Race In The Transgender Community Podcast

On Monday I had the honor and pleasure of being part of a Prism Radio podcast show with two people from the Louisville portion of my life.  

Holly Knight has 70 episodes of this Blogtalk radio show under her belt since June 2010.

For Episode 71 she invited the TransGriot and Jaison Gardiner (AKA Nephew) to tell it like it T-I-S is about 'Race In Transgender Community' and how it affects the transitions of person of color on multiple levels.

Once again it was one of those shows in which we needed more than the 90 minutes we had allotted to break down this topic.  You know neither Jaison or I are shy about speaking our minds either..  

It's now posted and you can listen to it here if you missed the live podcast.  

CNN-The Caucasian News Network

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

Race And Class Still Matter In The Trans Community

Got this comment from Jacqueline in response to the Transwomen Must Work Four Times As Hard To Be Considered Half As Good post.

I am tired of hearing about violence against trans folks in general. I have to say that it upsets me that "of color" is being added to create a divisional line between trans people. We are all already the most marginalized group of folks possibly on the planet, do we really need to add the race card to the mix?

I am pretty certain (being a transwoman myself) that I do not have any sort of "white privilege" or any extra safety and security because I am not "of color".

We need to unify and understand that the trans experience is unique on to itself and WE are all it together. This "of color" shit is BS.

Jacqueline, I'm just as tired of hearing the conservawords 'race card' deployed on posts that didn't start out as being ones specifically about that topic.  Denials of 'I don't have any sort of white privilege' upset me, especially when they are uttered by white transpeople who refuse to acknowledge that white skin matters even in transworld.  

Your assertion that mentioning the reality transpeople of color catch increased levels of hell during a gender transition is BS pretty much hips us POC transpeeps to the fact you haven't pondered our lived reality that race and class affect a gender transition or dealt with the fact you do exist with white privilege.

If the trans community were really, 'all in this together', I wouldn't have needed to start this Afrocentric trans blog seven years ago to address the concerns of African-American trans people that weren't being heard, our history whitewashed, or our issues simply not addressed.   If the trans community were 'all in this together', our community wouldn't need the Trans Latin@ Coalition, the Trans Persons Of Color Coalition, Black Transmen Incorporated or a growing slate of POC trans organized national and regional conferences.

It wouldn't have taken me or other POC girls like us to repeatedly get the party started on just how jacked up it is for a media outlet to demonize, diss and misgender murdered non white transwomen

70% of the people whose names are read during every TDOR are Black and Latina transwomen and that pattern is sadly continuing in 2013.   Last month we had three African-American and a Latina transwoman killed.   According to the NTDS Latin@ transpeople face a 20% unemployment rate.  African-American transpeople face a 26% unemployment rate compared to just an overall 14% rate for transpeople in general.

Jacqueline, your being trans is the first time in your life that you've had to deal with someone hating you because of who you are.   I and other transpeople of color have had to deal with that issue since we came out of the birth canal.  Being trans just added another layer of oppression to what we already have to deal with in addition to walking on Planet Earth as a non-white male or female.

And ironically, even though I wrote that post for a predominately POC audience, it's still in a generally inclusive tone.  But you still objected to it.  You need to ask yourself why it bugged you that speaking the truth about a non-white transperson's lived experiences bugs you so much that you insultingly label it as 'playing the race card'.

So yes Jacqueline, I really do need to talk about race and class in the trans community on a regular basis and I'm saddened to hear that you think it is BS to do so.   I don't because I and other transpeople of color do not have the luxury of separating our race from our trans status.  They are inextricably linked, affect how we transition, impacts the issues that crop up in our gender transitions and how we navigate them.

And to paraphrase Ralph Ellison, We are invisible because you not only refuse to see and hear me, you refuse to acknowledge our existence.

If you don't like me discussing race and class on my Afrocentric blog, you are always free to surf over to a vanillacentric privileged trans blog where they will have the luxury to do what they always do and ignore issues of race and class in this community.  

As an award winning trans leader of African descent and an inaugural Trans 100 honoree, I can't afford to do that.

It is not only a denial of my own existence and heritage, it is a disservice to the trans people I represent and the community at large to NOT to have an honest discussion about race and class issues and how they affect the trans community.  

You can stick your head in the sand, cover you ears and yell 'La la la, can't hear you' at the top of your lungs, that still won't change the fact that I and non-white trans people and our SGL and cis allies will still be pointing out race matters in the trans community.

#BlackPrivilege Twitter Hashtag Going Viral

It started as a Black Twitter smackdown to a racist Tumblr page, but has raged on Twitter since Friday night and gone viral.   It was at one point a trending Twitter hashtag

It's the #BlackPrivilege Twitter hashtag, and it has struck a nerve on many levels with Black Tweeps including Toure of MSNBC's 'The Cycle'.

You know I had to jump in on this and was happy to see some of my comments have been retweeted.  We also had some peeps try to derail the feed as many Black Tweeps predicted would happen and claim the racism is a figment of our imaginations or we're 'perpetuating it' by talking about it.

The #BlackPrivilege hashtag is now going global with respondents from other parts of the African Diaspora such as Canada and Great Britain starting to check in.

It'll be interesting to see how long the momentum continues with this and if it even gets any mainstream media coverage.

Somehow I doubt that it will. 

'The Face' Model Devyn, Is Apparently So Light Skinned, She's International and Not Black

The latest guest post from Renee of Womanist Musings

Women of colour have always had a hard time in the modelling industry.  There have always been a few who have managed to have a successful career like Alec Wek, Naomi Campbell and Iman but by enlarge, despite their obvious beauty, their race has been a stumbling block rather than an asset.  The fact that population demographics are clearly changing, has not effected the fashion industries commitment to ensuring that White women, continue to be representative of womanhood.  This is not only racist but damaging to young women of colour.  Some cope with this racist treatment by internalizing negative concepts about their race.  The following is a clip from The Face, a reality show which appears on Oxygen.




transcript is below the fold

Wendy Williams: So, let's just get right into it, you guys are competing to the face of Alta. Devyn what do you have that Ebony doesn't have?

Devyn: I feel like I have the international look and I have a story that can relate to everyone.

Judge: She did good. She answered well

Wendy Wiliams: Ebony, you're only 21

Ebony: Yes Maam

Wendy Williams: And you have two children.

Ebony: yes

Wendy Williams: A 2 year old and a 4 year old and two babies fathers.

