This afternoon, the FBI raided the homes of anti-war and solidarity activists across the country, including the homes of three personal friends of mine: Steff Yorek, Jess Sundin and Meredith Aby. For nearly a decade, I worked with Steff, Jess, and Meredith either directly through the Anti-War Committee in Minneapolis or through solidarity work around queer liberation, the Puerto Rican independence movement, and efforts to halt the march towards war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These are women that I love and respect. I also know that they have done their work and organizing with integrity and respect. These raids are an election year ploy, and must be denounced by folks that believe in justice and the right to organize.
Statement from Fight Back News below. Also see coverage from Star Tribune, MPR.
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2010/9/24/activists-denounce-fbi-raids-anti-war-and-solidarity-activists-homes
Activists Denounce FBI Raids on Anti-war and Solidarity Activists Homes
Subpoenas, Searches, and FBI visits carried out in cities across the country
By Staff | September 24, 2010
We denounce the Federal Bureau of Investigation harassment of anti-war and solidarity activists in several states across the country. The FBI began turning over six houses in Chicago and Minneapolis this morning, Friday, October 24, 2010, at 8:00 am central time. The FBI handed subpoenas to testify before a federal grand jury to about a dozen activists in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. They also attempted to intimidate activists in California and North Carolina.
"The government hopes to use a grand jury to frame up activists. The goal of these raids is to harass and try to intimidate the movement against U.S. wars and occupations, and those who oppose U.S. support for repressive regimes," said Colombia solidarity activist Tom Burke, one of those handed a subpoena by the FBI. "They are designed to suppress dissent and free speech, to divide the peace movement, and to pave the way for more U.S. military intervention in the Middle East and Latin America."
This suppression of democratic rights is aimed towards those who dedicate much of their time and energy to supporting the struggles of the Palestinian and Colombian peoples against U.S. funded occupation and war. The activists are involved with well-known anti-war groups including many of the leaders of the huge protest against the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN in September 2008. The FBI agents emphasized that the grand jury was going to investigate the activists for possible terrorism charges. This is a U.S. government attempt to silence those who support resistance to oppression in the Middle East and Latin America.
The activists involved have done nothing wrong and are refusing to be pulled into conversations with the FBI about their political views or organizing against war and occupation. The activists are involved with many groups, including: the Palestine Solidarity Group, Students for a Democratic Society, the Twin-Cities Anti-War Committee, the Colombia Action Network, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and the National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera (a Colombian Political Prisoner).
Steff Yorek, a long-time antiwar activist and one of the activists whose homes was searched, called the raids “An outrageous fishing expedition.”
We urge all progressive activists to show solidarity with those individuals targeted by the U.S. Government. Activists have the right not to speak with the FBI and are encouraged to politely refuse, just say “No”.
Please contact info@colombiasolidarity.org or info@fightbacknews.org if you would like to provide support to the targeted activists.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Two Year Anniversary of Cousin Jim's Death
Two years ago today, my cousin and friend Jim Wakefield left his journey in this world for another one. He was 28 years old.
Jim was an amazing human being. He was a social justice organizer working with new immigrant communities in Chicago. He'd lived, worked, and taught in West Africa and Korea. He was funny, brilliant, and loving. He is the kind of person that this world craves.
Like all humans he had his faults. He smoked too much, and every time I would see him I would tell him that his teeth were as ashy as my feet (which is pretty damn bad). When he taught me how to ride a back when I was seven, we were at our Grandma's house, and he neglected to tell me how to stop. Thank God the garage stepped in and showed me how to stop the hard way. His ex-girlfriend stole a t-shirt that I'd left at my cousin's parent's home when I was visiting during college. She took it to France and brought it back to me with a cigarette hole in it (damn those French! It's Freedom Fries from now on), and since I would never have known Allie...I blame Jim for her Francophone ways. But other than those foibles, my cousin was pretty damn cool (though, like most of the straight men in my family...I always wanted him to consider something other than a raggedy ass pair of jeans an and old stained white-ish t-shirt as daily wear).
Today, I am remembering the awesome human being that Jim was. From the time when we were all too damn young and Jim's older brother danced around our grandparent's hunting trailer with nothing on but some tube socks and an attitude and danced around singing, "Babies are made when the man puts the penis into the vagina," to drunken antics we shared at my cousin Dawn Michelle's wedding when Dawn asked my Mom to go commando on my Aunt Joanne's drunk and lecherous boyfriend...Jim figures prominently in some of the best times of my life.
I love you, Jim. I miss you, Jim. Say hi Grandpa for me, and save me a spot, k? I'll see you one day (but not too soon, I hope...and if you know something more than I do...keep it to yourself. Cheeky bastard!).
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Interview with a Musical Genius: Tori Fixx
In 2004, I was a featured performer at PeaceOut East the International LGBT Hip-Hop Festival in New York City. I was one of two folks from Minneapolis at the festival; the other individual was Tori Fixx.
I was blown away by his performance during the festival, and I thought it was hilarious that I had never met him in Minneapolis. In fact, it would be another three years before our paths crossed again. In 2007, I started hanging out with some fantastic human beings in the Twin Cities. I ended up playing softball with these peeps (SLAMMERS, YOU KNOW!) and volleyball. My life, for two years, was built around these amazing humans, and at the center of this community was the artist known as Tori Fixx aka DJ Naughty Boyy aka Lar'Isha Mae aka my friend Larry.
It is my honor and pleasure to share with you an interview with Tori Fixx. Also, DOWNLOAD ALL OF HIS MUSIC! I am currently listening to three of his newest tracks, and I am bouncin' in my chair like a drag queen in Atlanta during Freak Nik. His music IS the definition of HOTNESS!
I love you Isha.
Tori Fixx Bio
One of the pioneers of what is now called “out hip hop”; Rap, funk and R&B artist and one-time personal DJ for Prince - Tori Fixx is the Timbaland of out hip hop. The Minneapolis based Recording Artist, Producer, DJ; Vocalist & Emcee has been heralded as the “most ready for prime time” by music critic Ernest Hardy (Vibe, Rolling Stone) in the nationwide publication, The Advocate and he has appeared on The Tyra Banks Show, and CNN’s Paula Zahn Now show.
1.. The first time I met you was in 1994 at PeaceOut East, the queer hip-hop festival (which was funny because we were both living in Minneapolis, and I met you in NYC). Talk to me about that experience, what was it like to be around other out and proud LGBT hip-hop artists?
Not to quote Paris Hilton, but that was a HUGE weekend for me. For all of us, actually. Not only were there a bunch of out hip-hop artists and a massive concert weekend (by our standards) but we were filming a documentary that eventually became "Pick Up the Mic". I cannot explain how high I was that weekend, from the energy and love that was all around. Not really that "kum-by-ya" type of love but you could feel the power of the entire movement. We were all there for (and unified through) one purpose, Out Hip-Hop and to be amongst so much talent is indeed a Blessing. Even more so, in being an artist who's allowed to "be who I am" and still be allowed to take the stage and obtain the utmost respect is something that I'll never tire of and this happens everytime I'm at a function like Peace Out East.
2. How did you come up with the identity of Tori Fixx? Why Tori and not Larry?
It's a spiritual thing, really. Larry is like the "home base" for so many different talents and in the beginning of my career I found it difficult for people to accept one person utilizing so many of their talents all at once. For instance I'm a Dj, Producer, Remixer and Recording artist who makes House, Dance, Hip-Hop, R&B, Pop, New Age, and Movie Score music and that just doesn't sit right with people so one has to divide it all up. It just so happend that Tori Fixx "found me" after a battle with suicide many moons ago. I survived, thankfully but in being given a chance at life again I wanted to start over and do it right and eventually Tori Fixx was born as an outspoken hip-hop/activist who was both a person of color and openly gay. Plus it just had a nice ring to it. LOL.
3. Like many of the people that love you, I was transfixed to the television set the day that you were on the Tyra Banks Show. What was it like to have such a mainstream figure as Tyra do a show about homo-hop? Did that appearance have any impact on your career? Did it have any impact on the way that the general public thinks about hip-hop and R&B?
The taping of that show was great. It was one of those moments where I "just know" that this is the life for me. Tyra was so fierce. Plus she loves her gays. That first show was a "good start" but I think we actually needed an entire show and she even said so herself. I really felt like we had a short time to try and convince the world that we exist. It's been helpful with the career this far, but unfortunately more is needed. I'm still wishing for another show to come along (like Ellen) and pick up where that left off. Maybe get some performances in there as well. THAT would really let people know that the Out Hip-Hop community and music genre is ALIVE AND WELL......and it's just as HOT as anything on the radio, today.
4. You are a proud (and pretty) black man. How has your music been received in the black community?
It's been received pretty well, thus far but I really want to penetrate the community further. No, I'm not on the radio next to Beyonce. I don't have Beyonce budgets for things like fierce videos and other marketing so that means I have to do all that I can to try and get the attention of DJ's and potential fans and consumers alike. Right now all I care about is getting the music to the people, especially glbt people of color because this music that I make is truly FOR US and I'm trying to go every route possible just to get the music and the name further into the community and all around the world.
5. Your music exudes a sexuality and sensuality that is palpable...sometimes I listen to "Good Morn'ting," and think about the twins that were in the video and have to have some private time...how does your sexuality inform your music?
OMG. Thank you. I've always wanted to know if I could turn someone on with my music. My sexuality is a major part of my life and my life informs all of my musical creations so you're going to get it all. I can't help it. Sometimes I write things and later on go, "oooooh did I write that? Ooops!" I usually always write a song starting with the music and then I'll just play the instrumental for awhile until the lyrics come to me and that's how I get something that turns into "Good Morn'ting".
