I've Applied For The Amtrak Writers Residency

One of my nicknames that longtime trans activists call me is the 'Air Marshal'.   I got that nickname to not only differentiate me from 'Sea Monica', aka Monica Helms, but because I was working in the airline industry at the time I transitioned 20 years ago next month and frequently flew to many trans community lobby days and events in the mid to late 90's-early 2K's. 

One of my international bucket list things I want to do is ride one of the bullet trains in either Japan, China or France 

Hopefully before I leave this planet I will see that type of high speed intercity rail service operating here in the United States.  The Acela is a distant cousin of the French TGV, but despite the design of the locomotive and the train high tech aspect that make for a comfortable ride even at high speed, it isn't traveling in the Northeast corridor at over 200 mph like the TGV and other international bullet trains do.

But to get that high speed rail service, we'll probably have to kick the anti-infrastructure spending Republicans out of national power for at least 40 years for it to happen.


The last time I took an intercity train trip predates the Amtrak years.   It was in 1966 when my dad was working for WBOK-AM and I was a four year old living on the West Bank in the New Orleans suburb of Marrero.

Mom took me and my brother to Houston on the train to visit my grandmothers for a few days before we headed back to NOLA.  A year later Dad got transferred back to Houston to start his morning drive time show at KYOK-AM and we moved back to H-town where I subsequently stayed until I bounced for Louisville in September 2001.for my nearly nine years stint living there. 

So yep, it's been that long since I've taken an intercity train trip.   A lot of that is fueled by the fact that I live here in Texas and not the Northeast Corridor, Eastern seaboard or the Left Coast where that mode of travel is a far more frequently used option.  In the Northeast there are daily service train travel options that are used, with one of the enthusiastic Amtrak passengers being Vice President Joe Biden.

Some of my colleagues who came to Washington DC for the recent LGBT Media Journalists Convening I just attended who live and work in the Northeast Corridor did so by train.   The fact that you can transfer to WMATA rail trains from the cavernous and renovated Union Station makes it even a more desirable and relaxing way to travel. 

I've been to Union Station a few times during my DC trips to not only catch WMATA rail trains from there, I've also shopped and had dinner there as well.starting with my 1998 lobby trip to DC. 

We do have an Amtrak train that comes through H-town three times a week in the Sunset Limited that runs from Los Angeles through Tucson and San Antonio to New Orleans.  

The Amtrak terminal here is a small one on Washington Ave, but for those of you who frequently travel on METRORail's Red Line you'll note that the Burnett TC Station platform s elevated.  

It was designed that way to not only to get over the railroad tracks there, but was part of a design for an intermodal transit station that would have combined the light rial line with METRO bus, commuter rail, and intercity bus service that got canceled in 2010.  

It could possibly be revived when METRO gets the funding to build it and talks with Greyhound and other bus carriers with bus stations scattered across H-town allow it to happen, but for now the small train station at 902 Washington Ave that was opened in 1959 is what we have to work with. 

In New Orleans the Amtrak terminal is less that a mile from the Superdome and the New Orleans Arena and 1.4 miles from Bourbon Street and the French Quarter.   Eastbound Sunset Limited travelers from Houston can connect in New Orleans with the City of New Orleans route that goes through Memphis and eventually ends up in Chicago or the Crescent that goes through the ATL and eventually ends in New York. 


The Sunset Limited if I ride westbound on it, I can connect with the Texas Eagle in San Antonio to go through Dallas, Little Rock, St. Louis and eventually end up in Chicago to connect with the routes that go through there or if I continue from San Antonio to the Sunset Limited's western terminus in Los Angeles' Union Station I can connect with all of the West Coast service which goes through that city. 

What has me musing and talking about train travel is the announcement that the Amtrak Writers Residency program is official and I applied for it.   If my application for one of the coveted Amtrak residencies is accepted, that train trip in the States could be happening sooner rather than in the hazy future.

The new Amtrak Residency program is taking applications for up to 24 writers to experience round trip train travel while honing their craft.   The idea came to fruition after New York based writer Jessica Gross got major attention after her piece Writing The Lakeshore Limited was published by the Paris Review and another writer tweeted that he wished that Amtrak had residences for writers. 

