed. When we talk about HIV, we're really talking about trans women of color. Yes, we're all suffering in various ways, but focusing where the crisis is most urgent doesn't hurt you. But your griping about it reeks of racism and hurts us all.

2) Neither Laverne nor Janet claims to be spokespeople for the whole community, but they're using their voices for the good of others, and there are a lot of us who are very grateful for it.

3) Don't like the attention Janet & Laverne are getting for themselves, people like them, or the issues they care about? THEN GO SUCCEED LIKE THEM AND MAKE YOUR OWN PRIORITIES. I'm so tired of people knocking others down just because they can't get themselves up. I've seen both of these women struggle, but I've never hear either of them blame anyone else. Not once.

3) Laverne was doing work in the community for years before 'Orange is the New Black'. Not only was she put on the Trans 100 before being cast, she flew herself out to Chicago for the event and was backstage helping other people, just because she wanted to. And she has used her to fame to bring attention to all kinds of issues and causes.

4) Of course Janet wants to sell books. She's a writer, and a damn good one. Is she any less deserving than any other writer selling books? And you all have no idea how much she gives back. But she's never done anything inappropriate to sell books or gather attention. She's just worked really hard, and really smart. Again, go do better if you can! But sure as hell don't tell me that you can't because your white ass has had a harder time.

5) A rising tide lifts all ships. When one of us succeeds and lifts others up, it's a good thing. Try just being happy that a few trans people are succeeding and keep working hard yourself. It's actually much more satisfying.

6) If you're white and are upset by the attention on issues facing trans people of color, you need a serious reality check. Oh, did I already say that? WELL CLEARLY IT NEEDS TO BE SAID A LOT.

We need to have more serious conversations about race in the trans community, and I intend to help start a few. We need nuance, and multiple perspectives. But this shit I've just seen on Facebook is plain old stupid, racist bullshit, so I'm going to have those conversations on another day.


TransGriot Update: And that racist backlash has included people deliberately writing negative reviews on Amazon.com about Redefining Realness.

Why Y'all So 'Scurred' Of Black Trans People Owning Their Power?

So white transpeeps, the attack on Janet Mock and other Black trans leaders 'isn't about race'?   Bull feces.  

Peep this comment from transman Mark Angelo Cummings:

I am seeing a very strange twist in our community, and why are we all of a sudden admiring individuals who have recently come out as advocates with little to no experience in that role. One is an actress, the other stealth for many years working at Peoples magazine behind a cubicle and now decides to write a book and is identifying as a fierce advocate? Both trans woman of color, which seems to be a very prominent twist these days as if they are the only ones in the trans community who have suffered and constantly harp on how bad they have it, leaving behind the rest of us. Separating themselves, creating their own groups and associations and hijacking the community at large.

Now all of sudden we see this rage, this uproar, this hatred towards "Cis" Gender individuals, there years of hurt is coming out in their attempt to advocate and it is creating one ugly picture. in addition, they are leading a war path, a path that will lead us into an abyss. I believe we need to stop this movement before it back fires and redirect our efforts to showing love and compassion and stop seeing color.... Mark Angelo Cummings.

Strange Mark?  The question I have to ask is why are you (and white transpeople in general) feeling threatened by the ascendance of an intelligent masters degree wielding Black transwoman who OWNS HER POWER?   

I note the only people in Trans World who have been trashing Janet ever since your 'ally' Piers Morgan led the attack to 'deal with her'  have predominately been white.

By coming out, Janet and Laverne's ascendancy not only gave our community possibility models they can be proud of and point to, they have opened the doors to a sorely needed dialogue (like the one I had in Houston at the Montrose Center last night) in the Black cis and SGL community about trans issues.  

How is that 'a problem' or 'a threat'?   

I and other Black trans leaders don't see it that way.   We have been asking for years to be included in trans leadership ranks that look like a Republican Party convention and you keep ignoring or dismissing our concerns and requests to do so.  We are suffering with a 26% unemployment rate in Black Transworld and near genocidal levels of anti-trans violence being aimed at us that needs to be dealt with now, not 5, 10 or 50 years from now.    