Ebony: Yes, I do. My children's fathers are the best dads ever.  They love their kids so much and they support me.

Wendy Williams: Are you still with either one of the babies fathers?

Ebony: I am not, but we're very close friends. It didn't work I was young

Wendy Williams: (laughs) Mercy

Ebony: and I am so glad that I went through it, because I know better now.

Judge: She's stirring it up

Judge 2: Wendy?

Judge: Yeah

Judge 3: Of course, that's her job.

Wendy Williams: Devyn, what's it like to be a black girl model?

Devyn: I don't really consider myself as a Black girl model. I know what my ethnicity is but I'm fair skinned and I feel like I have an international look.

Wendy Williams: You don't feel Black?

Devyn: No, that's not what I said whatsoever.

Naomi Campbell: What the fuck does she mean? That's a disgrace; she's a Black girl

Devyn: As soon as I finish answering my question, all I hear is Naomi bug out.  I'm scared out of my pants. I feel like I could have screwed it up for team Carolina.

Despite knowing her ethnicity, Devyn does not feel Black because she is light skinned.  Devyn is well aware that for the most part, light skin has a long history of providing opportunities for Black women which have long been denied darker skinned women.  This is not to say that light skinned women don't suffer from racism but that light skin functions as a privilege, thereby reducing the amount of racism that a Black woman has to face.  To be clear, this is not a case of someone who is bi-racial choosing to identify as both sets of her identity but a Black woman actively choosing to deny her Blackness because she thinks it will help her get ahead. It's misguided and clearly evidences the degree that she has internalized negative ideas about Blackness.

It clearly did not escape Devyn's notice that she was up against the dark skinned Ebony and this why she sought to engage in colorism to press an advantage.  Colorism has divided entire families, with darker skinned child made to feel less valued and loved. Colorism is a bane upon communities of colour and is a direct result of White supremacy.  Whiteness has falsely created a so-called elite definition of Blackness to encourage Blacks to fight for the scraps from it's table, even as it ensures that true equality is always out of reach.  Though Campbell is obviously a success in her chosen career, her reaction speaks volumes.  It was absolutely clear that through her comments, Devyn sought to place herself above her, despite Campbell's success and obvious achievement by nature of her lighter skin. She may have only intentionally meant her comments as an attack on Ebony, but the speak to a revulsion of all darker skinned women.  Just as White people can throw a slur to quickly change the dynamics of a conversation and assert power, light skinned people can do the same, though obviously with less personal profit because of a shared identity of Blackness.

The other matter I would like to address in this video, is the obvious slut shaming of Devyn by Wendy (you can't pay me enough to support a fellow Black woman) Williams.  Wendy of course shied away from using the word slut but by working hard to ensure that Ebony had to justify her reproductive choices, Williams might as well have.  In a world in which women's reproductive choices are always questioned (note: especially true when it comes to women of colour) Wendy sought to construct her as a hyper sexualized Jezebel.  At the end of the day, why does it matter how many children Ebony has, or who the father is?  Wendy's questions were not just "stirring things up", as the judge said, but directly designed to shame.  I can completely understand the shock and even disgust regarding Devyn's comments, but why are so few people speaking out about the inappropriate nature of Williams' questions?
 
The truth of the matter is that until Devyn defined herself as international and not Black, her light skinned body bought her an unspoken privilege.  It's not an accident that these to women were seated next to each other in competition.  It is also no accident that Devyn was given the clearly softball question and Williams sought to go for the jugular when she questioned Ebony.  The very nature of Williams' choice of questions reveals that she also has internalized patriarchal values of what constitutes a so-called good woman, as well as colourism.  Even in an interaction of all Black women, race and sexism are always omnipresent

Jada Pinkett-Smith Questions Whether White Women Should Grace the Covers of Magazines Aimed at WOC?

Guest post from Renee of Womanist Musings

Like many women of colour I grew up looking at magazine racks with row upon row of White faces staring at me.  I would be lying if I said that it didn't have an impact upon how I perceived my race and gender growing up.  Things have not changed much and now I find myself wondering how this exact same circumstance is going to effect my niece as she grows up.  As a woman of colour, I cannot divorce my race from my gender.  This is why the row upon row of White women staring back at me from magazine racks continues to impact me. Even when I look past it and validate my own self worth, it does not mean that those I interact with see me as an equal, let alone human.  There can be no doubt that Whiteness continues to represent the idealized form of womanhood.  Sojourner Truth's Ain't I a Woman speech, is still highly applicable today.

On her facebook page, Jada Pinkett-Smith wondered if the best path forward to deal with the ongoing equality in magazine covers, is for magazines created for POC to be more open about having White women grace their covers.

There is a question I want to ask today. I'm asking this question in the spirit of thinking outside of the box in order to open doors to new possibilities. These possibilities may be realistic or unrealistic. I also want to make it clear that there is no finger pointing here. I pose this question with the hope that it opens a discussion about how we can build a community for women based upon us all taking a deeper interest in one another. An interest where skin color, culture, and social class does not create barriers in sharing the commonality of being... women. With love and respect to all parties involved, my question is this...if we ask our white sisters, who tend to be the guardians of the covers of mainstream magazines, to consider women of color to grace these covers, should we not offer the same consideration to white women to grace our covers? Should women extend their power to other women simply because they are women? To my women of color, I am clear we must have something of our own, but is it possible to share in the spirit in which we ask our white sisters to share with us? I don't know the answer and would love to hear your thoughts.

What Jada fails to acknowledge is that these magazines were created specifically because of the erasure of our experiences in the mainstream media. While her approach is well intentioned by allowing White women to grace the covers of magazines that have been created for women of colour, it reinforces the idea that there isn't a single place where Whiteness does not belong.  Historically, people of colour have always been asked to turn the other cheek and hold out an olive branch to Whiteness, even as it works daily to ensure that we remain second class citizens.  This olive branch which Jada suggests, will not force Whiteness to be more inclusive; it will simply reduce already limited opportunities for women of colour.

The truth of the matter is that we cannot pretend that we are simply a community of women.  This is the same argument that feminists have used for years, even as they try to erase the effect that racism has on the lives of women of colour.  It is naive to expect the White owned and run media to suddenly capitulate and work towards more inclusive coverage.  No powerful force in history has ever just handed over power, or even consented to share power and why Jada thinks that this would suddenly be the case, if only people of colour would consent to share our spaces is beyond me.