Well, what Alexander Chee put out there in the Twitterverse and Jessica Gross got to test drive is now an official Amtrak program that 24 writers will get the opportunity do.  

The selected writers will get to combine their passions for train travel and writing and take a long distance round trip Amtrak train ride subject to availability to work on their craft.   It's one thing to travel by bus or car across sections of the country and I've done both in my life.   It would be an amazing experience entirely to travel across the country by train and get to write about it.  

It appeals to the history buff in me because train travel evokes memories of an era before passenger jet service and the interstate highway system when it was the preferred luxurious way to go across country and had the same cachet among Hollywood stars of that era of traveling by private jet or in first class.  

The selected Amtrak writing residents will be given a private sleeper car equipped with a desk, bed, power outlets and a window to watch the American countryside roll by for inspiration with the Amtrak routes the resident travels to be determined based on availability.   

The residency applications will be accepted on a rolling basis and reviewed by a panel with up to 24 lucky writers being selected for the program starting March 17, 2014 through March 31, 2015. 

What are the qualifications for the residency?   A passion for writing (check) and an aspiration to travel with Amtrak for inspiration (double check) are the sole criteria for selection with both emerging and established writers being considered for it.   Residencies will be anywhere from 2-5 days and you can apply here.


Thanks to my homegirl Dawn Wilson I've been aware of and interested in it since the Gross article came out, but had to wait until Amtrak finalized the details about the residency program before I could apply

Since I have applied, the hurry up and wait hard part is coming.  But the bottom line is I have just as good a chance as anyone else who has submitted an application to win one of those 24 potential slots.

Hopefully if I'm blessed enough to be one of the people selected, you'll see a post coming from me composed as I rode the rails with new laptop in hand taking in the countryside of whatever route I'm fortunate to be on.  

Did You Spring Forward In 2014?

We are now as of 2 AM on Daylight Savings Time until November 2.  So if you neglected to move those clocks up one hour, that's why you've been or will be if you don't handle your time change business an hour late for everything today. 

As for the CPAC conservafools that have been running around in Washington DC since Thursday, they're still trying to move the clock back to the 18th century.

Time to spring forward...
 

Kentucky HB 171 Hearing Testimony

It was one of the things I was working on before I left Kentucky, and I was pleased to hear that the statewide Fairness Bill, HB 171 finally got a committee hearing in the Kentucky House.

It was introduced back on February 5 and assigned to the House Judiciary Committee the next day. 

If passed, HB 171 would protect people in the commonwealth from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, and public accommodations. 

It would also make Kentucky one of the first Southern states to do so. 

Six Kentucky cities, Louisville, Lexington, Covington, Vicco, Morehead and the state capitol of Frankfort,  representing a quarter of the state's population of 4,380,415 are covered by Fairness laws.   But those laws only protect BTLG Kentuckians if you live in one of those six cities, which is why we've had the ongoing push for a statewide Fairness law. 

HB 171 is sponsored by my former state rep when I lived in Da Ville, Mary Lou Marzian (D).  It has as co-sponsors (all Democrats) Reps. Arnold Simpson, Kelly Flood, Ruth Ann Palumbo, Joni Jenkins, Jim Wayne and Susan Westrom    Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo is considering becoming a co sponsor as well and House Judiciary Committee chairman John Tilley (D-Hopkinsville) indicated in an interveiew that he supports HB 171.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/03/05/3122897/after-15-years-lawmakers-hold.html#storylink=cpy

.  .
The General Assembly is not yet ready to vote on a civil rights bill covering gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people, Tilley said. The bill might be called again at a future date, he said.in an interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader .

"There still is concern among members on both sides of the aisle. This hearing was an attempt to dispel some of that concern," Tilley said.

Chris Hartman, the director of the based in Da Ville Fairness Campaign, said in a Herald-Leader interview that Wednesday's hearing on the statewide fairness bill was progress because past versions of HB 171 were never even discussed in a committee.