For the last 61 years the trans narrative has centered on whiteness.  The transfeminine one has like in the parent society, white transwomen being the penultimate in beauty and femininity while Black transwomen are belittled, denigrated and murdered along with our trans Latina sisters.

Don't even get me started about how the transmasculine conversation has been centered on whiteness as well when media time does get allocated to talk about it

Now that you see Black transpeople confidently owning their power, have our own heroes and sheroes we can point to with pride, having their own conventions and TDOR events, have people like Kortney and my GLAAD Media Award nominated self and other video bloggers discussing our issues from an Afrocentric perspective, beginning to be supported by Black mainstream advocacy orgs like the NAACP and our SGL allies in the National Black Justice Coalition, you delusionally see this as 'cis' hatred and something that 'needs to be stopped'?

Seriously?   Have a seat Mark (and 'errbody' else in White Transworld who shares that jacked up opinion) and drink a nice tall Southern sweet tea flavored glass of STFU.

Laverne and Janet are in the media eye.   They are sheroes to a Black trans community that for the first time ever has out trans spokespeople who share their ethnic heritage.  We are reclaiming and talking about our trans history.   Dr. Kortney Ryan Ziegler is not only writing critical essays on his GLAAD nominated blac(k)ademic blog but has created the Trans* H4CK that seamlessly combines a hackathon with trans social justice.   Dee Dee Watters in Houston successfully organized the first ever Black trans organized TDOR.   Trans 100 honoree Carter Brown's Black Transmen, Inc is holding another BTAC Conference in April with a multicultural list of presenters and speakers while his org is helping Black transmen organize and own their collective power.   

And how is Black trans people showing pride in being Black and trans, doing for self and building institutions and community infrastructure similar to the ones that white transpeeps have enjoyed for decades 'hijacking the movement'?  You are clueless or have been standing in the Florida sun for too damned long if you think that way. 

I don't see that as a threat or something that 'needs to be stopped', I see it as something that is long overdue. It is also a breath of fresh air in a trans movement that for six decades has been far too focused on whiteness. and the desire of elements of the white trans community to regain their lost white privilege at POC transpeople's expense.

Not like Moni didn't warn y'all on the pages of this blog for years the Black Trans Revolution was coming. 

Bottom line is that we're beyond tired of the invisibility and it's time for the chocolate trans community to do what our Black sisters did in the late 80's and early 90's when they separated themselves from a similar jacked up situation in the feminist ranks.    TransGriot March 29, 2011

As Kwame Ture said, "In order to participate in the greater society, you must first close ranks." 

I also see this as the long overdue awakening of Black trans people finally doing what our parents, grandparents and great grandparents did decades ago when faced with the same intransigent racism in our parent society.  Because of your lack of vanillacented privileged wisdom, it was made necessary for African-American transpeople to tell our stories, do community building and close ranks.to build our own community so that we as free human beings have options.

And you have no one to blame but yourselves for this development.  We warned you that if something wasn't done about trans leadership ranks that resembled a GOP convention and you kept ignoring our pleas to change that and share the responsibility of leading this diverse community, the day was going to happen that we made our own damned tables and we wouldn't care if you liked it or not. 

As I've said on multiple posts here on this blog and on countless discussion Internet threads inside and outside the trans community for over a decade in various ways, race matters, even in the trans community.

We Black transpeople do not have the luxury of separating our race and ethnicity from our trans status because they are inextricably part of us.   We also get reminded of the kente cloth woven ties we have to the Black community every time we get whacked by the same microaggressive and macroaggressive bull feces whiteness and white supremacy aims at the entire community.

I am Black first, trans second.  If I had any doubts about where I stand in that regard as a member of the trans community, I get a reminder of it every time I call out the bigoted and racist bull feces that occasionally pops up in our trans community ranks and you angrily hiss back I'm 'angry' or 'playing the race card' for simply for being willing to call your unacknowledged white privileged behinds out.

Your White Privilege Rewards Card isn't the platinum one mind you, it just got downgraded to one with a transgender flag sticker on it. 

It was past time for Black transpeople to close ranks, lift each other up as white transpeople have done for the last six decades, have those trans conversations in our Black SGL and cis communities, and do the education because we are the people best suited to discuss trans issues in our community. 

