Why I Can't Stand The NRA

No sooner than I'd hit the SAVE button on my Virginia Tech post did the National Rifle Association chime in with their bull feces assertion that if the students had been armed the tragedy wouldn't have happened.

Just what I want to see. Drunken fratboys indiscriminately firing 9MM pistols at campus gatherings.

I believe if you want to have a gun, that's your prerogative. My dad owned one and so did my grandfathers. I owned a BB gun and was taught how to properly use it by my grandfather. Like 73% of the American population I want common sense restrictions on guns. I don't think anybody should have AK-47's, Uzis or M-16's since those weapons are only designed for one purpose: to kill mass quantities of humans as quickly as possible.

My dislike of the NRA actually started in February 2000 when I came to Frankfort to help lobby for passage of a civil rights bill. We were done with our appointments by 1 PM and decided to sit in the gallery and watch the Kentucky House session play out on the floor. I'd noticed Lexington and Louisville police officers meandering in the Capitol building and discovered they were there in support of a bill that then state rep Eleanor Jordan (D-Louisville) was sponsoring.

The Louisville and Lexington PD's were seeing the same guns repeatedly being confiscated in commissions of crimes and were destroying them after the criminal cases were disposed of. Injunctions were filed to stop it after it became public knowledge that's what was happening to those guns. Rep. Jordan's bill would simply give them the authority to do so.

You would think that a bill that helps the police do their jobs more effectively and takes weapons out of the hands of criminals would be a slam dunk with 'law and order' Republicans, right?

Not in GOP Bizarro World. For some reason this was seen as 'gun control legislation' that got a full frontal assault from the NRAoids in the Kentucky House. I and the Louisville and Lexington officers in attendance watched dumbfounded over the next ninety minutes as this bill was attacked. The surreal nature the debate took at one point made me wonder if I was watching aTwilight Zone episode. One rural Kentucky legislator suggested in response to one of Rep. Jordan's points about the different ways rural and urban peeps view guns that the NRA come into the 'hood and do gun safety training.

Rep. Jordan pointed out along with other urban legislators that the kids could probably teach the NRA instructors a few things about guns they didn't know. They turned deaf ears on the concerns of urban legislators about the toll gun violence was taking on our kids and forced votes on two amendments that went down urban-rural/suburban lines. The amendments basically gutted Rep. Jordan's bill to the point where she ended up voting against the bill she authored. To add insult to injury the amendments not only contained language banning Kentucky police departments from tracking the serial numbers on confiscated weapons but ordered then to be turned over to the state police for sale at auction. As the urban legislators feared two of those confiscated weapons sold at a state police auction were used in commission of a series of murders in Louisville later that year.

Rep. Jordan was majorly upset about what happened to her bill along with the police officers in the gallery and let them have it on the floor. Little did any of us know that when she attempted a few months later to become the first African-American elected to Congress from Kentucky a snippet of the news film of her excoriating the NRAoids was used in an Anne Northup attack ad aimed at her.

Like many issues in this country gun control has the volatile element of race in it. Your attitude about guns in the United States depends on your race, gender and where you live. If you're white, male and a suburban/rural dweller nine times out of ten you probably have an NRA sticker on your car. If you're a city dweller like I am you most likely won't.

The NRA knows they have a serious image problem in my community. Various NRA leaders such as Charlton Heston, Wayne LaPierre and Ted Nugent have made racist statements over the years and that perception crystallized over the last decade thanks to their overwhelming support of GOP candidates.

The NRA trotted out Karl Malone and former US House Rep JC Watts (R-OK) several years ago in an 'I'm The NRA' ad campaign attempting to counter the views of many African-Americans that they are a racist organization. They are still deafeningly silent on the issue that matters most to African-Americans: ratcheting down the level of gun violence in our communities. Their simplistic 'buy more guns' spin doesn't wash.

I'm sick of the myopic attitude that the gun peeps have toward sensible gun legislation. Unfortunately the NRA lobby has become a powerful one on the Hill and in many states that many politicians on both sides of the aisle are loath to cross. Anyone who criticizes them is labeled an 'anti-gun extremist'. If that criticism comes from a celeb or a media pundit they are bombarded with sometimes profane e-mails from the pro-gun zealots. If by some miracle politicians get some cojones and pass sensible legislation like the Brady Bill, it gets attacked and watered down and the politicians who passed it find themselves either threatened by the NRA or in a political race with a well funded opponent in the next election cycle.

For years people have worked to have peeps with mental illnesses added to the National Registry of peeps banned from purchasing guns. The NRA has opposed that.
Now a person with a history of mental illness passed a watered down gun check and used those weapons he purchased to kill 31 peeps and himself on the Virgina Tech campus. While those students were grieving, a man who got a bad performance review killed his supervisor and held a woman hostage at NASA's JSC campus in Houston. This incident ironically took place on the seventh anniversary of the Columbine High School tragedy.

How many more lives must we lose before the NRA gets over their fetishistic love affair with guns and hiding behind the Second Amendment to justify a gun culture that is making us less safe?

By the way, when is Vice President Cheney scheduled for his NRA gun safety training class?

Happy Birthday 'Lufer'

With all the negativity that April 20 is associated with in terms of the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado and it being Adolf Hitler's birthday I thought it was time to point out something positive that happened on this date.

Luther Ronzoni Vandross was born in New York City in 1951.

Boy do I miss 'Lufer' as one of my friends used to pronounce his name. I remember when I first heard him singing during the disco era on Change's 'The Glow Of Love and Searchin' tracks and my reaction when I walked into Soundwaves and saw his Never Too Much album being sold.

There are very few artists that I buy their albums, much less debut ones without listening to it first but I did in this case. I wasn't disappointed.

From that point on every time he released an album or CD I was plunking down cash on the counters of my local record stores to purchase them. I attended EVERY Luther Vandross concert during the 80s and up until 1991.

Yeah, I'm a huge Luther fan. The man could SANG. The 25 million albums sold, the 14 albums ithat hit either platinum or multi-platinum status, eight Grammy Awards and other awards he won over his career are a testament to that. He had much success in the commercial jingle arena as well. It's also impossible to count the number of people who got busy to his music or how many children were conceived as a result of their parents listening to Luther's romantic songs.

