Samoa Moving Forward In Time

If you're wondering where the world's day begins and ends and what's the dividing line between the eastern and western hemispheres, it's the 180 degree line of longitude in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, better known as the International Date Line.

You've heard me mention it in a few posts from time to time on TransGriot when I give shoutouts to my readers on the western side of it on Christmas and New Year's Day. 

What it means is that when you cross the International Date Line going westbound, you pick up a day and going eastbound you lose a day once you cross it..    

The International Date Line has been adjusted over the years to accommodate the needs of Pacific nations such as Kiribati, which put the entire island nation chain on the western side of it.   The date line makes a westerly jog once it passes through the Bering Strait between Russia and the United States so the parts of the Aleutian Island chain west of the 180 longitude line are on the same date with the rest of Alaska.

In a bid to get better aligned time and date wise with its trading partners in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, China, Hong Kong and other Pacific Rim nations Samoa and the three island New Zealand administered territory of Tokelau at midnight today will skip ahead from Thursday to New Year's Eve (Saturday).

Samoa made the decision in May and Tokelau followed suit in October.  It reverses a decision made 119 years ago in which Samoa switched to the east side of the International Date Line in order to better position itself with trading partners in the US and Europe and nearby American Samoa.

"In doing business with New Zealand and Australia, we're losing out on two working days a week," said Samoan Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sailele Malielegaoi.

Samoa made the shift to driving on the left side of the road back in 2009 as well to put it more in line with its Asian Pacific Rim neighbors driving habits.

So if you have a Friday, December 30 birthday in Samoa, you won't get to celebrate it unless you do so today or on New Year's Eve because that day will not exist. 

You may also wish to check your airline and hotel reservations for that day in Samoa as well.     

Verdict In The Sonia Burgess Murder Trial

I posted about the tragic death of Sonia Burgess, the British human rights attorney who was pushed to her death in a London subway station in October 2010 by Nina Kanagasingham.

Kanagasingham since that day has expressed a preference of a male gender identity, but at the time was known as Nina.   On the day of Burgess' death according to the Pink News story,  Ms. Burgess had accompanied Kanagasingham to a GP appointment, where she had raised concerns about the mental health of Nina.

The court heard that Ms Burgess, who allowed the defendant to visit her apartment to shower and discuss personal problems, feared that Kanagasingham was becoming psychotic.

The 35 year old Kanagasingham pushed Ms. Burgess from the platform in front of an oncoming train at the Kings Cross Station and immediately surrendered after doing so.  

The verdict has just come down in the murder trial.  Guilty of manslaughter and Kanagasingham is facing life imprisonment for the crime. 

Happy Kwanzaa Black Trans Style-The 2011 Remix: Ujima

TransGriot Note:  On each night of the 2011 Kwanzaa celebration, just as I did last year, I'm going to write about each one of those principles and explain how it applies to the chocolate trans community and our cis African descended brothers and sisters. 

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Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems, and to solve them together.

Haban gari?   What's the news?

It's time to light the third candle on the Kinara and ponder the third principle of the seven celebrated during Kwanzaa.

Ujima.  Collective work and responsibility.  I saw strides in our cis brothers and sisters recognizing that the Black trans community's problems were their problems as well as I and others have been stating for years.

As for movement toward a coordinated partnership toward helping us solve them, we're getting there.

As I stated in last year's post on this principle and it bears repeating in terms of the ujima principle, seeing our problems as African-American community problems and helping us solve them helps us and the African-American community as a whole.

A healthy African-American trans community leads to us as we close ranks to build that better overall African-American community of us trans African-Americans being able to meet our responsibilities in uplifting all of our people and allow us to be in a better position to live up to the ujima principle.  

As I've said repeatedly, we Black transpeople can't help do our share of the collective work needed to uplift the race if our lives are unstable because we can't get jobs or people refuse to hire us because they can discriminate against us because of virulent anti-trans bigotry.  .

Our problem of battling anti-trans bigotry and oppression that deleteriously affects us is an African-American community problem as well as the NTDS survey pointed out. 

Dr. King once stated that 'we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."  Trans African-Americans are part of that inescapable netowrk of mutuality, and it's past time our cisgender brothers and sisters recognize that.

Shut Up Fool Of The Year Coming Soon!

There's still time to get those nominations to me for the 2011 Shut Up Fool Of The Year. 

