Moni's Thoughts On Vegas Terrorist Attack

I woke up this morning to discover this 62 year old thug, Stephen Paddock opened fire from his 32nd story room at the Mandalay Bay Hotel on an outdoor country concert across the street from his hotel.

Paddock killed 50 people, and injured or wounded another 400 before killing himself in the worst mass shooting terrorist attack since last year's Pulse one.

It's sad that every time I hear about a mass shooting, the first though that crosses my mind is "please don't let the shooter be a person of color'  (or enter your marginalized group here). 

The way the white dominated media covered the shooting told me everything thing i needed to know about it before I even saw a picture of the alleged perpetrator.    The reluctance to call it a terrorist attack.   The insistence of the use of 'lone wolf' to describe this terror attack.   The reluctance to immediately put a photo up of the terrorist or call him that.   The attempt to humanize the perpetrator and refrain from demonizing him like they would if the person executing this attack was anything but a white male. 

So what does this say about white males and their propensity for violently shooting people?   When will Congress open up an investigation about that?

This Las Vegas terror attack also speaks volumes to non-white Americans about how the media and conservative politicians have racialized terrorism

Let's call it what it is and not sugarcoat it because a white male is involved.   It was a terrorist attack executed by another radicalized white male seeking to Make America Great Again when it comes to our unmatched ability to rain death upon our fellow citizens by stupidly allowing anyone with a pulse at the behest of the National Racist  Rifle Association to own an assault weapon. 

When police entered his room they found ten rifles and magazine and ammo

Spare me any chatter about 'this isn't the right time' to talk about banning assault weapons?  When will be the right time?  When you lose a loved one to the next terrorist attack executed by some radicalized white male?

Tell me when is the 'right time' to talk about gun violence?  Because it seems that the right time to talk about it for you ammosexuals and mass shootings overwhelmingly being committed by white males is 'never'.

And once again the Republican Party will do nothing.  They will 'offer prayers', then will back then up with the same inaction that we have seen for over a decade, and then wring their hands when the next terrorist attack involving assault weapons happens.
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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  .

Angela Rye Calls Out Joe Walsh On CNN

You TransGriot readers know how much i love CNN pundit and contributor Angela Rye.  She has no problem calling BS out and going toe to toe with conservafools

Enjoy watching her eviscerate Joe Walsh  for making the mistake of stepping to her with some loud and wrong BS on Twitter

Conservafools, Why You Mad Black Patriot Players Won't See Your POTUS?

Been chuckling ever since the New England Patriots Super Bowl LI overtime win that disgusted me about the increasing number of  Patriot players who have decided or made it clear they would not be heading to the White House when the team goes for the traditional championship visit.

So far as of this writing, players Martellus Bennett, LaGarrette Blount, Devin McCourty, Dont'a Hightower, Alan Branch and Chris Long have announced they will skip the White House visit.

That is pissing off conservafools who seem to have forgotten when Tom Brady did the same thing in 2015 to President Obama and was a coward about it, and left racist comments on Breitbart about it..

They ain't liking it now that it's happening to their almighty white so called president, and have taken to Twitter to post racist commentary at the three so far Black players who have made their political intentions clear..

“I’m not going to the White House,” said Devin McCourty to Time in a text message. “Basic reason for me is I don’t feel accepted in the White House. With the president having so many strong opinions and prejudices I believe certain people might feel accepted there while others won’t.” 

Bravo gentlemen for speaking out and standing on your principles, unlike your quarterback.

So y'all mad that Black Patriot players ain't feeling your POTUS?   Well, they're just part of the 65 million people who aren't since Trump made it clear during the campaign he hated Black and other non white people.  

And please don't even try to hold up Omarosa and those other kneegrow sellout at that jacked up Black History Month event as evidence that he doesn't.