Even the 1999 movie The Wood alluded to this when two of the characters, Alicia and Mike ended up slow dancing at a junior high school dance to Luther's 'If This World Were Mine'. They later remembered the moment as high school juniors. They were in Alicia's bedroom when the song played on the radio just before she and Mike lost their virginity together.



It's ironic that the lifelong bachelor who became synonymous with love, romance and relationships was himself always in search of them. He was consistently dogged by gay rumors which he vehemently denied during his lifetime. He was posthumously outed after his death due to the complications from the debilitating stroke he suffered in April 2003.

He was interviewed in May 2004 on Oprah and at the end of it sang "I believe in the power of love" in reference to his 1991 hit song 'Power of Love'. I cried for ten minutes after hearing that and hoped like many Luther fans that he was on the road to recovery. Unfortunately he took a turn for the worse a year later and passed away July 1, 2005.

Luther is no longer here with us, but his music, the fond memories I have of those concerts and the memory of his Oprah television appearance will stay with me forever.

Nikki Giovanni's Encounter With Cho

Professor Had Expelled Gunman From Class

By ALLEN G. BREED
AP National Writer

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- The mood in the basketball arena was
defeated, funereal. Nikki Giovanni seemed an unlikely source of
strength for a Virginia Tech campus reeling from the depravity of one
of its own.

Tiny, almost elfin, her delivery blunted by the loss of a lung,
Giovanni brought the crowd at the memorial service to its feet and
whipped mourners into an almost evangelical fervor with her
words: "We are the Hokies. We will prevail, we will prevail. We are
Virginia Tech."

Nearly two years earlier, Giovanni had stood up to Cho Seung-Hui
before he drenched the campus in blood. Her comments Tuesday showed
that the man who had killed 32 students and teachers had not killed
the school's spirit.

"We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid," the 63-year-old
poet with the close-cropped, platinum hair told the grieving
crowd. "We are better than we think, not quite what we want to be. We
are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to
invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this
sadness."
In September 2005, Cho was enrolled in Giovanni's introduction to creative writing class. From the beginning, he began building a wall between himself and the rest of the class.

He wore sunglasses to class and pulled his maroon knit cap down low
over his forehead. When she tried to get him to participate in class
discussion, his answer was silence.

"Sometimes, students try to intimidate you," Giovanni told The
Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday. "And I just
assumed that he was trying to assert himself."

But then female students began complaining about Cho.

About five weeks into the semester, students told Giovanni that Cho
was taking photographs of their legs and knees under the desks with
his cell phone. She told him to stop, but the damage was already done.

Female students refused to come to class, submitting their work by
computer instead. As for Cho, he was not adding anything to the
classroom atmosphere, only detracting.

Police asked Giovanni not to disclose the exact content or nature of
Cho's poetry. But she said it was not violent like other writings
that have been circulating.

It was more invasive.

"Violent is like, `I'm going to do this,'" said Giovanni, a three-
time NAACP Image Award winner who is sometimes called "the princess
of black poetry." This was more like a personal violation, as if Cho
were objectifying his subjects, "doing thing to your body parts."

"It's not like, `I'll rip your heart out,'" she recalled. "It's that,
`Your bra is torn, and I'm looking at your flesh.'"

His work had no meter or structure or rhyme scheme. To Giovanni, it
was simply "a tirade."

"There was no writing. I wasn't teaching him anything, and he didn't
want to learn anything," she said. "And I finally realized either I
was going to lose my class, or Mr. Cho had to leave."

Giovanni wrote a letter to then-department head Lucinda Roy, who
removed Cho.

Roy alerted student affairs, the dean's office, even the campus
police, but each said there was nothing they could do if Cho had made
no overt threats against himself or others. So Roy took him on as a
kind of personal tutor.

"At first he would hardly say anything, and I was lucky to get, say,
in 30 minutes, four or five monosyllabic answers from him," she
said. "But bit by bit, he began to tell me things."

During their hourlong sessions, Roy encouraged Cho to express himself
in writing. She would compose poems with him, contributing to the
works herself and taking dictation from him.

"I tried to keep him focused on things that were outside the self a
little bit," said Roy, who has been at Virginia Tech for 22
years. "Because he seemed to be running inside circles in a maze when
he was talking about himself."

He was "very guarded" when it came to his family. But she got him to
open up about his feelings of isolation.

"You seem so lonely," she told him once. "Do you have any friends?"

"I am lonely," he replied. "I don't have any friends."

Suitemates and others have said Cho rejected their overtures of
friendship. Roy sensed that Cho's isolation might be largely self-
imposed.

To her, it was as if he were two people.

"He was actually quite arrogant and could be quite obnoxious, and was
also deeply, it seemed, insecure," she said.

But when she wrote to Cho about his behavior in Giovanni's class, Roy
received what she described as "a pretty strident response."

"It was a vigorous defense of the self," she said. "He clearly felt
that he was in the right and that the professor was in the wrong. It
was the kind of tone that I would never have used as an undergraduate
at a faculty member."

She felt he fancied himself a loner, but she wasn't sure what
underlay that feeling.

"I mean, if you see yourself as a loner, sometimes that means you
feel very isolated and insecure and inferior. Or it can mean that you
feel quite superior to others, because you've distanced yourself. And
I think he went from one extreme to another."

When the semester ended, so did Roy's and Cho's collaboration. She
went on leave and thought he had graduated.

When she and Giovanni learned of the shootings and heard a
description of the gunman, they immediately thought of Cho.

Roy wonders now whether things would have turned out differently had
she continued their sessions. But Giovanni sees no reason for people
who had interactions with Cho to beat themselves up.

"I know that there's a tendency to think that everybody can get
counseling or can have a bowl of tomato soup and everything is going
to be all right," she said. "But I think that evil exists, and I
think that he was a mean person."

Giovanni encountered Cho only once after she removed him from class.
She was walking down a campus path and noticed him coming toward her.
They maintained eye contact until passing each other.

Giovanni, who had survived lung cancer, was determined she would not
blink first.

"I was not going to look away as if I were afraid," she said. "To me
he was a bully, and I had no fear of this child."