We cannot treat Whiteness as though it is some benign force, when it wages war against people of colour across the globe daily. The sales of the all Black Italian Vogue show that there is a market for inclusion and still yet these magazines refuse to capitulate.  Clearly, maintaining White hegemony is far more important than the bottom line.  Since this is a fact, I must ask, what reasonable sense does it make to open up the few spaces reserved for WOC to White women? If they cannot be motivated by their own financial best interest, why would our sacrifice cause a moral quandary?

What we need to do is act from a position of strength.  It's already bad enough that in many ways businesses that target Black people, have either been bought out by White run companies, or controlled by White management.  How much of our power can we afford to give away?  We have already seen that as a result of these actions nothing has changed. It's a foolish person who keeps repeating the same action, while hoping for a different result.

When integration occurred, the Black community lost institutions that have been our backbone for a very long period of time. We have seen as a result, less cohesion and less forward movement. This is not to say that integration didn't have positive results, but that it came with a cost. It was a compromise that never should have been made because Whiteness has no interest in the dissolution of its social, or institutional power. While I agree that we need new ideas moving forward, making room for White women is a backward step and nothing good can come of it.

'Django Unchained,' Quentin Tarantino's Broken Clock Moment

 

TransGriot: Note: Guest Post from Renee of Womanist Musings 

Long before Django Unchained was released on Christmas day, there was a lot of buzz about this movie. Spike Lee called Django Unchained an insult to his ancestors and swore that he would not see it. On just about every major Black blog and Facebook page, there has been a discussion about how this movie deals with slavery, whether or not Tarantino is a racist and what this film says about the media in general. 

Leonardo Di Caprio has publicly stated his difficulty with having to repeatedly use the word nigger in the film, Samuel Jackson has refused to answer any questions regarding the usage of the word unless the journalist actually says nigger instead of the "N word" and Kerry Washington has spoken about the difficulty of her role and the staged whipping.   This movie was difficult for the actors, for the viewers and the critics.  In terms of race, I cannot remember the last time we had a movie become so much a part of the social discussion.

I am going to preface this review with the fact that I am not in the least bit a fan of Quentin Tarantino. I think he is far too comfortable using the word nigger in his work and much of the time, it adds nothing to the plot or development of the character.  A White man can never understand how deeply casual usage of this slur hurts Blacks and Tarantino's treatment of the pain itself, has a history of being cavalier at best.

Without doubt, the usage of nigger was ubiquitous throughout Django Unchained but unlike other Tarantino movies, a setting of two years before the civil war absolutely justified its usage. It would have been ahistorical for White plantation owners to use any other word to refer to Blacks, let alone their slaves.  It is wrong to apply 21st century standards and moral sensibilities to this time and would have made slavery itself seem like a benign institution.  The problem is that given Tarantino's comfort with the slur, it makes acceptance of its inclusion in Django Unchained, feels like giving him permission to continue to litter his work with it. 

I find it interesting that there was so much fixation on the word nigger considering the context, but no one had anything to say about grown men being forced to fight to death, a slave being eaten alive by a dog, whippings and brandings.  The very idea that Quentin Tarantino reduced the barbarity of slavery by his usage of slurs, when these violent events were a part of the movie is ridiculous. As a viewer, I had no doubt that Black life was viewed as cheap and that slavery itself was beyond dehumanizing. In fact, the brutality of the violence itself, made the moments of brevity absolutely necessary to give the viewer a form of relief.

Django Unchained is like no other western I have ever seen because of it's theme and of course Black protagonist.  Watching it, I could not help but realise that no Black director could have made this film because it would have been difficult to get the financial backing.  Even George Lucas had to fund Red Tails himself because studios refuse to believe that movies about Black history, or which have a largely Black cast, can possibly be successful outside of the coonery produced by Tyler Perry.

Though Django Unchained is a western and therefore filled with violence, many have refused to consider the genre and instead have labeled this simply a revenge fantasy. Tavis (I will sell out my people for funding) Smiley had the following to say:

The suffering of black people is not reducible to revenge and retribution. The black tradition has taught the nation what it means to love. Put it another way: black people have learned to love America in spite of, not because of, so if the justification for the film in the end is, as Jamie Foxx’s Django says, “What, kill white people and get paid for it? What’s wrong with that?”­ well again, black suffering is not reducible to revenge and retribution.

It's true that the Black experience is not solely reducible to revenge; however, the turn the other cheek doctrine of Dr. King is also not the definition of the Black experience. Yes, Blacks have resisted oppression and we have done so both forcefully and violently.  Does Smiley believe that there was never a slave uprising or that Haitians peacefully asked the French for their freedom?  Does he think that Blacks always slept fearfully waiting for the Klan to ride, or can he understand that some stood on their porches with shotguns determined to meet a threat to their lives with one in kind?  Not all resistance was, or is, non-violent, nor should we necessarily demonize people who respond to the violence that Whiteness has perpetrated on Black people with violence. Anger, rage and a desire for retribution are a part of the Black experience; we have simply been taught not to validate it, or see it as a viable response.  Because one of the fears of Whiteness is a reckoning for the great evil of slavery and Jim Crow, revenge has solidly been discouraged.

Quentin Tarantino tapped into this emotion, which is why it has resonated so strongly. Black rage is a real phenomenon and it is justified, I am just not sure that Quentin Tarantino is the one to tell this story because it is so far outside of his lived experience. Take for instance the character of the house slave Stephen, played by Samuel L. Jackson.  Stephen was clearly painted as evil and was directly responsible for Django, Dr. Shultz and Broomhilda being unable to leave the plantation peacefully.  When Calvin Candie was shot dead by Shultz, it was Stephen who fell to the floor ravaged by grief.  There has long been a problematic binary of house slaves equal sell out/ field slaves pro black.  To be clear, both groups were slaves and there is no such thing as a benign form of slavery.  The relationship between house slaves and their White owners was far more complex than Django Unchained could even hope to portray.

Django Unchained is a movie worth seeing.  Far too many people are willing to form an opinion on the movie based on what they have read or their discomfort with Quentin Tarantino. It adds to the dialogue about race and slavery even if Quentin Tarantino is so high on himself that he now sees himself as the sole arbiter of Black history in film.  Despite his Whiteness and out of control arrogance, he has made a contribution worth watching and thinking about.  Even a broken clock is right twice a day and Django Unchained is most certainly Quentin Tarantino's moment.

