When Does Finishing In Third Place NOT Get You An Olympic Spot?

The various trials and selection processes to assemble our US Olympic team are happening as you read this in preparation for Team USA to go for gold in Sochi next month.

In many cases the criteria has been clearly laid our for every Olympic hopeful to know.  Perform at the trials and finish in the top three and you make the team.  In other sports the federation will select the athletes who go like in hockey or the bobsled and luge team.

So what many people are asking is how does a figure skater who finished fourth at the 2010 Vancouver Games, but didn't fall during her more difficult routine at the US Figure Skating National Championships and finishes third get bumped off the Olympic team by someone who finished fourth during the same event in Boston, has no Olympic experience and fell twice during her program?

And yeah, I'm going there.  How do you explain that snubbing US Figure Skating Association, when the skater who finished third was Asian but the one who cratered is a blonde haired blue eyed white female who has been the focus of NBC's pre-Olympic marketing of the games and spoken out against the anti-LGBT laws in Russia?

Can you say vanillacentric privilege?   Thought you could.  

That's the question many people, and especially those of us who are non-white are asking in the wake of 20 year old Mirai Nagasu being passed over by the US Figure Skating Association and named an alternate on the team in favor of Ashley Wagner, the skater who fell twice during last weekend's US Championships that determined who would make the Sochi Olympic squad. 

Unlike the US Track and Field trials and other sports, where the first three people across the line at the trials regardless of past performance make the squad, USA figure skating takes past performances into account and gives them an unspecified weight in the selection process.

Did vanillacentric privilege and bias become one of those unspecified factors that influenced the process?

Wagner was the two time defending US champion entering the TD Garden before that event.  She was a fourth-place finisher at the 2012 world championships and the fifth-place holder at the 2013 worlds.  But she cratered badly during this event and even admitted the pressure got to her.

So if Wagner can't handle the pressure of the US Championships that determined who makes the US Olympic skating team going to Sochi, what makes her and the US Figure Skating Association think that she'll do any better when the pressure is ramped up several more notches and she's in the Iceberg Skating Arena at Sochi with medals on the line.having to compete against defending Olympic champion Kim Yu-Na of South Korea and defending Vancouver Games silver medalist Mao Asada of Japan?  

Meanwhile Nagasu arrives in Boston without a coach, people gave her no chance of making the Olympic team, but when the pressure was on she performed when Ashley Wagner didn't.  As a matter of fact she was the only person out of the top four that didn't fall during this competition.   That says a lot about the mental toughness of Nagasu.

But barring an injury to the other three, Nagasu will not get the opportunity to go for the medal that eluded her in Vancouver four years ago. 

And once again, a bitter lesson of American society gets harshly taught to its non-white residents.  No matter how good the person of color is or they earn their spot through their performance, merit  and hard work, whiteness will find a way to take it from them, hand it to a white person who didn't earn it and then try to justify and spin the reason they did so.

And FYI, here were the scores for the final night of competition.

1. Gracie Gold 211.69
2. Polina Edmunds 193.63
3. Mirai Nagasu 190.74
4. Ashley Wagner 182.74
 
If Wagner couldn't handle the pressure last weekend, that's nothing compared to the pressure and scrutiny that will be on her from now until the Sochi Games are over. 

Wagner has to prove to casual fans who feel like Nagasu was screwed (and I'm in that camp) that she belongs on the team.  There's also a lot of people that will be tuned in February 19-20 ready to pounce if she falls on her pretty behind once again and fails to make the Olympic medal podium.

I have a feeling karma will be making an appearance in Sochi wearing figure skates.

  

Gay, Inc Needs A Trans Rooney Rule

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

White Perp Knocks Out The Racist 'Knockout Game' Narrative

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

MHP Discusses Structual Racism In The Classroom

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

MHP's Letter To Santa

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

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

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

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

According To The GOP, Racism Is Over

And Rosa Parks ended it 58 years ago today when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, AL bus, thus triggering the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

Oh really?  Next you'll be trying to sell me those GOP revisionist history woof tickets that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was a Republican. 

Oh snap, y'all have already tried to peddle that revisionist history lie too.  

The sad truth is that racism is alive and well in the United States and gleefully peddled and enabled by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court.   The National Conservative White People's Party (AKA the Republicans) as it has done since 1964 keeps pimping white resentment for electoral gain.

Don't even get me started about Sen. Rand Paul's disastrous appearance at Howard University earlier this year or your continued GOP fails at outreach to my community.  .