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

The Virginia Tech Tragedy

College is supposed to be an overall positive experience. You're finally getting to sort everything out in terms of what you want to do in life, where you're headed and learning and growing as a young adult while having some fun in the process.

For many peeps it's the first time you get to step out, live away from home and get your first taste of adulthood. It's the last time in your life when the only responsibilities you have are to get up, go to class and study your butt off unless you also have a job you're juggling to help pay your tuition.

I guess it's why I enjoy walking around on various college campuses when I do follow Dawn to various fencing tournaments. It takes me back to my own college days in that respect. It's hard for me to imagine what it would have been like to have that peace of mind shattered by a gunman suddenly popping up in one of my classes, firing shots at me and my classmates, then to discover a day or so later that he was a classsmate that peeps had been seeing disturbing behavior patterns about for two years leading up to that horrific incident.

Even the folks who weren't in those Norris Hall classrooms that morning are haunted by 'That could have been me' thoughts. I can only imagine what was going through people's minds as their buildings were on lockdown wondering if the incident was over of if their building was next on the shooter's target list.

What about the peeps who for some reason decided not to go to class that morning? I know they feel just as hurt as the gun shop owner who sold Cho the weapons he used.

How would I feel about that? How do you put that behind you and move on with llfe, if you ever do? It's also tough at that age to lose a classmate because up until you get past your college years and your ten-year high school reunion you have this false feeling of immortality. You walk around in your late teens and 20's with this attitude that you have plenty of time to accomplish the things you want to do or get your life together.


There are 32 people that have been tragically taken from us including Cho. But to the Virginia Tech students who may be reading this blog, life does go on. In 1966 The University of Texas suffered a similar tragedy. It took a while but people eventually forgot until Monday that a deadly shooting occurred on its campus. It brought back the flood of memories in Austin and on the UT campus of what Charles Whitman had done almost 41 years earlier.

It was interesting to read Nikki Giovanni's account of her 2005 encounter with Cho in her writing class she was teaching at Virginia Tech. I think what needs to happen in the wake of this tragedy is to strenghten the ability of college professors and administrators to compel folks with disturbing behavior patterns to undergo counseling once its verified.

Would that have prevented the shooting? That's a debatable question. As far as the gun issue I'm going to deal with that another time. In this post I want to continue focusing on the 32 people we lost, the folks at Virginia Tech and their families who are grieving and trying to make sense out of an irrational situation.

We will never know what types of contributions those fallen people would have made to our society and others around the world. We can only guess about that as we mourn them, memorialize them and sadly have to move on.

"The Revs" DO Speak For Many African-Americans

I continue to be amused and amazed by the vitriolic hatred that comes out of many conservapundits mouths whenever "The Revs" are asked to comment on issues like the recent Don Imus flap.

"The Revs" I'm speaking about are the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. It seems that many whites can't conceal their outright hatred for these gentlemen. I even heard Evan Cohen on Fox Sports Radio rant repeatedly for three hours during a third shift show early Monday morning about his 'disgust' as he put it for Rev. Jesse attending the Jackie Robinson memorial event in Los Angeles. (News flash, Evan. Rev. Jackson preached the 1972 funeral for Jackie Robinson and is a friend of the family, so explain to me why shouldn't he be there?)

It seems as though these peeps have selective memories when it comes to The Revs. In Rev. Jackson's case they never fail to bring up the 1984 'Hymietown' comment but their memory banks suddenly get fuzzy when it's mentioned that in 1983 Rev. Jackson traveled to Damascus, Syria to rescue a downed US Navy pilot, ran for president in 1984 and 1988 and rescued hundreds of hostages Saddam was detaining in Iraq in 1990.

Rev. Sharpton constantly has the Tawana Brawley case thrown in his face, but he too has run for public office and has been a thoughtful and eloquent spokesperson along with Rev. Jackson on various issues. I guess y'all forgot about the thunderous speech he made at the 2004 Democratic Convention calling out the Bush misadministration.

What, y'all gonna withdraw your support for Senator Barack Obama and take back everything you said about him if The Revs come out and openly support him in his presidential bid? Then again I wouldn't be suprised if that happened considering the level of the negativity spewed at Reverends Sharpton and Jackson.

The bottom line is that no matter how much Hateraid you drink and spit back at The Revs, they have much love and respect from many African-Americans. They have been on the frontlines for decades doing the African-American community's civil rights grunt work. That's more than we can say for the Negroes that are constantly trotted out by right-wingers as examples of peeps THEY think should be our leaders and THEY think we should listen to like Condoleezza Rice and others.

You don't get to make that call, we do. As long as Condi and company are supporting positions, people and politicians that work against the interests of African-Americans, they'll continue to have zero credibility in our eyes.

If you're distressed that The Revs have that status, then your media outlets need to start calling the peeps that are the African-American community's ELECTED leaders in the Congressional Black Caucus to appear on the Sunday morning talk shows and other events. They need to talk to the next NAACP president. That person has juice as the head of one of the oldest civil rights organizations in our country and has a membership that crosses the spectrum of Black America. They need to talk to Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League which encompasses our business leaders. You need to have frequent chats with Cathy Hughes, the head of Radio One, the seventh largest radio corporation communications company in the US, the heads of the various Divine Nine fraternities and sororities, the editors of Jet, Ebony, Essence and Black Enterprise magazines, et cetera.

But since the media likes controversy, they'll continue to call on "The Revs" for their opinions on various issues. Bear in mind as you throw things at your TV that they DO speak for many African-American most of the time on many issues.

Sometimes they even speak for the TransGriot as well.

Identity Construction Among Transgender People Of Color Study

TransGriot note: I met Kylan during TSTBC 2005 and have participated in his research project. There is a huge need to get information out there about African-American transgender peeps and other t-peeps of color.

f you are a trans identified person of color I would love to hear from you and have you share your experiences. I will be traveling the US (Midwest, West Coast, and Southwest) and Vancouver, Canada in May and June, as well as New York in August. I will also be conducting phone interviews over the next year.

I am a FtM, queer, and anti-racist identified graduate student in Sociology at SIUC. My research is in the area of gender and racial stratification, how this is experienced in the transgender communities, and how this affects perceptions of self.