Rep. Steve King Shows His White Supremacist Side

While Melania Trump is justifiably being dragged by Twitter for plagiarizing First Lady Michelle Obama's 2008 speech, need to direct your attention to much more egregious commentary made earlier in the day by a longtime TransGriot SUF Awards contender in Rep. Steve King (R-IA)

I can't stand King because of his long history racist remarks, but yesterday he went too far during an MSNBC interview in which he must have been reading Mein Kampf before he went on air



King said that non-whites 'subgroups' haven't contributed to Western civilization in comments made in response to writer Charles Pierce's comments about 'old white guys' running the Republican Party. .
Well Steve, here's a short list for the stuff just African Americans have contributed to society like blood banks, open heart surgery, traffic signals, gas masks, potato chips, refrigerated trucks and railway cars, the world's fastest computer, automated steam engine lubricator and the Super Soaker water gun..

Benjamin Banneker not only built the first clock in the Americas, he published an almanac for over a decade and helped do the surveys that laid out Washington D.C.

So naw fool, your ignorant racist behind doesn't even need to try to go there

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.

White House Goes There On GOP Racism

During his weekly Friday press conference, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest called out Donald Trump and the entire Republican party for their racism.

One of Trump's supporters at a recent rally trotted out the old 'President Obama is a Muslim' spin line, and Trump condoned it instead of doing what Sen. John McCain did in 2008 and repudiating that supporter.

There's no doubt that President Obama in the 'fourth quarter' of his presidency, has or is giving zero phucks about the GOP fee fees, and is calling them out on their bull feces

Earnest went there in linking Trump's statements to the GOP's long, reprehensible history of race baiting  

“Now what is also unfortunate is that Mr. Trump isn’t the first Republican politician to countenance these kinds of views in order to win votes. In fact, that is precisely what every Republican presidential candidate is doing when they decline to denounce Mr. Trump’s cynical strategy, because they are looking for those same votes. 

Now other Republicans have successfully used this strategy as well. You will recall that one Republican congressman told a reporter that he was David Duke without the baggage. That congressman was elected by a majority of his colleagues in the House of Representatives to the third highest-ranking position in the House. Those same members of Congress blocked immigration reform. Those same members of Congress oppose reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act. Those same members of Congress couldn’t support a simple funding bill because they are eager to defend the confederate flag. 

So those are the priorities of today’s Republican Party. And they will continue to be until someone in the Republican Party decides to summon the courage to stand up and change it.”

Enjoy the beautiful video.

Not Feeling The MSNBC Ethnic Cleansing

'The dearth of CNN African-American and Latino anchors has led me to stop watching what I sarcastically call the 'Caucasian News Network' and go elsewhere to channels like MSNBC, for national and international news.  I'm not supporting a channel that won't hire or use pundits who look like me.'  
--TransGriot  May 13, 2013. CNN The Caucasian News Network

I wrote that in response to my pissivity over CNN rightward drift combined with their ethnic cleansing of many of the African-American and Latinx personalities and shows I loved to watch.

Now MSNBC has unfortunately decided to go down that ethnic cleansing road.

Over the last few months they have eliminated shows headed by non-white folks featuring Karen Finney, Joy Reid, Alex Wagner, Martin Bashir, and the  Rev Al Sharpton.

Jose Diaz-Balart's Rundown show was rumored to be headed for cancellation as well until a coalition of 40 Latinx organizations including the National Association of Hispanic Journalists loudly blasted the report and let MSNBC president Phil Griffin and NBC news head Andrew Lack know their displeasure concerning that proposed move. 

MSNBC has also eliminated the show of Ed Schultz, who is a unabashed left leaning voice of working class people.  Ronan Farrow's show is gone, and so is The Cycle, the ensemble show that featured the diverse crew of Krystal Ball, Abby Huntsman, Toure and Ari Melber.

They left Morning Joe on, and replaced the ethnically cleansed MSNBC talent  with Chuck (Yuck) Todd, Andrea Mitchell, Thomas Roberts and soon the disgraced Brian Williams.

Right now the only non-white people hosting MSNBC shows are Tamron Hall and Jose Diaz-Balart (for now) during the week and Melissa Harris-Perry on the weekends   That's unacceptable in an America that is increasingly becoming more non-white, and one that desperately needed MSNBC to be an intelligent counterweight to the nonstop right wing propaganda from FOX Noise.