Facing Race 2012 Panel-Race And Gender In The 21st Century

Definitely wish I could have been a part of this panel discussion at the Facing race Conference that was held in Baltimore.  The panel tackled the subject of race and gender in the 21st Century and included Janat Mock.  

Stand Your Ground Law Needs To Die, Not Our Kids

Jet magazine in its nearly six decades of publication has had many prominent African-Americans in the worlds of business, politics, sports and the entertainment world on its covers. 

It has had a long proud history of chronicling the inhumanity aimed at our people and especially our children..  Jet published in September 1955 the pictures of Emmitt Till's swollen, disfigured body lying in his open casket during his funeral.   Those photos are credited with galvanizing our community around the Civil Rights Movement and fueling our determination to see it through. 

At the newsstands this week will be the latest issue of Jet with Jordan Davis on the cover and an interview with his distraught parents

We're probably on the cusp of seeing the 21st century's 'Emmit Till moment' in the African-American community in terms of being sick and tired of being sick and tired of our kids dying at the hands of another proud accomplishment of the National Rifle Association, the Kill Black People With Impunity Stand Your Ground Laws.

The latest incident in Florida in which a Black teenager died at the hands of a white male assailant now claiming the 'stand your ground' defense is transpiring in Jacksonville, FL.

17 year old Jordan Davis was on his way home minding his own business along with two friends in their SUV outside a Jacksonville gas station November 23 listening to rap music after shopping at the mall during the after Thanksgiving Black Friday sales.  

46 year old Michael Dunn parked in the space next to the vehicle along with his fiance Rhonda Rouer to attend a wedding when they stopped at the store to buy a bottle of wine before returning to their hotel.  They parked next to the SUV containing Davis and his three friends as Rouer went into the store to buy wine to take back to their hotel room.. 

Dunn confronted the teens about their music and demanded they turn it down.   The teens responded by cranking up the volume and according to Dunn's attorney threatened him.   Dunn grabbed his gun out of his glove compartment, claimed he saw a shotgun in the SUV and fired eight to nine shots at the SUV that struck Davis who was sitting in the backseat before driving off. 

Police found no weapon in the teen's vehicle and Dunn was arrested a day later, charged and indicted on December 13 for the first degree murder of Jordan Davis.   Dunn of course is hiding behind the 2005 Stand Your Ground law that Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) and his task force claim there's nothing wrong with.

Tell that bull feces to the parents of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis.  70% of the people who claimed the Stand Your Ground defense went free despite the fact that in 200 cases that were analyzed by the Tampa Bay Times, the defendants initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person or pursued their victim — and still went free.

And I guess Stand Your Ground doesn't work for Black people.  Marissa Alexander is doing 20 years in a Florida jail because she fired a warning shot at an abusive husband who admitted he has a domestic violence history and threatened to kill her during an altercation. 

And bottom line, loud music is no reason to whip out your gun and kill a 17 year old kid.  But as Jason Whitlock correctly stated when he commented on the Belcher-Perkins murder-suicide last month,

"Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it."

 And as Melissa Harris Perry pointed out, when you're a Black male, being who are is threat enough.  

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It's obvious to everyone but the fetishistic vanillacentric privileged gun sales pimps of the NRA that their Kill A POC Kid With Impunity law has got to go.  Jordan's parents Lucia McBath and Ron Davis now know what Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin are going through.   They are vowing to lead the effort to push for federal action to take down the Stand Your Ground Laws in Florida (and 25 other states) that took his life, and we need to join them in that crusade before someone you love is the next victim of it.

The Stand Your Ground Law needs to die, not our kids.  

POC's Calling Out Problematic Instances Of Racist Behavior Doesn't Make The POC 'Racist'

And y'all need to chill with that crap, especially in liberal-progressive circles.

In fact, I and other POC social justice bloggers are tired of having to point out the obvious or make this ad nauseum point about race and countless others.  Far too often because of whiteness, white supremacy and vanillacentric privilege,  bigoted and racist crap happens that a person of color for their own sanity is going to have to call out    

Sometimes we're going to have to call you out when you do problematic things in the name of 'colorblindness' that cluelessly reinforces the dominance of whiteness.  

When we POC's do that, that is not 'racism'.   FOX noise got y'all twisted on that.   It is not what a pissed off white individual or a conservafool commentator hurls back at a POC who had the courage to speak up and point out a problematic situation so it doesn't happen the next time.

Racism=prejudice plus systemic power.   In fact, let Moni school you on this one more time.:

Racism is the systematic discrimination, denial of rights and benefits by whites against non-whites in all areas of human activity.  (economics, education, labor, law, politics, religion, sex and war).

And naw, that's the Sociology 101 definition of racism.  Don't even try to pull out a definition of racism from Webster's (or any) dictionary and try to argue with me or any other person of color that everybody can be racist.  No, everybody cannot be racist and you are making the mistake that just about every white person does of conflating bigotry and prejudice with racism..      

Exhibit A of what I'm talking about is the voter ID voter suppression laws.   They were proposed by ALEC, written and sponsored by conservative white politicians, passed by conservative white politicians in white dominated state legislatures and vigorously defended by white conservatives.

They had the racist intent of suppressing the turnout of non-white voters and their ability to vote in elections for the candidates of their choice.

So in this example you had whites who attempted to deny the voting rights of non-whites in elections, an area of human activity that determines the outcome of the laws that govern society and how it's organized solely to keep political power and because they fear what will happen when white people become a minority population in 2040.  

Hint to the wise.  Better keep those affirmative action laws on the legal books.. Your kids, grandkids and great grandkids may need them someday.   

Everyone be bigoted and prejudiced.  Everybody can NOT be racist, because persons of color individually or in their respective ethnic groups alone do not have the systemic societal power to deny whites rights and societal benefits in any area of human activity.   

The Cheapness Of A Black Life

I was going to comment on the latest infuriating instance of somebody 'standing their ground' and it ending up with another Black teenage kid dying, but Renee of Womanist Musings beat me to it.   This post of hers is definitely getting signal boosted.

As the mother of two Black sons, I would be lying if I told you that there aren't nights when I lie awake worried about their future.  I know that this is something all loving parents experience, but how many White parents of White children worry that their child will be perceived of as a threat and summarily shot? The only thing that eases my worries is the fact that we are Canadian and have much stricter gun control laws. The following story really struck a chord with me.

