Gee, Tell Me Something I Didn't Know Already

I chuckled when I saw this post at Addictinginfo.com that stated people who are adamantly opposed to TBLG rights have same sex attractions they are repressing.

Gee, tell me something I didn't know already.

I've seen a long list of right-wing pink elephants over the years getting yanked out of the closet after being pulled over for DUI's outside or close to gay bars, being caught in bathrooms with 'wide stances', or in male prostitution stings in public parks or motels close to known strolls like a former anti-gay minister was in Oklahoma City..

You get the picture. 

The same dynamic applies to the many peeps who oppose trans human rights.  They are themselves either attracted to transpeople sexually or want to transition.  They are hiding behind conservatism, fundamentalist religious or radfem hatred of transwomen to avoid dealing with the issue that will not go away.

So gee, tell me something I didn't know already in terms of in many cases, the people rabidly hating us either want to emulate us or date us.

It's Easy to Call John Derbyshire a Racist

Guest Post from Renee of Womanist Musings

John Derbyshire, a former writer for the conservative magazine The National Review was fired after he published a piece in Taki's Magazine entitled: The Talk: NonBlack Version.  Derbyshire was inspired to write this article because of the conversations that Black parents are having with their sons in the wake of the murder of Trayvon Martin. I am going to share with a small portion of Derbyshire's advice to his children:

(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.
(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.
(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).
(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.
(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.
(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.
(10g) Before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white.
(10h) Do not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress, e.g., on the highway.
(10i) If accosted by a strange black in the street, smile and say something polite but keep moving.
(11) The mean intelligence of blacks is much lower than for whites. The least intelligent ten percent of whites have IQs below 81; forty percent of blacks have IQs that low. Only one black in six is more intelligent than the average white; five whites out of six are more intelligent than the average black. These differences show in every test of general cognitive ability that anyone, of any race or nationality, has yet been able to devise. They are reflected in countless everyday situations. “Life is an IQ test.”
(12) There is a magnifying effect here, too, caused by affirmative action. In a pure meritocracy there would be very low proportions of blacks in cognitively demanding jobs. Because of affirmative action, the proportions are higher. In government work, they are very high. Thus, in those encounters with strangers that involve cognitive engagement, ceteris paribus the black stranger will be less intelligent than the white. In such encounters, therefore—for example, at a government office—you will, on average, be dealt with more competently by a white than by a black. If that hostility-based magnifying effect (paragraph 8) is also in play, you will be dealt with more politely, too. “The DMV lady“ is a statistical truth, not a myth.
(13) In that pool of forty million, there are nonetheless many intelligent and well-socialized blacks. (I’ll use IWSB as an ad hoc abbreviation.) You should consciously seek opportunities to make friends with IWSBs. In addition to the ordinary pleasures of friendship, you will gain an amulet against potentially career-destroying accusations of prejudice.

At first The National Review simply tried to separate itself from Derbyshire's article, but decided to fire him after public outrage was evident. There have been several articles in major news outlets like The Guardian and Huffpo, as well as commentary at CNN, declaring Derbyshire's piece to be racist. Anger at this piece is the quintessential White liberal response, and comes with the added bonus of being able to separate oneself from Derbyshire and declare that since you would never dare to express these kinds of idea publicly that you are not a racist.


It is absolutely impossible to read even a small section of The Talk: NonBlack Version, without declaring it racist. Socially there is very rarely difficulty calling out the extreme overt examples of racism, in large part because racism has come to mean to many: A noose, a burning cross, brilliant White sheets and in some cases the N word [note: I say some cases, as there are plenty of White people who actively believe that they are oppressed, because of an inability to use that word without facing some form of social censure].  What gets ignored is the systemic ways in which racism works and the everyday acts of covert racism that negatively impact the lives of people of colour.

Challenging racism as an institution is beyond the understanding and desire of many, because it would mean the eradication of White privilege. They would rather live in a world in which they can co-opt pre 1963 Dr. King, and wax poetically about a colour blind society, while our children are being undereducated in broken down schools, and shot for daring to wear a hoodie at night. This is the world as it really is, and why I simply cannot take comfort in any kind of discipline that Derbyshire is facing.

Reading his article, what I felt was not outrage, because this is exactly the kind of thought pattern and behaviour that Whiteness has normalized.  People are simply upset that Derbyshire had the nerve to air his dirty laundry in public, rather than internalizing his racist ideas.  The world is still very much segregated, with Sunday being the most segregated day in North America.  If you doubt that, walk into a Black church and then a White church.  Blacks and Whites who supposedly worship the same God don't even pray together, and yet we are told that racism is a thing of the past and that we are all equal now, with exception of course, of a few isolated incidents.  White on Black violence, even when it is continually perpetrated by the police, is always constructed as isolated, [Oscar Grant and Sean Bell] because White people are individuals, but the moment a Black person behaves in a manner which we have deemed socially unacceptable, ze is suddenly a representative of their race.