Racism = prejudice plus systemic power.   Those of us in reality based world who remember our Sociology 101 or keep getting macroaggressively and microaggressively getting slapped by it know this to be painfully true.  

And we non-white Americans know in a United States in which the demographics are stacked against American whites to the point they will be a minority in this nation by 2040, they are already resorting to underhanded and unconstitutional tactics to keep their death grip on political power.

The GOP, the Tea Klux Klan and the conservative movement is doubling down on it, so sadly, racism is not even close to be being over in the United States.

We're also regressing toward making Dr. King's dream a reality.  


TransGriot Update:  You knew Black Twitter was going to put their collective foot in the GOP anus.  Within minutes @Feminista Jones created the #RacismEndedWhen hashtag that Black Twitter is using to gleefully lambaste the GOP over their once again demonstrated ignorance of history and their annoying tendency to attempt to use liberal-progressive heroes to justify or co-sign their racism. 

'Race-Themed' Movie My Azz, USA Today

I was not surprised when I heard that The Best Man Holiday was kicking butt and taking names at the multiplexes during its opening weekend.  

I said this when I wrote about it in my SUF post on Friday.

Already checked and many of the theaters I like to hit are pretty much sold out, so don't be surprised on Monday if you hear that it was the number one movie this weekend.

Thor made a last minute run to beat The Best Man Holiday in this weekend's money race by earning $38 million to BHM's $31 million, but even Miss Cleo and her defunct Psychic Hotline could have predicted a sequel to a beloved classic African-American movie with the same star studded cast that we've been waiting 14 years to see again would clock serious dollars. 

It actually made more money Friday night ($10.7 million) than Thor did ($10.4 million) before the screen advantage kicked in.   The Best Man Holiday was on far less screens (2024) than Thor's 3841, cost only $17 million to make, didn't have the same advertising budget as that (ho hum) comic book movie but still made big bucks.. 

So why was USA Today hatin' on the Best Man Holiday by calling it a race-themed movie? 

Yeah, you knew Black Twitter would put its collective foot in USA Today's and writer Scott Bowles' azz for that full of fail original headline and article as the race-themed Black blogosphere came for them in rapid succession. 

Birth of A Nation is a race-themed movie, Scott Bowles.  The Best Man Holiday isn't.  .

While the movie had a predominately African-American cast, the movie themes covered universal issues of friendship, love, family and loss just to name a few and will easily top the $34 million the original movie made back in 1999.

If Hollywood would make more movies in which I can see myself reflected on the silver screen in everyday situations as The Best Man Holiday does, I'd be more inclined to spend money at the multiplex.  I'd be even more inclined to do so if that particular African-American film is written and directed by someone besides Tyler Perry. 

And surprise surprise, even non-white folks would come to see them if you spent as much advertising dollars promoting them as you do on movies like Thor.
I'd also make some calls to the agents of Nia Long and Larenz Tate and work on getting that sequel to Love Jones made or call a few Black novelists and enter into discussions with them to turn their novels into movies.   


But if you're insistent on doing another comic book movie, I have two words for you if you want to make money:  Black Panther. 

Would love to see who would play him or what Wakanda looks like on the silver screen.

What We Has Here Is A Fauxgressive Failure to Communicate 4

Been a while since I posted one of these, but had another FB run in with someone in a trans group no less named Jocelynne Valeta who failed to understand that 'anti-racism' doesn't mean you don't talk about racism and doing so is 'being a victim.'

This is the comment that started the thread that I wrote the post about transpeople of color not having the luxury of separating race and ethnicity from our trans status that far too many white people don't (or refuse to) understand.     

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.

My immediate response to her was- Transpeople of color do not have the luxury of separating our race from our trans status. They are inextricably part of us.

She made some comments that she subsequently deleted before I had a chance to copy the thread for posterity before she jumped back in it later.    Here's the thread  

• Black Transmen Resources No Restrictions:) Hope you can benefit from the core of our intent:
• 

  Black Transmen Resources Our conference theme this year is "One Earth. One People. One Love." inviting trans and gender non-conforming individuals and our family, friends and community allies to gather, educate, learn, build and grow together in unity.

  
  
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  Monica Roberts Transpeople of color do not have the luxury of separating our race from our trans status. They are inextricably part of us.
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  Monica Roberts 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

  
  
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  Monica Roberts Sadly, yes, it is is and has been for over 4 centuries...