6. Finally, if people want to get them a piece of Tori Fixx or DJ Naughty Boyy (your DJ persona), where can they get some of you? Do you have any tours coming up? New albums coming out? Space for new mens in your life? Spill the T.
There is still space for a man in my life and if you know of someone in need of a good piece of chocolate in their life please send them my way. For better or worse they make for really great songwriting. LOL. As for the music.....umm, well I have about 4 projects in the works right now, maybe a few more. I just finished producing a NYC native named Jesse O. His CD Love & Go Crazy can be found on iTunes, also Shunda K (of Yo Majesty) is about to drop her new album featuring a handful of T. Fixx produced tracks. There's 2 Tori Fixx solo records in the making, and two duet projects as well. One of the projects is a group called LGTFX and its myself and another New York emcee named Lester Greene doing some serious out Hip-Hop/Electro-dance realness and we've been working on it for the past year and it's pretty much done now. Yet there's still MORE to come but I won't try and tell it all here just visit both of my websites (www.torifixx.com and www.djnaughtyboyy.com) and I always encourage everyone to feel free to spread the word.
Thanks again, BLC. Love uuuuuuuuuuuu!!!
I was blown away by his performance during the festival, and I thought it was hilarious that I had never met him in Minneapolis. In fact, it would be another three years before our paths crossed again. In 2007, I started hanging out with some fantastic human beings in the Twin Cities. I ended up playing softball with these peeps (SLAMMERS, YOU KNOW!) and volleyball. My life, for two years, was built around these amazing humans, and at the center of this community was the artist known as Tori Fixx aka DJ Naughty Boyy aka Lar'Isha Mae aka my friend Larry.
It is my honor and pleasure to share with you an interview with Tori Fixx. Also, DOWNLOAD ALL OF HIS MUSIC! I am currently listening to three of his newest tracks, and I am bouncin' in my chair like a drag queen in Atlanta during Freak Nik. His music IS the definition of HOTNESS!
I love you Isha.
Tori Fixx Bio
One of the pioneers of what is now called “out hip hop”; Rap, funk and R&B artist and one-time personal DJ for Prince - Tori Fixx is the Timbaland of out hip hop. The Minneapolis based Recording Artist, Producer, DJ; Vocalist & Emcee has been heralded as the “most ready for prime time” by music critic Ernest Hardy (Vibe, Rolling Stone) in the nationwide publication, The Advocate and he has appeared on The Tyra Banks Show, and CNN’s Paula Zahn Now show.
1.. The first time I met you was in 1994 at PeaceOut East, the queer hip-hop festival (which was funny because we were both living in Minneapolis, and I met you in NYC). Talk to me about that experience, what was it like to be around other out and proud LGBT hip-hop artists?
Not to quote Paris Hilton, but that was a HUGE weekend for me. For all of us, actually. Not only were there a bunch of out hip-hop artists and a massive concert weekend (by our standards) but we were filming a documentary that eventually became "Pick Up the Mic". I cannot explain how high I was that weekend, from the energy and love that was all around. Not really that "kum-by-ya" type of love but you could feel the power of the entire movement. We were all there for (and unified through) one purpose, Out Hip-Hop and to be amongst so much talent is indeed a Blessing. Even more so, in being an artist who's allowed to "be who I am" and still be allowed to take the stage and obtain the utmost respect is something that I'll never tire of and this happens everytime I'm at a function like Peace Out East.
2. How did you come up with the identity of Tori Fixx? Why Tori and not Larry?
It's a spiritual thing, really. Larry is like the "home base" for so many different talents and in the beginning of my career I found it difficult for people to accept one person utilizing so many of their talents all at once. For instance I'm a Dj, Producer, Remixer and Recording artist who makes House, Dance, Hip-Hop, R&B, Pop, New Age, and Movie Score music and that just doesn't sit right with people so one has to divide it all up. It just so happend that Tori Fixx "found me" after a battle with suicide many moons ago. I survived, thankfully but in being given a chance at life again I wanted to start over and do it right and eventually Tori Fixx was born as an outspoken hip-hop/activist who was both a person of color and openly gay. Plus it just had a nice ring to it. LOL.
3. Like many of the people that love you, I was transfixed to the television set the day that you were on the Tyra Banks Show. What was it like to have such a mainstream figure as Tyra do a show about homo-hop? Did that appearance have any impact on your career? Did it have any impact on the way that the general public thinks about hip-hop and R&B?
The taping of that show was great. It was one of those moments where I "just know" that this is the life for me. Tyra was so fierce. Plus she loves her gays. That first show was a "good start" but I think we actually needed an entire show and she even said so herself. I really felt like we had a short time to try and convince the world that we exist. It's been helpful with the career this far, but unfortunately more is needed. I'm still wishing for another show to come along (like Ellen) and pick up where that left off. Maybe get some performances in there as well. THAT would really let people know that the Out Hip-Hop community and music genre is ALIVE AND WELL......and it's just as HOT as anything on the radio, today.
4. You are a proud (and pretty) black man. How has your music been received in the black community?
It's been received pretty well, thus far but I really want to penetrate the community further. No, I'm not on the radio next to Beyonce. I don't have Beyonce budgets for things like fierce videos and other marketing so that means I have to do all that I can to try and get the attention of DJ's and potential fans and consumers alike. Right now all I care about is getting the music to the people, especially glbt people of color because this music that I make is truly FOR US and I'm trying to go every route possible just to get the music and the name further into the community and all around the world.
5. Your music exudes a sexuality and sensuality that is palpable...sometimes I listen to "Good Morn'ting," and think about the twins that were in the video and have to have some private time...how does your sexuality inform your music?
OMG. Thank you. I've always wanted to know if I could turn someone on with my music. My sexuality is a major part of my life and my life informs all of my musical creations so you're going to get it all. I can't help it. Sometimes I write things and later on go, "oooooh did I write that? Ooops!" I usually always write a song starting with the music and then I'll just play the instrumental for awhile until the lyrics come to me and that's how I get something that turns into "Good Morn'ting".
6. Finally, if people want to get them a piece of Tori Fixx or DJ Naughty Boyy (your DJ persona), where can they get some of you? Do you have any tours coming up? New albums coming out? Space for new mens in your life? Spill the T.
There is still space for a man in my life and if you know of someone in need of a good piece of chocolate in their life please send them my way. For better or worse they make for really great songwriting. LOL. As for the music.....umm, well I have about 4 projects in the works right now, maybe a few more. I just finished producing a NYC native named Jesse O. His CD Love & Go Crazy can be found on iTunes, also Shunda K (of Yo Majesty) is about to drop her new album featuring a handful of T. Fixx produced tracks. There's 2 Tori Fixx solo records in the making, and two duet projects as well. One of the projects is a group called LGTFX and its myself and another New York emcee named Lester Greene doing some serious out Hip-Hop/Electro-dance realness and we've been working on it for the past year and it's pretty much done now. Yet there's still MORE to come but I won't try and tell it all here just visit both of my websites (www.torifixx.com and www.djnaughtyboyy.com) and I always encourage everyone to feel free to spread the word.
Thanks again, BLC. Love uuuuuuuuuuuu!!!
Sunday, September 12, 2010
POETRY: A Birthday Poem for David
Today is David's 46th birthday. If I were a rich man, I would have bought him a gorgeous artist studio on a lake where he could escape to make beautiful things.
I am not a rich man, but I can always write.
Happy Birthday baby. Love you.
A Birthday Poem for David
I love you
Like the morning loves the dawn
Brilliantly
Yet slowly
My love rises
Each morning
Like a fresh day
A little brighter
No matter the weather
I love you
Like the sea loves the shore
Kisses it gently
Steadily
Washes over it
To smooth away worry
To calm it
To change it
Just a little
As the two change
With each other
I love you
Like the Moon loves the night sky
Sometimes silently like the new moon
Sometimes brightly like the full moon
Never waxing or waning
Steadily
Like the tide
We push each other
To reach for the stars
To touch the face of heaven
I love you
More than yesterday
Less than tomorrow
Just right for right now
Sometimes it feels like it is too much
But the heart can grow
As much as love can
Getting stronger
Day by day
Steadily
I love you.
-Brandon Lacy Campos
-September 12, 2010
-New York. NY
I am not a rich man, but I can always write.
Happy Birthday baby. Love you.
A Birthday Poem for David
I love you
Like the morning loves the dawn
Brilliantly
Yet slowly
My love rises
Each morning
Like a fresh day
A little brighter
No matter the weather
I love you
Like the sea loves the shore
Kisses it gently
Steadily
Washes over it
To smooth away worry
To calm it
To change it
Just a little
As the two change
With each other
I love you
Like the Moon loves the night sky
Sometimes silently like the new moon
Sometimes brightly like the full moon
Never waxing or waning
Steadily
Like the tide
We push each other
To reach for the stars
To touch the face of heaven
I love you
More than yesterday
Less than tomorrow
Just right for right now
Sometimes it feels like it is too much
But the heart can grow
As much as love can
Getting stronger
Day by day
Steadily
I love you.
-Brandon Lacy Campos
-September 12, 2010
-New York. NY
Saturday, September 11, 2010
POETRY: Honey Bun
I have a Great Aunt whose name is Edith Daughtery. Folks my age and older call her Aunt Sis. When Aunt Sis' grandson Ryan was born, she would call him Honey Bun, and so he started calling her Honey Bun in return. All of my younger brothers and sisters know Aunt Sis as Honey Bun.
This short woman with a giant's spirit still lives in the same house that is right next door to where the house she grew up in once stood. She still lives, in her mid-80s, by herself in Ronceverte, West Virginia. Ronceverte is the town where my family were slaves. My Dad travels from Charleston to Ronceverte to see her every other weekend, and this spitfire woman still works as a house cleaner, still runs the street like a fast teenage girl, and teaches the children's service at her church.
