Transpeople of Color Don't Get The Luxury of Ignoring Race And Class

Sigh.  Once again, Moni's gonna have to break it down for the wallowing in white privilege clueless. 

And this clueless youngling had the nerve to claim in the subsequent comment thread that she's 'anti-racist'.

Peep this comment posted by Jocelynn Veleta on the mixed company Facebook Transgender Alliance FB page.

It was posted on a comment from Black Transmen Resources ironically posted to promote their upcoming BTAC 2014 conference in Dallas April-May 2014.

At first I was going to be nice and not embarrass her in cyberspace until she deleted her initial comments before I had a chance to copy them, ran, called me 'stupid', said I was 'playing the victim'  and cried the usual 'white women's tears' before I got tired of her mouth and unleashed the 50 megatons of knowledge on her azz.  

im offended when ppl add race, ethnicity, or gender restrictions to anything, Trans in itself is enough of a minority i personally don't feel we need to break up anymore... hey maybe its just me; im not trying to be rude.

No, you weren't rude, you were white privileged clueless.

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

We transpeople of color do not have the luxury of separating our race and ethnicity from our trans status. They are inextricably part of us.   And as part of the Black community, we still get whacked by the microaggressive and macroaggressive ways whiteness and white supremacy deleteriously affects us.

Your lived experience as a solitary white trans person doesn't trump (and never will) the lived experience of someone who has taken the brunt of the white supremacist attitudes since birth, much less her people's 400 year history of living in the Americas.

Jocelynn, you may not like the fact that we have Black, Latina and Asian trans groups, organizations and conventions, but they didn't come out of a vacuum.

As Kwame Ture said, 'in order to become a part of the greater society, you must first close ranks.'

People of color face anti POC hatred whether we are trans or not and being trans only magnifies that. And some of the worst manifestations of that anti-POC hatred are in our own TBLG ranks.

What we do have, if the trans community will seize that opportunity, is to lead by example in eradicating racism in its subset of society.

Our little subset of society is infected by the same isms and ills of the parent society, and just because you transitioned doesn't mean you nor transpeople of color are free of that baggage.  Race and ethnicity add to our trans status as bigotry multipliers in terms of the anti-trans hate directed at us inside and outside the TBLG community.   Black trans women have to deal with the same 'ugly black woman' meme and destruction of our images that our cis sisters have had to grapple with for four centuries.  Black trans men when they transition step into being just as hated by society as their cis Black masculine counterparts do and the transmasculine discussion being disproportionately centered on white trans men. 

And when the Teapublicans seek to block the vote of the Black community at the polls, I don't get a pass from that because I'm trans.    

Jocelynn, you aren't even close to being anti-racist if you can't openly acknowledge the point that racist attitudes permeates American society, still affects POC's in the second decade of the 21st century, can't see past your own unacknowledged white privilege and how it has shaped your thinking (as the playing the victim conservacomment demonstrates) and that racism= prejudice plus systemic power.

And before you even part your lips to ever try to bring up the word 'anti-racist' in a conversation, better hit Google and learn the word 'intersectionality'. 

I'm offended Jocelynn when you make such a knee jerk reactive clueless statement on the comment of a Black trans group promoting their upcoming Dallas trans conference open to all, you failing to see how problematic that statement of yours was, and then running when you get called on it.

And you getting your vanillacentric privileged back up, accusing me of 'attacking you' for schooling your barely out of zygote stage behind and you running from the truth isn't going to change one syllable of what I posted about race still mattering in the trans community.     

We do have the opportunity in the trans community to build a society better than the one we left behind but it's going to take honest communication about race relations in our community to do so. 

Honest communications that obviously you're not even close to being ready for or intelligently discuss.
 

'You're A Racist"- Um, No I'm Not

I laugh my azz off when people, especially on the conservafool side of the political spectrum fling the facts free charge at me that 'I'm a racist' or I'm 'playing the race card' for calling out on a regular basis the racism that permeates American society.   

Um,.no.  And saying that BS to me clearly exposes you as either completely and utterly ignorant about these issues because you watch too much Fox Noise or you're wallowing in some serious vanillacentric privilege.

For those of you who didn't go to college or were asleep in Sociology 101 when this discussion was going on, Racism = prejudice infused with political, economic, judicial, police, military and social power in which a dominant racial group uses those levers of societal power to retard, impede or roll back the societal progress of a minority group.  

It is not what butthurt white conservafools who fit that Sociology 101 definition of Racism (and gleefully practice it) spit back at people who call them on their crap.