Having a strong, confident, politically aware and vibrant Black trans community telling our stories strengthens the entire pink, white and blue flag waving trans community as a whole.  It also strengthens our Black cis and SGL communities and any other one we choose to ally with. 

We in Black Transworld will choose who our heroes and sheroes are and the people that we consider leaders in it.   You don't like who we choose, tough.   But you are on notice White Transworld that we will not stand by and sit on our hands when you unjustly attack our leaders, and you do so at your peril.  . 

If you fear the rise of the New Black Transwoman and the New Black Transman because of your unacknowledged privilege, have several seats.  You can #bemad and #staymad about it.

We would rather work together to build community with our white trans brothers and sisters and our cis, bi  and SGL allies to advance our common goal of human rights for all.  

But we Black transpeople will no longer do so as a disrespected junior partner that you throw under the bus every time our opponents wave an opportunity in front of your noses to get your lost platinum white privilege levels back.   
 

White America Is Still Hatin' On Black Athletes

I watched the NFC Championship game on Sunday between the Seahawks and 49ers and saw the post game interview Erin Andrews conducted with him after he made the game saving play to send his team to the Super Bowl.

I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.  I saw it simply as an athlete who was talking smack to his just vanquished opponent that he has a history with after a hard fought NFC title game 

So imagine my shock to see White America losing its collective minds over the post game interview, calling a man who graduated from Stanford a 'thug' and releasing a torrent of racist commentary afterwards.

Then again I shouldn't have been surprised by White America's nearly instantaneous racist reaction to it.

Something that is not being talked about is the same thing happening to Serena Williams last weekend after her loss in the Australian Open quarterfinals to Ana Ivanovic.  

She is also getting called a 'thug', being compared to simians and on the receiving end of post-match racist slurs aimed at her.

Only difference between her and Sherman is because Williams is a Black female athlete, the commenters are tossing in misgendering and transmisogynist slurs into the hateful stew of insults they aim at her.


It's one of the major reasons I hate it when Serena does lose a Grand Slam match and I rub it in when she wins those majors.   I'm beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of the knuckle dragging racism and transmisogyny that comes out when she does unexpectedly lose a match.   

Serena is still going to go down in history as one of the greatest women's tennis players ever.  You vanillacentic privileged peeps slamming her also can't stand the fact she routinely beats your European tennis glamazons with almost boring regularity, draws viewers to those Grand Slam or any tennis matches and clocks more dollars than you people who have vanilla scented privileged hate for her ever will.

But back to talking about Richard Sherman.  He's absolutely on point when he notes that 'thug' is the new code word whiteness uses to denigrate Black folks since they can't openly use n----r anymore unless they simply don't care what other white peeps think about them. 

I find it mind numbingly head scratching that he even had to apologize in the first place.  For what?  Because white peeps fee-fees were offended that he called out another NFL player?  That he told the truth to a national audience about being the best cornerback in the NFL?   The stats and his play this season and cumulatively over the last three years back that up. 

I personally watched him singlehandedly change the course of the entire 2013 Texans NFL season with his Week 4 pick six that tied the game and eventually allowed the Seahawks to escape Reliant Stadium with a 23-20 overtime win.
 
Please spare me the 'Tom Brady and Peyton Manning don't do that' line.   They don't have to because the predominately white male dominated sports media does the bragging and belittling of their opponents for them.   And if Brady and Manning were trash talkers, the sports media and all these people hatin' on Richard Sherman for doing so would be calling it 'refreshingly candid' if those words were coming out of Manning's or Brady's mouths. 

So Black athletes, say what's on your minds.  Because no matter which direction you go, you're damned if you do or damned if you don't.

 

Using Our Pain To Make You Money

Back in 1925, Maxon Lester Graham and Adelaide Burt started with a $50 investment a restaurant in Salt Lake City called The Coon Chicken Inn.

It had an entrance designed to look like a smiling blackface picture of an African American porter.   As you approached The Coon Chicken Inn, you would see a large head with huge lips and a porter’s hat over the exaggerated features that portrayed African Americans as a denigrated cartoon character. Customers would enter the restaurant through the sculpture’s mouth, and the trademarks and advertising for the restaurant featured the same reprehensibly racist caricature.