When I came out of the closet, she shrugged and said to tell her something that she didn't know.
I love my Aunt Sis, and I wrote this poem for her.
Honey Bun
Sweet like honey
She is
Those hills
Are powerful
Green shoulders
Hunched and laughing
Streams course along her
Telling stories
'bout blackberry brandy
Brewed up out back
'long side the white lightning
Home
Remedies
Fried chicken and chittlin's
Collards green like those hills
Just out the backdoor
The stone wombs
That sheltered Her
That child of 1709
According to the Bill of Sale
African embryo
Artificially inseminated
Across the Middle Passage
Implanted in those Hills
born from a coal mine
And mountain granite
Gave birth to a black bird
Singin'
Sweet like fresh honey
We shall overcome
As she built a bonfire
To celebrate Brown v Board of Education
Said, "Don't know who burnt down the Negro school."
Hehehe she laughed
"But I do know they wasn't sending my children back."
Black bird said, "I am old and crazy as hell."
She'll not be with us much longer
Daughter of those hills has bone cancer
It doesn't matter cuz she's been to the mountain top
And took us with her
Honey Bun coating our tongues and spirits
With sweet strength
This Black Bird gon' sing a little bit longer
Stronger than those granite hills
Spill stories like rivers of honey
Sometimes bittersweet memories
Of mill slaves marched off to glory
Hallelujah
Sweet like honey
She is all we could dream to be
Strong like those hills
Those Greenbrier hills that gave birth
to a blackbird
sweet like honey
sing us home.
-Brandon Lacy Campos
-New York, NY
-September 11, 2010
Friday, September 10, 2010
iPhone Hacked....Again!
My iPhone was hacked. Again. Over the last five years or so, I have had my computer hacked a number of times and my phone hacked twice. I know exactly who hacked my computer. When I was using and not being up front about my HIV status...someone to whom I had disclosed my status hacked my computer and was sending information out about me to potential hook ups. The cause was noble...though the person doing it was ignoble to the core. I always found his moral superiority suspect since this particular human being had been my number one meth dealer and had no qualms about supplying me (and anyone else with money to pay) with drugs. The irony (and hypocrisy) was something to boggle the mind. Yet, it was what it was, and that time has long past.
About six months ago, my iPhone started doing something peculiar. In addition to having a pass code to unlock an iPhone, there is also an additional pass code to unlock the SIM card. I discovered this by accident once when I was monkeying with the settings on my phone, hit the wrong button, and my SIM card locked itself. The first time your card locks itself, you have to call AT&T to get the factory built in pass code in order to unlock the phone. Once you unlock it the first time, it prompts you to enter a healthy numeric code that you will remember.
Did it. Set the new code. Thought it was the end of the story.
Then, about a month after I'd first changed the code...I turned on my phone one morning to find that the SIM card was locked. Now, normally, the card only locks in response to user input or a failed attempt to access the SIM card. But, I shrugged it off to some random glitch with the phone and entered my pass code.
The code didn't work.
So, I called AT&T and asked them for the code, which they happily provided. I entered the code, the phone unlocked, and I hung up with the good woman at AT&T.
No sooner had I hung up the phone than I looked down and the damn phone's SIM card was locked again. So, I entered in the new SIM code that I had just chosen, and the phone wouldn't open.
How curious.
So I called AT&T again, and the woman gave me the code (which was not the one I had chosen nor the one that she had given me before), and we did the unlock game again. This time she asked me to stay on the phone during the process. The phone unlocked, I set a new pass code, and about a minute later the damn thing locked itself again.
Once again I tried to unlock it with the new pass code that I'd chosen, but no dice. The woman on the phone looked up the SIM code and lo and behold it was another completely different code.
She then informed me that nothing like this had ever happened to her before in her x number of years working at AT&T and specifically with the iPhone. So, due the wonders of modern technology, she executed a three-way call with an Apple iPhone representative. We got a gentleman from the Genius Bar at Apple on the phone and went through the whole process again with exactly the same results.
Dude was dumbfounded. This had never happened to him either. In the meantime, I had done my Inter Webs based research and found out about iPhone hacking. I suggested this as a cause. At first, neither of them really wanted to admit it was a possibility. But after a few more minutes...they both agreed...something shady was going on with my phone....so shady in fact...that they paid for me to get a new SIM card, and I almost had to give a pinky swear that I wouldn't tell anyone else about this ever.
Steve Jobs is the Don of the Apple Mafia. If he makes you an offer, and you say no, you end up as a SIM card in an iPad. Just saying.
The point ended up becoming moot about that iPhone when I dropped it in a toilet bowl during a Pride party in June. You can't hack a phone when you can't dial the 0 button. Just saying.
So, in July, I got a brand spanking new iPhone. It has worked flawlessly without any craziness or magic SIM card moments.
That is until today.
Today, I texted David to let him now that I'd seen "Ted on the street."
David texted back, "Who's Ted?"
I responded, "Joe's Boyfriend."
A few moments later, my phone went off with a text alert. I opened up the phone to David's response of "Ah."
Except between my text, "Joe's boyfriend," and David's text of "Ah," there was a text, supposedly from me, that said, "FBI."
Now I promise you that after hitting send on the "Joe's boyfriend," that I clicked the lock button on my phone as I was in a meeting with my boss. No second text did I send. Which means that either Carrie Anne from the Exorcist left the TV and ended up in my iPhone or the motherfucker has been hacked again.
I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do I do I do believe in spooks.
But I also believe in fucked up hackers that need to get the hell up out of my shit.
So, once again, I am faced with a piece of expensive ass technology that has been iRaped by an iHacker that can kiss my iAss.
Oops, did I say that out loud?
Apple likes to pretend that their shit is invulnerable, but last fall a couple was awarded $15,000 because they demonstrated how you could hack an iPhone, without ever seeing or touching the target iPhone, using a glitch in the Safari Browser.
Ladies and gentleman gird up your loins and put a firewall on your iPhones because there are stank biznatches out there that are passive aggressive hacking sons of bitches that like to cause mental drama for fun.
I'm just saying.
Tomorrow me and Lady Betty Ignatious Pennybottom (aka my iPhone) are going to take a little trip to AT&T for a long conversation about iPhone security.
But let ye all be warned....don't buy the hype....don't put anything on your iPhone that you wouldn't mind being broadcast during the middle of the Superbowl like Janet's wardrobe malfunction.
Ye have been warned.
(PS And if the FBI did hack my phone...you better have a warrant...and isn't there a crazy preacher in Florida that you should be harassing? I'm just saying.)_
About six months ago, my iPhone started doing something peculiar. In addition to having a pass code to unlock an iPhone, there is also an additional pass code to unlock the SIM card. I discovered this by accident once when I was monkeying with the settings on my phone, hit the wrong button, and my SIM card locked itself. The first time your card locks itself, you have to call AT&T to get the factory built in pass code in order to unlock the phone. Once you unlock it the first time, it prompts you to enter a healthy numeric code that you will remember.
Did it. Set the new code. Thought it was the end of the story.
Then, about a month after I'd first changed the code...I turned on my phone one morning to find that the SIM card was locked. Now, normally, the card only locks in response to user input or a failed attempt to access the SIM card. But, I shrugged it off to some random glitch with the phone and entered my pass code.
The code didn't work.
So, I called AT&T and asked them for the code, which they happily provided. I entered the code, the phone unlocked, and I hung up with the good woman at AT&T.
No sooner had I hung up the phone than I looked down and the damn phone's SIM card was locked again. So, I entered in the new SIM code that I had just chosen, and the phone wouldn't open.
How curious.
So I called AT&T again, and the woman gave me the code (which was not the one I had chosen nor the one that she had given me before), and we did the unlock game again. This time she asked me to stay on the phone during the process. The phone unlocked, I set a new pass code, and about a minute later the damn thing locked itself again.
Once again I tried to unlock it with the new pass code that I'd chosen, but no dice. The woman on the phone looked up the SIM code and lo and behold it was another completely different code.
She then informed me that nothing like this had ever happened to her before in her x number of years working at AT&T and specifically with the iPhone. So, due the wonders of modern technology, she executed a three-way call with an Apple iPhone representative. We got a gentleman from the Genius Bar at Apple on the phone and went through the whole process again with exactly the same results.
Dude was dumbfounded. This had never happened to him either. In the meantime, I had done my Inter Webs based research and found out about iPhone hacking. I suggested this as a cause. At first, neither of them really wanted to admit it was a possibility. But after a few more minutes...they both agreed...something shady was going on with my phone....so shady in fact...that they paid for me to get a new SIM card, and I almost had to give a pinky swear that I wouldn't tell anyone else about this ever.
Steve Jobs is the Don of the Apple Mafia. If he makes you an offer, and you say no, you end up as a SIM card in an iPad. Just saying.
The point ended up becoming moot about that iPhone when I dropped it in a toilet bowl during a Pride party in June. You can't hack a phone when you can't dial the 0 button. Just saying.
So, in July, I got a brand spanking new iPhone. It has worked flawlessly without any craziness or magic SIM card moments.
That is until today.
Today, I texted David to let him now that I'd seen "Ted on the street."
David texted back, "Who's Ted?"
I responded, "Joe's Boyfriend."
A few moments later, my phone went off with a text alert. I opened up the phone to David's response of "Ah."
Except between my text, "Joe's boyfriend," and David's text of "Ah," there was a text, supposedly from me, that said, "FBI."
Now I promise you that after hitting send on the "Joe's boyfriend," that I clicked the lock button on my phone as I was in a meeting with my boss. No second text did I send. Which means that either Carrie Anne from the Exorcist left the TV and ended up in my iPhone or the motherfucker has been hacked again.
I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do I do I do believe in spooks.