 I also liked and needed to see someone from my community who can intelligently talk about events from my lived African-American perspective on the news channels I watch.

Andy Lack, if you are doing the MSNBC ethnic cleansing  to mimic FOX,Noise, that's the wrong programming play.  FOX Noise is number one in the ratings because that's the ONLY (alleged news) network conservafools tune into for their daily does of propaganda and their Two Minute Hate.    

If anything MSNBC, you should have dumped Morning Joe, the prison shows on the weekend and doubled down on liberal progressive programming and putting on air more pundits who look like America,  I refuse to watch Meet The Press because of Chuck Todd's obvious right wing bias when Sunday morning talk shows are already too heavily right wing biased in the first place.




Now you've  replaced Rev Al and Rd Schultz to put Todd on in the afternoon?  How much hallucinogenic drugs were y'all doing when y'all made this boneheaded decision?

I damned sure don't want to watch someone who thinks it isn't a journalist's job the educate the public with the truth when Republicans, (or any politician) lies.

Neither do I want to continue watching a network that mistakenly thinks the road to better ratings is paved with mimicking FOX Noise and eliminating non white show hosts..   As pissed off as  I am about MSNBC's ethnic cleansing, the only reason I'm still watching it  is because of your evening lineup featuring Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell and Chris Hayes and my cable package doesn't have Al Jazeera America.
But if this MSNBC ethnic cleansing continues, I'll be tuning in to the BBC and  lok at how much will adding Al Jazeera America will cost  since MSNBC no longer reflects what I expect to see, hear and
demand from a news network.   
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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.  .

Open Carry Laws Racist Enforcement

One of the things I'm not in favor of is the proliferation of guns and open carry laws that allow ammosexuals to carry assault rifles in public.

I see them as problematic.  'Stand your ground' laws have come to be 'Kill Black People And Get Out Of Jail Free' cards for white people while Black people like Marissa Alexander do jail time for simply firing warning shots in the air.

I'm highly skeptical of open carry laws and how they will be enforced.by police departments that let's be real, have their share of racist cops.

And right on cur, here's a video that basically encapsulates how I believe these laws will disproportionately be enforced.

Note the difference in how the persons carrying an AR-15 down the street are treated.

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.

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.

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.

Since When Is Featuring Glamorous TWOC On A Magazine Cover A Trans Activism Problem?

Once again, we trans women of color have to point out the freaking obvious in terms of these salient points.  

*Our trans feminine transitions are not like our white counterparts.  
*Race matters, even in the trans community.
*Black trans women fight the same demonization of Black beauty that our cis counterparts have dealt with for four centuries.

Elle Boatman wrote an op-ed published in Advocate.com entitled Trans Glamour vs. Trans Activism that critiqued a Candy magazine cover that featured Janet Mock, Laverne Cox, Geena Rocero and Carmen Carrera that seemed to presume that trans glamour and trans activism are mutually exclusive.

Since when?  I found the timing of this argument interesting, especially when the women on that Candy cover are predominately trans women of color.

Who says that trans glamour and trans activism aren't complementary?   Why is glamour and activism an issue in this case when it wasn't for trans women with less melanin in their skin like the late Christine Jorgensen, April Ashley, Caroline Cossey and most recently Jenna Talackova?
And with trans kids transitioning at younger ages, there's a high probability some of those young trans feminine activists are going to grow up to be very attractive trans women when they hit adulthood.

I'm amazed and perplexed to see a magazine cover of glammed up trans women of color elicit such a response and I have to ask the question why.   Is that Candy cover of glamorous trans women of color perceived as that much of a threat to white trans women?  Do you not realize that broadening the conversation also helps our trans human rights struggle?  Are elements of the white trans feminine community still mad because the trans feminine narrative for the first time since 1953 is not all about white women?