Items on The Coon Chicken Inn's menu were southern fried Coon Chicken sandwiches and the Baby Coon Chicken special.  African Americans were hired as waiters, waitresses, and cooks but were discouraged from frequenting the venue as customers or enjoying its dance floor.  

The karmic wheel caught up with it in early July 1927 as the restaurant caught fire sometime around 6 PM.  But a group of 50 people rebuilt the Coon Chicken Inn and had it back in operation within days.  The Coon Chicken Inn later expanded to Portland and Seattle and the chain's three locations were in operation until the late 1950's

I tell that piece of Black history to point out this isn't the first time a white restaurant owner has used racism for fun and profit.   In January last year the news went viral about a Mexican restaurant owner in South Carolina there using racism and xenophobia to boost her business.

Leanne Snelgrove owns the Taco Cid restaurant in Columbia, SC and her vanillacentric privileged behind thought it would be a hilarious and wonderful idea to promote her restaurant with an offensive T-shirt that states 'How To Catch An Illegal Immigrant'.

It has a graphic of a box trap propped up by a stick with two tacos underneath it that employees of the eatery also wear.

It went viral after Corey Hutchins took a picture of this full of fail shirt and posted it to his Twitter account.   Predictably, Snelgrove doesn't think the shirt is racist and proceeded to whitesplain it in media interviews and on the restaurant's website.

So for you peeps still trying to defend Ani DiFranco for her fauxgressive frack up last week, just stop.  The visceral reactions of Black women and the African-American community to the now cancelled plantation retreat and the initial fauxpology come from this long four century history of whites choosing profits over the humanity of non-white people, be it cluelessly or deliberately.      

It’s so cute when white-owned businesses, restaurants, etc., in an effort to prove how bold, hip and modern they are, hide behind marketing campaigns in demonstrating their resentment of people of color and other marginalized bodies all in the name of sticking it to political correctness. I can’t imagine just how awesome these folks must feel to know their creativity is so dismal that they have to step on the backs of oppressed groups just to get ahead. - See more at: http://newblackwoman.com/2013/01/11/today-in-post-racial-america-restaurant-uses-xenophobia-to-promote-business/#sthash.ZT3Pxpk3.aFldB9ik.dpuf

We're tired of you using our pain to make you money, and hope that message came through loud and clear during that dustup. 

Sadly I have the feeling it didn't

Gay, Inc Needs A Trans Rooney Rule

With the close of the NFL season, five head coaches were fired for their teams 2013 performance or lack thereof.    Five teams, including my Houston Texans initiated searches for their new head coaches, with the Texans doing so before the season concluded. 

One of the very first interviews given for the vacant head coaching position of my fave NFL squad was to Lovie Smith, the former head coach of the Chicago Bears.  He has since been interviewed and hired by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The reason the interview for Smith happened, and you will see that repeated for other non-white NFL coaching and GM candidates was to fulfill the requirements of the now decade old 'Rooney Rule'. 

The rule is named for Pittsburgh Steelers owner and chairman of the NFL's diversity committee Dan Rooney, due to the Steelers' long positive history of giving African Americans opportunities to serve in team leadership and coaching roles.  The Rooney's themselves before hiring Mike Tomlin as their head coach in 2007 interviewed current Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera for the job. 

Since 2003 the National Football League's Rooney Rule requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for open head coaching and senior football operation jobs.  It started because of the sorry history that up until the hiring of Tom Flores by the Oakland Raiders in 1979, there had been in the entire history of the NFL only one non-white head coach, and that was African-American Fritz Pollard in 1920.


Tom Flores made history not only as the first Latino starting quarterback (for the 1960 AFL Raiders), but the first Latino NFL head coach.  He's also the first non-white head coach to make it to and win two Super Bowls (1980, 1983) and win one as an assistant (1976).   Why he's not in the NFL Hall of Fame is a travesty, but that's another post.

The institution of the Rooney Rule raised the percentage of African-Americans coaches by 2006 to 22% from 6% in the year prior to its implementation.  It was subsequently expanded in 2009 to all ethnic minority coaching and GM candidates and there are proposes to expand it to offensive and defensive coordinator jobs. 