But I also believe in fucked up hackers that need to get the hell up out of my shit.
So, once again, I am faced with a piece of expensive ass technology that has been iRaped by an iHacker that can kiss my iAss.
Oops, did I say that out loud?
Apple likes to pretend that their shit is invulnerable, but last fall a couple was awarded $15,000 because they demonstrated how you could hack an iPhone, without ever seeing or touching the target iPhone, using a glitch in the Safari Browser.
Ladies and gentleman gird up your loins and put a firewall on your iPhones because there are stank biznatches out there that are passive aggressive hacking sons of bitches that like to cause mental drama for fun.
I'm just saying.
Tomorrow me and Lady Betty Ignatious Pennybottom (aka my iPhone) are going to take a little trip to AT&T for a long conversation about iPhone security.
But let ye all be warned....don't buy the hype....don't put anything on your iPhone that you wouldn't mind being broadcast during the middle of the Superbowl like Janet's wardrobe malfunction.
Ye have been warned.
(PS And if the FBI did hack my phone...you better have a warrant...and isn't there a crazy preacher in Florida that you should be harassing? I'm just saying.)_
Monday, September 6, 2010
Bareback Sex: Human Need vrs Condoms
I think about sex quite often. Even before testing positive for HIV, I thought about sex, well, almost constantly. Whether it was the politics of sex, teaching my peers about sex positivity, deconstructing sex, looking for sex or having sex, I was (and still am) thinking about the various ways that sex impacts my life and our lives as humans.
As humans as the key part of that statement, as more often than not we attempt, or others attempt, to separate sex from our basic humanity and the fundamental connection that sex provides between two (or more) human beings.
Today, I received an email from a good friend (and super smokin' hot friend) of mine from Minneapolis. He has been positive for two decades, and he is one of the people I know that lives, and fucks, beautifully with HIV. When I have struggled and needed someone to share emotional vomit, angst, shame, or fear around HIV, and particularly being an HIV positive man that refuses to walk away from his sexuality, this friend is the person to whom I have turned.
Today he turned to me. His note to me wasn't about sex per se but was more about at times realizing there are things that he can't do and limitations he has because of being immuno-compromised. I won't go into too many details, but because of his upcoming travel, he won't be able to visit some family because of their geography and the risk of some nasty health complications due to the make up of the natural environment where they live. This triggered for him some personal regret around decisions he made as a young gay man coming up in the 1980s around sex. Those decisions lead to him testing positive.
Please, please please note the realness of his regret. He isn't angry at the person that infected him. He isn't blaming the other. He regrets the decisions HE made around HIS sexual choices in the 1980s. In this age of over information with regards to the risks of unprotected sex, it is down right ludicrous, except in very discrete situations around sexual assault and rape, that an adult that contracts HIV from consensual unprotected sex should place the burden of his or her choice on someone else.
This man has been HIV positive since the mid-80s when the White House wouldn't acknowledge the existence of the HIV virus, there were few prevention programs, and people were dying left and right while also marching in the streets demanding that Congress pay attention (God Bless ACT-UP). He could blame a whole lot of people, particularly our elected officials, and rightfully so. But he doesn't. He is also clear that this, for him, comes up every five years or so...he sees it...holds it...looks at it...and then lets it go.
I wrote back to him this message:
Let me be clear. I am talking about having unprotected aka bareback sex in the note that I sent back to him. Because of the fear and shame that was created around HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, because the virus was so virulent and people were dying, and because the evolution of the messaging was so retarded by the lack of information available, the message came out that any sex but sex with a condom under any circumstances unless you are married (meaning a man and a woman) is wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.
Meanwhile, HIV and STD rates continued to climb, and they are climbing again. Why? Do all of us having a fundamental death wish? Does no one anywhere care about his or her own sexual health? While there is a woeful lack of education in certain quarters over what types of sex can transmit HIV (please note that a study in NC in 2000 of high school students found that 80% of high school students in that abstinence only education state thought that unprotected anal sex was abstinent behavior), the general messaging about how to protect oneself is out there and most folks know the basics of it now.
Let me suggest what others that are smarter and wiser than I am have suggested: in addition to the psychological damage reasons why a human being may disregard their sexual health, there is a psychological need (and a healthy need) to want to physically connect with another human being without any barriers.
Anyone, and I mean anyone, that tells you that sex with a condom is just the same as sex without a condom is telling you a goddamn lie.
But, because it is not PC to talk about unprotected sex openly. Because we don't talk about both the need to connect with someone else without barriers nor how to do it in a healthy way or in a way that reduces risk of contracting HIV or an STD, as a community we walk around, many of us pretending like we are condom commandos and are always safe all of the time, and that is just a comforting lie we allow ourselves so that we can look down, shame, and wag our figures at other people...all the while bending over and taking it raw again and again and again.
And let me be clear, I am not talking just about queer folks here. Very recently, in the last few days, a straight person close to me told me that she is on the pill because the person she is sleeping with hates condoms and won't use them. Now, I have fucked or known one too many of my friends that have taken a supposedly straight man for the pony ride of his life, to even have to talk about why that is not the smartest sexual move. And, also, HIV can be transmitted from penis/vaginal intercourse between a man and a woman. It is less likely, but it does happen. But the assumption that the only risk from unprotected penis/vaginal intercourse is pregnancy is one of the reasons why women of color are the fastest rising population of people being infected with the HIV virus.
Yet, for many of my highly educated straight sisters, having unprotected vaginal intercourse while using chemical contraceptives is so common as to quite often be the norm. These women know all about dudes on the down low. These women know all about high risk transmission rates, yet they still participate, and most of them happily, in straight bareback sex.
I thought we learned long ago that the thing that we do not talk about is usually the thing that is most likely to kill us. There is a reason why the HIV prevention slogan from the 1980s was SILENCE=DEATH.
If HIV infection is the symptom of unprotected sex, then why aren't we having a frank, non-shaming, and healthy discussion about bareback sex? Haven't we learned, and don't I know from personal experience, that by creating shame, risk, and danger about bareback sex, we actually heighten the desire for it in unhealthy ways? In the same way that we drive fast cars, go bungee jumping, and slather ourselves in fish blood and then go diving in a cage in a great white shark spawning ground, the forbidden factor/the danger/the excitement of bareback sex is, in my honest opinion, part of what makes it so appealing to so many people: gay and straight.
Why aren't we talking about the intensely erotic and often deep, if only temporary, connection that occurs from bareback sex. People aren't just having bareback sex because of the riskiness of it. People are having it because humans are biologically/mentally/spiritually designed to have sex.
Please note I am not advocating in any way for people to throw out their condoms and blame it on biology. We are also biologically predisposed to solving problems through physical violence, yet we don't go around whacking people in the head that get on our nerves. If that were the case, I would have the biggest biceps on the East Coast.
Instead of criminalizing people living with HIV (which, btw, does nothing for prevention, disregards personal responsibility for negative people, heaps more shame on people living with HIV, and keeps people from getting tested), instead of pretending that everyone uses condoms, instead of reacting high and mighty when a friend talks openly about bareback sex and then going out and starring in an Xtube video ass up in a sling with cum dripping out of your ass, and instead of denying that there is a need and something that can be truly beautiful about connecting with another human being, consensually, without a condom, why don't we actually talk openly about bareback sex? Why don't we look at new HIV prevention models that focuses on a whole person healthy view of sex that includes risk reduction and strategies for how, when, and under what circumstances to have unprotected sex? How about stripping the fear and shame out of sex education and injecting positive sexuality as the core of sex ed? Condoms are one strategy, and it is a strategy that is not working effectively. We still have idiots that believe that abstinence is the only answer while denying that it doesn't work and in the absence of any kind of education, STI and HIV infection rates among youth continue to rise.
Let's have a revolution in the way we think and talk about sex. Let's have a revolution in the way that we have sex. No one, positive or negative, should have to walk away from bareback sex, nor should it be reserved to straight married couples that are trying to procreate. Nor should we believe that it is only wildly idiotic irresponsible queer men that are having it. What we need to do is talk about sex (thank you Salt-n-Pepa), and talk about it without shame, without guilt, and with a realness that honors our physical and emotional need to connect to one another as part of our fundamental humanity.
As humans as the key part of that statement, as more often than not we attempt, or others attempt, to separate sex from our basic humanity and the fundamental connection that sex provides between two (or more) human beings.
Today, I received an email from a good friend (and super smokin' hot friend) of mine from Minneapolis. He has been positive for two decades, and he is one of the people I know that lives, and fucks, beautifully with HIV. When I have struggled and needed someone to share emotional vomit, angst, shame, or fear around HIV, and particularly being an HIV positive man that refuses to walk away from his sexuality, this friend is the person to whom I have turned.
Today he turned to me. His note to me wasn't about sex per se but was more about at times realizing there are things that he can't do and limitations he has because of being immuno-compromised. I won't go into too many details, but because of his upcoming travel, he won't be able to visit some family because of their geography and the risk of some nasty health complications due to the make up of the natural environment where they live. This triggered for him some personal regret around decisions he made as a young gay man coming up in the 1980s around sex. Those decisions lead to him testing positive.
Please, please please note the realness of his regret. He isn't angry at the person that infected him. He isn't blaming the other. He regrets the decisions HE made around HIS sexual choices in the 1980s. In this age of over information with regards to the risks of unprotected sex, it is down right ludicrous, except in very discrete situations around sexual assault and rape, that an adult that contracts HIV from consensual unprotected sex should place the burden of his or her choice on someone else.
This man has been HIV positive since the mid-80s when the White House wouldn't acknowledge the existence of the HIV virus, there were few prevention programs, and people were dying left and right while also marching in the streets demanding that Congress pay attention (God Bless ACT-UP). He could blame a whole lot of people, particularly our elected officials, and rightfully so. But he doesn't. He is also clear that this, for him, comes up every five years or so...he sees it...holds it...looks at it...and then lets it go.