My research project is called "Identity Construction Among Transgender People of Color". If you have any questions about me or my research please contact me at kylan.devries@gmail.com or my faculty advisor, Professor Rob Benford at rbenford@siu.edu

This research explores the stories/narratives of Trans People of Color
(inclusive term to include all identities on the transgender
spectrum), how you perceive yourself, and how others perceive you. I am particularly interested in how racial identity affects perception of self during and after transitioning (I recognize that transitioning is subjective and may not have an end for some). Participation is completely voluntary and confidential

To participate please contact me:
Kylan M. de Vries
kylan.devries@gmail.com or kylan33@siu.edu
(618) 303-4767


This project has been reviewed and approved by the SIUC Human Subjects Committee. Questions concerning your rights as a participant in this research may be addressed to the Committee Chairperson, Office of Research Development and Administration, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901-4709. Phone (618) 453-4533. E-mail: siuhsc@siu.edu

Say It Loud: I'm Elite And Proud!

Why is the country run by people who celebrate mediocrity and recruit from Pat Robertson's law school? Because the right-wing crusade to demonize elites has succeeded.

By Bill Maher
From Salon.com

Say it loud: I'm elite and proud! The right-wing crusade to demonize elites has paid off. Now the country's run by incompetents who make mediocrity a job requirement and recruit from Pat Robertson's law school. New rule: Now that liberals have taken back the word liberal, they also have to take back the word "elite." By now you've heard the constant right-wing attacks on the "elite," or as it's otherwise known, "hating." They've had it up to their red necks with the "elite media." The "liberal elite." Who may or may not be part of the "Washington elite." A subset of the "East Coast elite." Which is influenced by "the Hollywood elite." So basically, unless you're a shitkicker from Kansas, you're with the terrorists. If you played a drinking game in which you did a shot every time Rush Limbaugh attacked someone for being "elite" you'd almost be as wasted as Rush Limbaugh.

I don't get it: In other fields -- outside of government -- elite is a good thing, like an elite fighting force. Tiger Woods is an elite golfer. If I need brain surgery, I'd like an elite doctor. But in politics, elite is bad -- the elite aren't down-to-earth and accessible like you and me and President Shit-for-Brains. But when the anti-elite crowd demonizes the elite, what they're actually doing is embracing incompetence. Now, I know what you're thinking: That doesn't sound like our president -- ignoring intelligence.

You know how whenever there's a major Bush administration scandal it always traces back to some incompetent political hack appointment and you think to yourself, "Where are they getting these screw-ups from?" Well, now we know: from Pat Robertson. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. Take Monica Goodling, who before she resigned last week because of the U.S. attorneys scandal, was the third most powerful official in the Justice Department of the United States. Thirty-three, and though she had never even worked as a prosecutor, she was tasked with overseeing the job performance of all 95 U.S. attorneys. How do you get to be such a top dog at 33? By acing Harvard, or winning scholarship prizes? No, Goodling did her undergraduate work at Messiah College -- home of the "Fighting Christies," who wait-listed me, the bastards -- and then went on to attend Pat Robertson's law school.

I'm not kidding, Pat Robertson, the man who said gay people at DisneyWorld would cause "earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor," has a law school. It's called Regent. Regent University School of Law, and it shares a campus with Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network studios. It's the first time ever that a TV network spun off a law school. And that's all America needs -- more Christians and more lawyers. You see, years ago Pat became concerned that our legal system was coddling criminals, forgiving them instead of meting out that Old Testament "eye for an eye" justice Jesus Christ never shuts up about. So Pat did what any red-blooded, Hindu-hating, gay-baiting, glue-sniffing Christian would do: He started his own law school. And what kid wouldn't want to attend? It's three years and you only have to read one book. The school says its mission is to create an army of evangelical lawyers, integrating the Bible and public policy, and producing graduates that provide "Christian leadership to change the world." Presumably from round back to flat.

U.S. News and World Report, which does the definitive ranking of colleges, lists Regent as a tier-four school, which is the lowest score it gives. It's not a hard school to get into. You have to renounce Satan and draw a pirate on a matchbook. This is for the people who couldn't get into the University of Phoenix.


But there's more! As there inevitably is with the Bush administration. Turns out she's not the only one. Since 2001, 150 graduates of Regent University have been hired by the Bush administration. And people wonder why things are so screwed up. Hell, we probably invaded Iraq because one of these clowns read the map wrong. Forget religion for a second, we're talking about a top Justice Department official who went to a college founded by a TV host. Would you send your daughter to Maury Povich University? And if you did, would you expect her to get a job at the White House? I'd be surprised if she got a job on the "Maury" show. And then it hit me: This is why Bush scandals never catch on with the public -- they're all evangelicals of course, and nobody is having sex.

So there you have it: It turns out that the Justice Department is entirely staffed with Jesus freaks from a televangelist diploma mill in Virginia Beach. Most of them young women with very little knowledge of the law, but a very strong sense of doing what they're told. Like the Manson family, but with cleaner hair. In 200 years we've gone from "We the people" to "Up with people." From the best and brightest to dumb and dumber. And, come on, America is a big, well-known, first-rate country, and when we're looking for people to help run it, we should aim higher than the girl who answers the phone at the fake abortion clinic. It's not just that this president has surrounded himself with a Texas echo chamber of war criminals and religious fanatics. It's that they're sooooo mediocre. This is America. We should be getting robbed and fucked over by the best.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked at a hearing, "Should we be concerned with the experience level of the people who are making these highly significant decisions?" But in the Bush administration experience doesn't matter. All that matters is loyalty to Bush and Jesus, in that order. And where better to find people dumb enough to believe in George W. Bush than Pat Robertson's law school. The problem here in America isn't that the country is being run by elites. It's that it's being run by a bunch of hayseeds. And by the way, the lawyer Monica Goodling just hired to keep her ass out of jail went to a real law school.

Bill Maher is the host of HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher.

Roseanne Has A Point

While interviewing Jasmyne Cannick as a guest host for a radio show on KCAA-AM in San Bernardino, CA last week, Roseanne Barr made the following comments about gay peeps.

Never once in my 54 years have I ever once heard a gay or lesbian person who’s politically active say one thing about anything that was not about them. They don’t care about minimum wage, they don’t care about any other group other than their own self because you know, some people say being gay and lesbian is a totally narcissistic thing and sometimes I wonder.