  
  
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  Monica Roberts You're not even paying attention to what I'm trying to point out. Your lived experience doesn't trump 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..

  
  
• 

  Monica Roberts FYI some of the worst race riots during the civil rights movements happened in NORTHERN cities
  
  After this comment, here's where she jumps back into the thread after hastily running from the conversation in the first place and decides to start flinging insults that I ignored 
• 

  Jocelynn Veleta the bottom line is this is a support group your so caught up in playing the role of the victim you cant see here and now... you cant see that racism and hate no longer is a problem for just a minority; we all face this problem as a whole society and all are victims. we can all stop being victims and stand up TOGETHER or we can stay divided and poke at other minorities.
  
  Now the group admin jumps in: 

  
  
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  Barbara Barrett ADMIN: Being trans AND a person of colour brings it's own special brands of problems, and only the oppressed can define oppression - would you like a Cis person deciding what's transphobic? If I see one more HINT of racism here I shall be very angry!

  
  
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  Monica Roberts You're the one that posted this Jocelynn
  
  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...See More

  
  
• 

  Jocelynn Veleta thank you for saving that i am offended when u break up a support group to argue race

  
  
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  Jocelynn Veleta this time im really done replying ill leave it for moderators and if ya want to boot me for being all anti-racist go ahead

  45 minutes ago · Like
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  Monica Roberts And 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 was, and then running when you get called on it.

  
  
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  Aleka McAdams Intersectionality, yo. We aren't trans in a vacuum. It's not about dividing the community. It's about recognizing that different people within the community have different challenges. Just look at the statistics of violence against trans women of color versus white trans women.

  
  
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  Monica Roberts Race and class and how it affects trans people of color is an issue worthy of discussion in a trans group too. Who told you that lie it wasn't?

  
  
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  Jocelynn Veleta never said it wasnt, what you were trying to do was break apart the trans community by race while i said if we all stuck together we would work more things out

  
  
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  Jocelynn Veleta also you dont need to be attacking me you also took a comment on a black trans group and used it to further YOUR argument with me about race

  
  
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  Monica Roberts anti-racist? Jocelynn, you aren't even close to being that 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.

  
  
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  Jocelynn Veleta i never once argued about race, i argued that adding a race label to a Trans group does not make it a safe atmosphere for all trans, it does the opposite of uniting us

  
  
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  Barbara Barrett bloody hell, look luvs it is really really simple - only people who experience something are able to explain it to those who do not experience it - these groups serve that function because from them the rest of the community learns! That is not racist, nor is it trying to break the community.

  
  
• 

  Monica Roberts and as I said simply earlier in the thread and will expand on.
  
  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 affect how we experience a gender transition.

  
  
• 

  Jocelynn Veleta you can quote half my text but not the other then leave out the other and use your context to say i didn't acknowledge what i actually did so your insulting yourself by sounding stupid not me. i never minimized oppression i did the opposite and pointed out that everyone has struggles instead of them seperating us they should unite us

  
  
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  Monica Roberts Girlfriend, better hit Google before you step to me. I lecture colleges on these issues.

  
  
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  Barbara Barrett THIS STOPS NOW

  
  
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  Barbara Barrett 5. This is a no-hate zone. Personal attacks will not tolerated.

  
  
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  Barbara Barrett 3. Content intended to evoke hate against others will be removed and the person that posted it will be banned.

  
  
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  Barbara Barrett These rules are in the Pinned Post at the head of the page

  
  
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  Barbara Barrett I do not _want_ to ban anyone, I'd much rather everyone took a deep breath and let it go; and try to see it from the other side - you might even grow

  
  
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  Black Transmen Resources No worries friends. The topic of racism and appreciating difference is a long term task. It is a plus for us to have dialogue around these issues so that we may overcome them and to fully love all of who we are. This is also great headway in topics being discussed at our conference. "One Earth. One People. One Love." I see no need to ban. If we do that then we miss the opportunity of growth.

  
  
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  Barbara Barrett I'd like to be kept apprised of these efforts because I believe they're important to the whole community so I've sent you a friend request Black Transmen Resources which I hope you'll accept
  
  ***

And that's when I jumped out of it because had I said anything else I probably would have set off another round and probably been banned from the group 

But it's just another day of a Black person saying something white person doesn't like or that doesn't fit their vanillacentric privileged worldview and getting insulted for it.

Sigh.