To bring up the systemic ways in which racism effects the lives of people of colour is deemed racist because interjects the much taboo subject of race into a conversation.  We cannot even talk about racism, except to view it as a thing of the past, and yet we have White liberal after White liberal decrying the language Derbyshire used, while not holding themselves accountable for the multitude of ways in which they uphold and maintain White supremacy.  Today, racism is seen as a card that Blacks employ to achieve an unfair advantage over decent God fearing White folks. The conversation has been so twisted that we now have White people claiming that they are victims of racism, when people of colour react with righteous rage to the ongoing assault against their persons.

It's easy to call Derbyshire a racist, and that is why it is happening.  If it meant a true assault on White supremacy, what you would be hearing right now is crickets and not outrage.  Nothing this man wrote in his column is in the least bit surprising.  I found that I could not even drum up outrage, because I am so accustomed to living with this sort of racism day after day.  Whether it is the White person who seeks to turn me into their very own Black BFF [yes we're collectors items], or commentary on how "articulate" I am -- racism is a part of my lived experience -- and has been since I was a very young girl. No amount of liberal hand wringing is going to change that and so I will just nod at the commentary and accept that there will be no substantive change in my lifetime. Today it's not the Derbyshire's of the world that we have to fear, but those who declare themselves to be decidedly not racist, even as they do everything in their power to ensure that yet another generation of Black children grows up with the stigma of being "othered" in a White supremacist world.

The Oreo Cookie's 100th Anniversary

Back on March 6 the Oreo cookie celebrated its 100th anniversary.   The cookie was first produced by Nabisco in 1912 in its New York City factory as a response to the Hydrox cookie.   IIt has become the most popular cookie sold in the United States over the last century and into the 21st century.

The Oreo cookie has also become an iconic slice of our childhoods and our pop culture.

The Oreo has become part of African-American culture as a derogatory word you call a black person who to their fellow African-Americans has acquiesced sold out to whiteness and white supremacy and backstabbed the Black community for their own personal gain.

In other words, when you call someone an 'Oreo' in the black community you are asserting, like the cookie, they are black on the outside and white on the inside and it's on like Donkey Kong when you do so.

That's a post for another time, but as someone who has happily demolished more than her fair share of Oreo cookies during my lifetime, I definitely needed to take some time to recognize the centennial birthday of one of my favorite cookies.

Titica-Trans Angolan Music Rising Star

As I like to point out on this blog, transpeople do exist on the second largest continent on the planet. 

One of the other things I'm most fond of reminding people of that peruse this blog and every time I get a chance to utter the words is  is if transpeople are given a chance, we can do anything we set our minds to do and excel at it.

Meet 25 year old Titica, who is a rising star in the Angolan music genre called kuduro, which is a fusion of rap and techno music. 

She was named the best kuduro artist of 2011, is a regular on radio and television there, has performed at a Divas concert in front of Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos and will be embarking on an international tour with stops in Portugal, the UK and the United States.

But as she mentioned in a BBC interview, her newfound success hasn't been easy.  

"I've been stoned, I've been beaten, and there is a lot of prejudice against me, a lot of people show that. There is a lot of taboo," she said.  





But at the same time, in heavily Catholic Angola, she's managed to cultivate a fan base that only cares about her music, not her trans status. 

And that's the way it should be.   I'll have to check her out when she comes to Houston to perform at the Angolan consulate.

Shut Up Fool Awards- The Taxman Cometh Edition

For those of you who are still working on your taxes, thanks to the April 15 deadline falling on a Sunday the IRS graciously has given you until midnight April 17th to get those tax forms done and mailed to them.

But before you peruse those returns and make sure you have double checked them to ensure you have every dollar you have coming to you from Uncle Sam in refund money (or are making sure you don't owe Uncle Sam) let's take a moment to engage in our usual Friday TransGriot business of ensuring we call out the fool or fools that so richly deserve our illustrious award for their stupidity.

As always, we have many contenders for this week's award, and we have our usual group nominations for the Republican Party and Fox Noise.   Our other nominees are GOP chair Reince Priebus, Barbara Walters, Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI), Sen Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.

Honorable mention this week goes to Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen who opened his mouth and got himself a 5 day suspension for expressing admiration of Fidel Castro. 

The problem is that the Marlins just opened a new pop top ballpark in Little Havana, a neighborhood chock full of Cubans who have resided there since the 60's because of the man Ozzie praised and who still hate his guts.   He apologized for the remarks, but now the Marlins are facing a boycott from Miami's Cuban community because of Ozzie's big mouth.

This week's winner also resided in South Florida in the person of Rep. Allen West (R-FL)    

He was channeling his inner Eugene McCarthy when in response to a constituent question at a town hall asking how many members of Congress were card carrying Marxists, the Tea Klux Klan's favorite knee-grow asserted that there were 78 to 81 Democrats who were members of the Communist Party and threw the members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus under his McCarthyite bus.

The comment was so laughable the real Communist Party quickly issued a statement lambasting West.

Dude, calling someone a communist is so 20th century.   And this is the man that Caribou Barbie thinks should be a vice presidential pick for Mitt Romney?   This man is an embarrassment even to the sellout knee-grows in the GOP.

Rep. Allen West, shut up fool!