Why Voting Matters: Barack Obama...I got you.

I have written a number of blog posts about Barack Hussein Obama (30 mentions to be exact). Last May, I wrote a blog titled Why I Will Be Voting for Barack Obama, and I stand by all that I wrote in that blog as well.  If you want to know why I am voting to support our president, please check out one of those two links above.

I am writing today to talk about the practice of voting itself. Yesterday, I posted this status on Facebook:

 I know I should not have to say this, but I am. If you have the right to vote for President, unlike our immigrant brothers and sisters, folks living in our colonies, and the millions of mostly men of color that have lost the right due to felony convictions (Jim Crow is alive and happy as Hell)...and you do not vote because "voting doesn't matter," or "you are protesting the system," please take your selfish self-centered ass up and out of these here United States. Most likely someone died for you to have that right especially if you are a woman, person of color, non land owner. Folks are still dying because y'all decided to stay home in 2000 and 2004 here and around the world thanks to wars started by Bush. Go vote. I hope you will vote for Obama, but not voting isn't a protest it is an abrogation of your most minimal democratic obligation. Don't vote; relocate. Danke! Gracias! Merci! Obrigado! Salamat po! Grazie!

 I stand by this Facebook status emphatically, but I want to explain a bit more about why I believe voting to be important even within this broken system, particularly after receiving some well thought out and meaningful push back from a former colleague and someone that I adore as a human and as a thinker, Patrick Barret from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. You can read Patrick's full discourse on my Facebook page by scrolling down a bit and clicking on the comment feed under the above status.  But one of his comments struck me in response to my statement that we have an obligation to participate [in democracy via the minimal act of voting]:

"Yes of course we do, but not blindly. We are plenty smart enough, and we're morally obligated, not to just participate aimlessly, with no analysis of what works and what doesn't. The system's broken, and in my opinion, that obligates us to avoid fulfilling Einstein's definition of insanity."

I agree with Patrick. The system is broken. Democracy is limited more now than at anytime since the official dismantling of Jim Crow era poll taxes/lit tests/etc. Using the vehicle of the prison industrial complex and restrictive ID laws and court room shenanigans, the vote is either directly or effectively stripped from millions upon millions of mostly people of color and poor voters. That, of course, is not coincidental since a working poor/oppressed class of folks that see themselves as having a legitimate opportunity to use the electoral system to effect change would buck the two party system and create a much fairer (as fair as can be possible while still operating under capitalism). It would be a democracy that was at least multi-party if not explicitly socialist in its leanings. That's my belief and the trends of the 60s of radical social groups that were broad based holds this up as do the union organizing of previous decades, etc. So it is in the interest of power to limit the franchise as much as possible and to those that have some particular interest and investment in the current system. It is easier for the working poor to see themselves in cahoots with a struggling and shrinking middle class which identifies with American dream aspirations rather than having the working poor and middle class seeing themselves as fundamentally the same as the working poor and having the middle class risk what small privileges still exist for a chance at a revolutionary democratic movement that would pay out real liberation dividends via a time of struggle. 

Yet even with that broken reality, I believe that our system is not yet so monolithic and gone that the two parties are one party from rhetoric to recent history WE KNOW THAT TO BE UNTRUE! 

The system is broken. It needs to be fixed. But the reality is that who sits in the White House DOES matter. It matters to those of us living with HIV if the president in the White House is going to fund Ryan White and at what level, Medicaid and other social programs. It matters to working class people of color and poor whites if the president in the White House is going to rush to or manufacture a war for political and financial gain. It matters who is the White House when it comes to basic human rights protections for queer and trans folks. It matters for many reasons who sits in the White House.

HEAR ME CLEARLY! No person in the White House is going to give us our liberation, But I do not ascribe to the notion that who you vote for in this corporate democracy doesn't matter. Eight years of Bush and the Great Recession that followed proved, unequivocally, that, in fact, it does matter. It matters in a cost of lives. Mayhaps I am not as "down," as those that are willing to suggest that voting doesn't matter because the system is inherently flawed. Voting doesn't matter in the way that it should. I spent years working with Patrick Barret, David Cobb and others on just these issues. And I continue to advocate for real and meaningful democratic practice. And if I need to do so, I will continue to repeat that voting is only your most minimal obligation to democracy. But I will vote tomorrow. I will vote for Barack Obama. And I encourage every one of you to vote, attempt to vote, or raise Hell in one way or another if you find your right to vote denied while at the polling station...and then...no matter what the outcome of the election tomorrow night, get ready for the real work of democracy that comes each and every day afterwards.

Why I Will Be Voting for Barack Obama

On November 6, 2012, God willing, I will walk into a voting booth, most likely in New York, a good 3,000 miles from the last place I voted in a presidential election, and I will cast my ballot for President Barack Hussein Obama.

Because of health care reform. Because he ended the war in Iraq (though I use ended loosely). Because he is ending the war in Afghanistan (again, loooosely). Because of the consumer protection bureau. Because of Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Because of Justice Elena Kagan. Because of his support black farmers. Because of nearly $1 billion in support for HBCUs. Because of the Fair Sentencing Act (Crack Cocaine Bill). Because he gave new life to the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Because he supports the Dream Act. Because he has tried his damndest to undue a whole lot of the Hell that Bush created. Because I can still stand to hear his name. Because I still believe that he wants whats best and just for the people of the United States. Because the unemployment rate has dropped 2 points.  Because he HAS done more for the LGBTQ community than any other president has ever done. Ever. Because he has lent a new dignity back to the black community that I had never seen in my 30 some years when he took office. Because he actually loves his family and shows it. Because of so many other victories he has won for us, my community, my loved ones, and the hope I still feel. I will vote for Barack Obama on November 6, 2012.

But let me be clear. Obama has disappointed and sometimes greatly disappointed. I don't excuse his support of Israel. I don't forgive the lives on his head in the wars we fight both clandestine and overt. I don't approve or support his pro-capitalist policies. I don't support his willingness to compromise when at times it would have been better for him to put his foot in some Republican's ass.

I wrote an essay, published here as well as at BlackPower.com, called The Responsibility of Hope.  In that essay I wrote:

Unfortunately, Obama, an avowed capitalist, seems to have a heart of gold and a mind that is still partially colonized. To judge him for being a product of the nation in which he was raised is not helpful. Recognizing it helps us all to see that the responsibility of hope also resides with each of us. There will come a time when President Obama disappoints us. That is why it is incumbent on us, people of African descent, to use this political and spiritual moment as a time to organize our communities both as a basis for our own localized change but also as a physical, spiritual, and political support for President Obama when he inevitably stumbles.The chains of the mind, even in as inspiring a man as Barack Obama, are deep, long, solid, and largely invisible.

Barack Obama has stumbled, at times he has almost fallen, but, I believe, his failures have only been in equal measure to our lack of support. When he took office, we acted like we had elected Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, and Krishna all combined into one. We learned, the hard way, as I warned four years ago, that without WE THE PEOPLE coming together with a fierce agenda that held Obama to his course AND GAVE HIM THE PEOPLE POWER TO DO THE WORK, that he would be forced to the center and act accordingly. He's a good man. He's also an ambitious mother that went from state senator to U.S. President in FOUR DAMN YEARS.

But we've learned. We've seen the overt, unvarnished racism. We know now that on Inauguration Day top Republicans were having a dinner to plot how to ensure Obama was a one term president. We have seen the Tea Party fascism. We've seen the OWS movement and that we too can respond by populist means. A second term, done right, with our folks actually doing OUR part of the work, could mean a future that breaks from these cycles of what has ultimately become ultimate corporate lunacy.

I will vote for Barack Obama, but I will continue to work, on the streets, in coalition, across borders, boundaries, communities, families, skin colors, gender identities, ages, sexual orientations, faiths, and continents to make sure that when 2016 comes, I can feel proud in whatever critique I have of the Obama Presidency because I DID my part, so he could have the real choice to do his.

Dr. Cornel "Obama's a House Nigger" West

Let's just be clear...Dr. West needs to be slapped upside the head for basically calling President Obama a house nigger in front of the entire world.