I wrote back to him this message:
You know you can emotionally upchuck here any old time. We all need to do it. All of us. I used to not do it, and that is why I ended up with these three letters attached to my identity...I didn't know how to externalize the damage and the pain, and so I found other ways to make it go away...temporarily.
And, I believe this with all of my heart, condoms save lives but there is also a biological imperative to feel that basic connection with another person that happens through sex. Because we don't talk about that, because we believe it doesn't exist, because it is shamed as something purely psychological, we don't really teach ourselves, our children, or each other how to make the best decisions concerning when to have that experience that all of us need...and that some of us may never get again or think we never will. It is a loss. We don't talk about that shit either.
Let me be clear. I am talking about having unprotected aka bareback sex in the note that I sent back to him. Because of the fear and shame that was created around HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, because the virus was so virulent and people were dying, and because the evolution of the messaging was so retarded by the lack of information available, the message came out that any sex but sex with a condom under any circumstances unless you are married (meaning a man and a woman) is wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.
Meanwhile, HIV and STD rates continued to climb, and they are climbing again. Why? Do all of us having a fundamental death wish? Does no one anywhere care about his or her own sexual health? While there is a woeful lack of education in certain quarters over what types of sex can transmit HIV (please note that a study in NC in 2000 of high school students found that 80% of high school students in that abstinence only education state thought that unprotected anal sex was abstinent behavior), the general messaging about how to protect oneself is out there and most folks know the basics of it now.
Let me suggest what others that are smarter and wiser than I am have suggested: in addition to the psychological damage reasons why a human being may disregard their sexual health, there is a psychological need (and a healthy need) to want to physically connect with another human being without any barriers.
Anyone, and I mean anyone, that tells you that sex with a condom is just the same as sex without a condom is telling you a goddamn lie.
But, because it is not PC to talk about unprotected sex openly. Because we don't talk about both the need to connect with someone else without barriers nor how to do it in a healthy way or in a way that reduces risk of contracting HIV or an STD, as a community we walk around, many of us pretending like we are condom commandos and are always safe all of the time, and that is just a comforting lie we allow ourselves so that we can look down, shame, and wag our figures at other people...all the while bending over and taking it raw again and again and again.
And let me be clear, I am not talking just about queer folks here. Very recently, in the last few days, a straight person close to me told me that she is on the pill because the person she is sleeping with hates condoms and won't use them. Now, I have fucked or known one too many of my friends that have taken a supposedly straight man for the pony ride of his life, to even have to talk about why that is not the smartest sexual move. And, also, HIV can be transmitted from penis/vaginal intercourse between a man and a woman. It is less likely, but it does happen. But the assumption that the only risk from unprotected penis/vaginal intercourse is pregnancy is one of the reasons why women of color are the fastest rising population of people being infected with the HIV virus.
Yet, for many of my highly educated straight sisters, having unprotected vaginal intercourse while using chemical contraceptives is so common as to quite often be the norm. These women know all about dudes on the down low. These women know all about high risk transmission rates, yet they still participate, and most of them happily, in straight bareback sex.
I thought we learned long ago that the thing that we do not talk about is usually the thing that is most likely to kill us. There is a reason why the HIV prevention slogan from the 1980s was SILENCE=DEATH.
If HIV infection is the symptom of unprotected sex, then why aren't we having a frank, non-shaming, and healthy discussion about bareback sex? Haven't we learned, and don't I know from personal experience, that by creating shame, risk, and danger about bareback sex, we actually heighten the desire for it in unhealthy ways? In the same way that we drive fast cars, go bungee jumping, and slather ourselves in fish blood and then go diving in a cage in a great white shark spawning ground, the forbidden factor/the danger/the excitement of bareback sex is, in my honest opinion, part of what makes it so appealing to so many people: gay and straight.
Why aren't we talking about the intensely erotic and often deep, if only temporary, connection that occurs from bareback sex. People aren't just having bareback sex because of the riskiness of it. People are having it because humans are biologically/mentally/spiritually designed to have sex.
Please note I am not advocating in any way for people to throw out their condoms and blame it on biology. We are also biologically predisposed to solving problems through physical violence, yet we don't go around whacking people in the head that get on our nerves. If that were the case, I would have the biggest biceps on the East Coast.
Instead of criminalizing people living with HIV (which, btw, does nothing for prevention, disregards personal responsibility for negative people, heaps more shame on people living with HIV, and keeps people from getting tested), instead of pretending that everyone uses condoms, instead of reacting high and mighty when a friend talks openly about bareback sex and then going out and starring in an Xtube video ass up in a sling with cum dripping out of your ass, and instead of denying that there is a need and something that can be truly beautiful about connecting with another human being, consensually, without a condom, why don't we actually talk openly about bareback sex? Why don't we look at new HIV prevention models that focuses on a whole person healthy view of sex that includes risk reduction and strategies for how, when, and under what circumstances to have unprotected sex? How about stripping the fear and shame out of sex education and injecting positive sexuality as the core of sex ed? Condoms are one strategy, and it is a strategy that is not working effectively. We still have idiots that believe that abstinence is the only answer while denying that it doesn't work and in the absence of any kind of education, STI and HIV infection rates among youth continue to rise.
Let's have a revolution in the way we think and talk about sex. Let's have a revolution in the way that we have sex. No one, positive or negative, should have to walk away from bareback sex, nor should it be reserved to straight married couples that are trying to procreate. Nor should we believe that it is only wildly idiotic irresponsible queer men that are having it. What we need to do is talk about sex (thank you Salt-n-Pepa), and talk about it without shame, without guilt, and with a realness that honors our physical and emotional need to connect to one another as part of our fundamental humanity.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
One Liner of the Week Award: Shannon Lacy
Smart-assery, as I believe I have mentioned before, is an inherited trait in the Lacy family. Like storytelling and makin' shine, it is an ancient family tradition.
My little sisters are currently visiting me from Atlanta. Last night, we were chilling in their hotel room in Times Square, watching a random crime show, and I kicked off my flip-flops and stretched out on the bed.
The room went eerily silent.
My sisters then started laughing and asking me why my feet were so messed up and ashy.
Jasmine said, "Ewwww, you look like you been walking around in high heels."
Shannon said, "High heels hell, it looks like you been walking around in concrete bricks."
If she wasn't in the military, I woulda whooped her tail last night.
And that, ladies and gentlenerds is the One Liner of the Week Award.
Friday, September 3, 2010
POZitively Struggling with Sex
Living with HIV is a constant fucking struggle. It's a struggle against yourself and the internal tapes associated with being positive. It is a struggle to deal with stigma perceived or otherwise. It is a struggle to master fear and fear of rejection. It is a struggle to just live your life like any other human being does or gets to do.
I have been trying to do some serious work integrating HIV and acceptance of it into who I am. Yesterday, I taped a video interview talking about that process for TheBody.com. Since May, I have been writing for TheBody.com, and I have received some really amazing support and love from other poz folks in the world struggling with the same shit that I am attempting to deal with, and that has been truly a wonderful experience.
But, translating these thoughts, experiences, and feelings into daily actions is sometimes very hard to do.
All of this is complicated by semi-attempts to try and venture back out into the world and enjoy the benefit of being in an open relationship, to make connections with people (sexual and otherwise), to enjoy those possibilities, and to navigate what it means to be a positive individual while doing so.
The paranoia and fear around situations, even ones in which there has been no responsibility to disclose, has me at a spiritual and mental tipping point.
Then, on top of all that, add to the mix that I am a recovering meth addict. One of the loveliest and most fun long term impacts of meth use is a syndrome called PAWS (Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome), which is basically the fun experience of having, from time to time, bouts of mild paranoia that can come on suddenly. This lovely by product of meth use can last for up to three years after use has stopped.
Hands down the only times that I have experienced PAWS has been when I have been worried about a failure to disclose (whether or not it was necessary to disclose) or some other circumstance where, to use a recent example, where I connected with someone, there wasn't a need to disclose, but he chose not to continue in communication.
Now, for most people, someone not calling you back after having a minor hook up with some heavy petting, would simply mean that it was a one night stand or dude decided after all that he wasn't interested. For me, my mind and spirit immediately jump to a place where he Googled my name, found my blogs, and is now waging a silent war against me for being HIV positive and not telling him. Even knowing when there has been absolutely no risk of transmission, I still end up in this place.
That is some fucked up shit.
And it really doesn't matter. I could hook up with a dude that never asks about my status, doesn't care, and has an entire collection of photos and video tapes of all the men that he has hooked up with and practiced unsafe sex, and I will still feel the responsibility of the world coming down on my shoulders for his choices and mine. I repeat HIS choices and mine.
I need to have my own conspiracy theory show. Because, really, this shit is better than anything on the Spike Channel or Lifetime.
So, being a Virgo and thinking logically, and also never wanting to go through another PAWS experience in my life (I can avoid PAWS experiences...for the most part....I will never be able to avoid poz experiences...that's just my reality), and knowing that most often my PAWS experiences are triggered by hook up situations or even just plain old dating situations where no one has lied to anyone about anything, but I don't know the other person's status, and they don't know mine...I have come to the conclusion that the only way to avoid PAWS situations caused by a poz situation is to make a commitment to only date and/or hook up with other HIV positive guys from now on.
At this point in my journey into integrating my identity as an HIV positive man, I haven't found a way, yet, to bring up casually while negotiating a blow job from a hot guy at a party that I am HIV positive. And since not having found the strength or whatever it takes to disclose in a situation like that or any other random hook up moment, the best thing I can do is avoid them altogether until I can find a way to do so without having a complete and total breakdown.