The Rooney Rule is not a quota as its vanillacentric privileged detractors like to call it.  It simply says you must interview minority candidates for these positions.  Who you hire is still up to you as the owner.  But it is obvious that the Rooney Rule worked to promote diversity in the coaching and GM ranks until the 2012 season and it was tweaked again. 

This heavy dose of NFL history about the Rooney Rule has a point.  

What got me thinking about this in terms of TBLG community circles is a conversation ENDABlog 2.0 blogger Katrina Rose and I were having about the Rooney Rule and its implementation in the current NFL hiring cycle.

Katrina made a comment that Gay, Inc orgs need to have one and she has a point.   When it comes to their hiring record concerning the people they choose to lead their organizations, only white gay men need apply.  

When the leadership rannks of your Gay, Inc organizations resemble Republican party conventions, if you're transgender why even apply, especially if you're a trans woman of color? 

The only Gay, Inc organization that has bucked that trend so far is the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.   In its over three decades the Task Force has had multiple female executive directors in Jean O'Leary, Urvashi Vaid, Kerry Lobel just to name a few and since 2008 has been led by current Task Force executive director Rea Carey.


Even with the Task Force's remarkably consistent record when it comes to feminine leadership, they unfortunately have the same pattern as other Gay, Inc orgs in terms of the overall lack of hiring of trans people despite the September hiring of Kylar Broadus to helm their Transgender Civil Rights Project.   

The same project that was led for over a decade (2001-2013) by cis woman Lisa Mottet until moving on to NCTE..

Allyson Robinson is the only person who has ever headed a Gay, Inc org that doesn't have trans human rights as a primary focus, and OutServe-SLDN unfortunately imploded a few months later into her term.


Like Kylar and others prove, it's not like trams people, and especially trans people of color don't have the education, talent or innovative ideas that would serve this community and movement well at an organizational level.  

And yeah, would be nice to get a regular paycheck for fighting for the human rights of this community.   It would also make a small symbolic dent in the trans unemployment numbers, send the message you practice what you preach to Fortune 500 companies and to governmental bodies that you are trying to convince to pass non-discrimination legislation.

It would also send the message that as allies you do value the contributions of trans people to the movement.

But it is probably the all-marriage all the time agenda of these predominately gay white male run orgs that is a reason why a civil rights oriented non-white candidate to this point hasn't been allowed near the leadership ranks of these groups.

You can also add other possible reasons as to why the lack of trans leaders in these Gay, Inc orgs is the dearth of trans hiring at mid-management and senior management levels of these organizations like it routinely does for white gay and lesbian people, or inclusion on their boards of directors so they can get the experience to someday be considered to run the entire organization .  

And let's be real about this, racism and transphobia probably plays a role in this lack of Gay, Inc leadership diversity as well.

For that paradigm to change, we are going to have to see more trans people make it into the good old gay boy and girl networks so they are familiar to the people who can hire or make recommendations to hire.

And it may take Rooney Rule type efforts, or these Gay, Inc organizations realizing that diverse leadership leads to better policy development to do so.     
 

Ani DiFranco's Full Of Fail Feminist Plantation Retreat

Another prime example of why I'm NOT a feminist is breaking out as I write this on the Net 

Ani DiFranco is planning what she calls The Righteous Retreat in The Big Easy.  It's 4 days of music, seminars and feminist conscious raising from June 25-29 in Louisiana.

Sounds like an interesting event. huh?   Just one problem.  It's not being held in the New Orleans city limits, it's being held on a plantation.  When Black women called that problematic point out, all hell broke loose.

When Black women expressed their concerns about having this event on ground where our foremothers were raped, tortured, had the children they bore sold from them, the response was predictable from vanillacentric privileged white women rushing to defend DiFranco and this jacked up event. 

Mandi Harrington took it a reprehensible step further and engaged in virtual blackface to defend the indefensible.

Now they have trotted Toshi Reagon out to make a statement in a predictable attempt to hide behind her skirts as a human shield, but it still doesn't change the fact you are having this event at a plantation and we're pissed off about it.  It's the equivalent of having an event at Auschwitz.  