Don't believe me? Pray, tell me exactly how else one would translate this statement about President Obama on MSNBC's The Ed Show:

I think he does have a predilection much more toward upper-class white brothers and Jewish brothers and a certain distance from free black men who will tell him the truth about himself as well as what’s going on in black communities, brown communities, red communities and poor white and working-class communities.

Translation: Obama is a house nigger that is afraid of all of us field niggers that gonna remind him that he ain't white.

Let me go on ahead and channel my inner mixed child and respond on behalf of President Obama. Dr. West...just because you have a gap in your teeth and refuse to pick out that Don King fro of yours does not make you any more black or down or...wait for it...less privileged than our President. In fact, Mr. Denial, you have degrees from Princeton and Yale and you have occupied posts at Princeton and Harvard, Yale and the University of Paris, and Haverford College. If Obama was up in the Big House serving in the Dining Room, your ass would have been just the other side of the kitchen door.

And I couldn't give a fuck that you are a Democratic Socialist, you, sir participate in the elitist and most privileged institutions in the United States. That statement you made on MSNBC was one of the biggest rocks ever thrown inside of a glass house. I swear to God.

But beyond the personal hypocrisy of you sitting on a perch funded by white men, propped up by white men, created by white men, and until very recently, open exclusively only to white men, the damage you have done by not only buying into but also parroting the very same race exclusion/division rhetoric championed during slavery and Jim Crow is just plain shameful and irresponsible.

As I said today on Facebook, I could care less if the Dove of Christ came down and sat on Dr. West's nappy ass fro and he blew the Trumpet of the Resurrection out of his asshole, until he apologizes for the WAY in which he made his critique, I no longer give a damn what that self-hating, internalized racist has to say.

Please let me know if my position is not clear.

And I wish Dr. West would come for my ass. I am as radical as he. I share his politics and analysis of the United States, the power structures that prop it up and its hegemonic post-colonial imperial world policies. But as a human being that has often been targetted, with or without justification, on the end of insider quasi-anti-intellectual white washing rhetoric of the type used by Dr. West, I refuse to allow that sort of stupidity into my critiques of the problematic positions of black elites.

And let's be clear. Dr. West was rightfully critiquing the fact that President Obama has continued the neo-liberal policies of the United States, and he has most certainly not held Wall Street accountable for the shit mess they have put the working folks of this country in.

But guess what, Dr. West? The WAY you say your message is as important as the message itself. And the "blacker than thou," manner in which you delivered your critique makes you into a tool of the Master, so let me remind you of what our sweet sister Audre Lorde had to say:

"The Master's tools will never dismantle the Master's house."

Since you are now the arbiter of all things Negro and the self-appointed guardian of the Gates of Righteous Blackness, you might want to remember that.

I respect Dr. West's research and contributions to the academy as well as to Black American's understanding of themselves, but if the good doctor is going to show his black ass then I am more than happen to cut a switch and remind him of exactly how we do things in the black community.

Have at it!

Holding Our Own Accountable: Thank You NY State Sen. Diane Savino

This morning, I woke up freezing in my apartment. New York (and seemingly the rest of the northern United States) missed the memo that it is May. I want to fly up into the heliosphere and punch the Sun in the face.

After taking the Mimz for her morning constitutional and walking passed the sink full of dirty dishes that will, at some point, claim the better part of an hour or so this morning, I logged into my Facebook account.

The top entry on my news feed was a post by NY State Sen. Diane Savino. It was a post in response to a statement released by a member of the Oneida Nation regarding the use of the code word Geronimo by the U.S. government as a moniker for the operation against Osama Bin Laden (Dumb Obama. Dumb Sec. Gates. Dumb Leon Panetta. Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb). I learned very quickly that the gentleman that wrote the letter, despite the letter's spot on criticism of the use of the name and history of Gerinmo and the impact on First Nation's people, isn't the best character running around Indian country.

Unfortunately, Sen. Savino chose a poor moment to make a statement about this gentleman's shenanigans (and fiscal malfeasance).

Let me NOT be the person to throw stones whilst I live inside a big old glass house surrounded by glass covered in glass in glass pajamas eating glass for breakfast. I, myself, have more than once, in anger or annoyance, popped off at the mouth (and/or fingertips) and posted something to Facebook that I hadn't thought through. Thankfully, I am a part of a broader community that has no qualms about letting me know, almost always firmly yet lovingly, that what I have written or said does not serve justice nor is it reflective of the person they know me to be. Sometimes the things I've written flippantly have stung folks in ways that I never intended nor would ever do intentionally. Though, like most people, I do not, in the moment, love the feeling of being held accountable (usually my cheeks catch fire, my back starts to get up, shame starts to creep in and then anger at the person that summoned the shame---actually me...but better to blame the accountability vessel.) After those emotions run their course, usually just a minute or so, I try make amends around whatever it is that I did or said. I also acknowledge the love and committment to my personal growth that is evidenced by someone taking the moment to hold me accountable to my words and actions with love and respect.

Don't get me wrong...now and again....I let the other person have it or politely honor their feelings without removing the offending item or statement; there are times when I stand by whatever thing it is that may have caused offense (just because someone feels offended doesn't mean that what you've said or written isn't truth).

We all make mistakes. I make them all the damn time.

This morning was one of those moments where Sen. Savino's statement of annoyance was absolutely well founded...but tying it into the place where it appeared was not cool. If Sen. Savino were a Republican or one of those queer hating faux Democrats that seemed to be sprinkled throughout the state, I would have cut and pasted the Facebook conversation verbatim and then tore the good senator a new poop hole.

I actually highly and deeply respect Sen. Savino. She has been an amazing advocate for justice in Albany and for the queer community, and so, instead, I shared with her my feelings. The senator responded respectfully, made the choice to remove the posting and the thread, and sent me private message letting me know she had done so. Thank you, Sen. Savino for your integrity and for making the choice to get your message/point across in a different way. If the rest of your colleagues around the state and in the U.S. Congress were as responsive and open to dialogue as are you, perhaps we would not be facing so many of the partisan bullshit problems that have us stuck on ugly in New York and the U.S. as a whole.

When we take a moment to honestly share our feelings and offer to hold our own accountable, we demonstrate what community and growth is really about. If we are only ever willing to step up and stand up to the "bad guys," or those that are often times far far from us in our beliefs and views, then we aren't making sure our own house is clean. Let those others live in a dirty house (as long as they keep their yard clean and their trash out of streets, I don't care how filthy their living room is...as long as they don't have body parts in the freezer or tongueless ex-lovers in leather gear in a box under the stairs). I value when others hold me accountable (and let's be clear...passive aggressive "teaching" moments are not accountability...accountability is when you bring your questions and concerns DIRECTLY and RESPECTFULLY). My esteem for Sen. Savino has gone up exponentially after this morning's brief exchange. Thank you, senator.

PS On the topic of the use of Geronimo's name as code for Osama Bin Laden is a great, clear, and succint statement from the Ononadaga Nation Council of Chiefs

PPS And here is a great article by Steven Newcomb of the Indigenous Law Institute on the same subject.

A Voice of the Unemployed: NO DEAL OBAMA!

Dear President Obama:

What the goddamn hell are you thinking? As a recent addition to the masses of unemployed, please allow me to speak to you clearly: in what alternative reality does it make ANY sense to barter your assent to a temporary extension of the Bush era tax cuts (which, you pandering idiot, are at the heart and soul, along with these two wars and the shenanigans of Wall Street, of the reason are in this shit storm of a recession right now) for a short term extension of unemployment benefits?

You are a community organizer sir. Not only does your history prove that so did your campaign that landed you in the White House. Yes, it will be a shit shame and extremely hard to look people in the eyes that have exhausted their last week of benefits and are now desperate for an answer to their financial hardships. BUT this is the EXACT time for you to grow a fucking pair of balls and tell the honest to GOD truth about the situation in DC. You need to look these largely white and rural families and urban angry hungry poor and tell them that it is the REPUBLICAN SENATE that is holding back an extension of unemployment benefits. INDEED, you need to name names. In fact, you can refer them to the last extension of unemployment benefits in April 2010, and you can go ahead and name the names of every single Republican Senator EXCEPT Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Senator George Voinovich (R-OH), and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). That leaves 40 people that you can present as concrete impediments to food on their table. These aren't some esoteric public policy concepts that you have to articulate and break down for the working person to understand and then somehow convince matters enough for them to pick up the phone or to march on their senator's office. This is straight forward community organizing 101: Identity your target, identify your allies, identify your goals and objectives, and then MOBILIZE.

