Ungowa Queer Black (and Brown) Power!

So, this last weekend, thanks in large part to the generosity of a lovely friend of mine, I was able to attend, for the first, time the Fire Island Black Out Party (FIBO). For all y'all that don't know, Fire Island is off the coast of Long Island and is a miles and miles long sand bar in the bay (or it might be the sound...lord if I know and I am too lazy to Google it). The island has been famous for nearly fifty years for being THE Mecca for the queer community. P-Town is Miss Congeniality but The Pines and Cherry Grove take first and second on that particular list. The Pines is generally where the boys hang out and has magnificent mansions and you can smell the ducats in the air. The Grove est une pue demurre in comparison but is still stunning with more than one dyke with dollars prancing about in this or that.

On one weekend each year, which up until this year coincided with Black Pride in NYC, FIBO takes place in Cherry Grove and quite literally thousands and thousands of largely black and Latin@ folks from all across the country descend on this little piece of sand in the water for three days of sun, sand, dancing and shenanigans.

The things I saw on the beach liked to make be howl. (for example...technically it was a nude beach but the one person that exercised the full nude option was this not-so-lovely white man that would then walk up to groups of black men and get an erection...I was like....if you can't control it...PUT IT AWAY!). Then there was the black twink that had a bathing suit with a mesh bubble in the crotch for his dick and balls while covering the rest of him...that was even worse than Le Nude Whitey.

But other than the now and again moments of utter insanity, the weekend was one of laughter with new and old friends, so much joy, and so much pride in the beauty, diversity, power, and love of the Black and Latin@ community, especially with all of us all together celebrating our sexuality, our cultural expressions, and our love for our fellow queer folks.

And like in many queer settings the men and women (and trans folks) were together. I can't remember, and so I won't attribute exactly the paraphrase but one of the black women elder lesbians said (might of been Barbara Smith, might have been Mandy Carter, but I can't remember at the moment), "we as women of color can't afford to leave men of color behind."

This weekend, to be with an entire group of stunning and powerful women of color (shout out to Jaael, Sondra, Selena, Arti, Sam, and Nadia  (with a guest appearance by our token white girl Di), and to find so many other groups of friends, queer/trans men and women together, gave me some hope for our community---particularly as people of color doing the work and struggling together---that feminism is going to will out and the recognition of our survival is contingent on the dismantling of the barriers that sexism has created between our family. Women of color would have been justified in leaving their men behind and going on and being the bright candles that they are...but they chose to reach out and drag us along...sometimes by smacking us upside the head the entire way.

FIBO for me was not about the partying as much as it was about being in community, meeting the black neurosurgeon from Columbia Presbyterian, the chief legal advisor to the Detroit City Council--also a black man--the investment banker women, the British Indian actor (what what Arti), the school teacher, the dancer, a banker that finances public housing projects, and so on and so forth. We gonna be alright.

But not to dismiss the party; what better way to build community than butt shaking throw downs that bring folk together to share in the bright diversity of our music, language, and joy?

Thanks for the love and good times my FIBO crew and here's to next year!

Brown Gay Man + Old White Woman= Love

Today's blog is a first for My Feet Only Walk Forward. It is a guest blog written by Susan Maricle.

I received a very warm and touching email from Susan Maricle in response to my blog "I Love Old White Women." I don't know if I have ever actually met Susan face to face, but she and I were both active participants on an electronic discussion group in Minneapolis called the Minneapolis Issues List. This electronic forum is quite literally the "it" place for local politics. Every single elected official from the city of Minneapolis or representing the city of Minneapolis in city, county, state, or federal office is either an active member of the list or has a staff person that is assigned to review and participate on the list on a daily basis. I became aware of this wonderful community member through that list, and we reconnected through the magic of Facebook.

Susan contacted me and asked me if I would be willing to post a guest blog that she wrote in response to/inspired by my homage to old white women. I was very happy to oblige. You can find more of Susan's writings at poultryandprose.com.

It takes a talented writer to establish a connection between two disparate people. Like a 32-year-old multiracial gay blogger and a 94-year-old white woman who died over 10 years ago.

But that’s exactly what Brandon Lacy Campos did with this post. Since then I’ve been thinking of my grandmother, Mary Pontell.

"Basically, I think around age 80, old white ladies magically transform in black women. It's true. They start to say shit that they would never have said thirty years before."

Grandma was black long before age 80. She and my Grandpa John lived in southwest Detroit, in a working-class neighborhood that bordered the Ford plant in Dearborn. Their neighbors were white eastern European immigrants and black families who had moved up from the south. The ladies called Grandma “Mayry.” The children called her “Miz Tate.”

Grandma was a blend of propriety and earthiness. Earthy enough to tell the neighbor ladies about some type of female operation she’d had -- I never knew exactly what -- and proper enough to be horrified when she discovered one of the “ladies” was a tranvestite.

It wasn’t the first such encounter for Grandma, a short, buxom restaurant waitress and a snazzy dresser. She liked the night life. One evening at the Electric Cafe she wore a dress with a pink velvet jeweled bodice. In the ladies’ room she ran into a woman known around the neighborhood as Dirty Gertie. Gertie admired the dress, with both hands. Grandma pushed the woman away. But I sensed on some level she was pleased.