Michael David Dunn, 45, and his girlfriend were in Jacksonville Friday for Dunn's son's wedding when they stopped at a convenience store, Jacksonville sheriff's Lt. Rob Schoonover said.

Jordan Russell Davis, 17, and several other teenagers were sitting in a sport utility vehicle in the parking lot when Dunn pulled up next to them in a car and asked them to turn down their music, Schoonover said.

Jordan and Dunn exchanged words, and Dunn pulled a gun and shot eight or nine times, striking Jordan twice, Schoonover said. Jordan was sitting in the back seat. No one else was hurt.

Dunn's attorney Monday said her client acted responsibly and in self-defense. She did not elaborate.  (source)

Tell me again that all people are equal.  This confrontation started over loud music and it ended in the death of a 17 year old boy.  Of course Dunn felt threatened, he was after all in a confrontation with Black male youths and the message has been sent repeatedly that not only is Black life cheap, but that Black males are always violent and a threat to Whiteness.


Despite the medias constant presentation of the supposed Black male threat, there is nothing more terrifying than an angry armed White man.  Our children are dying in droves and reading stories like this has become a common occurrence, yet the myth of the violent murdering Black male continues to persist.  In fact, the more threatened White supremacy has become by the changing population demographics, the more violent it has become.  White male violence is glorified and deemed heroic, while men of colour are criminalized and deemed a threat to a safe society. This can be especially seen in the dystopian genre, where White men are often cast as all that is standing between humanity and destruction.  We are meant to see White men as the great savior and be thankful for their heroism, even as people of colour die in ridiculous numbers.

Guns and Whiteness are a recipe for Black death.  There can be no question if we look at the history of race relations since the first Black person set foot in the global north, Whiteness has murdered and raped with pure abandon, all while hiding behind the supposed barrier of protecting and civilizing the world. It is not logical to believe for one moment that Blackness represents a threat. 

I don't want to hear the bullshit about how we all bleed the same red blood, when the blood that is being spilled is Black.  I don't want to hear about how there is good and bad in every race, when Blackness is being criminalized and demonized everyday. Ridiculous euphemisms are not going to solve the problem and denying that the combination of Whiteness and guns are deadly, is only further minimizing the ongoing death and violence.

No matter how far we have come, Black life is still cheap and continues to be devalued by the inflation and elevation of Whiteness. As a Black mother, this is more than evident to me.  I often think about the history of Black mothers crying bitter salty tears and the line of coffins holding our loved ones. If anyone has a right to be angry and afraid, it is most certainly not the bitter, racist and entitled White men, who continue to commit these crimes against the very heart of our communities. The racist, angry White male has got to die, so that our children may live.

Texas Secede? Yeah, Right

As many of you long time TransGriot readers are aware of I'm a proud fourth generation Texan and native Houstonian. 

I've been amused and concerned to see in the wake of President Obama's overwhelming reelection victory last week pissed off white peepul rioting at the University of Mississippi, letting their inner Klansmen out on Facebook and Twitter, and Republican leaning 'bidnessmen' using the excuse of the Obama victory and expansion of the Democratic Senate majority to lay off workers.   

Now we have so called 'Real Americans' showing their love of this country by sticking petitions on the White House website asking to secede from the United States with the one from my beloved home state getting 80,000 nekulturny people to sign it.

Um people, we're in the middle of observing the 150th anniversary of the War To Perpetuate Slavery (AKA the Civil War) your ancestors jumped off because of that 'states rights' bull feces.  

The question of whether a state could secede or not was not only settled on the battlefield 150 years ago (and y'all lost that war) but was settled by an 1869 US Supreme Court ruling in the Texas v. White case that says no state has the right to unilaterally secede.  

I also find it ironic that the racist failed nation state you continue to romanticize that your ancestors founded that you claim was founded on that 'states rights' principle but was actually of and about perpetuating slavery, was a four year failure in nation building.   The CSA was never recognized by any other world power and hypocritically barred a proposed constitutional provision preserving the right of a state to secede.

So I'm chuckling over this post- election rhetoric from predominately white Texans who were asleep in their Texas history classes wanting to secede and reestablish the Republic of Texas.

If you were paying attention, the Republic of Texas that existed from 1836-1846 and whose capital for two years (1837-1839) was Houston had a tough time fending off Mexican Army and Comanche incursions, and racked up a $10 million debt that the US government agreed to assume once annexation of Texas was complete

So let's get to the real reason why the Tea Klux Klan is pushing this secession talk.   They have like everyone one else who is paying attention to current political developments in the Lone Star State known that Texas has become since 2009 a majority minority state population wise.   The four other majority-minority US states politically have become Democratic in political orientation and the only reason Texas hasn't gone that way is because of the 2003 Delaymandering and the gerrymandering of districts by the GOP legislative majority following the 2010 midterms 

It's inevitable that Texas will once again revert to being a progressive political state, and Republicans have pissed off Latino, African-American and Asian communities to the point that it's just a matter of time before the Texas Republican Party resembles the California one.   

President Obama carried four of the five largest Texas counties population wise in Harris (Houston), Dallas, Travis (Austin), and Bexar (San Antonio).  Tarrant County (Ft. Worth) went to Romney.    In addition to carrying those counties, he carried Jefferson County (Beaumont-Port Arthur), El Paso, heavily Latino South Texas and many of the counties along the Rio Grande.

A blue or even Purple Texas would be a disaster for the Republicans because they heavily rely in their presidential electoral vote calculations of having Texas' 38 electoral votes in their column.   If they were forced to compete for Texas, this state is bigger than France size wise and has expensive media markets in Houston, Dallas and San Antonio.

We non Anglo Texans already know what's driving this need to secede.  Racism.  

In addition to the vanillacentric panic in conservacircles over the fact the United States will be a majority-minority population nation by 2050, that reality was driven home by the election of President Obama in 2008 and his reelection to another four year term last week.

Don't think we non-white Texans weren't paying attention when  Hardin County Republican treasurer Peter Morrison (who is also a  Ron Paul supporter) and author of a race-baiting Tea Party newsletter wrote this bigoted drivel:   

"Let each go her own way," Morrison wrote, demanding an "amicable divorce" from the U.S. and from the "maggots" who re-elected President Obama.