And butthurt white peeps, if you don't want to be called a racist, then stop acting in the racist ways or flapping your gums in ways that leave no doubt in the minds of non-white people and our allies that you most certainly are.
The reality in American society is the only people in it who have that kind of power to be racist are white people.  You are the majority population (at least until 2040) in all but five states and you have gleefully in many cases let you prejudices run rampant to fit the Sociology 101 racism description.

There is no such thing as 'reverse racism' because non-white people don't have that kind of power.   For non-white people tho be racist it would require American society to be an equal and level playing field, and we ain't even close to wielding that kind of power yet.

Non white people can be bigoted and prejudiced.  But we don't exist with the kind of power to make white lives a living hell as has been done unto us for the last four centuries in North America and elsewhere in the world.

Still Ain't Feeling Feminism

Feminism, according to a popular bumper sticker is the radical notion that women are people, too. Many feminists have forgotten over the years that the word 'people' also includes their Black, Latina, Asian and native American sisters as well as their transgender ones. 
--TransGriot  Ain't Feeling Feminism   January 23, 2009

While we transwomen have had a contentious thirty-six years of drama with the feminist community, it pales in comparison with the ongoing parallel struggle that women of color have with them. They have fought the ongoing silencing of their voices in the feminist movement, got tired of being dissed, ignored and being accused of or being labeled as 'crazy' or 'racist' anytime they critiqued their treatment.
---TransGriot   January 23, 2009 

Those words I wrote in 2009 are just as prescient now as they were four years ago.  I took the predominately white feminist world to task for their four decade long pattern of attacking trans women and their ignoring or silencing of Black, Latina voices in the feminist movement to the point where both groups have said adios and see ya to feminism. 

And yeah, they've also done the same thing to native American, Asian and other women around the world as well, but that's another post.    

The simmering pissivity blew up once again between white women and women of color fed up with a feminist movement that seems in the last few years to only care about a Feminist Prime Directive of power and privilege equality with white males and clocking dollars.   

And they clock those dollars while gleefully appropriating the work of Black and Brown women of color.

It led to another contentious and needed discussion and the #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen hashtag created by Mikki Kendall that went viral. 

It also began to create another moment of conversation on the issue of women of color and feminism.

Hell, myself and other trans women have been calling out feminism for years over their transphobia and their cricket chirping silence over the four decades of hate speech the trans exterminationalist exclusionary radical feminists (TERF's) have aimed at trans women.  It's also a major reason why combined with my pissivity over the erasure of women of color from its ranks that I dislike feminism and identify as a womanist.  

You gotta love a movement like womanism that is not only is rooted in your culture, as of this point in its development it has embraced me as a trans woman, hasn't disrespected my humanity and encourages mine and the input of other trans women to make it better and more inclusive when it comes to our issues as African descended trans women.

As I wrote in 2011 and it is still true today, since my March 31, 2009 'I am a womanist' declaration, I have yet to run into a womanist who disrespected my evolving feminine journey or has actively worked to deny me and my trans sisters and brothers human rights coverage like people who call themselves feminists repeatedly do. 

I hope and pray I'm able to continue saying and writing that critical difference point about womanism and womanists for the rest of this decade and beyond.


But back to the current drama.  Will anything substantive come out of this round of calling out feminism?   That is the $64,000 Question.  Or has the fissure between white and Black feminists that has over a century of contentious history predating the Schwyzer faux feminist mess become an impossible to bridge Grand Canyon?

Time will tell us what the end result will be, but I'm betting that four years from now I'll be writing another post if this blog is still in operation as to why I'm still not feeling feminism. 

Cece McDonald Talks About Trayvon And The Justice System

Definitely signal boosting this one.  Cece McDonald writes a post in which she discusses the Trayvon Martin case and the injustice system entitled 'Injury and Insult: Trayvon Martin, racism in the system and a revolution amongst us.'.

Here's a taste of it:

Highlighting on the injury to insult, many right-winged conservative foot-mouthed assholes, which include Zimmerman’s defense team, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O’Reilly, who have tried to justify Trayvon Martin’s killing by demonizing Trayvon by saying “he was wearing what most criminals wear,” referring to his hoodie or that his toxicology report came back with positive test results of marijuana so “he was up to ‘no good’.” So I guess that means that wearing hoodies and smoking pot, going to the store and walking home talking to a friend on the phone is deemed “suspicious” and therefore someone can follow you and kill you and because you seemed suspicious, your death will be overlooked. But we all know that this was more than hoodies and marijuana–it was about racial profiling and the (implicit) racism that still exist in what’s supposed to be a post-racial “color-blind” society.

You can read the rest of Cece's post by clicking this link.