L'lerret Jazelle Ailith wrote a response to the Advocate.com op-ed on her blog  in which she said:

"It’s odd that a white woman is critiquing the ways in which trans women of color perform gender and how they “conform to the norms” seeing that norms and everything having to do with beauty and gender and acceptability are meant to keep non white folks out. Elle says that these women ‘blend in’ and are ‘conventionally beautiful’ when that just isn’t the case. Being black in the first place automatically knocks one out of this country’s historical colonialists and white imperialist convention."

Ailith continues to say in her brilliant response to the op-ed  post:  "Activism cannot be quantified and I think operating under the idea that it can can have people feeling super uncomfortable. As a white woman, you may not understand this but the simple act of getting up and being in the public eye and proclaiming your transness unapologetically is an act of revolution for every trans person of color and in that right, they are doing the work.

How dare you demean the existence of women who didn’t have to speak on their identity but chose to do so in order to work towards a more inclusive and visible society where young black and brown persons felt value and could imagine dreaming up more than trying to blend in and get “normal jobs” and be respectable; A society where they could finally feel beautiful and in charge of their own destinies. How dare you label the work of fellowshipping to the younger folks looking up to these possibility models as insignificant."

So yes, I'm pleased and proud to see a generation of young trans feminine activists of color who not only have no problem looking fly, but handling their activist business either like Precious Davis, Katrina Goodlett, Angelica Ross, Channyn Parker, L'lerret Ailith and Arianna Lint just to name a few.

That is vitally important as we trans activists of color seek to work with, advance the trans human rights cause  and 'ejumacate' communities that are even more rigidly invested in the gender binary. 

One of the negative memes that has historically been deployed against trans women by our oppressors is the 'linebacker in a dress' one. It is one that is doubly problematic when it is aimed at African-American trans women, because we also have to deal with society's four century old 'unwoman' attacks on Black womanhood

You also have the reverse situation of any Black woman who doesn't fit societal expectations of what feminine beauty is having 'that's a man' shade hurled at her or worse.

If you think I'm kidding about that, when the tennis season cranks up in a few weeks and Serena Williams starts beating the European tennis glamazons again, check out what is said about her in the comment sections.
It is a problem when our white trans feminine counterparts don't understand or are clueless about  those salient points I highlighted earlier in the opening paragraph, but fail to understand until recently the trans societal beauty standard and discussion around trans femininity was very much being all about them until we point it out.   

And don't get huffy or mad because we trans women of color did so.

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.

Race Wasn't Involved In NYPD Garner Killing? Yeah, Right

As my brother Dr. Kortney Ziegler pointed out, in a life imitates art moment, 43 year old Eric Garner's cause of death last Friday, like Radio Raheem in the Spike Lee movie Do The Right Thing, was death by po-po.

Spike Lee thought so as well.   He recently mixed the video of Garner's fatal encounter with the NYPD with the Radio Raheem fictional one from the film.

The father of six was killed by an illegal choke hold after being agitated about being harassed by NYPD police.

Eric Garner's funeral was yesterday, but the firestorm surrounding this latest episode of NYPD behaving badly when it comes to non-white denizens of New York  is just getting cranked up.  

You add to it the ridiculous statement by NYPD Police Commissioner William Bratton. who is in his second stint of leading NYPD (1994-1996 was the previous one), that "race didn't have anything to do with the tragic death of Garner."

Seriously?  You may wish to rethink that based on the racist online comments of NYPD officers let loose in the wake of last Friday's murder by po-po of Garner and the negative spotlight once more being shined on the New York Police Department.

When now thirteen people of color have been killed in various ways over the years by NYPD officers, other non-white New Yorkers complain of harassment and less than respectful treatment, and the reaction you have to it is deny you have a race problem, not good.

It damned sure was about race.  It's about the vanillascented privileged mentality that too many white police officers have when they come into our neighborhoods from their gated suburbs and treat us as less than human.  

If you're a bigot with a badge and gun, that is destined to cause a problem sooner or later.       

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the comment of Eric Garner 'bringing it  it upon himself'   In what FOX Noise addled conservaworld did you come up with that specious crap? 