And you wonder why I can't stand the Republican Party, Ron Paul supporters, the Tea Klux Klan and libertarians azzholes like him not necessarily in that order and people outside of this state think we're all nekulturny yahoos. .

 more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/11/12/3908795/commentary-politician-wants-texas.html#storylink=cpy

Bottom line is 75% of the 25,145,561 people in this state like being American citizens just fine, and I submit the 13,582,879 of us who aren't Anglo like saying the Pledge of Allegiance and singing our national anthem.  We are quite aware that as long as the Stars and Stripes flies on flagpoles throughout the 268,601 square miles of  Texas turf, our human rights are protected under the laws of this country and the United States Constitution.

All bets are off on that in a white dominated Republic of Texas.  

Besides, without Texas as part of the United States, you conservafoools have no chance of ever regaining the White House, so chill with that secession talk.  You also by expressing your racist selves let us know through your actions just how much you really love this country and our state.. 

And yeah, you tried that secession thang already in 1861.  It was a miserable failure.
 

Putting A Conservafool On Blast

Yeah, had one feeling his oats yesterday and believing the conservahype that Mitt Romney will win tomorrow and stepped to me on my FB page.  So yeah, he went where he shouldn't have and I went into Maya Wilkes mode on his azz.

Name of conservafool in question has been removed to protect the guilty, but Moni damned sure does approve of this message.

***

Dude, you're blind and willfully ignorant, so don't even try to step to me with that typical white conservative male bullshit line of 'the libruls do it too'.

You also suffer under the vanillacentric privileged delusion that you are 'colorblind'   You conservatives like to claim that race doesn't matter, while your actions say the complete opposite.  It is you white conservatives who are far more fixated on race, and you have the unmitigated gall to get huffy when people of color call you on your bullshit and hold the mirror of truth to your asses where you have to confront yourselves and your nekulturny behavior in the mirror.

It is a delusion that people of color in America cannot afford to indulge you on for our own survival in a world hostile to us.   If you as a person of color try to act as if you are white when you cannot ever pass for white, it leads to internalized racism, self-doubt and confusion. The only healthy course of action for our own sanity as people of color is to own it, be proud of it and acknowledge that it is a part of us and our culture. 

Being Black, Latino, Asian, et cetera is not something to “not see” as if it were a matter of shame and it is a calculation we must factor into our political stances as well since y'all have whiteness and the maintenance of white supremacy factored into yours.

Enough of the Sociology 101 you missed in college and back to schooling your ass about conservatism and how it is the political arm of whiteness and white supremacy. 

Your claim that you are 'colorblind' does not insulate or inoculate you from the fact that the party and movement you support is an overwhelmingly white male one.  It engages in actions that are hostile and oppressive to my people's human rights and you and other conservative leaning white males have this nauseatingly repetitive pattern of not only trying to project your behavior on your opponents, you and other whites attempt to ignore and justify what conservatism is doing with the 'libruls do it too' false equivalency line

FYI, liberals do not engage in passing voter suppression laws designed to keep my people from either voting or standing in seven hour lines to do so.   Liberals have not disrespected or insulted an African-American president and his family by using racist rhetoric or ignorantly othering him.  That's all on you conservafools, so own every racist graphic, joke or birther conspiracy theory you've hatched over the last 4 years.   

When you vote for Republicans, you tell me and other African-Americans that you not only agree with that premise that my civil rights don't matter, all you care about is your vanillacentric privilege and your fracking wallet.  

Your votes for conservatives indicate not only your values, it says you support what the party platform stands for as a Republican.   Your vote supports people and a party that thinks it is okay to racially profile people, to force women to have a child conceived in a rape or incest situation to give birth to that child, keep non-whites from voting by any means necessary, eviscerate public education, and others anyone who doesn't look like you, the almighty white male. 

Thar's truth for your ass, and if you turn off Fox Noise and really open your eyes to what's going on you could see that. But sadly, you won't. 

When The Election's In Doubt, GOP Goes Racist

When the GOP starts losing in an election cycle, it's a given that since the only demographic they lead in any election cycle is white men, they will use tactics that attempt to stir up white male resentment and racism.

Hey, they've been falling for it over 150 years, and refined it with the Southern Strategy, so it works.

In the latest example of GOP racism for fun and electoral profit, we head to Massachusetts, where Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) is now trailing in his race with Elizabeth Warren despite the massive cash being pumped into his coffers in this overwhelmingly blue state.

So what does he do to overcome that deficit?   Can you say race bait?    Thought you could.

    

But this is why Scott Brown and the people who back him are 'scurred' of her.



I find it arrogant, amazing (but not surprising) that almighty whitey Scott Brown seems to think that he can determine based on her appearance alone that Elizabeth Warren isn't Native American.

But that's par for the racist political course for GOP candidates.   When they're losing, they go negatively racist.to attempt to carry the electoral day.   Massachusetts voters, I hope you'll punish him for it.

Womanist Musings-An All White Emmys

If you wonder why Latino and African-Americans have their own awards shows to honor their people, it's because far too often the big awards shows become boringly drawn out celebrations of whiteness.

Renee of Womanist Musings touched upon that in her critique of Sunday's Emmy Awards in which once again, POC's were nominated (and very few of them) but went home empty handed.

Okay, now it's time for me to give you a taste of what she had to say about the just concluded Emmy's

***

It would have been bad enough if the erasure of actors of colour were simply this year's Emmys, but the truth of the matter is that these award shows have a long history of this exclusionary behaviour. There are still categories which no Black actor has ever won (this in supposedly post racial America).

If Esposito had won Best Supporting Actor in a Drama for "Breaking Bad," or if Rudolph had won the Comedy Guest Actress Award for "Saturday Night Live," they would have become the first black performers to win in their respective categories ever. Cheadle would have become only the second African-American in history to win Best Lead Actor in a Comedy for "House of Lies." Elba was nominated for Lead Actor in a Movie/Mini for "Luther" and Devine for Guest Actress in a Drama for "Grey's Anatomy." The news isn't as shocking considering only 5 percent of black actors have won awards in the 63 years of the Emmys. [source]

When this sort of issue is brought up, it is often suggested that we focus on our own awards, but this is not a solution.  Award shows like the Emmys and the Oscars portend to represent the entire industry but that is certainly not what they are doing.  What we need to advance is mainstream inclusion, not special side projects; separate is not equal, as we have seen over the decades. Year after year, what is presented as inclusion, is nothing more than yet another extravagant display of White hegemony.What we have been offered are crumbs from the masters table and this will never be acceptable.  Even with the population demographics shifting, Whiteness still refuses to loosen its hold on power. If they are not going to award the work of actors of colour, they might as well rename the show to the White Emmy awards because the exclusion is obvious to anyone watching.