"Whether you are talking about my Grandma or Betty White, elder white women seem to transcend race, class, and sexuality. They metamorphose into these semi-crotchety hilarious beings that even when they aren't trying to be funny, end up cracking me up."

In the 1980s I visited Grandma so I could record some of her stories on audiocassette. She was living in suburban Lincoln Park, in her eighties, widowed, and hard of hearing. One night I searched for a TV program I could tolerate at an excessive decibel level, settling on The Tonight Show. Grandma watched Johnny interview the guest, an African American woman. She asked me, “Is that Donna Summer?”

An eightysome-year-old woman recognizing a past-her-prime disco singer. The idea amazes me still today. Grandma was that type of person. This type of person.

"They have this confidence and conviction about them that says, basically, I don't give a fuck."

Grandma entered a nursing home for a brief period late in the 1990s, having congestive heart failure and dementia. Some days she knew me, some days she didn’t. Perhaps the dementia made her forget she considered herself a timid person. She stood up to women who tried to bully her into vacating their favorite table. She barked “WHO IS IT!?” at a man who entered her room one evening, the Byzantine Catholic priest who came to pray with her. The day she was discharged, with home hospice plans put in place, all of the staff came to say goodbye. Among the well-wishers, an African American personal care attendant.

Set up comfortably at home, Grandma was at peace, her mind clear, her spirit ready. She slipped away within two weeks.

It was hard to be sad. There were too many stories that made me smile. Including the latest, “And that colored guy kissed me twice!”

I still have Grandma’s stories on audiocassette, but I haven’t thought about them for a long time. Then I read Brandon’s blog. Thank you, love.

Tragedy and Stupidity In South Memphis

This morning I logged into my Facebook account to find a news clip posted on my wall by my friend Arthur. The clip was an interview from a Fox affiliate in South Memphis. A mother and and her sister left their home unattended with a two year old and a three year old inside while they went to drop off a friend at home. During their absence the house caught on fire. The two year old died.

You can see in this clip that the mother of the children is understandably distraught. One child is in critical condition and the other one is dead. Then the aunt of the children loses her fucking mind. At the end of the clip, she announces that she has no regret that the children were left home alone, then she laughs and says she needs to get in to see if her "purse burnt up cuz her food stamp card..." was in the purse.

Stupidity knows no fucking color.

Unfortunately, this ignorant black woman's interview is already making its way around the country at the speed of YouTube. I am sure that Fox News could not WAIT to get this clip up on the Internet and into the hands of their faithful across the country. At a time when the black community is enjoying the beginnings of a Renaissance, Fox has helped ensure that this ridiculous excuse for a human being is going to get massive amounts of air time.

And let's be real here. When a crazy white person aka Timothy McVeigh blows up a federal building killing innocent children, he is just one disturbed human being. When a crazy working class black woman exhibits her personal ignorance and callousness on Fox News, she is representing the entire American Black community. She immediately conjures of images of deadbeat welfare queens, uneducated poor, and stereotypes of black women used to galvanize the religious right base during the Reagan and Bush Sr. years.

The woman in that video clip is a poor excuse for a human being that should have her tongue yanked out by her sister. I can't imagine one of my siblings being so heartless and cruel as to make a statement such as the one she made while the house is still smoldering. If any of them did, you can bet the first thing I would do when I came out of the shock of losing my child would be to kick his or her ever loving ass. But I would know that it was just a stupid person saying stupid shit. But when the media, particularly Fox media, gets a hold of something like this it is a culture war gold mine.

If I had the stomach for it, I would Google search this topic. I would not be surprised if Don Imus and Glen Beck mentioned this news story on their shows today. Just as one black person should not represent our entire community nor should that same black person have the power to sabotage the image of an entire community, but this one disturbed individual does. My own internal tapes started running as soon as I heard her speak. False stereotypes of the working class (from which I come), the South (my family is from the South and I went to college in the South), black women (ummm I am black), and a whole host of other negative stereotypes started running through my head. AND I KNOW BETTER. I know that the South is a beautiful and vibrant place. Most of my political mentors come from, live in, and organize in the South. I came out in the South, cut my teeth as an organizer in the South, and I know the power, beauty, and history of that place. Yet this one woman was able to raise all the specters of the South implanted in my mind by history books, television, movies, and other pop culture vehicles. I know so many powerful black women that it should be impossible for me to project the shortcomings of this stupid individual to all black women, yet the tapes in my head started shouting things like "typical." The Aunty in this video IS NOT TYPICAL. Yet pop culture and U.S. acculturation tells me that she is.

I hate Fox News. I despise this woman her personal ignorance, and I hate our cultural system that indoctrinates even people that know better to feel and think AUTOMATICALLY the thoughts and feelings that rushed through my head and heart when I watched this particular interview.

My heart and prayers go out to the Mother of those children. She is not faultless. She knew better than to leave two young children at home alone. She has reaped a punishment that will haunt her for the rest of her life. I wish her only peace as she tries to pick up the pieces of her family. To the Aunt, I hopes that she gets the help she needs from friends and neighbors. I hope she sees her interview and is embarassed to the core of her being. And I fervently hope that Fox News and Ruport Murdoch are sucked into a worm hole, deposited on an oxygen-less planet on the far side of the solar system where they are gang banged by giant poisonous sea slugs.

Lord let the rest of the day be filled with peace, joy, and love.