I’ve never heard any of them say anything except for “accept me ‘cause I’m gay.”
It’s just, it’s screwed. It’s no different than the evangelicals, it’s the same mindset. They want you to accept Jesus and you guys want us to all believe it’s ok to be gay. And a lot of us, a lot of them, I do, I don’t give a damn who anybody has sex with, as long as they’re not underage and an animal. I don’t give a damn, it’s none of my damn business. I’m just sick of all the divisiveness, it’s not getting any of us anywhere.

The Victory Fund swiftly released a statement condemning remarks and quickly trotted out openly gay Alabama state legislator Patricia Todd and her work to establish a state minimum wage as a example of a gay person who does care about the issues she raised. Here in Kentucky Louisville's Fairness Campaign has consistently lent its voice to a wide range of causes beyond its primary focus on GLBT civil rights issues.

But Roseanne does have a point. There are too many gays who selfishly don't care about any issue other than their own civil rights. Unfortunately there are many African-Americans and others nodding their heads in agreement with her. The transgender community has experienced that attitude all too often since Stonewall and over the last 13 years.

We have a running battle going on with elements of HRC and some gay activists over transgender rights issues. We've been dismissively told by some of them 'it's not our turn' or 'wait until we get OUR rights and we'll come back for you' as they cut transgender peeps out of 'their' hate crimes and employment bills over the last decade at various levels of government. Some have even loudly complained we shouldn't even be part of 'their' movement while getting indignant over African-Americans flipping the script on them. Their panties get all in a bunch when African-Americans say that the GLBT rights movement is not the same as the 60's Civil Rights Movement and they need to stop hijacking 'our' movement.

African-American GLBT/SGL peeps have long had drama with the selfish white gays over racism in the community and their double standards about it. Gay peeps justifiably fumed, ranted and raved over Tim Hardaway's and Isaiah Washington's comments. They generated reams of press releases condemning them while the selfish ones flocked to watch a white gay man named Chuck Knipp do a demeaning minstrel show that African-American peeps have been loudly protesting since 2002. They then have the temerity to tell us to 'get over it'. When we call them on their double standard they spew racist invectives at SQL's African-American critics to defend the gay man doing the minstrel show.

Ain't that a switch.

Black gays, y'all ain't off the hook on this, either. There are many of you who only care about where's the next fabulous party, pageant or ball than being engaged and involved in the community. Before y'all start tripping I know that there are many African-American GLBT peeps who ARE active in various organizations and doing wonderful work to uplift the race. Unfortunately the perception out there is that we're not and don't care.

Roseanne apologized for the statement, but it's that perception and the actions of some gay peeps that led her to make it in the first place.

Black Peeps HAVE Been Discussing Negative Rap Lyrics-Y'all Been Ignoring Us

One of the things that I was amused and pissed to hear during the whole Don Imus flap was the pathetic attempts of conservatives to shift the blame to the African-American community.

The African-American community has been decrying negativity in hip-hop for over a decade. Y'all haven't been paying attention.

In 1993 C. Delores Tucker was calling hip-hop "pornographic filth" and saying it was demeaning and offensive to Black women. She was slammed in 1994 when she objected to nominating Tupac Shakur for an NAACP Image Award.

In 2004 students at Spelman College mobilized and got a Nelly campus appearance cancelled in the wake of his misogynistic Tip Drill video that incensed women at the most famous African-American women's college in the nation. That resulted in Essence Magazine starting their ongoing Take Back The Music Campaign.

Since Oprah is focusing her considerable media platform on this issue we now have White America's undivided attention. Over the next two days Oprah's show will be devoted to broadcasting a town hall meeting entitled After Imus: Now What?

Today's show had some interesting commentary from voices ranging from Maya Angelou and Stanley Crouch to India.Arie and the Rev. Al Sharpton. It was also gratifying to see the Spelman women finally get recognized for what they've been trying to say for several years. Tomorrow's show will have the response from the hip-hop community courtesy of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and rapper Common.

Yes, we have major work to do in our community and thank God this conversation has finally been jumped off. I hope that it results in some substinative sustained action over time. We also need to point out as Asha Bandele did today that the b-word and n-word didn't originate in our communities or with gangsta rappers. African-Americans have had those words hurled at us and suffered assaults on our images since 1619.

We can finger point at each other all day long, the bottom line is that the denigration of our women needs to stop. As C. Delores Tucker once said, "You can't listen to all that language and filth without it affecting you."

Too bad not many peeps were paying attention to Ms. Tucker in 1993. Better late than never.

Jackie Robinson 60th Anniversary

April 15 is not just the day you pay Uncle Sam any taxes you owe. (by the way, you have until midnight Tuesday to do that)

Today also happens to be the 60th anniversary of the day Jackie Robinson stepped onto the diamond at Ebbets Field and broke major league baseball's color line. He went hitless that day, but did score the winning run in his debut game with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In that first season he endured racial epithets, flying cleats, pitchers throwing at his head and legs, catchers spitting on his shoes, hate mail and death threats but let his on the field play speak for him. He won over his teammates and his opponents with his unselfish team play and was named Rookie of the Year. Two years later he was the National League MVP. He compiled a lifetime batting average of .311 and was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.


It's a bittersweet moment as well. Since 1975 the percentage of African-American ballplayers has gone from 28% to 8%, the lowest figure since Major League Baseball was fully integrated in 1959. I started noticing the trend courtesy of Ebony Magazine. Every April they would do a baseball feature story that would list every team by league and division, have photos of all the African-American members of those teams including coaches and predict how the teams would finish. They stopped doing it in the late 80's. Major League Baseball is also alarmed at the declining numbers of African-American fans attending games.

I think part of the problem is that baseball has spent so much time investing in overseas development complexes in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Asia that they've forgotten to show some love in this country as well.

When I played Little League ball, in my neighborhood alone we had two organized leagues to play in, Southeast and Freeway National. Their ballfield complexes were right across the street from each other. The last year I played in 1977 they added two teams in the minor division because they had an explosion of kids in that age bracket wanting to play.