***

You can read the rest of Renee's article by clicking on the link.

The Trans Racial Political Divide Shows Up At SCC 2012

While I was owning my power inside I-495 AKA the Capitol Beltway, I thought about during some OUT on the Hill downtime that the Southern Comfort Conference was also going on in the ATL.   I've attended the 1999, 2000 and 2004 editions of SCC and it was undeniably a part of my trans activist evolution. 

Because at one point it was the largest trans gathering in the United States convention hierarchy, SCC has also been the backdrop of major trans political intrigue and drama.  The 2007 SCC convention was a major case in point of that . 

With its dates conflicting with OUT on the Hill and the increasing need for me to be in Washington DC for that event, it's highly unlikely I'll be back at another SCC unless I'm invited to do a keynote speech.

I've written SCC posts in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 but didn't this year.   I've talked about the irony of an overwhelmingly vanillacentric conference smack dab in a city considered the Black GLBT mecca.  I've noted the sincere attempts of the SCC board to diversify their attendance and one of their awkward moments brought on by that lack of diversity in 2008..  

My distinguished trans elder Cheryl Courtney-Evans attended the 2012 edition of SCC and reported in her abitchforjustice blog some of her observations about the sharp racial political divide that permeated this year's event over the looming presidential election.

So needless to say I was surprised, even shocked to find the reactions I got to my flier distribution...virtually every African American transgender person I offered one to, took it (some with the smile & "Obama in '12" comment). But I found that many of the Caucasians in attendance would refuse with a shake of the head (one telling me, "I'm not a fan of Obama's"), or just lay them down and leave them somewhere. It was during one of my 'smoke breaks' that I witnessed and heard comments from some Caucasian trans who were discussing a flier that was lying on a table between us from one of these "lay it down & leave it" occasions. "I really don't see what difference it's gonna make," she said, "they're both the same; they're gonna say one thing and do another after they're elected..."  WHAT??! Where have they been the last four years?? Hadn't they heard what one of their own had just said at lunch? (Also, I could see they were old enough to have seen at least three different presidents and their actions with regards to transgenders.)  Then I had to stop and think about who was talking...

Once again people, race matters, even in our little trans subset of society.  It's one of the reasons why NBJC and TPOCC exist.   Here's the rest of Cheryl's post for y'all to peruse.. 

GLAAD Intersection of Race and LGBT Issues Telebriefing

TransGriot Note: Saw this interesting note on the GLAAD POC media area of their website posted by Jeff Montes about a telebriefing from 2-3 PM EDT today sponsored by The Opportunity Agenda concerning the issues of race and LGBT issues   One of the participants is NBJC's Kimberley McLeod

Today, The Opportunity Agenda will hold a National Telebriefing on their recently released study entitled “Public Opinion and Discourse on the Intersection of LGBT Issues and Race.” The study analyzed research on LGBT topics in minority-oriented media that was conducted in 2010 and other data pertaining to public opinion on LGBT rights. The study shed light on how LGBT people of color are portrayed in the media and how different LGBT-related topics are discussed.


The study finds that coverage of LGBT issues is more prevalent in online-based media than in traditional print media and that pro-LGBT voices outnumber anti-LGBT ones across the board

Research also showed that African American-themed media did not shy away from topics such as LGBT discrimination, homophobia and HIV/AIDS. Spanish language and Latino media was found to predominantly reinforce the narrative that LGBT rights are the same as civil rights, compounding the idea that anti-equality measures amount to discrimination.

Both groups, however, have room to improve when it comes to in-depth discussions of the daily struggles LGBT people, especially low-income individuals, face in their communities and families.  At GLAAD, we have been committed to diversifying those voices, as demonstrated by the pair of Media Institutes held this summer in New York and Los Angeles. Between the two, we welcomed 21 people of color from across the country to gain valuable experience learning about how to share their own stories and discuss real-life LGBT issues with the media.

Today’s National Telebriefing will take place from 2 pm – 3 pm EST. Speakers will include Juhu Thukral (The Opportunity Agenda), Loren Siegel (Loren Siegel Consulting), Kimberley McLeod (National Black Justice Coalition), and Elena Shore (New America Media). They will explore some of the study’s findings and discuss how it relates to their own work. The telebriefing will also include a question and answer segment from the audience. If you are interested in dialing-in, please click the following link to register.

National Telebriefing
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
2:00 – 3:00 p.m. EST
Click here to RSVP 

Any Progress We Make As African-Americans Is 'Too Much'

Two things that CNN camerawoman Patrica Carroll said in her interview discussing the ugly incident that happened at the recently RNC convention resonated with me. 

"This is Florida, and I’m from the Deep South ... You come to places like this you can count the black people on your hand. They see us doing things they don't think I should do." 

She also said, "People think we're gone further than we have." .

Sadly it's a recurring theme in our four centuries of being Africans in America.   We African-Americans make any minor, major or groundbreaking progress and it's 'too much ' for whites and whiteness to handle.

After it occurs, you have the inevitable panicked rush of white supremacists to roll back that progress or work to create barriers to prevent further advancement for my people while stirring up resentment in the huddled masses of low and middle income white people.   When we overcome that latest created barrier or painfully get back to the previous point we were at evolutionary wise in terms of our development as African-Americans, the rush by whiteness to create a new way to roll our progress back begins anew.

We've definitely seen that distressing pattern play itself out over the last 150 years of American history.  After the spectacular progress freedmen made after emancipation from slavery in which they went from a 15% literacy rate to over 70% by the 1900's combined with an explosion of African-American elected officials, community building based on a solid educational foundation, entrepreneurial spirit and hard work, fearful and jealous whites began working to roll back that progress.

Klan terrorist attacks, mob violence, the shady 1876 presidential election that resulted in the Compromise of 1877 that ended Reconstruction, restrictive voter laws, boycotts, Jim Crow segregation and conservative Supreme Court rulings combined to shut down the first Reconstruction and our political participation in American society to the point in which we had zero members of Congress by the dawn of the 20th century.  We were knocked out of many professions we'd managed to enter or were dominant in such as the horse racing industry and recurring riots destroyed much of what we had painstakingly managed to build. 

It took decades of effort from a phalanx of civil rights organizations such as the NAACP, visionary leaders such as W.E.B DuBois, A Philip Randolph, Dorothy Height, Bayard Rustin, the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.and the civil rights movement of the 50's and 60's before we could overcome Jim Crow segregation and jump off another period of spectacular progress for African-Americans which by 1980 was 'too much' for white people. 