And walking down the street sober and believing that there is a queer mafia out there watching your every move and judging you or somehow monitoring your computer usage or cloning your cell phone to read your text messages is not worth it. It just really isn't worth it. And, truly, I don't want to end up pushing a cart full of old cat bones up and down 10th Avenue talking to my invisible friend Buttons and singing the Star Spangled Banner every time a car alarm goes off.
Yes people, I am on medication. Zoloft is my bestest friend ever.
It doesn't really matter that this moments are rare. It doesn't matter that 99.8% of the time, I go about my life, eating, shitting, talking, praying, laughing, and loving. One single evening, like tonight, where the issues converge by a chance moment and grow into something so unwieldy, uncomfortable, and avoidable, is so not worth it.
Maybe six months or a year from now, I will have done enough internal work that I can once again open myself up to deeper physical connections with negative folks. Perhaps I will get over whatever it is in my life that will not allow me to see, own, and be responsible for just my actions and not the actions of folks with whom I have connected, but that day is not today.
But I also refuse to walk away from being a sexual being. That is what so many would have us do, stripping an integral part of our humanity away from ourselves or boxing in our choices for us. Also, it is what so many of us living with HIV do to ourselves, denying that we are inherently sexual beings and that having a sex life is critical to being a healthy person.
Dealing with the mental health impacts of meth use is no joke people. Struggling with addiction is no joke people. And living with HIV isn't either.
And, just to answer a question that has been asked by more than one person, "Why/How do you write about some of the things you write about so openly," and the answer is so simple: I am not the only person that is going through this in the world.
We hide anything to do with mental health. We pretend it doesn't exist. We judge and look down on anyone that openly acknowledges that they are living with a mental health diagnosis. I don't have to tell you that addicts are dehumanized (and we won't talk about the fact that 75% of all queer people are either active or recovering addicts or alcoholics). We do the same thing to people living with HIV.
And, because of the work I have done or the way people perceive me or the way I project myself or the education I have or the opportunities I have had, when I talk about my struggles as openly and candidly as I can, it puts a different mental image in peoples heads about who it is that lives and works and even thrives living with addiction, HIV, and mental health diagnosis (temporary or otherwise). It also lets people know that living is work and growing is work and sometimes it is hard work.
So I try to struggle openly. I try to share what I've attempted and how it turned out...whether it is a recipe gone wrong or a date gone wrong. Just like with queer folks, the more of us that are living with HIV, addiction, and mental health diagnosis come out of our closest, the easier it will be for those that come after us to live better, healthier, and less stigmatized lives.
I have been trying to do some serious work integrating HIV and acceptance of it into who I am. Yesterday, I taped a video interview talking about that process for TheBody.com. Since May, I have been writing for TheBody.com, and I have received some really amazing support and love from other poz folks in the world struggling with the same shit that I am attempting to deal with, and that has been truly a wonderful experience.
But, translating these thoughts, experiences, and feelings into daily actions is sometimes very hard to do.
All of this is complicated by semi-attempts to try and venture back out into the world and enjoy the benefit of being in an open relationship, to make connections with people (sexual and otherwise), to enjoy those possibilities, and to navigate what it means to be a positive individual while doing so.
The paranoia and fear around situations, even ones in which there has been no responsibility to disclose, has me at a spiritual and mental tipping point.
Then, on top of all that, add to the mix that I am a recovering meth addict. One of the loveliest and most fun long term impacts of meth use is a syndrome called PAWS (Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome), which is basically the fun experience of having, from time to time, bouts of mild paranoia that can come on suddenly. This lovely by product of meth use can last for up to three years after use has stopped.
Hands down the only times that I have experienced PAWS has been when I have been worried about a failure to disclose (whether or not it was necessary to disclose) or some other circumstance where, to use a recent example, where I connected with someone, there wasn't a need to disclose, but he chose not to continue in communication.
Now, for most people, someone not calling you back after having a minor hook up with some heavy petting, would simply mean that it was a one night stand or dude decided after all that he wasn't interested. For me, my mind and spirit immediately jump to a place where he Googled my name, found my blogs, and is now waging a silent war against me for being HIV positive and not telling him. Even knowing when there has been absolutely no risk of transmission, I still end up in this place.
That is some fucked up shit.
And it really doesn't matter. I could hook up with a dude that never asks about my status, doesn't care, and has an entire collection of photos and video tapes of all the men that he has hooked up with and practiced unsafe sex, and I will still feel the responsibility of the world coming down on my shoulders for his choices and mine. I repeat HIS choices and mine.
I need to have my own conspiracy theory show. Because, really, this shit is better than anything on the Spike Channel or Lifetime.
So, being a Virgo and thinking logically, and also never wanting to go through another PAWS experience in my life (I can avoid PAWS experiences...for the most part....I will never be able to avoid poz experiences...that's just my reality), and knowing that most often my PAWS experiences are triggered by hook up situations or even just plain old dating situations where no one has lied to anyone about anything, but I don't know the other person's status, and they don't know mine...I have come to the conclusion that the only way to avoid PAWS situations caused by a poz situation is to make a commitment to only date and/or hook up with other HIV positive guys from now on.
At this point in my journey into integrating my identity as an HIV positive man, I haven't found a way, yet, to bring up casually while negotiating a blow job from a hot guy at a party that I am HIV positive. And since not having found the strength or whatever it takes to disclose in a situation like that or any other random hook up moment, the best thing I can do is avoid them altogether until I can find a way to do so without having a complete and total breakdown.
And walking down the street sober and believing that there is a queer mafia out there watching your every move and judging you or somehow monitoring your computer usage or cloning your cell phone to read your text messages is not worth it. It just really isn't worth it. And, truly, I don't want to end up pushing a cart full of old cat bones up and down 10th Avenue talking to my invisible friend Buttons and singing the Star Spangled Banner every time a car alarm goes off.
Yes people, I am on medication. Zoloft is my bestest friend ever.
It doesn't really matter that this moments are rare. It doesn't matter that 99.8% of the time, I go about my life, eating, shitting, talking, praying, laughing, and loving. One single evening, like tonight, where the issues converge by a chance moment and grow into something so unwieldy, uncomfortable, and avoidable, is so not worth it.
Maybe six months or a year from now, I will have done enough internal work that I can once again open myself up to deeper physical connections with negative folks. Perhaps I will get over whatever it is in my life that will not allow me to see, own, and be responsible for just my actions and not the actions of folks with whom I have connected, but that day is not today.
But I also refuse to walk away from being a sexual being. That is what so many would have us do, stripping an integral part of our humanity away from ourselves or boxing in our choices for us. Also, it is what so many of us living with HIV do to ourselves, denying that we are inherently sexual beings and that having a sex life is critical to being a healthy person.
Dealing with the mental health impacts of meth use is no joke people. Struggling with addiction is no joke people. And living with HIV isn't either.
And, just to answer a question that has been asked by more than one person, "Why/How do you write about some of the things you write about so openly," and the answer is so simple: I am not the only person that is going through this in the world.
We hide anything to do with mental health. We pretend it doesn't exist. We judge and look down on anyone that openly acknowledges that they are living with a mental health diagnosis. I don't have to tell you that addicts are dehumanized (and we won't talk about the fact that 75% of all queer people are either active or recovering addicts or alcoholics). We do the same thing to people living with HIV.
And, because of the work I have done or the way people perceive me or the way I project myself or the education I have or the opportunities I have had, when I talk about my struggles as openly and candidly as I can, it puts a different mental image in peoples heads about who it is that lives and works and even thrives living with addiction, HIV, and mental health diagnosis (temporary or otherwise). It also lets people know that living is work and growing is work and sometimes it is hard work.
So I try to struggle openly. I try to share what I've attempted and how it turned out...whether it is a recipe gone wrong or a date gone wrong. Just like with queer folks, the more of us that are living with HIV, addiction, and mental health diagnosis come out of our closest, the easier it will be for those that come after us to live better, healthier, and less stigmatized lives.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Please Come Back Dr. King
It's the day after my birthday party. Last night I was surrounded by some of the most beautiful and amazing people that I have ever had the pleasure to meet. That so many tremendous humans came together to celebrate my birthday was a sweet joy and a blessing. This morning I had to fight my own internal tapes that tell me that I don't deserve to be loved by so many beautiful people, but this morning those tapes don't win. Love wins. Thank you my family, my community, my people for loving me so gently and so beautifully last night.
I have been crying for the last five minutes. And not just crying but acting like I have been beaten for doing something wrong. You know the kind of crying where you can't catch your breath. You know what I am talking about.
But they are actually happy tears. Let me tell you a story.
This morning, a person that is family to me as if he were blood kin, posted on his Facebook wall, an excerpt from Dr. King's speech "I've Been to the Mountaintop." If you haven't heard this speech, and so many people have not heard it, you should listen to it now. This was the speech that Dr. King gave the night before he was assassinated. These were the final words he spoke in public:
Maybe I am a big old softy...but listening to that speech in the doctor's own words maybe me choke up like an old black lady at a funeral.
Hey glory.
Yesterday was the 47th anniversary of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Yesterday Glen Beck and Douchnozzle Extreme Sarah Palin held a rally...at the Lincoln Memorial....talking about taking back the Civil Rights Movement.
Fuck them. FUCK THEM. FUCK THEM IN THE FUCKING SKULL WITH A RUSTY RAZOR BLADE COVERED IN EBOLA!
So glad I got that out of my system.
I am actually angry. I am so angry I could spit random toiletries. The anger is directed solely at one target: myself. I am angry that I have succumbed to hatred. On the anniversary of Dr. King's most famous speech. I have betrayed his memory and legacy by bowing down to the emotion of the enemy. I have let hatred overcome my spirit, and I have reveled in it.