"At the very least, there was conversation, and that ultimately engenders support," Hartman said   "Without conversation, the bill would ... languish for the next 15 years."

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/03/05/3122897/after-15-years-lawmakers-hold.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/03/05/3122897/after-15-years-lawmakers-hold.html#storylink=cpy

In the Senate it's SB 140 and is sponsored by Sen.  Morgan McGarvey (D) with co-sponsors (once again all Democrats) Sens Gerald Neal, Denise Harper Angel, Perry Clark, Reginald Thomas and Minority Whip Jerry Rhoads.   It was introduced on February 12 and assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Valentines Day.   

After 15 years of liberal-progressive Kentuckians pushing for it to happen, the hearing that Chairman Tilley talked about finally took place on March 5.  But with a divided legislature  (Republicans 23-12-1 independent in the Kentucky Senate, Democrats 54-46 in the Kentucky House) and the political shockwaves from the recent federal judicial decision invalidating Kentucky's same sex marriage amendment still reverberating throughout the Commonwealth, this may be all we get before the session ends in April

Then again, I never thought I see a Fairness law passed in Frankfort either. 

You can check out the video testimony from the HB 171 hearing.






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Let's Go 2014 Houston Dynamo!

One of the interesting things about Major League Soccer is that like baseball, it has a long season and a very short offseason. 

It was just last November I was pissed off about the injury riddled Dynamo just missing out on their third straight trip to the MLS Cup championship match after falling to our hated rivals Sporting KC in the Eastern Conference finals.

I was angered by the Hateraid coming from other MLS fans jealous of the fact the Houston Dynamo had been to back to back MLS Cups and unfortunately lost to the LA Galaxy both times. 

And with me gleefully watching our MLS Cup tormentors be knocked out of the 2013 MLS Cup playoffs by Real Salt Lake I was hoping the Men In Orange would survive that series, we'd play Real Salt Lake and I'd get to finally witness a Dynamo championship parade in downtown Houston.

But that dream got ruined by Sporting KC and the referees.  Kofi Sarkodie scored in the 18th minute in that November 9 Eastern Conference final first leg in Houston, but it was disallowed. 

That goal would have given the two-time defending MLS Eastern Conference champions a win and a 1-0 aggregate score lead instead of the 0-0 draw we headed into Kansas City on November 23 with.  

The 2-1 loss at Sporting Park sent SKC to the December 7 MLS Cup title game they eventually won in a penalty kick shootout..

Well, that's over and I did my bitching about it back in November.  I was so mad I refused to even watch MLS Cup 2013.  

Would be nice for the Dynamo to flip their usual playoff script and at least shoot for the Supporters Shield so we could host those playoff second legs for a change.  

The other benefit of having the best record or as close to the top of the table as possible so that the Men In Orange would as the higher seed host the second leg of aggregate score playoff series.   Should they go on one of their patented Dynamo Time playoff runs through the MLS Eastern Conference bracket, they would host a potential MLS Cup title game at BBVA Compass Stadium.

So why am I talking about the other football team in H-town for a moment?  Because the 2014 MLS season kicked off today and I'm anxiously waiting for their sister squad, the Houston Dash to start NWSL play next month.   

La Naranja started off this campaign in the cozy confines of BBVA Compass Stadium with their opening match opposition being the 2013 MLS Eastern Conference semifinalists, the New England Revolution.

The Dynamo got the season opening party started in grand style with a 4-0 blowout win over the Revs in front of a record sellout crowd at BBVA Compass Stadium.  

The 22,320 orange clad peeps had barely gotten their butts into their seats when Will Bruin scored his first goal just 64 seconds into the contest to get this 2014 MLS campaign off to a wonderful start.    

The Men In Orange got a second Will Bruin goal in the 13th minute.  Bruin also got an assist on the 23rd minute rocket that Oscar Boniek Garcia blasted past New England goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth to help the Dynamo cruise to a 3-0 halftime lead. 

It was the Dynamo's night, and the score might have even been more lopsided had Shuttleworth not made spectacular saves on one on one breakaway opportunities by Bruin and Omar Cummings. 