I'll bet if Jewish women told you that hypothetical Auschwitz event was triggering,  you'd be changing that venue with the quickness.   And these repeated race fails and being disappointed by white feminists is why I am a womanist. 

What next Ani?  A cruise that simulates the Middle Passage?  Your silence Ani will not protect you from the seething anger that is building up over this BS.   Neither will your weak attempt to use Toshi Reagon as a human shield for your fauxgressive frack-up.

White women's tears start in 5...4...3...2...1...

Yeah, #BlackTwitter, it's time to do what we do best    #AniDiFrancoRetreatIdeas



TransGriot Update: DiFranco put out a non-apology statement written in lowercase cancelling the plantation retreat, and the Twitter hashtag is slowly gaining momentum.

White Perp Knocks Out The Racist 'Knockout Game' Narrative

Amazing how the appearance of one white male shuts down this whole racialized 'knockout game' media 'scurrfest' and 'urban predator' meme.  

Here in the Houston 'burbs, 27 year old Katy resident Conrad Barrett attacked a 79 year old African-American man while he was out for a November 24 walk in his Katy neighborhood.  

The vicious assault resulted in the man's jaw being fractured in two places and left him hospitalized for four days. 

Meanwhile the waste of DNA went to a bar in Fulshear, TX the same day and showed video of it to a person who was alleged to have been an off-duty police officer.  Barrett was arrested December 26, and a search of his phone not only revealed 10 more attacks,  but one of him making the alleged comment, "The plan is to see if I were to hit a black person, would this be nationally televised?"

Duh, when you viciously attack an African-American senior citizen, you damned skippy it's going national and probably international.  It's also guaranteed to go national when you make racist comments and derogatory statements toward my people.




One of the gems of racist idiocy from this fool is one video in which he says that African-Americans "haven't fully experienced the blessing of evolution."   

Dude, the first human on this planet looked like me and originated in Africa.  Looks like the only person who hasn't 'fully experienced the blessing of evolution' is your wannabee white hood wearing behind. 

Barrett is being charged with one count of violating the federal Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr Hate Crimes Act.  The criminal complaint was filed under seal December 24, 2013, and unsealed upon his December 26 arrest.   He has made his initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Frances Stacy and if he is convicted, he is facing a maximum of 10 years in jail and a $250,000 fine.
           

Racist TMZ Poll Wants You To Decide Whether To Call Us African-Americans Or N**gas

I guess TMZ thought because of the holidays no one would be paying attention to that racist poll they have on their site, but they guessed wrong.

Suge Knight parted his lips in a December 16 article posted on the site to say he's 'offended' when people refer to him as an African-American because he's not African.  

Your DNA says otherwise, you idiot even though you weren't born on the African continent.

Sheesh, where is the D.R.O..P. Squad when you need them?  

And vanillacentric privileged elements of the white community don't consider you to be simply an American, either.   And they would love to call you the word you don't have a problem with.  

But TMZ for whatever stupid, clueless, racist, they though it was funny or all of the above reasons decided to create a poll which had this question. 

What should black people call themselves?  

The only possible answers in this reprehensible poll are African American or N**ga.    And you know that white folks are constantly bitching because we have told them NOT to call us the n-word and are gleefully flocking to this racist one.  

Over 82,547 votes have been cast at this writing, with N**ga currently ahead of African American at a 54%-46% clip as of this writing.    The script on that poll needs to be flipped ASAP while at the same time we cuss TMZ and their editors the hell out for even coming up with that racist poll in the first place.   

MHP Discusses Structual Racism In The Classroom

There was a recent MHP Show about discussing structural racism in the classroom with Professor Shannon Gibney. 

MHP's Letter To Santa

Megyn Kelly stepped in it with her vanillacentric privileged commentary over Aisha Harris' Slate article about Santa and her overly defensive assertion that 'it was an undeniable fact that Santa was white.'  

"I mean, Jesus was a white man too. He was a historical figure, that's a verifiable fact. As is Santa—I just want the kids watching to know that." — Megyn Kelly

Well, you knew Melissa Harris-Perry was going to have to drop a commentary about that, and here it is for your viewing pleasure.

Hers is much more diplomatic than mine was going to be.