How does breaking up a fight justify death by po-po?

All y'all had to do was let Garner off with a warning and let him go on his merry way. home   But y'all couldn't resist the temptation to go into Officer Oppressor mode, and one of you went too far with the fatal choke hold which BTW, is illegal under NYPD policy..

Meanwhile we people of color keep finding ourselves in the situation of having to bury our loved ones after negative and deadly interactions with predominately white cops fir trivial crap..   

And we're sick and tired of it.

Why Joan Rivers FLOTUS Comment Was Racistly Insulting

As an unapologetically proud Black trans woman, one of the cornerstones of this blog is working to build self esteem, confidence and pride amongst my sisters in being Black women of trans experience.

Joan Rivers'' transmisogynist comment aimed at First Lady Michelle Obama Wednesday pissed me the hell off on a lot of levels.  Here's why it wasn't humorous nor complimentary

There has been a determined effort by the conservafool slime machine and conspiracy conservawackos  to plant this meme in the media that the 5'11" FLOTUS is a transwoman.   While we in Black trans world would be proud to embrace her as one of our sisters if she was,  there is overwhelming evidence she showed up on this planet on January 17, 1964 in Chicago in a cis female body, has given birth to two beautiful daughters, and has spent the last 50 years of her life in that gender role.

Congratulations Joan, you just did the conservafools dirty work for them by taking that crap our of their cesspools of right wing crazy and injecting it in the mainstream media.

It's infuriating because this First Lady, even before her husband was elected to the Oval Office, has been subjected to unprecedented levels of disrespect up to and being compared to a simian, un-American, 'racist' , 'Stokely Carmichael in a dress', called ugly and having 'that's a man' shade thrown at her by comedian Jay Mohr in 2009. 

And yes, Rivers made a borderline racist 'Blackie O' comment in 2011, so this isn't the first time she's thrown shade at the First Lady.   Now she's weaponized 'transgender' and aimed it at the First Lady as an insult.

Another element of why I'm not happy about the comment is that it plays into the racist four century old pattern of whiteness and white supremacy pushing the unwoman meme that demonizes the femininity of Black women.

If you have a group of women that you put on a societal pedestal as the paragons of beauty, fertility and the femininity gold standard that all women should aspire to, then it stands to reason that you would set up a group of women as the ones to not emulate. 

Unfortunately Black women are the ones who have been saddled with that problematic situation for the last 400 years due to the toxic legacy of the Atlantic Slave Trade.  With Michelle Obama being the defacto public face of Black womanhood as the president's wife, her femininity has been under severe assault.

It also fit into an ongoing pattern of throwing transphobic shade at any Black woman you dislike whether that woman is Fantasia, Serena Williams, Brittney Griner or the FLOTUS.   Any woman who doesn't fit the critic's narrow designation of what a woman is get saddled with transmisogynistic insults or 'that's a man' shade to police her gender presentation.

The fact the comment came out of a white woman's mouth, and one of Jewish heritage who have struggled at times through their own  tortured history with being demonized, also heightened the insensitivity and offense level of Rivers' transmisogynistic comment when seen through the eyes of Black women.

It's also telling to note that Michelle Obama's documented 50 years of life on this space rock, delivering and raising two Black female children of her own and being the First Lady of the United States still didn't shield her from being attacked by the Black Unwoman Meme and having her femininity denigrated. 

And finally, when you look at it from my vantage point as a Black transwoman, I'm pissed off by the comment because it fauxgressively implied to the world by cattily weaponizing transgender as a insult you hurled at the First Lady, that being a transwoman is something to be ashamed of, or makes you less than you as a elderly white woman with multiple surgical enhancements.  

Let me emphatically state it is not insult to be called or something to be ashamed of to be a trans woman. Neither is it shameful to be a Black woman no matter how hard whiteness and white supremacy tries to sell those woof tickets to us. 

The only person that has anything to be ashamed of is Joan Rivers for parting her collagen enhanced lips to say something that jacked up in the first place.