I am ashamed of myself. Dr. King deserves better. I deserve better.
I wish that I could love my enemy as I love myself. I wish that I could live the spirit of Dr. King.
Let me be clear. Dr. King was a human. He was a womanizer and was not faithful to the commitments he made to Mrs. Coretta Scott King. He was gay accepting but only to a point. He kept his mentor and friend and architect of the 1963 March on Washington Bayard Rustin on the sidelines and out of the limelight because of his sexual orientation. But not despite all that, but because of all that...because he was human and because being human he still inspired us to be more than we are and gave us the space to imagine ourselves as better than this world would have us be, I love Dr. Martin Luther King.
I remember.
In high school, I had an amazing history teacher by the name of Frederick Burton. In my senior year, his three year old daughter recited, from memory, Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech as part of a Black History Month celebration in Minneapolis. Mr. Burton blessed my entire school by having his daughter's rendition of the speech broadcast over the school's intercom system. In my mind and in my spirit I can still hear her little and powerful voice say, "Free at last...free at last...thank God Almighty...we are free at last."
I believed every word that little girl said.
The power and legacy of Dr. King is that he continues to inspire us 42 years after he was assassinated by the United States government. Now, more than at anytime when Dr. King was alive, we know the truth about him as a man. We know about his weaknesses and his foibles, and we, or at least I, love him even more for his humanity. And though Glen Beck and Sarah Palin tried to co-opt his dream yesterday...though they straight up lied about the coincidence of organizing a rally on that day while including Dr. King's fucked up, self-hating, stupid and ugly niece in the line up for the event....no one can take Dr. King from us. No one can take his dream from us.
Dr. King DID get to the mountaintop...and he DID see the promised land...and though that land may still be far off...and though many of us may not live to see our arrival...the arc of the universe does bend towards justice...and we will get there...we shall overcome...some day....very...very soon.
I have been crying for the last five minutes. And not just crying but acting like I have been beaten for doing something wrong. You know the kind of crying where you can't catch your breath. You know what I am talking about.
But they are actually happy tears. Let me tell you a story.
This morning, a person that is family to me as if he were blood kin, posted on his Facebook wall, an excerpt from Dr. King's speech "I've Been to the Mountaintop." If you haven't heard this speech, and so many people have not heard it, you should listen to it now. This was the speech that Dr. King gave the night before he was assassinated. These were the final words he spoke in public:
Well I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. I don't mind. Like anybody I would like to live a long life. Longevity has it's place. But I'm not concerned with that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I am happy tonight. I am not worried about anything. I am not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
Maybe I am a big old softy...but listening to that speech in the doctor's own words maybe me choke up like an old black lady at a funeral.
Hey glory.
Yesterday was the 47th anniversary of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Yesterday Glen Beck and Douchnozzle Extreme Sarah Palin held a rally...at the Lincoln Memorial....talking about taking back the Civil Rights Movement.
Fuck them. FUCK THEM. FUCK THEM IN THE FUCKING SKULL WITH A RUSTY RAZOR BLADE COVERED IN EBOLA!
So glad I got that out of my system.
I am actually angry. I am so angry I could spit random toiletries. The anger is directed solely at one target: myself. I am angry that I have succumbed to hatred. On the anniversary of Dr. King's most famous speech. I have betrayed his memory and legacy by bowing down to the emotion of the enemy. I have let hatred overcome my spirit, and I have reveled in it.
I am ashamed of myself. Dr. King deserves better. I deserve better.
I wish that I could love my enemy as I love myself. I wish that I could live the spirit of Dr. King.
Let me be clear. Dr. King was a human. He was a womanizer and was not faithful to the commitments he made to Mrs. Coretta Scott King. He was gay accepting but only to a point. He kept his mentor and friend and architect of the 1963 March on Washington Bayard Rustin on the sidelines and out of the limelight because of his sexual orientation. But not despite all that, but because of all that...because he was human and because being human he still inspired us to be more than we are and gave us the space to imagine ourselves as better than this world would have us be, I love Dr. Martin Luther King.
I remember.
In high school, I had an amazing history teacher by the name of Frederick Burton. In my senior year, his three year old daughter recited, from memory, Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech as part of a Black History Month celebration in Minneapolis. Mr. Burton blessed my entire school by having his daughter's rendition of the speech broadcast over the school's intercom system. In my mind and in my spirit I can still hear her little and powerful voice say, "Free at last...free at last...thank God Almighty...we are free at last."
I believed every word that little girl said.
The power and legacy of Dr. King is that he continues to inspire us 42 years after he was assassinated by the United States government. Now, more than at anytime when Dr. King was alive, we know the truth about him as a man. We know about his weaknesses and his foibles, and we, or at least I, love him even more for his humanity. And though Glen Beck and Sarah Palin tried to co-opt his dream yesterday...though they straight up lied about the coincidence of organizing a rally on that day while including Dr. King's fucked up, self-hating, stupid and ugly niece in the line up for the event....no one can take Dr. King from us. No one can take his dream from us.
Dr. King DID get to the mountaintop...and he DID see the promised land...and though that land may still be far off...and though many of us may not live to see our arrival...the arc of the universe does bend towards justice...and we will get there...we shall overcome...some day....very...very soon.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Who We Date: Queer Men of Color and Race
A blessing that I have found as a writer and particularly through my blogging is that more often than I ever imagined, folks that read my writing come to me with questions wondering if I've ever written on the topic or wondering if I would share my thoughts on a subject.
With total and complete humility, I am really and truly honored when that happens. And sometimes, I don't have much to offer but I always try to share my thoughts honestly, including owning when I just don't know.
But now and again someone asks a question that I have not only thought about but also lived in a really personal way. Recently, a long time acquaintance of mine from Minnesota sent me a really honest and searching email. In some real ways he and I have had parallel journeys. We are both mixed race queer kids from Minneapolis. In fact, we both grew up in the same neighborhood. We are about the same age, and, in fact, though I didn't know him growing up, we have many friends in common. I met this gentleman almost as soon as I started going out to 18+ night at the bars in Minneapolis.
Unsurprisingly, in the mid-90s, he and I were two of a very very very small handful of queer men of color in the bars at the time.
When he wrote to me, he was asking if I had ever had the experience of having a black gay man ask me if I have ever dated a black man. Or, even more directly, accused me of being only into "hot white boys." He also asked if I have had the experience upon meeting someone in person or online and politely declining their interest if I have been accused, immediately, of my declination being about the color of the person asking, specifically, black skin. He also talked about the frustration of being in those moments and feeling that based on the place the conversation had gone that he was unable to answer honestly. For him, the honest answer is that he hasn't dated a black man. In my case the answer is yes.
But the distance between his no and my yes is not all that great.
Like my friend, I grew up in what is still the third whitest state in the country. In the last 15 years, Minneapolis as a city has diversified in leaps and bounds. The city that is now is not the city, demographically, that it was in 1995. There were no queer Latin nights at the bar. The black queer community was deep underground and it organized itself through a series of house parties. The queer Latino community also eschewed the gay bars for house parties and straight Latin clubs. Indeed, we knew who each other were at the salsa bars but it was a community in the closet--a really big closet. The Asian/Pacific Islander queer community at the time would throw late night BBQs in order to get together, and they would, from time to time, go out en masse and dance all together in the same corner of the bars. The gay bars were dominated by white gay men who felt absolutely no restraint in saying clearly and to your face, "I don't date black men." And, frankly, it didn't matter how light skinned a black man was...if the skin wasn't pearly white, then you weren't on the menu. There were the exceptions, most often white men that fetishized men of color, but, overwhelmingly, the message was quite clear: Black ain't beautiful in the queer community in Minneapolis.
Add to that the conundrum of the mixed race family. I have no idea the details of my friend's family, but I was raised by my white Mother and her family. And, although my Mom is now married to her fourth husband of color, I was deeply aware of how my own family struggled with race, and I knew some of our family history around race. In particular, I knew that my Mother's relationships with men of color had caused deep divisions in the family.
Throw on top of that all of the media messages we get about what constitutes beauty...and you have a trifecta of factors, particularly in a city with almost no visible queer community of color or examples of brown and black men loving each other openly, which has lead to many a person of color in Minneapolis that, indeed, is only into "hot white boys."
Further, my friend went on to discuss the fact that sometimes people are just attracted to a certain type of person, look, etc. And that there are folks that won't date someone because of their skin color, but he had a hard time wrapping his head around why folks would go into the world and start from a place of assuming that if they are turned down for a date/hook up by another man of color that the reason must be about race.
I really have no problem understanding that.
I have heard too many times and been told to my face or via chat on a hook up site that, "I am cute but I don't do XYZ," that I am suspicious, particularly with white men, when it comes to that. I don't assume the rejection is based on race unless they admit that it is, but when they do, I about lose my mind.
And, when a man of color asks me or accuses me of not being interested because he is black, I general have a very compassionate reaction and understand where that question originates. It originates in the very real racism, and in the case of queer men of color, internalized racism that exists overtly in the queer community. Unless said person that I've rejected is being a straight up biznatch, I generally am really clear about why it is that I am not interested...usually its because the man has a butter face, but, instead of saying that, I simply outline, nicely, that this or that isn't working for me. And, if necessary, I can always pull out my slut book and list off the 100 or so black men that I have quite happily dated and or rode like a mechanical bull at a country bar in Texas. Ahem.
That's Brandon now...Brandon in 1995 wouldn't have dated a black man to save his life. And that shit was all about me.