Exactly how long do you think that the GOP is going to let people in their state slip into destitution and allow unchecked anger to build to the point of direct action? The last election proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the people could give a shit come election day about political labels. In 2012, the party in power that let them and their children starve is the party that is going to reap the harvest from the shit plantation.

AND HOW DARE YOU ATTEMPT TO PUSH FORWARD YOUR LIMITED SHORT TERM POLITICAL GOALS WITH MY FUTURE! The government stands to lose hundreds of billions in revenue from the WEALTHIEST Americans. Let me state this plainly for my readers: Obama is basically giving a big old multi-billion dollar Christmas present to the wealthiest Americans while, in my case, giving me $405 a week. Let me speak plainly Mr. Obama. I grew up on welfare. My family used the food shelves when we had to do so. I would gladly return to the food shelf ever week for a year if it meant in the end that the government finally stood up to the GOP and the wealthy elite exposing the GOP for what it really is and unequivocally demanding that the overindulgent and undeserving uber-wealthy pay into the system a tiny portion of that which they milked from its now desiccated teats.

I get it Obama. You are panicked. You got a major ass whooping in November. It really wasn't your fault. You were out organized. Not only were you facing anger at a system you inherited but you were also facing the full fury of a racist backlash by uneducated and threatened white folks in this country. TOUGH SHIT OBAMA. It comes with being the first black president. You knew exactly what you were facing when you decided to run. You knew that your life and your family's life would be in danger. You knew you would face hundreds of years of racism and all the historical baggage that entails. And you knew that you would face the full might and fury of a reactionary conservative movement that was going to cast you as the greatest and most terrible of bogeymen.

You may not be judged my history in how you and your policies were shaped, motivated, and resistant to these external forces. But I sure as hell am going to judge you based on that criteria. I was and am proud of you for your election. Though I had different goals for financial and health care reform, I am proud of the tremendous and historical wins that you have had legislatively. But your fight right now is not just about the goings on in Congress. The United States people NEED you. They need you to be the long term visionary that empathetically and strategically centers their hurt, anger, and poverty in a long term vision with short term solutions that do not compromise principles and our well being in order to placate political ambition and the ultra rich. IF YOU FAIL IN THAT, then, sir you fail as my president.

A temporary extension of Bush's tax cuts on the backs of poor folks is really what you are asking. You are once again asking poor people to accept crumbs...a temporary pain reliever that is supposed to replace necessary surgery. Surgery is painful. Recovery from major surgery is slow and also comes with pain and discomfort. But the alternative to avoiding pain and discomfort in the short term often means losing everything in the long term. Do not give us crumbs, Mr. President. I am tired of crumbs. I want a full, organic, multi-course, sustaining all you can eat buffet. If that means that between now and dinner all I can eat is ramen and spam, so be it. It's ok. I can smell the good stuff cooking, and I am willing to make due, to tighten my belt an to share in the labor and preparation if it means that I get to eat my fill with everyone else.

Please don't make of me a server that can only smell the food and eat the scraps of those most privileged that already have more sustenance than they could ever consume in any of a number of lifetimes.

Yes We Can?: Only If You Shut the Fuck Up and Do Something

I still believe yes we can.

But only if "we" shut the fuck up, recognize that we have seen amazing progress, and recognize that we gave the president four a year term.

Unfortunately, it seems the only message that got across to the majority of Americans was "change." Once again this proves that there are three year olds with longer attention spans and cognitive abilities than the bulk of the American voting public.

Change is good if there is a strategic reason for change. Changing because you are angry, impatient, and haven't done anything to be part of a solution is selfish and damaging, and the fools that participated in this "change," are going to get exactly what they deserve. They are going to get even more polarization, ridiculous obstructionism (do I have to remind people that Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader, openly declare in August that his ONLY goal in the Senate was to deny Obama a second term? Don't you people FUCKING LISTEN OR PAY ATTENTION!), and gridlock. What that means is that working people, poor people, the self-hating/racist/too stupid to think critically elder white men that turned out to vote, queer folks, women, and anyone else that is not secure enough in their personal wealth to be unaffected will find themselves worse off than they were at the end of 2008. Mark my words that these same individuals, including gutless/stupid/selfish/cry baby gays that have been been throwing tantrums and pity parties because Obama didn't put their pet issues first (WE ELECTED HIM TO A FOUR YEAR TURN--SHUT THE FUCK UP AND GO SUCK ON A THE TIT OF SOMEONE AT HRC!), are going to be all "shocked" and dismayed that they voted for this new Republican House, which really couldn't give a shit about anyone but themselves, that is not only ineffective but is going to act as a rubber stamp roadblock of legislation that could make a difference in this country.


I voted for change in 2008 when I cast my vote for Obama. By strategically thinking about my vote and what it meant, I have gotten much of what I wanted (though by no means all). I wanted universal health care, Obama fell short but we have the first health care reform bill basically EVER in this country...every President since Teddy Roosevelt has been trying to do what Obama has done and failed. I wanted the recession to end. Though the economy is growing slowly, it is growing. I wanted a massive slap down and regulation of Wall Street. Obama fell short, but he still managed to have passed a significant financial regulation reform including the creation of a Consumer Protection agency with significant powers to regulate Wall Street. There are still many more things that I want: job growth, end the wars, non-draconian immigrant positive legislation, passage of the DREAM Act, a package of queer liberation bills that can include the hetero-normative largely bullshit issues of HRC queers but queer positive immigration reform, 50 billion dollar investment in HIV/AIDS prevention/support for positives/cure research as well as a bill to de-criminalize HIV transmission and a ban on states that attempt to do so except in cases of willful malicious intent, student loan forgiveness for ANY college graduate that spends at least 5 years working for a non-profit organization in a service capacity, a infrastructure and transportation bill that drops half a trillion dollars into updating all aspects of our infrastructure and the construction of high speed rail lines all across the United States linking at least one major city in every U.S. State (of course, except Hawaii and Alaska).

I may not get all that I want, but I elected Obama to a four year term...expecting that he is going to do everything I want in two years is not only stupid and selfish but is unfair. The man was given four years to do the best he could for America, yet after only two years (which have seen amazing progress), folks are screaming ME ME ME ME MINE MINE MINE MINE NOW NOW NOW NOW. And let me be really clear with those of you that are feeling good and patting yourselves on the back because you did your once every two years duty to turn out and cast a ballot but in between elections you don't do anything except complain: FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU.

Was that message clear enough?

I have reached an end with those that believe that voting is their one and only civic responsibility when it comes to engaging with the political process. They cast a vote for a person and then heap all of their wants, desires, and expectations on that person. Basically, they abdicate person responsibility to advocate, actively, for change onto another person and then have the audacity to be angry when that person, staggering under the enormous piles of demands from all sides, picks a path that is shiny and lined with gold. if you are broke, of color, queer, disabled, or a woman and you don't, every day, do something small to create positive social change in this world, please know that the other side, with their massive wealth and deep pockets, can pave the way to their desires with gold bricks. It's up to the rest of us to make sure that those bricks are revealed as fools gold and that the field the path walks through is seeded with land mines.


The whole damn country needs a good old fashion ass-whooping and grounding. And, just like when I got a spanking when I was young, these voters deserve exactly what is coming to them.

14th Amendment Repeal Movement is Racist

In the last few months, the Republican Party, particularly Republicans from states that border Mexico, have started calling for a repeal of the 14th amendment to the constitution. In addition to the 14th amendment being the equal protection and due process clause, it is also the amendment that establishes birthright citizenship in the United States.

The attack by the Right on the Constitutional Amendment that was passed specifically to create a legal framework to protect against the disenfranchisement and return to chattel slavery of African Americans is the most insidiously racist piece of rhetoric from the GOP that I have heard in a very long time.