Still pondering what fool or groups of fools showed consistent stupidity and ignorance throughout the year in order to garner this coveted award.  

I have some ideas about the people who are in the running for it like Herman Cain, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) just to name a few, but I'm looking for some candidates I might have overlooked.

Just get their names to be before the30th.   The big announcement will happen on New Year's Eve.

Being Trans Doesn't Justify Dehumanization Aimed At Us Either

The video I posted the other day from the transwoman who beat the behind of the person who misgendered her is provoking some strong reaction pro and con in transworld and the blogosphere at the moment.

We have an interesting discussion taking place on my Facebook page right now and while on one hand I'm emphatically stating for the record violence isn't the answer to the festering problems we face, I also understand the pent-up frustrations of transpeople that are causing many to cheer what happened.

And yeah, while other peeps may be trying to tap dance around it, I'm not.  The racial angle of a Black transwoman beating the crap out of a white male tormentor is probably adding to the Internet chatter and over the top reactions to it.   

Brittany Novotny wrote on her blog that being trans does not justify violence.   The people who are commenting affirmatively to this video that's now been pulled by YouTube for 'shocking and disgusting' content are not advocating that.

I believe the reaction in transworld is more in line with the fact that during this 2011 holiday season we have had unrelenting attacks on our humanity around the world from a variety of sources, been disrespected ad nauseum, had a transwoman told she needed to leave her college campus because her presence 'spooked' the Canadian Governor General, and had a transwoman killed in Kansas City on Christmas Eve.

Seeing somebody physically fight back and striking blows against transphobia and all the hatin' done unto us during the holidays struck a symbolic psychological chord with people.


Since Ms. Novotny quoted pre-August 28, 1963 Dr. King in her post, I have one for her from the Good Doctor circa 1965.

'It is not a threat but a fact of history that if an oppressed people’s pent-up emotions are not nonviolently released, they will be violently released.'

Let's keep it real for a moment.  There is a lot of pent up resentment, anger and latent frustration that has been building in transworld for decades over the continued oppression of transpeople by friend, foe and frenemy.   That pent-up anger and frustration is at even higher levels in non-white trans communities who are catching the brunt of the anti-trans violence and discrimination as the Task Force surveys emphatically point out. 

I believe there is a perception amongst our oppressors that if they aim disrespect and dehumanizing behavior at transpeople, they presume they'll get away with it without consequences because they are convinced we transwomen will either ignore it, fold or just cower in the corner and cry as they freely unleash it upon us.
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Umm no.  As I've stated on these electronic pages more than a few times, trans don't mean punk.  It is illogical to think that a transwoman who is getting disrespected on a regular basis is going to continue ignoring the disrespect.  Sooner or later you're going to catch her on a day where she's had enough, a transphobe pushes her buttons past her tolerance limit and then is shocked when she opens up a can of whoop ass for whoever was unfortunate enough to cross her.

These transphobes need to realize disrespecting us to bolster your flagging self esteem or your shaky confidence in your gender identity and sexual orientation is increasingly unacceptable behavior and there are possible consequences for messing with us. 

Let me post the full quote from the 1965 Playboy interview conducted with Dr King that speaks to what I'm talking about in this post.

PLAYBOY: Is it destined to be a violent revolution?
MARTIN LUTHER KING: God willing, no. But white Americans must be made to understand the basic motives underlying Negro demonstrations. Many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations are boiling inside the Negro, and he must release them. It is not a threat but a fact of history that if an oppressed people’s pent-up emotions are not nonviolently released, they will be violently released. So let the Negro march. Let him make pilgrimages to city hall. Let him go on freedom rides. And above all, make an effort to understand why he must do this. For if his frustration and despair are allowed to continue piling up, millions of Negroes will seek solace and security in black-nationalist ideologies. And this, inevitably, would lead to a frightening racial nightmare.

So while Ms. Novotny and other transpeople who share her sentiments are correct in saying that being trans does not justify us engaging in violence against our tormentors, conversely neither does being trans justify violence, disrespect and dehumanizing behavior aimed at us either.

So if people don't like the fact that this African descended New York transperson struck back and beat down her tormentor du jour, then y'all need to express the same level of vocal opposition to our oppressors in the GL and radical lesbian separatist communities, right wing legislators and faith based transphobes who are producing the resentments and frustrations in the first place.