JSmooth On Don Lemon, Race and Respectability Politics

For those of you wondering why Black Twitter, legions of Black pundits and the Black blogosphere went off on Don Lemon (and I haven't put my foot in his azz yet), J Smooth breaks it down in this YouTube video about race and respectability politics.

Still Sick Of Hearing The Term 'Race Card'

'It wouldn't be necessary to 'play the race card' as you peeps so derisively put it if you Euro-descended Americans ancestors hadn't set up a system that demonizes non- whites, maximizes benefits to your ethnic group, stacks the deck to maintain that advantage, marks the biggest face cards in the American cultural card deck for themselves and passes them on to their children.'
--TransGriot August 6, 2007 'Sick Of Hearing The Term 'Race Card'

And once again I'm having to write a post about the insulting to the Black community conservaterm 'race card'.

We non-white folks are more than sick and tired of being sick and tired of hearing that insulting conservaterm deployed every time a discussion pops up about race in mixed company either online or in the media. 

Last time I checked that race card or my government slavery reparations check for $150,000 hadn't hit my mailbox yet. 

Non-white people are fed up of hearing from vanillacentric privileged conservative white people that having POC organizations tasked with addressing our lack of representation in the larger communities we interact with or pointing out how race, class white privilege and white supremacy negatively affect us is 'playing the race card'.

It's even more infuriating when that same conservalanguage and rhetoric comes out of the mouths of our liberal-progressive white allies. 

I remind you that predominately POC organizations such as the NAACP, La Raza, LULAC, MALDEF, the Urban League, the National Bar Association, the Congressional Black, Latino and Asian-Pacific Islander caucuses, the National Black Journalists Association, the Divine Nine historically Black fraternities and sororities in the National Pan Hellenic Council, HBCU's and countless other organizations founded by people of color during the 20th century didn't just pop up in a vacuum.  

They exist because of a need for communities of color to band together to fight a persistent four century old pattern of racial discrimination aimed at non-white communities by white America and indifference or outright denials from vanillacentric privilege addled whites not affected by that discrimination it exists or they benefit from it.  

Sadly, because the TBLG community is a subset of the parent society infected with those same problems, isms and ills, it has become necessary in the last two decades to create predominately POC organizations to address the same lack of representation issue just as we had to do in the parent society. 

The National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), the Trans Persons of Color Coalition (TPOCC), the Trans Latin@ Coalition, the International Federation of Black Prides (now the Center For Black Progress), Black Transmen Inc/Black Transwomen Inc (BTMI/BTWI), along with corresponding conferences, seminars, the Honor 41 list and events these organizations sponsor such as TransFaith In Color, various Black prides across the country and NBJC's upcoming September 18-22  OUT on the Hill conference in Washington DC are necessary in order to close ranks, help us own our power and become part of the greater BTLG and other communities we intersect and interact with.
   
If a 'race card' truly exists, it's the White Privilege Rewards Card which gets played every time any person of color begins to excel despite the barriers strewn in their path.  As the Zimmerman case demonstrated, it also get deployed when whites get in legal trouble.  And yes, it comes with a rainbow sticker on it as well.

We are a long way from the colorblind society Dr. King envisioned.  But at the same time colorblind does not mean ignore race or not have thoughtful discussions about it.

Frankly, not having serious discussions about the issue of how America's original sin of slavery still impacts this country's race relations 150 years later and how its foul stench still permeates American society is why race and the color line are still major dissension causing problems in 21st century American society. 

But one point I need to emphatically make once again is there is no such thing as a 'race card'.  White peeps, especially on the liberal-progressive side need to eviscerate those insulting conservawords from their vocabulary so that we can at least on our side of the political aisle have a thoughtful and civil discourse on it.

Black Is The New Black

Denny Upkins weighs in on the Trayvon Martin tragedy and the ongoing drama that African-Americans endure in this country in this essay entitled 'Black Is The New Black'

Here's a taste of it:

Whether it’s Paula Deen, George Zimmerman, Ellen Sturtz, or the legions of other monsters, one thing I’ve come to realize is that most whites don’t defend these bigots and their actions because they believe it’s right. Whites defend these racists because they’re defending their white privilege. Whites like having the option of killing black children and getting off scot free. Whites like murdering their children and blaming it on the black guy. White women love the option of throwing acid on her face, blaming black women and knowing the story will be believed. Whites love blaming blacks and other POCs for homophobia despite what facts, and history states.

After all, why be equal when you can be superior, a supremacist even?

You can read the rest of his post here.

Guess The Outcome Of This Stand Your Ground Trial

We don't have to, we already know what the result would be.   And that's assuming the Black person holding the gun isn't shot dead by the po-po's rushing into this picture. 