In 1999 I drove by those complexes and was saddened to discover that Freeway National Little League no longer was in existence. Freeway's old complex was also in a state of disrepair. Southeast was considering taking it over but they don't get the amount of kids they used to. Most of the kids are either playing football or at Crestmont Park trying to be like Mike. (or in the case of my old neighborhood like Clyde Drexler.) Yes, TransGriot readers, THAT Clyde Drexler.

African-American major league ballplayers are alarmed about that downward trend. That concern is shared by Jackie's widow Rachel Robinson and the commissioner's office. Minnesota Twins outfielder Torii Hunter has started a program with the goal of increasing the number of African-American kids playing baseball. Another program with the same objective called RBI (Reviving Baseball In Inner Cities) is the most widespread with over 200 affiliates in various cities around the country.

I hope these programs are successful in reversing that negative trend. It would be a travesty for the suffering that Jackie Robinson heroically endured so future generations of African-Americans could play major league baseball to be wasted.

Washington Has Three African-American Head Coaches-What's Wrong With The Rest Of The NCAA?

When 34 year old Salisbury, MD native Tia Jackson was hired by the University of Washington on April 7 it reunited her with an old friend from her Stanford University days in Ty Willingham. In addition to making the former Duke assistant coach just the third head coach in the 22 year history of the program it marked another historic milestone.

The University of Washington became the first NCAA institution to have three African-American coaches at the helm of the major sports of football and basketball at the same time. Willingham runs the football program and UW alum Lorenzo Romar is the men's head basketball coach.

"No question, it's unprecedented," Willingham said. "But in Tia, the number one thing is we have an outstanding person with an unbelievable passion.

He's not biased. Jackson has been well groomed for her first head coaching job. In addition to being what some people in the women's game consider a top notch recruiter Tia played five years for her mentor C. Vivian Stringer at Iowa and was on her 1993 Final Four squad.

"It warms my heart to know she has been given this opportunity, and I am extremely proud of her," Stringer said.

After her graduation from Iowa in 1995 she was drafted by the Phoenix Mercury during the WNBA's inaugural season in 1997 and played on Cheryl Miller's team that reached the WNBA championship in 1998. As a Stanford assistant Jackson learned strategies and how to meticulously break down film from 1996 Olympic team coach Tara VanDerveer.

She's also been an assistant coach at Virginia Commonwealth, UCLA and under Gail Goestenkors, who just left Duke to take the University of Texas job in the wake of Jody Conradt's retirement.

"Tia is destined to be a superstar," Goestenkors said. "She has it all. She's outgoing, she's an incredible recruiter and she's great with people. ... She's an impact coach. And Washington is one fortunate university."

Jackson inherits a Huskies team that went 18-12 last season, finished fourth in the Pac-10 and was routed by Iowa State in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Washington's incoming class is considered among the nation's best and Husky fans can't wait for next season to tip off.

In an NCAA that has a sorry history of hiring African-American coaches in any sport or abandoning them at the first sign of trouble as Notre Dame did to Willingham, the University of Washington is to be commended for having one of the six African-American football coaches in Division I patrolling the sidelines, one of the thirteen African-American head basketball coaches and hiring a talented African-American female assistant coach to lead their women's basketball program. The rest of the NCAA has some explaining to do in the women's basketball coaching ranks.

*There are no Black women head coaches in most of the nation’s premier conferences, such as the Big Ten Conference and the Big 12 Conference.

"The Atlantic Coast Conference has more Black head coaches than White ones but there are no women among them.

*The Pacific 10 Conference (Jackson) and the Big East Conference (Stringer) each have only one Black head coach.

*With the recent departures of Pokey Chapman at Louisiana State University and Carolyn Peck at the University of Florida, the Southeastern Conference has no Black women head coaches.

The rub is that 40% of the players at NCAA Division I institutions are African-American. The numbers have to get better and it may take something similar to the NFL's Rooney Rule to accomplish that.

Monica’s Statement For the KY Coming Together Conference

Transgriot Note: My friend Joshua asked me to compose a statement for a workshop he's presenting on African-American transpeople at a local conference tomorrow. Here's what I wrote.

I’m Monica Roberts, and I am a forty-something African-American transwoman.

It took me a while to get to the point that I’m comfortable in saying that. I didn’t transition until my early thirties in 1993 and did so in the middle of an international airline terminal in which 30,000 passengers a day passed through it.

So what can I say about being a woman who had to work much harder than her genetic sisters to get there and what does it mean to be an African-American transwoman?

I’m deliriously happy to finally be on the correct side of the gender fence. While I consider it a gift from God to be able to experience life from both sides of the gender continuum, I love looking in the mirror and seeing a woman’s face and a woman’s body staring back at me in the mirror. I like having the peace of mind of knowing that my mind and body are in harmony with one another. If I have any regrets about transition they continue to be that I didn’t do this sooner.

It’s still a challenge sometimes interacting with biowomen who don’t get it, don’t want to get it or don’t realize that I am their most powerful ally in helping them decipher the male ego. They also don’t realize how deeply I wish to bond with them, but I’m prayerfully trying to be patient with my sisters.

As far as my friendships go, the people I have in my life are either folks I’ve known before transition or have become part of it since then. I don’t have any doubts about their loyalty or love for me. It's a comforting feeling to know that.

So what does it mean to be an African-American transwoman? It’s not about finding a ‘husband’, looking or ‘trade’ or carrying yourself in less than anything but a ladylike manner but about growing spiritually and emotionally. It’s about being the best that I can be. It’s constant self-examination to ensure that I am living up to the charge that all African-American women have to keep in terms of uplifting our race. It’s about carrying yourself with class and dignity because I represent not only myself but also the entire African-American community.

CBS to Don Imus: You're Fired!

The hammer came down on Don Imus today as CBS cancelled his radio show.

"There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society," CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision. "That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision."

The things that weigh most heavily on my mind about this situation is that Bernard McGuirk, the sidekick that started the whole mess is still there while Imus is gone. McGuirk should've been the first one collecting unemployment.

I was pissed the conservatives tried to shift the discussion from racist and sexist behavior and the hurt and pain the comments caused these women to attacking Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and rappers.