Cummings finally got the goal that was denied him in stoppage time as a shot from Ricardo Clark bounced off his head and into the net

Hey, as Cummings demonstrated in last year's MLS playoffs, he does have a knack for scoring stoppage time goals.

Ask New York Red Bulls fans about that. 

Next up is a match against the hated Montreal Impact, who the Dynamo sent packing in a contentious Eastern Conference knockout game that a couple of Impact players took literally at the end of of it. 

Let's Go Dynamo!
 

Told Y'all Conservafools Don't Care About Non-White Americans

Every time I start riffing on this blog about the many ways that conservatism only benefits wealthy white people and I call it and the Republican Party the political arm of white supremacy, I get pushback from self described liberal and moderate conservatives who try to claim that the Republican Party isn't as bad as I point out in my blog posts. 

Hey, I've been diplomatic in my blog posts.  Your party is actually far worse.  

Ever since the announcement in the wake of the ballyhooed post-mortem after the 2012 election that the GOP and conservative movement was going to do serious outreach to non-white communities, I've been skeptical about how successful this round of it was going to be given that I've been hearing this line from them since the 80's..   And so far, this latest  round of outreach has been the laughing my butt off disaster I expected it to be.

They have two impossible and diametrically opposed tasks they are trying to accomplish .  How are you going to persuade non-whites to join their party without saying something homophobic, sexist and racist coming out of their mouths?  

More importantly, how are you going to convince non-white people to join your party while simultaneously refusing to modify or change your policy stances that are offensive to non-whites like your voter suppression efforts, your attacks on the poor and attacks on women? 

And frankly, your policy stances not only suck, but don't help anyone except rich white men.   Don't even get me started about the person you have delivering the message in Sen. Rand Paul.   It is those policy stances coming from overwhelmingly white spokespeople that turn off people of color, combined with the insensitive and racist rhetoric you use to sell those policies.

It also doesn't help your cause that the non-white members of the movement and your party that you hold up as leaders like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas, Sen Tim Scott (R-SC), Allen West, and Mia Love are deeply unpopular and considered sellouts in our ranks.  

Meanwhile the folks you should be putting out there to represent you like Colin Powell and Erika Harold you disrespect as RINO's or worse. 

The empty CPAC room for the Thursday minority outreach panel shows just how much a priority it is for the conservative movement to address that problem or how much credence conservative activists put toward solving tit. 

But the United States is a country that is growing more ethnically diverse by the day. and you can no longer get 75% of the white vote and win national elections.  The voter suppression  tactics aren't going to work forever because demographics and time are not on your side and they piss the people victimized by them off.  


If you are serious about attracting people of color to your party, you have two choices.  You're going to have to come up with more moderate policy stances that will alienate your anti-government, anti-tax, anti-human rights, anti-education base or you can continue on your present path and continue to draw miniscule numbers of non-white people to your events and cede their votes to the Democrats.    

Looks like you're choosing Option B, which is fine with me as a Democrat.   You've made it quite clear since the 60's you don't care about me and the feeling's mutual.   Because of your lack of political vision, and refusal to politically evolve, you will continue to see the White House and eventually the nation turn blue, and send you back to the political wilderness that you so richly deserve.
 

Spring Forward 2014

Wow, Daylight Savings time came early this year.

So y'all in the States know what's up.  At 2 AM Sunday morning you need to move those clocks up one hour.   You get to move them back to standard time November 2 

If you're a Republican, attending CPAC this weekend, you need to move them forward 100 years.

Shut Up Fool Awards-Send In The CPAC Clowns Edition

Looks like the #LGBTMedia14 team picked the correct weekend to NOT be inside I-495.   This week Washington DC has to contend with hordes of conservafools roaming their beloved city and the GOP Noise Machine and media coverage that goes with it. 

Yep, it's CPAC Weekend, and the 11,000 conservafools estimated to be coming to town will hear from a long list of raw meat to the conservamasses throwing speakers that includes Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Rep Paul Ryan (R-WI) and the junior senator from Alberta in Ted Cruz. 