'Stand Your Ground' wasn't designed by ALEC for Black people with guns who feel threatened, only white ones.
     

Don Lemon Schools A Conservafool On His Vanillacentric Privilege

I've been hard on Don Lemon for his trans fails, but have to give him his props for schooling conservafool Ben Ferguson on his privilege and his knee jerk reaction to President Obama's remarks last Friday on the Zimmerman verdict.

POTUS Remarks On Trayvon Martin Case

President Obama after a few days of noticeable silence emerged Friday to speak about the Trayvon Martin and the unjust Zimmerman verdict.

 

In The Aftermath Of George Zimmerman's Release

TransGriot Note:  Renee's got a fresh post up, and this latest Womanist Musings one is her comments on the Zimmerman case from her above the 49th parallel vantage point as a Canadian.

I awoke this morning to discover that George Zimmerman has been acquitted of second degree murder in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.  I wasn't in the least bit surprised because for as long as I have been alive, Black life has been cheap.  It's a hard truth, but it's the reality with which I live, with which all children of the African Diaspora live.  The phrase "I Am Trayvon Martin" has become very popular and this is because he literally could have been any of us. Some worry that this verdict will embolden racists to target Blacks, but I wonder when have we ever not been a target? From chains to a Black president, Blackness continues to be under assault.

I find the only thing that brings me even the slightest bit of relief is the fact that I am Canadian and my sons are Canadian.  At 12, Destruction is five foot five and would not look much different from Trayvon in the same circumstances.  Like all mothers, I worry about his safety, but our much more rigid gun laws would more than likely mean that no neighbourhood watch cop wanna be, would take his life for simply existing. The glorification and absolutely masturbatory fascination Americans have with guns, combined with a White supremacist culture, which purposefully criminalizes and cheapens the lives of Black children before they can even take their first breath, are directly responsible for the violent unnecessary murder of Trayvon Martin.

Being a Canadian, I watched the circus of a trial unfold from a distance. There are most certainly large differences in American and Canadian law, though we share a symbiotic relationship in many ways, but what I saw before me was a farce.  George Zimmerman may have been accused of murder, but it was Trayvon Martin who went on trial. How is it that the person who ended up dead, and therefore unable to speak for themselves was criminalized? We learned about pictures of Trayvon Martin holding guns, about THC in his system and suspensions from school. It was not long before  he was turned into a drug dealing thug, who Zimmerman graciously saved the world from having to deal with.  What I want to know, is how is any of this is relevant to what happened that fateful night?  Zimmerman would have known none of this as he approached Trayvon, in direct contradiction of police instructions. The only thing that Zimmerman knew for an unequivocal fact, is that Trayvon Martin was Black.


He purposefully stalked Trayvon, creating a situation which ended in death but somehow he is not culpable? Had Zimmerman only listened to the 911 dispatcher, Trayvon would be alive today, but in a world in which every Black person is born a threat, Zimmerman felt emboldened to act.  Even after the fact, he could not admit the mistake he made and instead we had to listen to some cooked up story about self defense. How can someone claim self defense, when they started the situation to begin with?  If Zimmerman felt in true peril, it is only because he is a racist.  Zimmerman benefited from a system which has no interest in justice for people of color. Stop and Frisk Laws as well as the Stand Your Ground Law under which Zimmerman got away with murder, exist only to oppress and criminalize Black and Brown people.

You would think that after the controversial verdict of not guilty had been delivered by the all White jury that the Zimmerman family would finally let Trayvon rest in peace, but the character assassination continued on Pierce Morgan.  In a discussion regarding Trayvon's actions the night he was slain, Robert Zimmerman told Morgan and Lemon:

"I want to know if it's true, and I don't know if it's true, that Trayvon Martin was looking to procure firearms, or growing marijuana, or looking to make lean." 

This is what Robert extrapolated from a hoodie and a packet of sweeties.  How can this be rational?  Yet, we had White conservatives celebrating and calling it a defeat for the supposedly liberal media. Lost in their zeal is the anguish of yet another set of Black parents, who have lost their beloved child forever and the fear of Black parents across the diaspora that their child could be next.

I say child, because that is what Martin was and the only reason he was not perceived as such is his race.  Can you imagine an all White jury arriving at the same not guilty verdict, had the victim been a White kid from the suburbs and the perpetrator Black?   No one would even have had to rally for an arrest had that been the case, let alone watch this farce of justice that supposedly represented a trial.  Was there ever any hope of justice with a jury of all White women - women who have been raised to see Black males as the predator who jumps out of the bushes to harm them - women who have been indoctrinated to believe that only their children have value?

Slowly this story will slip off the front pages of newspapers and the networks will end their round the clock coverage, moving onto yet another tragedy that they can report on. The coldness of the grave does not bring ratings like sensationalism. The only people who cannot walk away, who cannot forget, are those who knew and loved Trayvon. For them, this will be a never ending nightmare because not only did they not get justice, they cannot get their loved one back.  They don't even have the cold comfort of believing that Trayvon's death will lead to change because this trial has proven soundly that he is just another, in a long list of Black youths, whose lives and deaths are meaningless in a White supremacist world. 

Michael Dunn Case Going To Trial September 23

Don't look now people, but it's time to get prepared for another 'Kill A Black Kid With Impunity' trial in Florida.  

Michael Dunn will go on trial starting September 23 in the death of 17 year old Jordan Russell Davis.

The 46 year old Dunn has pleaded not guilty and is facing first degree murder charges in the killing of Davis and three charges of attempted murder in the Black Friday incident that happened at a Jacksonville gas station mere months after Trayvon Martin was killed in Sanford, FL.

Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty in this case (gee, I wonder why).    

On that fateful day Davis and his friends went to a Jacksonville gas station to fill up after finishing a shopping trip to a local mall. They encountered Dunn, a gun collector with a permit to carry a concealed weapon. A confrontation took place over the volume of the music playing in the car Davis and his friends were in.

Dunn, later saying he felt “threatened”, thought the teens were “gang members” and claiming he saw a shotgun took out his gun and fired several shots into the SUV, that struck and killed Davis.


You can bet the conservative movement and the defense team in their zeal to defend Dunn will use their time tested tactics to demonize Jordan Russell Davis and all the boys in the SUV,  turn them into 'marauding thugs' and make Dunn look like the second coming of Jesus Christ to rally the conservasheeple around.

This trial will also have a nearly or completely melanin free jury with the overwhelming stench of vanillacentric privilege filling the Duval county courthouse or wherever they have this trial.

We'll see how this one plays out, but y'all know what kind of track record I have when it comes to predicting these types of cases .

And based on what just happened in Seminole County, I won't be too surprised o see Michael Dunn walking when this case is over. 

This Racist Joke About A Plane Crash Isn't Funny

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Repeat: White People Doing Blackface Drag Is Not Acceptable, Period!

And for once, it isn't the odious Chuck Knipp and his Shirley Q. Liquor 'act' I'm slamming for trying to do it. 

This latest episode of white person who didn't get the memo that white people doing blackface drag is never appropriate is Toronto drag queen Daytona Bitch.

He has his draws in a knot because he was fired from a gig during the recent Toronto Pride for performing in blackface.

He was allegedly imitating Miss Cleo from the Psychic Hotline commercials of the late 90's-early 2K's at the Crews & Tango  nightclub in Toronto.

The June 24 performance generated a lot of angrily contentious discussion on Twitter with the clueless Daytona Bitch trying to defend along with his fans the jacked up performance. 

"I asked a couple people if it was offensive because it’s not blackface in my eyes,” Daytona Bitch says. “I went to theater school. I know what blackface is. It was not a minstrel show. I was doing a character.

Whitesplaining segment over, time for Moni to school your azz right now on the subject.

Sure it's not offensive or blackface in your eyes because you're wallowing in vanillacentric privilege.  And if you claim to know what blackface is, why did you go ahead with that performance anyway?

Obviously none of those people you asked in that club were Black Canadians, because they would have told your vanillacentric privileged behind what I'm about to say in this post right now.

Blackface has been used to denigrate, demean and dehumanize Black people across the African Diaspora for over 180 years.  It's why African descended people in North America have highly negative views toward it that haven't and won't change even in the second decade of the 21st century.   

It's also why North American Black people have a zero tolerance policy toward any manifestation of white people in blackface, whether it is maliciously racist or not. 

We don't care if you are a drag performer, a model doing a high fashion photo shoot, somebody doing so as a badly thought out Halloween costume or drunken white college kids perpetuating negative stereotypes of African descended people in the name of fun and frivolity.   You need to get it through your vanillacentric privileged minds blackface is offensive to African descended people and there is no justification in our chococentic minds for doing so. 

And you knew it too, which is why you and your fans are trying to whitesplain this away. BTW Daytona, since you got paid for that performace, it does qualify as blackface since you made money off the dehumanization of my people.  

You don't get to tell my POC community as a member of the ethnic group that exercises power in this society (deleteriously at times to my community) what is or isn't offensive.  We have repeatedly told you Blackface is one of those things that IS offensive to us on both sides of the 49th parallel, so hear us loud and clear when we say that. 

And don't even try to bring up the Wayans Brothers White Chicks movie, Tyler Perry as Madea, Martin Lawrence as 'Big Momma', Eddie Murphy in Norbit, Whoopi Goldberg, or RuPaul's sellout azz into this conversation in order to defend blackface.

Don't bother parting your lips to say that tired, 'we need to lighten up about it' line or try to claim 'it's a costume' either. 

My people and my culture are not costumes you put on for your or your people's entertainment.

I repeat, white people doing blackface, whether it is malicious or not is NEVER acceptable so don't do it unless you like being called out about it.

Class dismissed.

Arrest Made In Racially Charged Denardo Pizzeria Attack Case

On June 23 there was a 3:15 AM EDT incident in a Washington DC pizzeria in the 1800 block of 14th St. NW that went viral due to it being filmed and posted on three websites and briefly on YouTube.

It started when 28 year old Raymone Harding and 22 year old Rachel Manna Sahle of Gaithersburg, MD started making fun of drag queen Miles Denardo's makeup as he entered the Manny & Olga's location to pick up food after performing at the Black Cat nightclub in the same block under his Heidi Glum performance name.

It escalated into a heated argument in which epithets were exchanged, one of the women is alleged to have slapped Denardo, Denardo is alleged to have spit in the face of one of the women and egged on by an unidentified patron, resulted in a fight in which Denardo was punched by Harding and Sahle while being dragged across the floor of the take out pizzeria by his hair as bystanders laughed and cheered.   

Elements of the Washington DC and national LGBT community decried the attack in which the 'faggot' and 'tranny' slurs were deployed by the women against Denardo.  The African American end of the trans and SGL community were not too happy (myself included) about Denardo tweeting the n-word in the aftermath of it and the LGBT social media bigot eruptions that ensued aiming racial animus at Harding and Sahle.

There's also the problematic point of the HIV positive Denardo admitting to spitting in the face of one of the women and claiming they now had HIV.

If a person is HIV positive and deliberately spits in the direction of another person or bites them, in some states that is considered assault with a deadly weapon.  

On Tuesday police arrested Harding and charged her with misdemeanor simple assault in the ugly incident which is still under investigation by DC Metro Police. 

The misdemeanor simple assault charge carries a maximum six month jail sentence and/or a $1000 fine.

Sahle filed a police report the night of the June 23 incident accusing Denardo of biting her on the thigh and telling her 'now you have AIDS'.  

Denardo is claiming self defense for the felony aggravated assault charge that carries a maximum 10 year jail sentence,

He asserts in a Washington Blade interview that he had no choice but to bite her in order to get her to release the grip she had on his hair.   He also denies saying that she now has AIDS when the tape of the incident does capture him saying precisely that.

There's enough wrong to go around on both sides.  And as the conventional wisdom goes when you have two conflicting sides of a story, the truth is somewhere in the middle.  

It will be up to federal prosecutors in the District to sort out where the facts are and who is telling the truth in this convoluted and racially charged case.   


TransGriot Update: Rachel Manna Sahle was also arrested. charged with misdemeanor simple assault and released along with Harding after both women plead not guilty in DC Superior Court.
Both are scheduled for misdemeanor initial status hearings on September 5, ordered to take drug tests and stay away from Denardo.  

Ni***r Isn't The Same As Honky

TransGriot Note: Guest post by Aletha Fields


Ni***r is the most electric racial slur between blacks and whites in America. No other word between the races carries that charge. That's why ni***r isn't the same as honky. No white person ever got enslaved, humiliated, dehumanized, raped, or sold as a part of one of the ugliest periods in American history.

Sooooooo. . . Everybody quit acting brand new and trying to justify the use of ni***r against the use of words like honky. You know it isn't the same no matter what you say. And for the record, how many black people do you honestly hear calling white people honky? Step out of the 70s please. Honky? Ni***r? Which one makes people turn their heads? Which one makes good white parents intentionally tell their children to NEVER say? Which one is often followed by actions the word ni***r provokes? Black isn't the same as ni***r.

Paula Deen knows the difference about when to not use the word. She isn't brand new. If it was actually a part of her inability to code switch, she would not have made it as far because she would have already used it publicly. No white person in America blatantly uses the word ni***r unless they mean to or want to. She needs to be punished for it. Her being honest about isn't a heroic act. That's a foolish notion in and of itself. She isn't living in a plantation culture and she isn't to be excused because she's a Southerner. She deserves every bit of public backlash for her private blacklash.

Fortunately for me, my social justice family, which includes many, many white do-gooders, taught me how very abnormal this behavior is amongst white people in America. It is THEIR honesty about anti-racist work that let me know white folks like Ms. Deen know exactly what they're doing and their intent around the use of words like ni***r.