And these are not some crackpot legislators from rural districts in the Arizona hinterlands. The call for repeal of the 14th Amendment has come from none other than U.S. Senator, and Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell and several of his GOP Senatorial (and racist) colleagues. What was once only insane racist rantings by the likes of former U.S. Rep Tom Tancredo and Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce--Boss Hog's doppleganger-- (author of SB1070--Arizona's insane anti-immigration law) has now become the cause celebre of the GOP leadership.

What the what?

Over the last week, I have heard a number of NPR stories and seen several interviews on CNN where these white privileged men are screaming bloody murder about the hijacking of the Constitution by "illegal immigrants." First of all, fuck you. Second of all, no human being is illegal, third of all the only reason that most white folks that immigrated to this country have citizenship, particularly after the massive immigration from the late 19th through the early 20th century is BECAUSE of birthright citizenship and the 14th amendment.

And let's be clear, this attack is an attack on the legitimacy of all people of color. It is well thought out, even if poorly executed. For example, there was already a ridiculous furor over whether or not Obama was a citizen. To this day, despite the fact that Obama's Mother was a U.S. citizen, and despite the fact that the State of Hawai'i has verified Obama's birth on U.S. territory, there are still those that claim that he is not nor ever has been a U.S. citizen. Can you even imagine the legal nightmare in which we would be embroiled if birthright citizenship was not constitutionally guaranteed? It would have made Bush v. Gore look like an episode of the People's Court.

Let me bring this out into the light of day, all of this crazy crap from the Tea Party, to Arizona's immigration law, to the movement to repeal the 14th Amendment is a last desperate push by the White Right to try and stave off the inevitable: not only are people of color soon to be the majority in the United States, the historical inevitability is that with each passing generation, we move closer to a time when people of color will be the majority of those running this country. After 400 years of U.S. and colonial history, where the wealth of this country was created by people of color yet controlled by white folks, and after a century of progressively more political gains by people of color, some folks have seen the writing on the wall and freaked out when they discovered the writing was black (and brown and red and yellow). Sharpies don't come in white ink Mitch McConnell.

Without a drastic shift in the understanding and application of the Constitution, the underpinnings of the social structures that have for so long and have done so well at maintaining white hegemony in this country, are being slowly eroded by the unsustainability of this nations' economic practice and the historical inevitability of a shift in demographics that has and will continue to reshape the landscape of this country.

Don't mistake me, in the end, unless there is a radical shift in our economic policy, it will still be corporations that truly rule in the United States. They will just be ruled by black and brown faces. But even maintaining economic control, which is not subject to democratic principles and thus allows the massive wealth stolen by white folks in white hands, the fear that accompanies a shift in the faces that control the systems of democratic power in this country have some right wing nut jobs fearing that one day, some day, some how people of color in this country are going to find them out and take back what was never ever theirs in the first place.

PS Though I never thought I would ever appreciate Lou Dobbs, I did today. Lou Dobbs, that foe of immigrants, has come out strongly against the GOP move to repeal the 14th amendment.

Political One Liner of the Week Award: President Barack Obama

This is the first time that I am awarding the Political One Liner of the Week Award to a President. I am sure that this honor will be held up by President Obama with the same awe and wonder that he exhibited upon winning the Nobel Peace Prize. That prize came with $1.5 dollars. This comes with a potential loss of 10% of the Presidents approval rating.

That's just how cool my blog happens to be.

At the annual White House Correspondents dinner, President Obama gave a shout to the Jonas Brothers by saying:

"Sasha and Malia are big fans. But don't get any ideas boys. I have two words for you: Predator Drones. You won't even see them coming."

I almost spit out my iced coffee on my beloved Druscilla III (that's the name of my MacBook Pro).

Congratulations President Obama. The honor is all mine.

Arizona Goddamn!

Yesterday I had to send a prayer up to my beloved Nina Simone and let her know that to Mississippi Goddamn...we now have to add Arizona.

First the Arizona legislature lost their goddamn minds by coming up with this heinous bill that actually makes it illegal to be an undocumented immigrant in Arizona (and, despite Supreme Court rulings to the contrary, basically directs the Arizona law enforcement officers to engage in blatant racial--and clothing--profiling). Secondly, facing an election year, Republican Jan Brewer, waiting until the last possible minute, steeled up her bright red ovaries and signed the bill into the law.

I expect legislators, especially white racist legislators in territory that legally belongs to Mexico and that has consistently violated the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, to try and pull some fucked up shenanigans, but the fault for this bill becoming law lies squarely in the lap of that blocked headed creature of darkness called Jan Brewer.

Not only did she signed the damn bill, with a straight face, she said as she signed it, and I quote, "I will NOT tolerate racial discrimination or racial profiling in Arizona." (Emphasis is HERS and is included in the full text of her speech--the link to the full text is in the box at the bottom of the page).

I almost never ever use the following word in reference to a woman but...excuse me, bitch?

Jan Brewer just signed a law that explicitly makes being an undocumented immigrant in Arizona illegal. Already, we have heard about advice to police from California Rep. Bilbray suggesting that an undocumented immigrant can be identified by his or her clothes (read sombrero y chancletas). And, frankly, there are reams and reams of research that shows exactly that racial profiling is the ONLY way that law enforcement has used, outside of raids into particularly employers, to track and arrest undocumented immigrants. Again. Excuse me. Bitch.

And let me clarify my use of language. When you decide to demonize, demoralize, and establish laws to make a human being illegal (up to this point they were undocumented, now, in Arizona, undocumented immigrants are actually illegal) then you have no more sense than a common wild dog. If you act like a dog and raise your leg to piss on people, then you have earned the use of the term bitch as an apt noun and adjective to describe you.

Already there are calls to boycott Arizona. The Lakota and Ojibwe nations have released a poignant and beautiful statement establishing the rights of indigenous people from across Turtle Island to migrate as they wish as the borders themselves are illegal constructions created by an illegitimate occupying power that used genocidal practices to create their political and military hegemony. And even Shakira, today, has turned her ojos asi towards Arizona and rolled them so far up in her head that she can see her brain.

And, of course, GOP Chairman Michael Steele (who should, as my Mama used to say, be held up and have the black beaten off of him) along with other GOP turd faced pundits called President Obama's condemning of Arizona's idiocy "playing the race game."

This is a race game mother fuckers, and it was not started by President Obama or any other person of color in this nation, but I swear before God that we will finish it either by Malcolm's plan or Martin's, but the shit is on. Bitches.

Arizona goddamn.

(P.S. Just to be clear, if you ain't native...you are undocumented.)

ObamaCare(s)

With passage of the legislation, Obama has achieved the signature domestic goal of his presidency, and the most sweeping piece of social legislation since the 1960s Great Society initiatives that saw the passage of Medicare and Medicaid.

-Karen Tumulty, Time Magazine

Mr. President, thank you for putting my current and future health as your top domestic priority.

Thank you for not giving up when Mr. Brown went to Washington. You went to the mat for the people of the U.S., and, for once, the people won.

Now your healthcare plan isn't perfect. It is not single payer universal. The Hyde amendment is still in full effect (banning the use of federal funds for abortion), and you gave a nod to the Devil (aka Rep. Stupak of Michigan) in order to get this deal through. While you didn't put any new restrictions on a woman's right to choose, you did not, however, broaden their ability to access safe reproductive services including abortion. And that is saddening.

You did, however, guarantee that 32 million people living in the United States will receive health care coverage. That still leaves us with 15 million undocumented residents that will need healthcare services. We need to cover those human beings too with no questions asked.

But you did what U.S. Presidents have tried to do since Teddy Roosevelt was in office: you created a healthcare system that will cover all U.S. citizens. Mil gracias, mi presidente. Mil gracias.

The critics are already out there wondering if this will hurt the Democrats in the mid-term elections. I am sure it will. Those who are brave enough to stand up for what is right when the wolves are howling for what is wrong, sometimes get bitten. But the truth and history will make victors of the temporarily defeated, and though you may lose some political ground after November, you have won a fight for justice, and that is worth more than controlling both houses of Congress.

Thank you President Obama.

(The following is a breakdown of the bill, it's cost, and an implementation timeline. This is taken from an article from CBS News)

Cost:

$940 billion over ten years.

Deficit:

Would reduce the deficit by $143 billion over the first ten years. That is an updated CBO estimate. Their first preliminary estimate said it would reduce the deficit by $130 billion over ten years. Would reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion dollars in the second ten years.

Coverage:

Would expand coverage to 32 million Americans who are currently uninsured.

Health Insurance Exchanges:

The uninsured and self-employed would be able to purchase insurance through state-based exchanges with subsidies available to individuals and families with income between the 133 percent and 400 percent of poverty level.
Separate exchanges would be created for small businesses to purchase coverage -- effective 2014.
Funding available to states to establish exchanges within one year of enactment and until January 1, 2015.
Subsidies:

Individuals and families who make between 100 percent - 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) and want to purchase their own health insurance on an exchange are eligible for subsidies. They cannot be eligible for Medicare, Medicaid and cannot be covered by an employer. Eligible buyers receive premium credits and there is a cap for how much they have to contribute to their premiums on a sliding scale.
Federal Poverty Level for family of four is $22,050

Paying for the Plan:

Medicare Payroll tax on investment income -- Starting in 2012, the Medicare Payroll Tax will be expanded to include unearned income. That will be a 3.8 percent tax on investment income for families making more than $250,000 per year ($200,000 for individuals).

Excise Tax -- Beginning in 2018, insurance companies will pay a 40 percent excise tax on so-called "Cadillac" high-end insurance plans worth over $27,500 for families ($10,200 for individuals). Dental and vision plans are exempt and will not be counted in the total cost of a family's plan.

Tanning Tax -- 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning services.

Medicare:

Closes the Medicare prescription drug "donut hole" by 2020. Seniors who hit the donut hole by 2010 will receive a $250 rebate.

Beginning in 2011, seniors in the gap will receive a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs. The bill also includes $500 billion in Medicare cuts over the next decade.
Medicaid:

Expands Medicaid to include 133 percent of federal poverty level which is $29,327 for a family of four.
Requires states to expand Medicaid to include childless adults starting in 2014.
Federal Government pays 100 percent of costs for covering newly eligible individuals through 2016.
Illegal immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid.
Insurance Reforms:

Six months after enactment, insurance companies could no longer denying children coverage based on a preexisting condition.
Starting in 2014, insurance companies cannot deny coverage to anyone with preexisting conditions.
Insurance companies must allow children to stay on their parent's insurance plans through age 26.

Abortion:

The bill segregates private insurance premium funds from taxpayer funds. Individuals would have to pay for abortion coverage by making two separate payments, private funds would have to be kept in a separate account from federal and taxpayer funds.
No health care plan would be required to offer abortion coverage. States could pass legislation choosing to opt out of offering abortion coverage through the exchange.
**Separately, anti-abortion Democrats worked out language with the White House on an executive order that would state that no federal funds can be used to pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest or health of the mother. (Read more here)

Individual Mandate:

In 2014, everyone must purchase health insurance or face a $695 annual fine. There are some exceptions for low-income people.
Employer Mandate:

Technically, there is no employer mandate. Employers with more than 50 employees must provide health insurance or pay a fine of $2000 per worker each year if any worker receives federal subsidies to purchase health insurance. Fines applied to entire number of employees minus some allowances.
Immigration:

Illegal immigrants will not be allowed to buy health insurance in the exchanges -- even if they pay completely with their own money.

Negro

So, like many Americans, I was tickled to death to see the word NEGRO on my Census form. Ten years ago, when I filled out my first Census form as an adult, the word Negro was not on the form. Now...all 10 questions on the Census form are approved by an act of Congress. Setting aside the stupid and ridiculous red tape that must have gone into actually getting 535 members (or, at the very least, a majority of those 535 members) to agree on 10 questions for a form (only in the US of A), where the hell was the Congressional Black Caucus when this question came up?

I mean, I know, for example, that the entire CBC is not made up of 75 year old black men from Georgia. For example, the Congressman that represents Minnesota's 5th District aka Minneapolis is Keith Ellison...a young black man that is also Congresses first Muslim Representative. Was Keith absent the day that they debated those 10 questions? Was there some "Back to Negro" movement that I missed out in the last 10 years? I know on first glance I don't necessarily appear as the most niggerish of Negroes, but even as a stealth Blacky, I still tend to know at least any major movements/issues/discussions going on within the black community. Did Kwame call up the Census Bureau and say that his great-grandma was mad that Negro had been taken off the form in 1970 and wanted it back? Maybe Maya Angelou, old and fierce as she is, wrote a poem called "On The Pulse of the Negro," and it created an intense but narrow movement to bring back the word Negro.

Negro. Negro. Negro.

I can't stop saying that damn word.

Negro.

See...there I go again.

Really...I am not offended at all by the use of the word Negro on the Census form, but I am, perhaps overly, amused by it and a little confused. Is there an enclave of Black folks in America that neither recognize that the word "black" and the words "African American," are referring to them? I can TOTALLY see if the word "black" were omitted as there are many many many black non-African-Americans in the United States. The word black, for me, indicates everyone of African descent no matter their country of origin...so black Puerto Ricans, black Brazilians, and Africans living in America are all encompassed in the word black, but African-American covers, nicely, all those not covered by black. Negro just seems like an archaic redundancy and perhaps a misguided attempt by the Census Bureau to make Michelle and Barack Obama feel welcome and included in Washington.

Negro.

I'm just saying.

Tom Tancredo Rhymes with Jim Crow

To invoke the power of the great blogger Divine Grace, former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo is a douchenozzle.

He is also a racist bastard that, during his opening remarks at the Tea Party (I calls 'em Teabaggers) Convention, stated that "Obama was elected because we don't have a civics, literacy test in this country before people can vote in this country." (Read the Alternet.org article)

Jim Crow say what?

Speaking in the Nashville, TN, in a South that has never healed from the physical, spiritual, and psychic wounds of slavery and Jim Crow, Tom Tancredo said in his "outside voice" that Jim Crow era voting barriers should be reinstated to keep the ignorant from participating in Democracy. And by ignorant he meant to say niggers. Teabaggers are ok but carpet baggers will not be tolerated.

And wouldn't you know it, the crazy ass fuck nuts in the audience applauded. Holy shit.

When I first read this story yesterday, my jaw hit the table so hard that I left a dimple imprint in the Formica. It is a new fucking day and a great big leap backwards when white folks are no longer afraid of backlash or severe outward consequences by saying uncoded racist shit in public. Pre-Obama it would have been the immediate death knell of the Tea Party if a speaker at their "convention" aka "klan rally" said anything resembling what Tancredo said. There is no way in hell a former Vice Presidential candidate would have kept her appointment to give the keynote speech. Republican legislators would have immediately decried the organization, and it would have quietly broken apart or pulled their sheets back over their heads and returned to burning crosses in colored folk's front yards.

Not now. There's a nigger in the White House. The coloreds done got uppity and forgotten their places, and it's time for Granny to pull up her knickers, rub on some extra Fixodent, and get to kicking ass and tying nooses.

I am listening to NPR this morning, and they were reporting on the convention, and low and behold there wasn't a word spoken concerning Tancredo's remarks. WTF man? Oh yeah....they get money from the gubernment, and there is a recession don't you know. Can't rock the boat by doing any real reporting.

Wake up people. The true measure of the state of racism in this country is not the fact that a black man is in the White House. The true state is measured by what the opposition says and gets away with impunity. Racism is alive and well, and it has taken off its white robes, put on a suit and started a new white power movement called the Tea Party.

The State of the Union Is Tore Up

Last night, I sat on the bed with David. David was playing Scramble on his iPhone, and I had my computer on my lap, iTunes tuned to WNYC, and my Twitter open. As President Obama gave his State of the Union address, I live Twittered the experience, and I joined thousands of others that were giving their responses, analysis, and transcription of/to the address.

I have to say that there were a number of times during the speech that more than one "hell yeah" came out of my mouth. Obama had some great things to say, with some witty one liners, and some pointed jabs at both the left and the right. I am behind him with putting his foot in the asses of banks. I am with him on fixing health care. I am with him on job creation. I am even with him on closing the gap in import/exports. I do not advocate militarism, but I do advocate for the right of queer folks to serve openly in the military, though I would prefer that the military, as we know it, would be disbanded and reconstituted using a just defense framework.

I can not get behind Obama on some of the relativist imperialism that espoused. I don't believe in the actions, policies, and necessary oppressive actions that are necessary for the USA to remain #1 in the world. I lamented the lack of a more harsh criticism of the Supreme Court's recent decision on corporate personhood, and I really wish Obama would have stopped his speech, left the podium, and punched Justice Alito in the face when he had the nerve to mouth, "that's not true."

I wish that Obama had spoken about New Orleans and demanded that Congress commit the money to really rebuild the entire Gulf area. I was listening for an acknowledgment that we are not post race or class or sex or gender or oppression. I wanted to hear something about the rebuilding of our social safety network, which the current economic crisis has exposed as a colander and not a net.

I am happy that Obama owned that clean energy and green jobs and industry is the way of the future, but I reject the notion that there is anything such as "clean coal" technology, and I stand firmly against any expansion of nuclear power. How many Chernobyls and Three Mile Islands to we have to have before we understand that nuclear energy is never and will never be safe.

And there was too little about foreign policy. What about Israel and Palestine? What about Afghanistan and Iraq? What about Haiti? What about the climate change treaty? What about IMF reform and World Bank reform?

In the end, I think that Obama did well in his speech. I wasn't looking to agree with everyone he said. And I know that the State of the Union is political positioning at its finest. I think that Obama put some fire under the Republicans. Now, I can only hope that he will use the bully pulpit and channel his inner angry black man and get some real shit done or at least go down in a glorious ball of righteous flames in the effort to make real change and create real hope in the USA.

Ragtime on Broadway Fucked My Ass Up

So I basically spent the last two hours being angry as hell and crying like a little biznatch that got beat in the face with a morningstar dipped in acid.

Ragtime is the best piece of theater I have seen in a long damn time. It's better than Wicked, and since I named my penis Gregory McGuire after seeing Wicked...that should tell ya'll something.

Ragtime is a revival of a play from the late 90s. It is officially re-opening this Sunday at the Neil Simon theater just up the street from my house. Today was a preview matinee. A friend of mine, that I met through David, had extra tickets to the show and sent me a text earlier this afternoon to ask if I would like to see the show.

I had already had a midday cocktail as today was a day off for me, and I was debating whether or not I should go. Ragtime was on the top of my list of shows to see, so I figured I should get my lazy ass up off the stool and go check out the show for free.

I haven't decided yet if it was a good choice.

So, in a vacuum it was an excellent choice. The show was fucking phenomenal. The music was incredible, the performers were outstanding, the story was great and original, and the stage/sound/lighting are going to win this production a Tony.

In relationship to my mental health after two days of intense labor and already being soul tired before I went, it was probably a poor choice.

I didn't know what the show was about before I signed up to see it. I knew it had black folks in it, and I knew that it must be set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as that was the hey day of ragtime music.

In actuality the show wove the stories of two Jewish immigrants, a well-to-do white American family, and a black woman and her child, and a Harlem based successful ragtime musician. The play addressed issue of workers right and industrialism. Emma Goldman figured in prominently as did JP Morgan and Booker T. Washington. The gist of the play is that a poor black woman abandons and then is reunited with her infant. What she thought was an itinerant musician tracks her down and tries to build a life for her. Unfortunately, she is beaten by whites and killed. As often happened, the legal channels of justice did jack shit to remedy the situation, and the musician goes ape shit and kills three white men. And I say halle-fucking-lujah to that.

Of course in the end, the black man is shot down by the authorities, and Booker T. Washington's assimilationist and white washed negro ass advocates for the wronged musician to trust the wheels of justice which roll right over the musician.

The entire story is told through brilliant musical numbers and frankly I cried from sadness and ridiculous anger.

I am so tired of being angry. I wasn't sitting in the audience angry at some historical injustice, I was angry because the EXACT SAME SHIT HAPPENS RIGHT NOW EVERY DAY AND NOT A FUCKING THING HAS CHANGED fundamentally. Sure, overt racism in the criminal justice system is no longer permissible but violent crimes against black men by the police have not substantially dipped in a generation, white cops that kill black men almost uniformly get off no matter HOW obvious it is that the shit that went down was a case of fucked up white men shooting down a black man who only had a wallet in their hand, and institutional and structural racism, though mitigated, remains rampant in so many ways. I love Obama but his election has meant little to jack shit in the substantive day to day realities of black folks living in America.

Didi I mention I am tired of being angry. I really am. I am so emotionally drained. I know that when I came home pouring a delicious vodka drink was probably not the best answer, but it was a readily available one. I know that my man is going to come home in an hour or so, and he should not be subjected to the ridiculous and irate feelings that are pumping along with adrenaline through my veins. But, seriously, right now at this juncture I am utilizing every tool that I have to just survive this rage without reverting to old drugging patterns or pulling out a hatchet and going Jason Voorhies on the asses of whatever poor white souls I meet on the street below.

I am sure tomorrow I will be my old chipper self again, but today I am pissed as hell.

Oh, and btw, go see Ragtime. It is worth the ticket price.

God Bless America

I mean it God Bless America.

Of course, God should bless Ethiopia and Ghana, Botswana and Australia, Papa New Guinea and Guinea-Bissau and Guinea Pigs and People with Swine Flu and the one that flew over the cuckoos nest.

But I digress. I meant to talk about America.

I love America. I really do. I was listening to Whitney Houston's rendition of The Star Spangled Banner, and I was struck by the fact that I am one of the most patriotic people I know. And, as it turns out, I know a whole helluva lot of patriotic people.

Mark Twain said that ".....the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it."

Most of the people I know are desperately devoted to this nation. Though, before I continue, the term nation begs definition. Nation, in this sense, is a collection of people living within the same political boundaries and forming a single polity. That is my own definition of nation, and it is the one that works for me. My definition purposefully excludes First Nation's people living on reservations as they form a polity separate from those of us that are not living on reservations, they constitute a collection of independent sovereign states, and it is with their sufferance that the rest of us occupy the land that forms the physical constitution of our nation.

Now that I have defined nation, I can go back to my original thesis: I am ridiculously patriotic and so are most of my friends.

With all of my heart I believe that this nation is, actually, the greatest on the Earth if looked at through a very subjective lens. I actually believe that in the history of developed nation-states (this purposefully excludes tribal or indigenous groupings) the United States has the most highly developed form of constitutional liberties (though the governmental structure could use some work...can we say proportional representation please) in history. The Founding Fathers, though many were slave owning racists, were quite literally geniuses. There is a reason why most democracies in the world radically altered their basic structures owing to our form of representative democracy. Sure, we didn't invent all of our democratic principles. Most of them were based on ancient Greek city state political practices and Roman law, and sure when we started we defined "people" as white men that owned property, but as history has progressed and human consciousness has developed (or redeveloped as it were...considering not long before Columbus "discovered" America, Europe was fully aware that the universities in Sankore and the Songhai Empire in Africa were the most advanced in the world...and that European academics were considered too dumb to teach there)...America has made leaps and bounds in terms of real protections for most people most of the time in relationship to personal liberties. In fact, we have often times overbalanced the rights of the individual at the cost of the rights of the collective or community,

Considering that I believe our nation is, at its core, based on generally vibrant principles that usually promote the greatest freedom of a person to develop as a human being (it's outer limits defined by the realities that uphold capitalism), I also believe that fundamentally it is incumbent on each person to question at all times whether or not our government is acting in the best interests of all its people AND owing to its place in the world community acting in a way that upholds the same principles it values for its own people for the rest of the world. If we apply the golden rule to politics, and we do unto others as we would have them do unto ourselves, then we must require that our government act with integrity and in a just manner. To do otherwise shirks our commitment to the nation, which is greater than our obligation to the government and thusly requires that a true patriot speak truth to power in order to ensure that the nation is well even if it means the government must change, end, or be overthrown.

For the last eight years, I offer, it was actually unpatriotic to support President Bush and his policies. The Patriot Act aimed a knife directly at the throat of American civil liberties, and if you apply the test that the only rational patriotism is support of the nation all of the time over the prerogatives assumed by the government then the rights of the people to live freely under the Constitution trumped the actions of the government to abrogate those rights to protect national security. National security is best served all of the time by protecting the full human rights and constitutional protections of the people with the full force of the government, which is its representation, not it's dictator.

Last November we elected a new president that campaigned against the degradation of our proud nation (as opposed to our sick and twisted government), and, for now, though I have harsh critiques of Obama, particularly his failure to end our occupation of Iraq, his politicking that made single payer health care a political dream instead of an American reality, and his use of too many of the same old same old faces and power players from previous administrations in his current administration, I believe that right now...it is patriotic to critique Obama where he needs critique but it is also patriotic to support his efforts to make this government better in line with the best interests of its people AND as its people are citizens of the world and do not live in a special isolated land where our actions do not impact the lives of others...he must also continue to act in a way that upholds the human rights and inherent value of all humankind wherever they may live.

God Bless the people of the United States and God help the United States government.

Some of My Best Friends Are White

As a matter of fact two of my best friends are white and the third is black. So using Mendelian genetics, I think that actually makes one of the white friends mulatto.

But seriously, I love white people. I let some white people carve pumpkins in my house last night AND I let them use my bathroom. My Mom is white, and I don't hold that against her (anymore), and I sleep with a white man every night...and now that the Summer has ended he gets paler by the day. I am thinking about getting him a sun lamp before his skin gets any whiter and he starts reflecting light.

I think white people are very articulate. They are funny (that Kathy Griffin is a riot). And they sure are a musical people (N'Sync rules!). And boy oh boy can they move...I mean those white folks on Dancing with the Stars are AMAZING. And considering how queer I am, you know I appreciate all those Rogers and Hammerstein/Stephen Sondheim Broadway tunes. Thank you White America!

But seriously, a good friend of mine (he's white)....noted that I had been directing my anger lately at the shenanigans of white people. And truthfully between Glen Beck and Perez Hilton (I know, I know, that one is Cuban, but the Latino community voted to strip her of her Latinidad until she stops speaking in any public forum)...anyway...from Glen Beck and Lou Dobs to that idiot in Arizona with the "sweat lodge," white folks have been pissing me off a lot lately. But, I am an equal opportunity bitch master, and so yesterday I had to call out a dumbfuck black woman that was more worried about her food stamps than she was about the fact that she left two children in a house that caught on fire killing one of the kids.

And, frankly, since Obama took office many white people have decided that we are living in a post-race America. I still haven't gotten my 40 acres and a mule or a check for my share of 400 years of free labor by my ancestors (plus interest)...so just as soon as I get me a stretch of prime downtown Manhattan real estate and a check for roughly $1 billion dollars (I will cut the IRS a deal and settle their back taxes bill for a cool half-billion)...I will declare the United States to be post race. Until then, I am going to continue to write about the laughable yet sad attempts by racial terrorists to kill Barack Obama (there have been at least three plots foiled that I know about...curse those kids and that dog!)...until Lou Dobbs is yanked from CNN by his balls for his vilification and racist diatribes against undocumented immigrants...until Don Imus is dunked in a vat of Pink Lotion for daring to refer to black women as nappy headed...until transgender women of color are no longer targeted by white men for sexploitation and murder...until white privilege is a history lesson instead of an object lesson on racial reality....until no justice of the peace DARES to decline to marry a mixed-race couple...until white folks can tell me apart from Tiger Woods, Barack Obama, and Derek Jeter...until the day I die...I am most likely going to be on the case of white folks like...well...white on rice.

I love you white people, I just don't love what you do (sometimes). And I know that all white people are not guilty for the sins of the idiot few, which is why I rail against specific incidents as opposed to white folks in general. And I totally think that white people should be allowed to sit anywhere on the bus they want....just as long as its in the back.

Just kidding. Rosa Parks wouldn't like that at all.

This blog is dedicated to Divine Grace...one of the most awesome white people I know.

I Am Not Tiger Woods

Just in case you were wondering, I am not Tiger Woods. I am not Derek Jeter, nor am I the 44th President of the United States, The Prez, Barack "I Got A Fatty Dick" Obama.

Ever since the Rise of the Woods to super fame, the world (aka white America) has been forced to come face to face with its mixed-race children. Now, we been around ever since the first Massa' decided to rape Olinka and them fresh off the slave ship from Africa, and I am sure Columbus had a whole mess of half Genoan/half-Taino babies in the Caribbean, but mixed race folks, as visible as we have been, have been purposefully hidden in our history. From one drop rules to blood quantum laws, mixed race folks have been legislated almost as much as we have been miscegenated.

But an obviously mixed-race Tiger Woods catapulting to international stardom by sinking holes in ones and sporting funny green sports coats, raised the mixed-race baby to a level of invisibility that could no longer be ignored. And I have been pissed off ever since.

In 2006, I was walking in parade for Minnesota Independence Party gubernatorial candidate Peter Hutchinson. We were in some god forsaken suburb of St. Paul, when some country children saw me and yelled, what's up Tiger! If I had a 9-Iron that day there would have been brains on the parade route let me tell you.

A couple of summers ago, during a random hook up with a dude that I met from some cruising site, the guy I was fucking said that he responded to my add because he thought I looked like Derek Jeter. He better be lucky I didn't have a baseball bat handy.

The best mixed-race mix up that I have ever had was also a Derek Jeter moment. I was taking my trash to the trash chute in my old apartment building in Minneapolis, when a kid opened his apartment door, looked at me, and starting screaming..."MOM! MOM! DEREK JETER IS IN THE HALLWAY! MOM! DEREK JETER! MOM!"

I tried to calm the kid down, but he was not having it. It made perfect sense to him that Derek Jeter should be taking out his own trash and living right down the hallway from him. Oh sweet young uncorrupted youth.

During my first visit to David's parent's house in Connecticut last spring, after a couple of cocktails, David's Dad leaned over and said, "You know who you look like? Barack Obama! But without the ears." Ummmm...that was the Jack Daniel's talkin'.

And then there was today, David and I were standing in line at the produce market up the block. Our favorite cashier was ringing us up (a sweet Latina immigrant that slyly asked me in Spanish a few months ago if David was my boyfriend and then told me that she totally supports the gays....SCORE). This crazy haired old stoner lady leans back and looks past David to me and says..."Oh My God, I thought you were Tiger Woods. If you are an actor, you need to audition to play Tiger in his life story. You will make millions."

The woman was cracking up and all I could think about was swinging my back full of vegetables like nunchuks straight at her head.

Now, I don't mind, really, being compared to Derek Jeter's fine ass. I mean come on...the man is PRETTY. But here's a little notice to all my well meaning racially confused mono-racial people out in the world...just because my Mama and Daddy decided to make a big old genetic milkshake does not mean that I look like every other mixed-race person in the world.

But if someone wants to give me a few million to play Tiger Words in a HBO Made for TV Movie Event....well...I say....."TEE TIME BITCHES!"

Equality March. Now What?

So, I have had a number of people, both in the U.S. and Canada, ask me my thoughts on the Equality March. I was pretty much bombarded in the last 24 hours asking my opinion on the event. Last night I was firm in asking my loving community to give me the night to think about the event, read more of the articles concerning the event, and formulate my opinion.

Here it is.

Let me begin by saying that I did not attend the march for the reasons that I outlined previously. I continue to stand by those reasons.

I will not go so far as Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) who said in an article that he thought the march was a waste of time and effort. For the tens of thousands of people that attended the event, it was an empowering experience and was an energizing moment in their lives. Many people that I care deeply about attended the event, and one of the women that I love and admire, Penelope Williams, was selected as a speaker from the bisexual community. For those people, the event was an important exercise in visibility. I support their participation, and I believe that they got what they needed from the march. Penelope, btw, was invited to speak after intense lobbying by bisexual organizers that, in the last days leading up to the event, found that there was only one speaker from the bisexual community scheduled to address the crowd. You'd think by 2009 the marginalization of bisexual members of our community would be a thing of the past. Whoops.

Unfortunately the community at large and the movement specifically will find that the march was not productive in the least in terms of pushing forward a policy agenda. Obama is dead on right that the economy, the two wars, and health care are much more important issues than the rights of queer folks to openly serve as a part of the U.S. war machine, the marriage battle, or any number of narrow issues that are very important but nowhere near as important as ending war, rebuilding the economy, and establishing a national right to affordable (should be free) healthcare. The reality of politics is that the President has only so much political capital to expend at any one time. The more deft politically Obama is now the more room he has to push a more progressive agenda later. A bevy of polls in recent days have shown that his popularity is climbing again, topping 56%, and he has managed to not only contain but also turn around the spin of the massive conservative publicity machine.

Giving the Right base mobilizing, religious fervor fodder right now would not only retard the movement forward with healthcare and the economy, it would gut any real progress on LGBT liberation in the future. No one is asking our community to wait our turn...what is being asked is that we recognize that ending war, rebuilding the economy, and healthcare reform ARE OUR ISSUES AS WELL!

We are not separate from or outside of those issues and for queers that are progressive, we understand that those issues are at the top of our queer political agenda as they should be. What good is the right to marry if I can't afford a wedding? What good is the right to serve in the military if, after being awarded for service by life long mental health damage, I can't afford to go to the ER (and don't get me started on VA Medical services)? It is time for our community to grow up and learn some political sophistication.

If Obama wins on healthcare, the economy, and successfully gets us out of Iraq...his popularity will skyrocket, and members of Congress will not have the political will to oppose him on issues that, right now, would paralyze the political process and end up setting our justice movement backwards.

And let's talk about justice versus equality. Another failure of the march was the name: Equality. I am not interested in equality. I have no interest in being equal to a cultural system that awards racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism and ableism (which, incidentally, are truly at the core of our community's marginalization). I have no interest in joining a system of exploitation in exchange for the right to marry, be sent to war and die for oil, or bring my houseboy in the country legally through narrow immigration reform.

I am interested in liberation ad justice, which necessitates us dismantling systems based in oppression and replacing them with agreements that respect the inherent dignities of each person without creating a new hierarchical system of oppression and privilege in order to maintain those new rights. That means tearing apart the institution of marriage and replacing it with a system of legal union that is not based in centuries of sexism and case law that favors the wealthy over the poor, men over women, or in the case of child custody, women over men. It means looking at the military industrial complex and making a decision to create laws that stringently outline when a President can order troops to war, ends war for financial gain, restricts war time profiteering, and abolishes the poverty and racial draft once and for all. It means health care reform that ends in single payer universal health care.

Unfortunately, we have been trained from the gate and through the non-profit industrial complex to accept crumbs instead of a slice of the pie. Guess what? We deserve the whole damn pie. Until we get it, we need to fight for the biggest pieces first, the ones that will feed the most, sustain the most, support the most and will feed us and strengthen us to make further charges, and harder fights, possible and winnable.

Sarah Palin Goes to China and Gets Dumber

Lord have mercy somebody PLEASE take away Sarah Palin's passport. The snow heifer will not miss it considering she didn't even have one until 2007. Let her continue to stare at some barren Russian islands out of her foyer window and create soccer Mom foreign policy while fingering wild Alaskan salmon.

Good grief.

So, Sarah Palin aka The Woman That Made Tina Fey A Saint, was in Hong Kong giving a speech to a group of investors and bankers. Hello? Has anyone checked out the economy in Alaska. It's in the shitters. That would be like CapitalOne paying me to give credit card advice to shopaholics. The only outcome would be that I would make a fool out of myself and the people in the audience would have instant garnishments levied against them.

I mean, come on. There has to be some sort of law on the books that says the Village Idiot is not allowed to leave the country unsupervised! I am going to write my legislators and ask them to install one of those microchips that they implant in domestic pets. It is in the best interest of U.S. National Security that we know where Sarah Palin is at all times.

Right next to the red phone and the "button" in the White House, Obama should have a remote control that allows him to activate the microchip in Palin's neck and taser her via satellite any place on planet Earth. If they put THAT into the Patriot Act, I would vote for it myself. Habeas Corpus be damned!

I mean, there are laws against severely mentally ill people making decisions for themselves. And if Palin believes that she has a snow balls chance in Paris Hilton's pussy of being President of the United States, then that is evidence enough for any court in the land to judge her mentally unfit to make her own decisions. She should be put under house arrest in a gulag in Siberia and made to watch her interview with Katie Couric on repeat until she expires from an overdose of her own stupidity.

And since she couldn't convince the majority of Americans that Obama is to blame for the collapse of Wall Street and the financial crisis, she thought she would try and convince the Chinese. Of course, they can't vote, and the Chinese basically invented the calendar, and since Lehmann Brothers collapsed in September 2008 and Obama took office in January 2009, it doesn't take a whiz on an abacus to determine that the meltdown happened during the Bush administration.

Forget a Spin Doctor, she needs a brain surgeon. Lobotomies all around!

The best thing that Sarah Palin ever did was let her daughter get knocked up my Levi Johnston. The kid is dumb as shit and about half a swastika away from being a member of the Michigan Militia, but he is hot as fuck and his shirtless pictures almost make up for his almost-mother-in-laws political career and complete embarrassment of the United States on the world stage.

You know you are basically a rat bastard when Kim Jong Il is more likely to get elected to the White House than you are. Mrs. Palin, have you thought about a career as a North Korean Dictator?

In the end, I look forward to more public appearances by Sarah Palin. And I pray to God Almighty that she runs for the presidency in 2012 just for Saturday Night Live bonanza that will entail.

God Bless Tina Fey.

Tell The Damn Truth

I am not sure if you all have noticed, but the Republicans are doing every damn thing they can possibly do, short of drawing a pentagram in virgin blood and opening the Hell-Mouth, to stop health care reform from happening.

Joe Wilson of South Carolina is a member of the Sons of Confederacy, tried like Hell to keep the Confederate Flag flying on TOP of the South Carolina State Capitol building, and his sons are all shocked and awed because Jimmy Carter told the damn truth and said that Rep. Wilson is a racist sommamabitch.

John Boehner, House Republic leader, perpetually lives with his head up his ass and hasn't come up with one viable or original piece of legislation since Big Daddy Bush left office. He basically spends his time jacking off on the hopper whenever a Democrat executes the duties of his office and proposes legislation. Hooked on phonics didn't work for him. I am not even sure the man can read English, though I am sure he has portions of Mein Kempf set to memory.

Sarah Palin is off somewhere in the wilds of Alaska plotting her next round of public crazy.

Dennis Kucinich voted AGAINST censuring crazy ass Joe Wilson's YOU LIE outburst at the joint session of Congress. What the HELL has he been smoking in Ohio. I know the man is about as Green as a Democrat can get, but he needs to lay off that Humboldt County shit while Congress is in session.

Serena Williams lost her damn mind at the U.S. Open, cussed out a line ref and then half-assed apologized for it (in her defense, it was a shitty call, but she didn't have to go all ape shit booga booga over it...she still walked away with $350,000).

And don't EVEN get me started on Kanye West's crazy ass. OBVIOUSLY, he and Dennis Kucinich were hanging out mainlining Draino or something cuz his Prime Time Ass Showing Extravaganza at the VMA's was a historic low in Black History.

And lord I am trying to be a saint today, but I just heard that Perez Hilton is producing a music tour and is launching his own label...what's it going to be called? Here's a title suggestion, "I'm A Fat Disgusting Ignorant No Talent White Boy Wanna Be With Bad Hair and Horse Teeth Records."

This here country has me so riled up that I am announcing the launch of my own damn weekly VBlog called Brandon Tells The Damn Truth.

Every Friday, I will be releasing a 20 minute or so video show via our friends at YouTube where I review the news of the week, active the Bullshit-o-meter and tell you the damn truth behind the headlines.

Watch out America...I am like Opera but broke and Wendy Williams with class....this is going to be some live shit.