The forces of whiteness and white resentment have reacted to the Second Reconstruction the same way they did to the first one in terms of flocking to elect conservative Republican politicians who pimped a message of racial resentment for electoral success in the once Solid Democratic South.   They combined it with a conservative Supreme Court, a phalanx of shadowy conservative organizations working behind the scenes such as ALEC, right wing conservative Christians and  in conjunction with the national and state level Republican Party orgs designing laws to retard or erect new barriers for us..
.
The fact you have people of color routinely doing things 'they' don't think we should be doing such as running Fortune 500 corporations, winning Nobel Prizes, walking fashion runways, winning major golf or tennis tournaments, being the governor of a state or living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue along with the news that whites will be a minority population in the United States by 2040 has made whiteness uneasy. 

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008 has sent the bigots into a frothing at the mouth frenzy and doubled down on pimping the dog whistle message of GOP=white leadership.  When the GOP gained control of several state legislatures in the wake of the 2010 midterm elections one of the first things those Republican legislatures did was pass voter suppression laws designed to depress the turnout of African-American voters in the runup to this 2012 presidential election..

And the irrationality of the Massive Resistance 2.0 strategy the Republican party has deployed in order to deny him a second term speaks volumes to the level of racism in the GOP.  They are willing to bankrupt and destroy this country just to oust one Black man and his family out of the house at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave my people built with their unpaid labor.

So yeah, any progress we make as African-Americans always seems to be 'too much' for whiteness and white supremacy, and that pattern is played out.

No, Patricia Carroll, This Racist BS Happened At The RNC Con For A Reason

Like other African-Americans inside and outside the blogosphere, I've been pissed about the ugly but not surprising incident happening at the just concluded Republican National Convention Klan Meeting in which peanuts were thrown at CNN camerawoman Patricia Carroll by RNC attendees with the comment "This is how we feed the animals."

Some of the comments Ms Carroll made in the one interview she has granted so far I agree with in terms of this incident being a wake up call to Black people.

But in her attempt to not politicize the issue, she unfortunately did precisely that by trying to claim that the incident could have just as easily happened at a Democratic convention. 

Yeah it could have- in any DNC convention prior to 1968. 

I have to call bull feces on that one.   The Democratic National Convention you will see unfold in Charlotte September 4-6 next week is not one in which you'll be able to count the non-whites in the convention hall.in each delegation on one hand.    At the 2008 DNC convention there were 1079 African-American delegates versus just 38 at the 2008 RNC one.   That was 24% of the delegate in attendance at the 2008 DNC.      

The Republicans have morphed into a monoracial party which has made it their racist mission to denigrate and disrespect the first African-American president, openly stated their goal was to make him a one term president and has executed Massive Resistance 2.0 to prevent him from getting anything done to help this country.   . 

It's a party that has the illusion of inclusion in terms of the speakers it parades on its stage but the only diversity it has is young white men, old white men, middle aged white men, Southern white men.young white women, middle aged white women....You get the picture

The racist crap repeatedly happens in the GOP ranks because since the late 1960's they have been the home of the Dixiecrats and have deliberately pimped white resentment, racist dog whistle code words and hatred of non-white Americans as a key component of their electoral campaign strategies.

That empowered the bigots in the RNC midst to feel their thought processes are validated and respected, no thanks to the race baiting of the Romney-Rayan campaign and the year long GOP primary one that engaged in it.  So now they're shocked, shocked and horrified that on cue the racist dogs heard the whistle and start barking accordingly.

So no Ms Carroll, I think it highly unlikely a racist peanut throwing incident would have happened to you in a DNC convention arena, and by trying to be evenhanded, you unwittingly fueled the false equivalency meme that conservatives will try to exploit to claim that racist incident never happened .    

If It Barks Like A GOP Racist And Growls Like A GOP Racist, It IS A GOP Racist

I get e-mails and comments on my Facebook page every time I call the Republican party out on their racism by sarcastically spelling the party name with three K's (RepubliKKKan) or calling the Teapublicans the Tea Klux Klan.   They try to pimp that false equivalency meme and claim that the Democrats engage in it, too.

Umm, no they aren't.   And don't even try to come at me with that elephant feces.  

If your presidential campaign is predicated on not talking about the merits of your candidate, but blowing racist dog whistle comments to stir up the bigot base of your party because you refuse to compete for the votes of non-white American citizens, you actively work to suppress their votes,  and you have openly disrespected the first African-American president since he took the oath of office in 2009, don't be surprised when your fellow Republicans and the people your campaign tactics validate and appeal to feel empowered to unleash their inner Klansman and their bigotry at inopportune moments.

David Shuster tweeted about an incident that occurred at the Republican convention Klan meeting now taking place in Tampa in which an African-American CNN camerawoman had peanuts thrown at her yesterday by a GOP convention attendee followed by the comment "this is how we feed animals'.

CNN posted a written statement saying, “CNN can confirm there was an incident directed at an employee inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum earlier this afternoon. CNN worked with convention officials to address this matter and will have no further comment.”

No further comment?  You're joking, right?   That's why I switched to watching MSNBC because CNN in my opinion has been far too busy trying to coddle the Republicans instead of calling them out on their fascist and racist bull feces.  

So what did the convention officials do to the GOP attendee who committed this microaggressive racist act?   Did they throw them out for the rest of the convention or just for a day with a wink and nod to the reprehensible behavior?   Did the knee-grow conservafools placate the bigoted attendee by saying the CNN camerawoman 'provoked' it?   Is the unnamed so far GOP attendee a credentialed delegate?   An alternate?   What state are they from?  Are they a proud member of the Tea Klux Klan or the Paulistas?

These are the questions that need to be answered instead of swept under the rug and trying to deny the incident happened.  The one thing it confirms once again for African-Americans is that the Republican Party is racist from the top of its presidential ticket to its grassroots.

You white peeps who vote Republican can swim in vanillacentric privileged denial all you want, but if it barks like a GOP racist and growls like a GOP racist,  it IS a GOP racist and your votes and donations to the party enable that racist behavior. 

It also ensures non-white Americans will continue voting for Democrats.

TransGriot Update: Turns out it was TWO GOP convention attendees, not just one.  It's still reprehensible behavior no matter how many peeps participated in it.