The only thing people need to get over concerning racial slurs between whites and blacks is the notion that the use of the word ni***r by white people is not, has not been, and never will be anything than its ugly past intended.

You cannot submit to revisionist history. What happened during enslavement is not natural, is not just, is not a source of pride, is not an unintentional system of oppression, and is not passive. Get over THAT!

Black Twitter's Still Whacking Paula Deen

Yeah Paula, you seriously pissed us off.

Black Twitter still has its foot firmly planted in Paula Deen's antebellum behind.  It has moved on from the #PaulasBestDishes one that went viral yesterday and was the number one trending topic on Twitter for several hours to cooking up a new Twitter hasttag to highlight her Southern fried bigotry.

The latest Twitter hashtag is entitled #PaulaWontCookIt and was created by Dr. Brittney Cooper of Rutgers University and Crunk Feminist Collective after her friend Patrice Simpson suggested the idea. 

Some of the entries on that hashtag are just as hilarious as the sarcastic cuisine that was conjured up by the Black Twitterverse yesterday and yes, the TransGriot threw some in on the new #PaulaWontCookIt hashtag as well.

Trying to get to the 7500 tweet mark and I'm a few tweets short of it  ;) 

Black Twitter Strikes Again On #PaulasBestDishes Hashtag

Paula Deen put her Southern fried foot in her mouth when she revealed her loyalties to all things Southern including that tired tradition of racism.

Deen is embroiled in a million dollar lawsuit over racist behavior with Lisa Jackson, the former general manager of Paula’s restaurant in Savannah, GA

Jackson claims that Deen used the N-word and was harassed and assaulted by her brother Bubba.  

The reason it probably hadn't gone viral until now is because the only paper covering the story was the National Enquirer.  But even they can have a broken clock moment of journalism every now and then and it looks like that is about to happen. 

Deen parted her lips during that videotaped May 17 deposition to reveal that she is not only a Confederate flag waving level racist, she's ignorantly dismissive about it as well.

The fact this news about Deen dropped on Juneteenth did not escape some peeps and as usual on Black Twitter, just as we did a few months ago with the #BlackPrivilege hashtag we gleefully took on the challenge of excoriating her in our own creative way. 

The  #PaulasBestDishes hashtag that has gone viral as I write this post and had me at one point rolling over and in tears laughing at some of the sarcastic cuisine on this list.  Y'all know I couldn't resist jumping in on the fun of roasting this bigot over the coals.

And you know TransGriot readers that Paula is a nominee for this week's Shut Up Fool Award.

Washington Watch-Racism And Lack Of Diversity In The LGBT Community

I've talked about this subject for Lord knows how long in the seven years I've been writing at TransGriot, so it was nice to see the rest of the mainstream Black media jump getting the discussion started for the rest of the African-American community.  

The TVOne Washington Watch Sunday show hosted by Roland Martin is a nice alternative to Meet the Press and other Sunday conservafool dominated fare.   This particular show was broadcast back on March 11, but needs to be seen in light of recent rainbow tinged bigotry eruptions in the wake of the marriage equality legislative failure in Illinois.  

My ascot wearing Houston homeboy had as guests on this Washington Watch episode to discuss the topic Rev. Dr. Darlene Nipper, the deputy executive director of the national Gay And Lesbian Task Force, Cleo Manago, CEO and founder of Black Men's Xchange; and Earl Fowlkes, president and CEO of the Center for Black Equity to tackle the topic of racism and lack of diversity in the LGBT community.

Illinois Is Looking More Like Prop 8 2.0

Well, well, well  John Aravosis.   Looks like there's increasing evidence piling up to show that you were loud and wrong as usual.

You were also wrong for peddling that bigoted 'The Blacks cost us marriage equality in Illinois' meme  in the immediate aftermath of the non-call for a House marriage equality vote that has been repeated like a mantra in various spots in the Gayosphere and progressive blog comment threads that Black bloggers are now going to have to spend time debunking. 

I presume the 'I'm sorry' Americablog post will be swiftly forthcoming to the Black community and the legislators you slimed, but I suspect it'll be a snowy June day in Houston before we see it.
  .
It's also eerily looking more and more like Prop 8 2.0 in terms of the deja vu all too eager white gay propensity to quickly point the finger at my community for this stunning Illinois marriage equality legislative failure and engage in rainbow bigot eruptions. .   

Before the weekend was out I was starting to get confirmation about what I suspected was the real reason the marriage bill failed Saturday morning:

A Gay, Inc organizational frackup. 

It turns out that your vanillacentric staffed umbrella marriage org on the scene there didn't even bother to hire more lobbyists to talk to the Illinois Black legislative caucus, when they knew for months it was one of their lobbying weaknesses.   The problem wasn't addressed until a day and a half before the vote was supposed to happen and former Illinois Chitown Democratic legislators Paul Williams and Coy Pugh were put on the payroll 

Williams and Pugh had they been given ample time may have been able to flip some votes in the Caucus, but they damned sure needed more than a day and half for that task. 

The umbrella org also repeated California's failure of not consistently engaging the Black and Latino communities and mobilizing progressive ministers and priests tn the state to neutralize and drown out the bigots in the African American Clergy Coalition and the Roman Catholic Church.

Thanks to TransGriot reader Chitown Kev for pointing me to an NBC5 article entitled 'Don't Thank (Or Blame) Black Legislators For Killing Gay Marriage' and giving me more ammunition to point out why fanning the hell-fire flames of gay bigotry against Blacks is not only wrong but not helpful to your marriage cause. 

Interestingly enough that NBC5 story breaks down how the so-called 'homophobic' Black Legislative caucus votes would have probably gone down if a marriage vote had been called

Eleven of the 20 Black Caucus members would have voted YES,  four NO and five were undecided.

YES
Ken Dunkin, Chicago
Esther Golar, Chicago
Chris Welch, Hillside
La Shawn Ford, Chicago
Christian Mitchell, Chicago
Rita Mayfield, Waukegan
Al Riley, Olympia Field
Camille Lilly, Chicago
Arthur Turner, Chicago
Marcus Evans, Chicago
Elgie Sims, Jr., Chicago

NO
Monique Davis, Chicago
Mary Flowers, Chicago
Eddie Jackson, East St. Louis
Charles Jefferson, Rockford

UNDECIDED
Thaddeus Jones, Calumet City
Jehan Gordon-Booth, Peoria
Will Davis, East Hazel Crest
Derrick Smith, Chicago
Andre Thapedi, Chicago

As an FYI moment, the six Latino Illinois legislators were considered supporters.

Now compare and contrast that with the 92 white legislators in the Illinois House.  I pointed out the fact in my initial Saturday post the bulk of the people and legislators opposed to marriage equality don't look like me and it was borne out in this report.

45 of the 47 Republicans (who are survey says, all white peeps) were opposed to the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act with only two supporting it..  

The 45 remaining white legislators in the Illinois House are Democrats. Of those white Democrats 26 were considered solid YES votes, but there were 19 white Democratic legislators identified by the Windy City Times who are either committed to vote NO on the bill, or have not publicly supported it. 

Those legislators are Brandon Phelps, John Bradley, Jerry Costello II, Jay Hoffman, Daniel Beiser, Sue Scherer, Stephanie Kifowit, Anthony DeLuca, Katherine Cloonen, Patrick Verschoore, Jack Franks, Michelle Mussman, John D’Amico, Natalie Manley, Emily McAsey, Kathleen Willis, Fred Crespo, Keith Farnham, and Kelly Burke.

So how in the hell does the Black Caucus get the blame or the failure of this bill when all along you had a white Democratic legislator problem?  

Easy, when you want to deflect from your own organizational failures.

"Don’t blame the Black Caucus. The Black Caucus has always been with us and so have the Latinos,” said Rick Garcia, the policy director of the Civil Rights Agenda. “They are just using the black people as an excuse.”

And once again for you white gay peeps still pouring gasoline on the hell fire flames of gay bigotry against African-Americans, 60% of Black Illinois residents supported marriage equality with many of them being high profile ones like Desiree Rogers, the CEO of Johnson Publishing Company, Linda Johnson Rice, the chair of Johnson Publishing Company, the Rev Dr. Otis Moss III, the pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ, retired shortstop Ernie Banks, Andrea Zopp, the president and CEO of the Chicago Urban League just to name a few      

So for those of you in the Illinois gay community still squawking about who not to support in the next election cycle, primary challenge or you're petulantly not going to support issues of importance to the African-American community in retaliation for this setback, my suggestion is you don't let the white privilege you're swimming in be the catalyst for writing a political check your azzes will regret cashing.  

Seems y'all need to be focusing your attention moreso on the problem you have with white people supporting marriage equality.  You need to do a better job building support for marriage equality amongst your fellow white people, get busy building that coalition of progressive ministers you'll need to fight the bigoted ones and quit scapegoating Black people for your failure to come up with an argument that resonates with your fellow white folks.

Because frankly, Black people, and especially Black TBLG folks are sick and tired of being blamed for your failure to do precisely that.