And they should be providing me plenty of fodder, jaw dropping ignorance, racist, sexist and misogynistic  comments and overall stupidity to call out for next week's edition of the Shut Up Fool Awards.  . 

But let's get this week's Shut Up Fool bidness out of the way.

Honorable Mention number one goes to 2011 SUF Lifetime Achievement Award winner and soon to be retiring (thank God) Rep Michele Bachmann. (Teabagger-MN)    She parted her lips while standing at a podium flanked by Rep Steve King (Teabagger-IA) and Rep, Louie Gohmert (Teabagger-TX)  to say that Jewish Americans 'sold out' Israel.   

Gee, I'm sure the Jewish American community appreciates a Gentile telling them what their thoughts and opinions on Israel should be, especially if they don't line up with conservafool policy and talking points.  .

Honorable Mention number two is a group one for the conservafool magazine The American Spectator.

They published a piece slamming the Oscar winning movie 12 Years A Slave for not having happy slaves in it.   Seriously?   Y'all still mad y'all lost the Civil War, you didn't get to own Black people like your great-great grandparents did.or you can't hang 'uppity' Black people like me from a tree with no consequences.    Deal with it. 

Honorable mention number three goes to one of our old school Houston fools in Dr. Steven Hotze. 

The president of the Conservative Republicans of Texas in a press release supporting embattled Harris County Republocan Party chair Jared Woodfill referred to gays and lesbians as 'sodomites' when he stated in a fundraising letter “Our Founding Fathers would be furious to find out that the Constitution was being interpreted to allow sodomites to marry.”

This long time gaybaiter and brains behind the 1985 anti-gay Straight Slate unsurprisingly doubled down on the bigotry when he ranted about 'activist judges' striking down the unjust Texas same sex marriage ban desecrating our constitution. 

I have two words for Steven Hotze.  Picnic Lane.  Long time Houstonians will recognize it as the name of the street Dr Hotze was arrested for DWI on by HPD vice officers back in December 2000 that was during a sting operation on a Memorial Park cruising strip back in the day.   

Honorable mention number four goes to McNally's Pub in Beverly, IL for cutting short the performance of a blues band perfrming there because there were 'too many Blacks' in the audience.



Honorable mention number five goes to Trail Life USA, the anti-gay alternative to the Boy Scouts that got caught at one of their meetings doing a salute that looked eerily like the one that dates back to a 1930's young men's organization.

The Hitler Youth.  

Guess they'll be singing 'The Horst Wessel Song' or Das Panzerleid at their next Trail Life gathering in the original German

This week's SUF winner I'm going north of the border for, and nope, he's not Rob Ford.   It's Roy Eappen, a gay member of the (surprise surprise) Conservative Party who is a self described nine time attendee of CPAC and donates his hard earned loonies to GOProud. 

He's in DC for CPAC, and said in an interview he thinks it should be okay for people to discriminate against others they don't like.

"You see, I personally believe that you should be able to refuse people service if you don’t want to give them service. In the same way I don’t think gay people should be building cakes for the Westboro Baptist Church, I don’t think I should be forced – people should be forced – I think it’s economically stupid, but you know – I haven’t read the entire bill…

But you know, it’s – how do you tell? “If you’re gay, you can’t sit here?” How will they tell?"

Spoken like a true, white privilege addled gay conservafool. It's people like you who lend credence to what's said in non-white SGL, bi and trans circles and has us looking side-eyed at y'all that the gay rights movement is all about white LGBT people getting their lost white privilege back.

As someone whose parents, grandparents and great grandparents were on the receiving end of that Jim Crow era discrimination, who was born in a segregated hospital in 1962, and started her elementary school years in segregated schools, not no but OH HELL NO is it EVER a good thing for people to be able to discriminate against people they don't like. 

And I'm tired of hearing that bull feces come out of the mouths of white conservafools, no matter what side of the 49th parallel they live on.  .

Roy Eappen, shut up fool.

Chief Lanier, Looks Like You DO Have An MPD Transphobia Problem

While I was in DC for the LGBT Media Journalists Convening last week,  I was having such a good time with the ladies of Casa Ruby Friday night I almost blew off the reception and stayed for the group meeting they were having there.  

Had I done so, I would have had a ringside seat for the latest incident of transphobia breaking out in the Washington Metropolitan Police Department

Seems like one of those officers racistly thought that Casa Ruby shouldn't have a blue BMW Z3 to take their clients home in, much less that vehicle was too good for transpeople in a service organization to be in.

For those of you not inside the Beltway, last Friday night after I got dropped off near the Capital Hilton by her executive assistant Caprice Williams, around 10 PM EST she was driving Ruby Corado and some of the attendees of their group meeting home that night.   They were followed for ten blocks after leaving Casa Ruby's Georgia Avenue location  by an MPD unit and pulled over by the Washington po-po's. ostensibly because the vehicle was overcrowded.  

The traffic stop quickly devolved into an ugly incident in which Williams was yanked from the car, the other traumatized passengers were ordered out of the car and made to stand outside in below freezing temperatures, transphobic and homophobic slurs were uttered by the gaggle of officers gathered there, and Williams was arrested and taken to jail and held there until 4:30 AM 

The incident comes on the heels of a recently released 41 page report in which an independent task force created by the Anti-Defamation League of Washington found shortcomings in the way that Metro PD interacts with the DC transgender community. 

It also fits into a pattern of previous incidents involving transpeople of color and MPD on and off duty officers.

From Chloe Moore to Patti Shaw to the carload of transwomen fired upon by drunken off duty MPD officer Kenneth Furr, trans women, and especially transwomen of color in the District find themselves not feeling protected and served by the police officers in the city they live in.

In fact, the incident Shaw endured made it into the Amnesty International 'Stonewalled' report that details abuses of TBLG people aimed at them by the police. 

It also led Shaw in July 2012 to file a lawsuit against MPD and the US Marshal's Service. 


According to the Hate Crimes Assessment Report, it stated there is a belief in the Washington DC LGBT community that “homophobia and transphobia are widespread within MPD, with several describing it as rampant.”   That community mistrust was also reflected in MPD oversight hearings testimony  on February 27, 2013.

Interviews with members of the DC community for the Hate Crimes Assessment Report revealed that the hostility toward transgender people, especially transgender women of color, is common among many MPD officers.

“Virtually every transgender person who spoke to us at the four community meetings reported that they had been harassed or mistreated because of their gender identity or expression, ranging from acts of ignorance and insensitivity to outright hostility and overt expressions of bigotry and harassment,” the HCA report says.

And you'd be hard pressed to believe with all the transphobic incidents currently plaguing MPD that I've talked about on this blog since 2010, that once upon a time, Officer Bonnie N.Davenport was the MPD's first trans cop in 1979.

I repeat what I said in the post discussing the Kenneth Furr incident in August 2011. 

Something transphobic has been brewing in the MPD police culture for some time and Chief Cathy Lanier needs to get to the bottom of it. 

If she can't or she's getting resistance, then maybe the Department of Justice needs to get busy taking a look at what's going on in MPD and start cleaning out the transphobic rotten apples.

Transphobia is bad enough in the general population.   It's even worse and can have potentially fatal consequences when it's hiding behind a badge.


So yes Chief Lanier, you not only have a transphobia problem in MPD, it's past time to acknowledge you do and root it out.  I think the best way to start besides admitting you have a problem is to actually have some trans police officers on the MPD force again for the first time since Bonnie Davenport retired in 1991. 

Hey People, LVP's Running, Too

While the state and national attention has been focused on State Sen.Wendy Davis in her run for the Texas governor's chair, I do need to (and will continue to do so until November 4) point out there's a wise Latina running for the more powerful in Texas chair of Lieutenant Governor..

State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte is the Democratic nominee for Lt. Governor, and awaits the winner of what is going to be a bruising Republican primary between current Lt Governor David Dewhurst and State Sen. Dan (I'm not on ESPN) Patrick.

So yeah, it's important that LVP win this race, because the Lt. Governor has major sway over the Texas legislature as President of the Texas Senate.  The Lt. Governor picks the committee chairs, sets the legislative agenda, establishes all special and standing committees, appoints all chairpersons and members, and assigns all Senate legislation to the committee of his or her choice. The Lieutenant Governor as you witnessed during Sen Davis' filibuster, decides all questions of parliamentary procedure in the Senate. He or she also has broad discretion in following Senate procedural rules.


The Lieutenant Governor is an ex officio member of several Texas statutory bodies. These include the Legislative Budget Board, the Legislative Council, the Legislative Audit Committee, the Legislative Board and Legislative Council, which have considerable sway over state programs, the budget and policy.

The Lieutenant Governor is also a member of the Legislative Redistricting Board (together with the Speaker of the House, Attorney General, Comptroller, and Land Commissioner), which is charged with adopting a redistricting plan for the Texas House of Representatives, Texas Senate, or U.S. House of Representatives after the decennial census if the Legislature fails to do so.

So yeah, that office packs a lot of power with it, and it's important that Sen. Van de Putte get elected to it if Sen Davis is going to be able to move her agenda should she become the governor of the Lone Star State. 

LVP was interviewed recently on MSNBC about the upcoming campaign and asked whether this is the year that Texas finally after 20 years of GOP control turns blue.

March 6, 1857-A Date That Will Live In SCOTUS Infamy

"beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."
--Chief Justice Roger B. Taney

It would give to persons of the negro race, ...the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, ...to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased ...the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.
--Chief Justice Roger B. Taney

There are days I read those words and feel that elements of the white community in 21st century America still believe that.

Moving on to talking about this sad anniversary.  

Today is the day that Dred Scott v Sandford, one of the worst Supreme Court decisions ever, was handed down on March 6, 1857.   Slavery supporting Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote the majority opinion for the Court..  

It not only ruled 7-2 the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional, but held that African-Americans whether slave or free, were not citizens of the United States and had no standing to sue in court. 

Interesting to note the birthers tried to use Dred Scott v Sandford in their attacks of President Obama that has long since been overturned by the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. 

But far from settling the question of slavery as Taney hoped, the Dred Scott Decision poured gasoline on a simmering fire, exacerbated tensions between the slaveholding South and the abolitionist North, caused the Panic of 1857, split the Democratic Party, helped solidify a nascent Republican Party, encouraged the secessionist politicians in the South to make even bolder demands in support of slavery, helped grease the skids for the American Civil War that broke out three years later and laid the ground .

While Dred Scott didn't receive justice from the SCOTUS that day, his and his wife's freedom that he sued for was purchased by the sons of Peter Blow, his first owner in May 1857.   But Scott unfortunately didn't get to enjoy that freedom for long.   He contracted tuberculosis and died 18 months later on November 7, 1858.   His wife Harriet passed away June 17, 1876.

And Taney's reputation was forever tarnished by that unjust decision.  

Taney was correct on one aspect of that horrid decision.   Today I and other African Americans are not only recognized as citizens of this country (the level is still debatable) we are born in, we run for and hold public office, have those political meetings, speak truth to power, travel and live wherever we please inside the borders of this nation, vote (when the Repugs aren't trying to suppress it) and some of us even carry arms.  

But for those of us who have those freedoms, its anniversary days like this in which we need to take a step back and realize that a little over 150 years ago we didn't.    We owe our freedoms to people like Dred Scoot and countless others as Africans in America, and we have to fight tooth and nail to ensure that they are never rolled back.   

Upcoming 'Whose Beloved Community?' Conference At Emory

Definitely wish I could b in the ATL for this one, but I'm already committed to an event on the HCC-Southeast campus on one of the dates for this conference..

Emory University is hosting an international conference entitled 'Whose Beloved Community?  Black Civil and LGBT Rights Movements that is right up my activist alley. 

It is taking place on the Emory U.campus from March 27-29 which support from the Arcus Foundation  and I posted the Call For Proposals on TransGriot last March.

The role of Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in both race-based and sexuality-based civil rights movements is frequently rendered invisible as a result of prevailing national narratives that present (presumed white) LGBT communities and (presumed straight) Black communities as opposing forces. 

In recent years, however, an increasing number of scholars and activists have produced work seeking to make visible the vital points of intersection and contention among the U.S. Civil Rights movement, the LGBT equality movement, and Black LGBT communities.  This work is shaped by questions related to identity formation, intersectionality, tokenism, marriage equality, the role of religion and “respectability” in African American communities, the emergence of the South as a center of Black LGBT life in the U.S., HIV/AIDS and its continuing effect on African American communities, the proliferation of a prison-industrial complex unprepared for its LGBT population, and the appropriation of the civil rights movement by the right. 

This conference seeks to make visible and critically engage the points of convergence and divergence between these two historic, overlapping, yet distinct social movements that continue to transform civil society, law, and the academy.

Should be an informative and lively discussion, and I hope it doesn't turn out to be a monoethnic event.   

Inaugural BlaqOut Conference Coming Next Month

The inaugural BlaqOUT Conference will be held April 18-19 on the UC Riverside campus!

The University of California, Riverside cordially invites all folks who self identify as Black/African American or of African descent and as Same Gender Loving, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning or somewhere on the LGBT spectrum to apply to attend. 

So what does it cost to attend BlaqOUT? 

• The Regular Registration Fee is $20 per person selected to attend and a t-shirt is included.
• The Reduced Registration Fee is $10 per person selected to attend, NO t-shirt.
• Some scholarships will be available for those unable to afford reduced registration.
• Information on paying registration fees will be sent via email to those people selected to attend BlaqOUT.
• For those receiving support from their campus (student government or departments), an invoice and W-9 form will be provided upon request.
  

The deadline to submit proposals for this inaugural conference was extended until March 9, so for those of you on the Left Coast or interested in attending this event or presenting at it, you have a little more time to do so.  Notifications of accepted proposals will occur by March 14.

The deadline to submit the online application to attend the event is April 1 with registration payment due by April 4. 

Will keep you posted as the date draws closer for this inagural event.

Maryland Trans Rights Bill Passes Senate

If you peruse my posts from the early part of 2011, you'll note a series of them in which I was part of a coalition of trans Marylanders and trans activists from different parts of the country working to get the word out and kill an unjust, unpopular and bad trans rights bill that didn't have public accommodations language in it.

HB 235 died a contentious, painful public death, and I gleefully celebrated it.     I hated being put in the position where I had to work to kill a needed trans rights bill, but killing a bad bill is better than letting it pass just so you and a organization can trumpet it as a legislative win.

Isn't that right, Massachusetts?  I also pointed out in the wake of that convoluted Maryland legislative mess the whole jacked up situation didn't have to happen .

It's now three years later.  Since then the states of Nevada, Connecticut, Massachusetts* and neighboring Delaware have passed statewide laws banning discrimination against trans people.  Baltimore and Howard counties have now joined Baltimore City (2002) and Montgomery County (2007) in barring discrimination based on gender identity.   Several other Maryland cities are also contemplating passing similar laws but unlike the gay and lesbian statewide we were cut out of in 2002, there is still no statewide anti-discrimination law in Maryland.

That might be about to change. 

Maryland is halfway down the legislative road to becoming the 18th state plus the District of Columbia to having a statewide law banning discrimination against trans* people.. 

On Tuesday the Maryland Senate voted 32-15 to pass the long overdue Fairness For All Marylanders Act, which would expand Maryland's anti-discrimination laws to protect transgender people in employment, housing, access to credit and public accommodations.

The bill now goes to the Maryland House of Delegates and if it is approved there, will go to Gov. Martin O'Malley's (D) desk for his signature. 

There's still a lot of work to do before we can definitively add Maryland to that distinguished list of states that protect the human rights of their trans citizens, and it's past time for it to happen there.

Aisha And Danielle Talk About Haters

In their latest Politini on The Grio segment, my fave DC power couple Aisha and Danielle Moodie-Mills talk about online haters and the vindictive and nasty comments they leave in comment threads across the Web. 

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