Maybe they didn't want peeps to make the connection to their homeboys Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and crew who instigated, nurtured, get paid and perpetuate this coarse culture of racist shock jock talk. I was also bothered as I watched the coverage unfold on the various networks over the last few days that White callers and people e-mailing various outlets started complaining that Black folks were making 'too much' of this issue.

Excuse me?

I guarantee if a nationally syndicated African-American jock like Tom Joyner or a Latino DJ disrespected your daughters or nieces we'd still be hearing about it for months ad nauseum in the media.

I'm not popping champagne corks over this. Yeah, Don Imus was a serial offender in terms of disrespecting African-Americans but he wasn't alone. I believe Imus wasn't aware of the seething anger building over the last few months in the African-American community. We saw repeated incidents continuing to pile up of Whites disrespecting African-Americans followed up by weak half-hearted apologies, disengenuous denials or attempted blame shifting to the African-American community instead of taking responsibility for their actions.

Those incidents range from the ongoing Shirley Q. Liquor controversy in the GLBT community, college students in various locales having racist parties on Martin Luther King Day, right-wing talk radio hosts using racist rhetoric to GOP legislators using racist terms or telling us to 'get over slavery'. Imus' April 4 comment about college-educated sistahs was the spark that lit the powerkeg in our community. We're simply sick and tired of peeps dissing us and feeling confident that they can get away with it.

So what's next?

“The action today does not solve the problem,” E. Faye Williams, chairwoman of the National Congress of Black Women, told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “Imus is not the first to denigrate black women, and he will not be the last. We can not allow his firing to be the end of what happens. It’s not over because CBS says that it is over.”

I hope it's crystal clear to Whites AND Blacks that this type of disrespect to our community and our women will NOT be tolerated. Now it's time for the rappers and other right-wing radio jocks to get the message as well.

IFGE Transgender 2007 Conference

This time last year I was making a little history at the IFGE Transgender 2006 event in Philadelphia. I became the third African-American transperson to receive a Trinity, the second highest award for service our community gives. As you can see from Denise LeClair's photo I also got to make a little speech while I was there.

Unfortunately my work schedule wouldn't allow me to attend this year's event. I was a little bummed about that because I was looking forward to seeing some peeps like Monica Helms, Angela Brightfeather, Kalina Isato, Beth Boye and Mechelle among others.

I also wanted to avenge the butt kicking that Angela gave me on the pool table last year and was looking forward to drifting back into my Texas accent while talking to Phyllis Frye. However, Dawn and AC are at Transgender 2007 to teach seminars and will be giving me the 411 about the happenings and all the excitement in Philly this weekend.

The first full seminar day was actually today, so it's still not too late to attend the conference which is running from April 11-14.

I like going to the big conferences despite the fact that most of the time I'm one of the few African-American transpeeps in attendance. It's one of the few times during the year short of a lobby day that you get to see everybody in the transgender community in one place. We renew old acquaintances and make new ones. Much of the community's politicking, education and other business transpires at the big conferences such as IFGE. I also enjoy getting away from the host hotel and seeing some of the sights the host city have to offer. I had a blast doing that last year courtesy of my homegirls Dionne and Jordana and sampling a real Philly cheesesteak.

This is the 21st annual IFGE conference and it's the one where the education and community political business takes place. The younger Southern Comfort Conference that takes place in the ATL every September is a blend of business and legendary partying. We're working on growing the Transsistahs-Transbrothas Conference into the same type of national event for the African-American segment of the transgender community.

I'm also curious to find out who the Trinity Award winners were this year.

In Praise Of Disco

I've come to praise disco, not bury it like the 'disco sucks' haters tried to do back in the day.

I'm one of those peeps who loves disco. I adore the fact that it's a blend of dance music, soul, funk, latin rhythms and jazz to an uptempo beat. When KRLY-FM changed their format to playing disco music 24/7 and called themselves Disco 94 my radio was tuned to it. I got some raised eyebrow looks from peeps and took some ribbing from my high school classmates for admitting that I liked the Village People.

I have this and a lot more to say about disco. It was one of the few music formats (jazz, R&B, country and classical are the others) that crosses racial boundaries in terms of its fanbase. Walk into any disco during the 70's and you would literally see a rainbow of people out shaking their bootys on the dance floor.

It started getting played on the Houston R&B radio stations about the mid 70's and it wasn't long before I started hearing some of my favorite artists recording songs to disco beats. In addition to being introduced to the Village People, I also became a huge fan of Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Sylvester, Chic and a few other groups. A 70's commercial jingle and backup singer by the name of Luther Vandross hooked up with a group called Change and sang lead vocals on the album's 'The Glow of Love' and 'Searchin' tunes. They got major airplay and set the stage for the 1981 platinum debut album Never Too Much that launched his solo career.

Rap owes its origins to disco along with house music. Without Chic's 'Good Times' the Sugarhill Gang would've had to use some other beats as the basis for 'Rapper's Delight'. Would the Pittsburgh Pirates 1979 championship be as memorable without hearing Sister Sledge's 'We Are Family' rocking Three Rivers Stadium? The tune was adopted as the Pirates theme song that season. Even the US Navy considered using the Village People's 'In The Navy' as a recruiting song.

One thing I must point out about the 'Disco Sucks' movement is the homophobia and racism that were a component of it. I found it interesting that the main peeps hollering 'disco sucks' when I was in high school were overwhelmingly white males who were hardcore rock fans.


Best of all, before disco got eclipsed on the American music scene it was fun. I was reminded of that when I got taken to Polly Esther's Culture Club by some friends a few weeks before I moved to Louisville. It has three themed rooms. One of them is a 70's room complete with a lighted flashing disco floor and mirrored disco balls hanging from the ceiling.

I observed as the DJ continued to spin my fave tunes from the 70's that there was a multicultural crowd dancing to it. Nobody cared whether the artist being played was White, Black, Latino, gay or straight. The music was slammin', everybody was having fun and you didn't have to be a Soul Train dancer or know the latest dances to groove to it.

I need to find my Disco Greatest Hits CD. Time for me to relearn how to do 'The Hustle'.

Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta Call For Imus Firing

TransGriot Note: When you have pissed off the two oldest African-American women's organizations in the country with a combined membership of over 400,000 professional college-educated women worldwide, your behind is in deep, deep, deep trouble.
****

Alpha Kappa Alpha Assails Remarks Of Don Imus And Bernard McGuirk

President Urges Members To Flex Economic Muscle For Maximum Results



Chicago, Illinois
April 10, 2007

Alpha Kappa Alpha's International President, Barbara A. McKinzie, assailed Don Imus for his reprehensible characterization of the Rutgers Women's Basketball team and expanded her criticism to Bernard McGuirk, producer, whose callous remarks triggered the disrespectful exchange. She said she supports the sense of outrage that is enveloping the nation in the wake of these egregious remarks and believes he and McGuirk should, as a tandem, be fired. However, consistent with the economic theme that drives her administration, she asserted that the public should flex its economic muscle if powerful results are to be achieved.

Against this admonition, McKinzie urged the 200,000 members of the Sorority to divest of all stock in NBC, CBS and their parent companies; and to urge their families to do the same.

She said this is part of a multi-pronged strategy to address the economic and spiritual dynamics of this episode. As president of the world's oldest and largest sorority for college-educated African-American women, McKinzie said Alpha Kappa Alpha is a major stakeholder in protecting the image and self-actualization of black women.

In this vein, McKinzie noted that the language co-opted by McGuirk and Imus in their now-infamous exchange, was taken from the black rappers who have gotten rich and made white producers wealthy by defiling black women in their music, She said the offensive lyrics that invade the airwaves have created a climate where it is 'acceptable' to defile black women.

"We must provide an atmosphere where our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts and children will not be subjected to this degree of public disrespect. This can be most effectively achieved when we take away the economic incentive that says it's all right to utter such racist and sexist remarks. We must stand strong and stop buying the records whose hurtful lyrics degrade black women."

In her remarks, McKinzie recalled that the late C. Delores Tucker, a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, waged a valiant – but lonely — campaign — to expose the damage that these lyrics inflicted on black women's psyches.

"She was vilified for her courageous stance," recalled McKinzie. "However, it was the right position because as its core was a resolve to derail the economic engine that creates this climate."

McKinzie said that, ultimately, the policy at the stations should change because the behavior cannot be changed.

"We can fire a Don Imus or Bernard McGuirk but unless there is a change in policy, another tandem will surface who will be equally offensive."

McKinzie said this episode can result in a positive outcome if NBC, CBS and their owners craft a policy that will prevent any future shock jocks from coming on the air and assaulting the airwaves with their sexist and racist vitriol. She said such a "sincere" outreach can open up a national dialogue that can address the gulf that divides our nation."

McKinzie said that Alpha Kappa Alpha and its talented core of members would serve as resources for such a landmark effort.

Until such a movement is launched, McKinzie urged members to divest themselves of stock in CBS, which is owned by Westinghouse Electric Company and is part of the Nuclear Utilities Business Group of British Nuclear Funds; and to sell all stock in MSNBC, which is co-owned by NBC (a subsidiary of General Electric) and Microsoft.

Founded in 1908, Alpha Kappa Alpha is the oldest and largest sorority of its kind with 200,000 members in over 900 chapters worldwide. Because of its stature and nearly 100-year-record of service, AKA is hailed as "America's premiere Greek-lettered organization for Black women." Its membership includes high-profile women from all walks of life and from all disciplines including astronaut and physician Dr. Mae Jemison, poet Maya Angelou, actress Phylicia Rashad, entertainer Gladys Knight, entrepreneur Suzanne de Passe, U.K. Member of Parliament Diane Abbott, performing artist Alicia Keys and a host of local, regional and national political leaders.

Barbara A. McKinzie is International President of Alpha Kappa Alpha and will serve through 2010. Because her term coincides with the Sorority's Centennial in 2008, she is hailed as the Centennial National President and her term is characterized as the Centennial Administration. The theme of McKinzie's administration is ESP, Economics, Service and Partnerships.

The Sorority will celebrate its 100-year anniversary in 2008 with a birthday celebration at its birth home at Howard University in January; and with its Centennial Conference in July. Over 20,000 members are expected to converge upon Washington, D.C. to commemorate this milestone.

* * * *

Sorority Calls for Don Imus' Immediate Dismissal




Washington, D.C.

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a public service organization of more than 200,000 college-educated women, is calling for the immediate firing of Don Imus! We are outraged with the decision of MSNBC and CBS to simply suspend airing his radio show for two weeks following his racist depictions of African-American women.

Delta's National President Dr. Louise A. Rice said that the suspension is a mere slap on the wrist that only trivializes the harm done through his hateful, demeaning attack when on a recent radio show, Imus called members of the mostly black Rutgers University Women's Basketball team, "nappy-headed ho's." Dr. Rice also stated that his abominable remarks degrades young African-American women college students, athletes, and all women who are working hard to make a positive contribution to American society.

"We believe that it is time for media corporations to draw the line as to what is unacceptable in a nation that calls on its young to go to fight in Iraq, pay taxes, vote and perform acts of responsible citizenship but at the same time, they are unprotected from predatory, divisive and inhumane degradation of their character on public airwaves," said Dr. Rice.

"It is incredible that anyone would use the public airways to display such utter disregard for the dignity of human beings such as the Rutgers student athletes whose commitment to scholarship and athletics is bringing honor to the university and our nation," she continued.

Since its founding in 1913 when the members marched in Washington, D.C. for suffrage, Delta Sigma Theta has been in the forefront fighting for the dignity and just treatment of all humankind, particularly women. Delta considers the talk show host's despicable remarks an intentional attempt to single out one group of Americans for public humiliation and ridicule.

Imus' apology does not go far enough to heal the wounds caused by this misrepresentation and name-calling aimed at young African-American women. If Imus does not face serious consequences, other like-minded individuals will continue this course of singling out African-American women for public ridicule. Therefore the 200,000+ members of Delta Sigma Theta, operating out of 900 chapters located in the United States, Japan, Germany, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Korea, Jamaica, and St. Thomas and St Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands are calling for the stations that air Imus' show and MSNBC that simulcasts it, to disassociate themselves from him and his polluting the airwaves with racial hatred. Fire Imus and send a strong message that hate speech will not be excused, tolerated, or protected. Don Imus must go!

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated