Happy Birthday Ronnie. NOT!

I'm sorry but I don't get all the fuss people are making about Ronald Reagan's 100th birthday. I'm sure his kids, Nancy and other family members and friends probably have fond personal memories of him. But what I truly hate, as I do with any public figure, be it Michael Jackson or Martin Luther King Jr. is this mass white-washing of his legacy that is currently taking place. No one (with a very few expcetions) is a complete saint or a certified sinner. So let's get a few facts straight about Ronald.

"Reaganomics"did nothing to help anyone but the weathiest Americans and is an ambomination that has continued to hurt middle and working class people to this day, as it has become Republican gospel. Wake up! It's been over 30 years and the money still hasn't trickled down! Not to mention his cutting of social programs that would've further helped non-millionaires.

During his presidency he did nothing to help the black or gay communities. How quickly everyone seems to have forgotten about the Iran-Contra scandal, in which drug trafficking led to black communities being flooded with crack cocaine in the eighties, from which sprung addiction and drug-related gang violence in neighborhoods already ravaged by poverty. Poverty that was the result of  by you guessed it, Reaganomics!

And lest we forget, Reagan's silence on AIDS and hooking up with fundamentalist douche bags like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson held up funding and potential medical treatments for years. In fact, AIDS, then called the "gay cancer" was pretty much joke in the White House during the early 80's. Literally.

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
Press Briefing by Larry Speakes
October 15, 1982
The Briefing Room
12:45pm EDT


Q: Larry, does the President have any reaction to the announcement -- the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases?


Mr. Speakes: What's AIDS?


Q: Over a third of them have died. It's known as "gay plague." (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it's a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the President is aware of it?


Mr. Speakes: I don't have it. Do you? (Laughter.)


Q: No, I don't.


Mr. Speakes: You didn't answer my question.


Q: Well, I just wondered, does the President ...


Mr. Speakes: How do you know? (Laughter.)


Q: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke?


Mr. Speakes: No, I don't know anything about it, Lester.


Q: Does the President, does anyone in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry?


Mr. Speakes: I don't think so. I don't think there's been any ...


Q: Nobody knows?


Mr. Speakes: There has been no personal experience here, Lester.


Q: No, I mean, I thought you were keeping ...


Mr. Speakes: I checked thoroughly with Dr. Ruge this morning and he's had no -- (laughter) -- no patients suffering from AIDS or whatever it is.


Q: The President doesn't have gay plague, is that what you're saying or what?


Mr. Speakes: No, I didn't say that.


Q: Didn't say that?


Mr. Speakes: I thought I heard you on the State Department over there. Why didn't you stay there? (Laughter.)


Q: Because I love you Larry, that's why. (Laughter.)


Mr. Speakes: Oh I see. Just don't put it in those terms, Lester. (Laughter.)


Q: Oh, I retract that.


Mr. Speakes: I hope so.


Q: It's too late.


This transcript was quoted at the beginning of Jon Cohen's book, Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine, 2001. ISSN # 1052-4207.

By the time Reagan finally decided to speak about AIDS in 1987, not only did he state the government shouldn't provide sex education, but his comments were tailored to his evangelical base, who were all to eager to claim the disease as God's punishment.

"On April 2, 1987, Reagan said: "How that information is used must be up to schools and parents, not government. But let's be honest with ourselves, AIDS information can not be what some call 'value neutral.' After all, when it comes to preventing AIDS, don't medicine and morality teach the same lessons."

Hmmm. I wonder whose values are those?

According to Act-Up New York:

AIDS research was chronically under-funded. When doctors at the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health asked for more funding for their work on AIDS, they were routinely denied it. Between June 1981 and May 1982 the CDC spent less than $1 million on AIDS and $9 million on Legionnaire's Disease. At that point more than 1,000 of the 2,000 reported AIDS cases resulted in death; there were fewer than 50 deaths from Legionnaire's Disease. This drastic lack of funding would continue through the Reagan years.



When health and support groups in the gay community were beginning to initiate education and prevention programs, they were denied federal funding. In October 1987 Senator Helms amended a federal appropriations bill to prohibit AIDS education efforts that "encourage or promote homosexual activity" — that is, efforts that tell gay men how to have safe sex.

When Rock Hudson, a friend and colleague of the Reagans, was diagnosed with AIDS and died in 1985 (one of the 20,740 cases reported that year), Reagan still did not speak out as president ... In 1986 (after five years of complete silence), when Surgeon General C. Everett Koop released a report calling for AIDS education in schools, Bennett and Bauer did everything possible to undercut and prevent funding for Koop's too-little-too-late initiative. Reagan, again, said and did nothing. By the end of 1986, 37,061 AIDS cases had been reported; 16,301 people had died.

I understand that personal responsiblity is a factor. No one forced anyone not to wear condoms or smoke crack. We all are accountable for our own behavior. But that still doesn't change the fact that the Reagan and his administration systematically failed to meet the needs of people that desperately needed them most. That he allowed politics and personal prejudices to override any sense of compassion for communities that were suffering, and by doing so, exacerbated it. Reagan's job as president was to serve all Americans and he actively chose not to do so.

Now he's being reinvented as the Great American, an omnibenevolent president who as a friend to all. Pardon my french, but that's a bunch of bullshit. When public/historic figures, be they politicians or entertainers, are made out to be saints or demons (unless they are complete sociopaths), we do both ourselves and them a disservice by denying their humanity.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a great leader, a gifted speaker, and a fearless fighter against injustice. But he was also a philanderer and occasionally engaged in plagiarism.

Michael Jackson was a tremendously gifted performer, songwriter and singer who gave millions away to charity. But he was also an emotionally crippled man riddled with self-hatred about his black skin and features, and did everything he could to get rid of both.

Or course this also works the other way. Malcom X called white people devils (maybe that's why there's no Malcom X Day for the kiddies:) and proclaimed blacks should totally separate themselves from society. But he also recanted such statements after he went to Mecca.

My point is that when we white-wash a person's legacy we turn them into a symbol that is impossible to aspire to, forgetting their negative actions and their flaws. And when we make someone out to be a complete and utter villain (again with exceptions, i.e. Hitler, Stalin), we can often forget the good things they've done or changes that may occur in their views over a lifetime.

So when you wish Reagan a happy birthday, think twice as you blow out the candles.

Required Gay Viewing: Paris Is Burning

Being that 2010 marks the 20th anniversary of this iconic documentary I thought it'd be as good a time to talk about my love for Paris Is Burning. For those who don't know (and shame on you gurls who don't!) Paris Is Burning provides a crash course on the black/latino gay ballroom scene of late 80's New York. Legendary house mothers such as Pepper Lebeija, Dorian Corey, Angie Xtravaganza and Willi Ninja--whose vogueing style inspired Madonna's "Vogue" video--as well as ballroom luminaries such as the late Octavia Saint Laurent are profiled about the deeper meaning of the grand balls, homophobia, transsexualism, gender identity and racism.

While the fact that many of the films' subjects have passed since its 1990 release makes it a little sad to watch, I believe this film is invaluable for the way it shows an oppressed minority within a minority finding a way to flourish in a culture that openly despises them. Like other oppressed groups, the participants in the ballroom scene create a safe space to celebrate their differences and provide support, taking the abusive language hurled at them from the dominant culture and refashioning it in way that is empowering. The colorful characters courage to be themselves in an era of AIDS-induced fear is inspiring and a slice of LGBT history that should never be forgotten. Not to mention the litany of classic lines. Here are a few of my favorites:


Pepper Labeija: "Having a vagina, that doesn't mean you're going to have a fabulous life. It might in fact be worse!"

Dorian Corey on reading: "If I'm a black queen and you're a black queen we can't call each other black queens. That's not a read it's a fact!"

Octavia Saint Laurent: "Five hundred dollars for a simple dress."

The ballroom announcer: "God help you, you know how the children are!"

Watch the documentary below:



[90] Paris Is Burning [J] from japanesesuperhero on Vimeo.

Black LGBT Profiles: Audre Lorde

This being black history month and all, I figured I'd go beyond the obvious icons (Martin, Malcom, Rosa, Harriett) and profile those that are usually overlooked (i.e. black gays and lesbians). One of those individuals is Audre Lorde, a woman who was, in her own words, a "black, lesbian, warrior, mother, poet."

Born Audrey Geraldine Lorde in 1934 in New York City to Caribbean immigrants, Lorde was nearsighted almost to the point of being legally blind. However, that didn't stop her from learning to read, write and talk at four years old, and composing her first poem in her early teens. She changed her name to Audre, saying that she liked the artistic quality of both her names ending in "e."

While attending Hunter College in the 1950s, Lorde worked a series of jobs, including a factory worker, ghost writer and social worker. According to Wikipedia.com, "In 1954, she spent a pivotal year as a student at the National University of Mexico, a period she described as a time of affirmation and renewal: she confirmed her identity on personal and artistic levels as a lesbian and poet. On her return to New York, Lorde went to college, worked as a librarian, continued writing and became an active participant in the gay culture of Greenwich Village."

Lorde was married to attorney Edwin Rollins. The pair had two children before divorcing in 1970. She numerous relationships with women, becoming romantically involved with her partner Gloria Joseph until her death from breast cancer in 1992.

Her poety, regularly published by black literary magazines including Langston Hughes' New Negro Poets, tackled subjects such as love, motherhood, betrayal, and homosexuality. Lorde wrote about her own sexuality in the poem "Martha." Heavily involved in the civil rights, anti-war and feminist movements, Lorde criticized the women's movement for what she saw as a focus solely on the experience of white, middle class women, and its exclusion of differences among women such as race and sexuality. The concept of difference was a recurring theme in her work. "I am defined as other in every group I'm part of", she declared. "The outsider, both strength and weakness. Yet without community there is certainly no liberation, no future, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between me and my oppression."

Some Audre Lorde's famous quotations are below:

"If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive."

“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences."

“When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

“When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.”

1967? Or 2010?

Via The Advocate:

Take about 45 minutes out of your day (or night) and watch this 1967 documentary by CBS entitled CBS Reports: The Homosexuals. The news report(if you want to call it that) trots out every horrible stereotype about gays, or gay men in particular: we have domineering mothers and distant fathers, we're out to recruit the young, destroy society, are incapable of monogamy....you get the picture.

However, what was so scary in watching it was that many of those same stereotypes still exist in 2010. It's even scarier to think that an entire generation of kids (that most likely grew up to be my parents and yours) took the things shown this report as facts. People still believe you can "pray away the gay"be "turned out" or any other number of ridiculous ideas. Even though so much progress has been made--it's not illegal to have gay sex, we have much more visibility in society, homosexuality's no longer seen as a mental illness--there is still a ways to go in changing societal attitudes. However, there all few sane individuals in the report, such as an openly gay man shown at the beginning, and writer/artist Gore Vidal towards the end. Watch the report below:

Is Gay Marriage New?

Opponents of gay marriage often say to allow gays to marry would be redefining marriage(as if it hasn't been redefined before), and engaging in a radical social experiment. However, if they were look back through history, they would find, as my mother often says that there is nothing new under the sun. While these marriages were sometimes more about inheritance and maintaining the family name than love or sexual orientation, they prove that same-sex marriage is not a new invention. Time for a history lesson kiddies:)

Let's start in Africa--oh yes all you Afrocentrists who'd swear on Marcus Garvey's grave that gay folks never existed in Africa--you are wrong. According to this excerpt from Stephen O. Murrary's book Boy-wives and Female Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities(which I still need to read lol:):

Woman-woman marriage has been documented in more than 30 African populations, including the Yoruba and Ibo of West Africa, the Nuer of Sudan, the Lovedu, Zulu and Sotho of South Africa, and the Kikuyu and Nandi of East Africa. Typically, such arrangements involved two women undergoing formal marriage rites; the requisite bride price is paid by one party as in a heterosexual marriage. The woman who pays the bride price for the other woman becomes the sociological 'husband'. The couple may have children with the help of a 'sperm donor', who is a male kinsman or friend of the female husband, or a man of the wife's own choosing, depending on the customs of the community. The female husband is the sociological father of any resulting offspring. The children belong to her lineage, not to their biological father's.

Formalized, socially-recognized relations between two men also exist in Africa. Among the Zande (located in southwestern Sudan, northeastern Congo, and the Central African Republic), a male warrior could marry a teenage boy by paying bridewealth to the boy's parents. The man addressed the boy-wife's parents as his in-laws, and performed services for them as befitted a son-in-law. Unlike women-women marriages, man-boy marriages end when the boy comes of age. The former boy-wife can now take his own boy wives, and his former husband can marry another boy-wife.

Native Americans also recognized gays and lesbians in their tribes as two-spirit people, and thought of them as being gifted with supernatural powers and shamanistic abilities. They also supported alternate gender roles for both men and women. Among the Mohave, "men have married alyha (biological males who are officially initiated into a 'female' gender role) and women have married hwame (the female equivalent of alyha)."

Records in ancient China detail committment ceremonies between women in "A Record of China's Customs: Guangdong." If a woman was interested in another woman, she would prepare gifts such as peanut candy, a date, or other gifts for her crush. If the other woman accepted the gifts she also accepted the proposal. A contract ceremony followed by a celebration with friends and plenty of drink happened afterwards. The new couple would then "become like each other's shadows in sitting, lying down, rising, and living." However if one of the women broke the contract she would subjected to a "hundred humiliation." (You know some folks don't take breakups well, lol).

Same-sex marriages among men were also recognized in the neighboring city of Fujian:

The Fujianese take male-on-male passion very seriously. Men from all strata of society form partnerships within their own social classes. The older man is the "sworn older brother", and the younger man is the "sworn younger brother". When the "older brother" goes to the home of his "younger brother", the parents of the "younger brother" treat him like a son-in-law. From henceforth, any living costs or heterosexual marriage expenses of the "younger brother" will be paid by the "older brother". Those who love each other ... also sleep together as spouses.
Similar to the Zande model in Central Africa, Fujian boy-marriages involved a man paying bridewealth to a teenage boy's parents, and the union typically ended when the boy came of age, though there were exceptions. Sometimes same-sex couples adopted and raised children.

In Europe historical evidence such as legal documents and gravesites also give evidence same-sex unions existed in medieval France. During this time people often signed documents, called affrèrement, translated as brotherment, which had many similarities to marriage contracts. While these affrèrements were used for families in transfering property and inhieritance, they were also used for non-relatives as well. According to Allen A. Tulchin, historian at Shippensburg University in Pennyslvania:

The effects of entering into an affrèrement were profound. As Tulchin explains: “All of their goods usually became the joint property of both parties, and each commonly became the other’s legal heir. They also frequently testified that they entered into the contract because of their affection for one another. As with all contracts, affrèrements had to be sworn before a notary and required witnesses, commonly the friends of the affrèrés.”

Tulchin argues that in cases where the affrèrés were single unrelated men, these contracts provide “considerable evidence that the affrèrés were using affrèrements to formalize same-sex loving relationships. . . . I suspect that some of these relationships were sexual, while others may not have been. It is impossible to prove either way and probably also somewhat irrelevant to understanding their way of thinking. They loved each other, and the community accepted that. What followed did not produce any documents.”

He concludes: “The very existence of affrèrements shows that there was a radical shift in attitudes between the sixteenth century and the rise of modern antihomosexual legislation in the twentieth.”

All of this is not to say that we should follow all the traditions (i.e. humiliating someone if they want out of a marriage or shacking up with teenage boys) of same-sex unions throughout history, but it is to explain the fact that same-sex marriage is not some new master plan of "the gay agenda" or a sign of the apocalypse, as some folks want to believe. Every culture and society throughout history has had to deal with this issue one way or another, and has responded either negatively or positively.

However, in more recent times countries like Canada, Sweden, South Africa, Norway, Belgium, Spain, and the Netherlands, as well U.S. states Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont, and Massachusetts, have legalized gay marriage, and the world has not blown to bits. Straight folks are still shacking up, hooking up, getting hitched, and breaking up. So I guess my question to gay marriage opponents is since the idea of same-sex marriage is nothing new, has been proven not to be disastrous in other countries, does not pose a threat to straight folks or the nuclear family, and is going to be treated as a separate, civil, legal ceremony: WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?

*Sorry for the long post. I guess I was in a journalistic mood lol:).

Random News and Notables

He was a civil rights activist. He helped organize the March on Washington. He advised Martin Luther King Jr. on Ghandian nonviolent resistance tactics, helped organized the Montgomery bus boycott and co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with King.But Bayard Rustin also endured rabid homophobia for being an openly gay man in the civil rights movement.

According to Wikipedia, "U.S. Representative Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. forced Rustin's resignation from the SCLC in 1960 by threatening to discuss Rustin's morals charge in Congress."In addition Senator Strom Thurmond "produced a FBI photograph of Rustin talking to King while King was bathing to imply that there was a homosexual relationship between the two" and NAACP chairman Roy Wilikins didn't allow him to receive any public acknowledgement for his part in planning the March on Washington.

In the later years of his life Rustin worked as a human rights monitor for Freedom House and often spoke in favor of gay rights. He onced said, "The barometer of where one is on human rights questions is no longer the black community, it's the gay community. Because it is the community which is most easily mistreated." Bayard died in 1987, and was survived by his partner of ten years, Walter Naegle.

So while we continue to celebrate Dr. King's and the other civil rights figures' (Rosa Parks, Coretta Scott King, Malcom X) legacy, let's not deny Bayard Rustin his place in that legacy.Here's a link to a short clip about Rustin: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-8795990671374283637&hl=en

Nationwide Protests Planned Against Prop 8

Protests against the passage of Proposition 8 will happen on Saturday, Nov. 15th in all 50 states. To find out what's happening in your state, go here for more details.

Even if you can't physically go to any protests, you can still contribute to the cause by telling a straight friend or family member why fighting this proposition is important or donating funds to invalidateprop8.org.

Rapper Trick Trick Doesn't Like The Gays

In an exclusive statement on Allhiphop.com, the Detriot rapper expresses his distate for homosexuality and gay people.

“I’ma go on the record right now with this. Homosexuals are probably not gonna like this album,” Trick revealed to AllHipHop.com. “I don’t want your f**got money any goddamn way. I don’t like it [homosexuality]. Carry that s**t somewhere else.”

Not afraid of an impending firestorm that could threaten his album’s success, Trick Trick explained that his anger comes from what he feels is mainstream society’s growing promotion of homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle.

“It’s just that every time that you turn on the TV, that sissy s**t is on,” Trick told AllHipHop.com. “And they act like its f**king okay. The world is changing for the worst when s**t like that happens. And I address that issue. I address it hard as hell.”

Now that Trick Trick has had his say....

LET THE READING BEGIN!

1. You don't want me to buy your album....done (I need money for gas anyway!)

2. How can you have so much hate against gays when the people who signed you, produced you and styled you could be gay. And I know someone in your family's probably gay. Like Chris Rock said, "Every body got at least a gay cousin!"

3. You may be a talented rapper but since you don't want me buying your album, I and millions other self-respecting gay folks that love hip hop will never know because of your ignorant tirades. Every money-hungry wannabe hustlers knows better than to diss potential customers. Hope your bank account can survive without them gay dollars.

4. And lastly, how are you gonna be homophobic with a name like Trick Trick, posing for pictures like a piece of Tuesday night Trade with a BGC profile? I mean Trick Trick...the name says it.

Enough said. Dismissed.