I grew up with a Step-Dad that beat my ass so badly that I still take anti-PTSD medication to this day. I grew up in a family where I received, never ever consciously, indirect messages that black was somehow bad--as I knew that my family had been angry with my Mother for dating black men....so....in a child's mind....logically....dating black men must be a bad thing. Being mixed race and one of the "smart kids," I had been given shit by other black kids in my neighborhood and all throughout school, so by the time I left for college, except for the black kids in my magnet program in high school, I didn't want anything to do with the community--and I had never experienced the very real and beautiful educated and loving black community that exists nor did I understand the roots of the anger of those beautiful black men that ridiculed me in school....I had been the target of anger from black men that were justifiably pissed off at white folks but since they couldn't attack them, I was the next best thing. And then coming out when and where I did and being told clearly that black wasn't beautiful was the final nail in my self-hating coffin. I then ran off to a school with exactly 9 U.S. born students of color about half of which were black. So, you know, not a lot of unlearning negative messages about blackness and beauty coming from that quarter (though there were a lot of white fake hippy children playing djembe and taking African dance...GOD HELP ME!)
I didn't think about any of that nor did I engage with any of that when looking at the men that I was dating, I just told myself that I just wasn't attracted to black men and that, you know, people are attracted to different people, so what's the big deal.
The big deal was all that shit beneath the surface that was the real reason why I wasn't attracted to black men...and it had nothing to do with black men, everything to do with me, but...and this is the part that is about community...by not engaging with the truth behind why I wouldn't date black men...and by turning a number of black men down...I was replicating the exact cycle of hurt that was dividing black and brown men from each other and made me unable to find my own people beautiful.
I was lucky. I transferred from my first college to the University of Minnesota, and Minneapolis had started undergoing a radical demographic shift and queer people of color were asserting themselves into the community. Folks were also pushing back against the racism found there. I started doing national work with other queer people of color and was given the opportunity to work in close community with loving people that knew EXACTLY the reason why it is so hard for brown men to love each other, and, through their gentle love, I was able to start seeing that my lack of attraction wasn't really just a "preference," but a result of a series of personal historical and community history events that decided for me what constituted beauty and attractiveness. I worked at a queer youth organization that was mostly queer youth of color organizing with other queer youth of color. And we all struggled around these issues together.
Finally, I made a decision that I was only going to date men of color and for almost four years that is exactly what I did. I had the blessing and the privilege to look into my own past, see my wounds, and work to heal them with other people that had experienced the same thing.
And because of that, to this day, when I am confronted by anger from men of color that immediately believe that I am not interested in them because of race...I understand. For me, now, it isn't true. And I am able to share clearly why it is that I am not interested in a particular person with the complete and secure knowledge that it isn't about race. (And I am fairly certain that the parade of nations that has made it way through my bed including some lesser known island nations in Micronesia is a certain indicator that the days of only white men in my bedroom are long gone). But I understand the anger. I appreciate the anger. And I hope that the reasons for the anger will one day no longer be there.
But that is going to take more intentional work on the part of brown and black men to examine the decisions we make, understand the decision we make, heal from any wounds that we have taken, and then look again at who we love and who we fuck. And, if at that point you still have a preference for this or that type of person that includes a particular shade of skin, you at least know that it is actually a preference and not a choice that was made for you by history, racism, and a standard of beauty that most often doesn't include men with skin like ours.
With total and complete humility, I am really and truly honored when that happens. And sometimes, I don't have much to offer but I always try to share my thoughts honestly, including owning when I just don't know.
But now and again someone asks a question that I have not only thought about but also lived in a really personal way. Recently, a long time acquaintance of mine from Minnesota sent me a really honest and searching email. In some real ways he and I have had parallel journeys. We are both mixed race queer kids from Minneapolis. In fact, we both grew up in the same neighborhood. We are about the same age, and, in fact, though I didn't know him growing up, we have many friends in common. I met this gentleman almost as soon as I started going out to 18+ night at the bars in Minneapolis.
Unsurprisingly, in the mid-90s, he and I were two of a very very very small handful of queer men of color in the bars at the time.
When he wrote to me, he was asking if I had ever had the experience of having a black gay man ask me if I have ever dated a black man. Or, even more directly, accused me of being only into "hot white boys." He also asked if I have had the experience upon meeting someone in person or online and politely declining their interest if I have been accused, immediately, of my declination being about the color of the person asking, specifically, black skin. He also talked about the frustration of being in those moments and feeling that based on the place the conversation had gone that he was unable to answer honestly. For him, the honest answer is that he hasn't dated a black man. In my case the answer is yes.
But the distance between his no and my yes is not all that great.
Like my friend, I grew up in what is still the third whitest state in the country. In the last 15 years, Minneapolis as a city has diversified in leaps and bounds. The city that is now is not the city, demographically, that it was in 1995. There were no queer Latin nights at the bar. The black queer community was deep underground and it organized itself through a series of house parties. The queer Latino community also eschewed the gay bars for house parties and straight Latin clubs. Indeed, we knew who each other were at the salsa bars but it was a community in the closet--a really big closet. The Asian/Pacific Islander queer community at the time would throw late night BBQs in order to get together, and they would, from time to time, go out en masse and dance all together in the same corner of the bars. The gay bars were dominated by white gay men who felt absolutely no restraint in saying clearly and to your face, "I don't date black men." And, frankly, it didn't matter how light skinned a black man was...if the skin wasn't pearly white, then you weren't on the menu. There were the exceptions, most often white men that fetishized men of color, but, overwhelmingly, the message was quite clear: Black ain't beautiful in the queer community in Minneapolis.
Add to that the conundrum of the mixed race family. I have no idea the details of my friend's family, but I was raised by my white Mother and her family. And, although my Mom is now married to her fourth husband of color, I was deeply aware of how my own family struggled with race, and I knew some of our family history around race. In particular, I knew that my Mother's relationships with men of color had caused deep divisions in the family.
Throw on top of that all of the media messages we get about what constitutes beauty...and you have a trifecta of factors, particularly in a city with almost no visible queer community of color or examples of brown and black men loving each other openly, which has lead to many a person of color in Minneapolis that, indeed, is only into "hot white boys."
Further, my friend went on to discuss the fact that sometimes people are just attracted to a certain type of person, look, etc. And that there are folks that won't date someone because of their skin color, but he had a hard time wrapping his head around why folks would go into the world and start from a place of assuming that if they are turned down for a date/hook up by another man of color that the reason must be about race.
I really have no problem understanding that.
I have heard too many times and been told to my face or via chat on a hook up site that, "I am cute but I don't do XYZ," that I am suspicious, particularly with white men, when it comes to that. I don't assume the rejection is based on race unless they admit that it is, but when they do, I about lose my mind.
And, when a man of color asks me or accuses me of not being interested because he is black, I general have a very compassionate reaction and understand where that question originates. It originates in the very real racism, and in the case of queer men of color, internalized racism that exists overtly in the queer community. Unless said person that I've rejected is being a straight up biznatch, I generally am really clear about why it is that I am not interested...usually its because the man has a butter face, but, instead of saying that, I simply outline, nicely, that this or that isn't working for me. And, if necessary, I can always pull out my slut book and list off the 100 or so black men that I have quite happily dated and or rode like a mechanical bull at a country bar in Texas. Ahem.
That's Brandon now...Brandon in 1995 wouldn't have dated a black man to save his life. And that shit was all about me.
I grew up with a Step-Dad that beat my ass so badly that I still take anti-PTSD medication to this day. I grew up in a family where I received, never ever consciously, indirect messages that black was somehow bad--as I knew that my family had been angry with my Mother for dating black men....so....in a child's mind....logically....dating black men must be a bad thing. Being mixed race and one of the "smart kids," I had been given shit by other black kids in my neighborhood and all throughout school, so by the time I left for college, except for the black kids in my magnet program in high school, I didn't want anything to do with the community--and I had never experienced the very real and beautiful educated and loving black community that exists nor did I understand the roots of the anger of those beautiful black men that ridiculed me in school....I had been the target of anger from black men that were justifiably pissed off at white folks but since they couldn't attack them, I was the next best thing. And then coming out when and where I did and being told clearly that black wasn't beautiful was the final nail in my self-hating coffin. I then ran off to a school with exactly 9 U.S. born students of color about half of which were black. So, you know, not a lot of unlearning negative messages about blackness and beauty coming from that quarter (though there were a lot of white fake hippy children playing djembe and taking African dance...GOD HELP ME!)
I didn't think about any of that nor did I engage with any of that when looking at the men that I was dating, I just told myself that I just wasn't attracted to black men and that, you know, people are attracted to different people, so what's the big deal.
The big deal was all that shit beneath the surface that was the real reason why I wasn't attracted to black men...and it had nothing to do with black men, everything to do with me, but...and this is the part that is about community...by not engaging with the truth behind why I wouldn't date black men...and by turning a number of black men down...I was replicating the exact cycle of hurt that was dividing black and brown men from each other and made me unable to find my own people beautiful.
I was lucky. I transferred from my first college to the University of Minnesota, and Minneapolis had started undergoing a radical demographic shift and queer people of color were asserting themselves into the community. Folks were also pushing back against the racism found there. I started doing national work with other queer people of color and was given the opportunity to work in close community with loving people that knew EXACTLY the reason why it is so hard for brown men to love each other, and, through their gentle love, I was able to start seeing that my lack of attraction wasn't really just a "preference," but a result of a series of personal historical and community history events that decided for me what constituted beauty and attractiveness. I worked at a queer youth organization that was mostly queer youth of color organizing with other queer youth of color. And we all struggled around these issues together.
Finally, I made a decision that I was only going to date men of color and for almost four years that is exactly what I did. I had the blessing and the privilege to look into my own past, see my wounds, and work to heal them with other people that had experienced the same thing.
And because of that, to this day, when I am confronted by anger from men of color that immediately believe that I am not interested in them because of race...I understand. For me, now, it isn't true. And I am able to share clearly why it is that I am not interested in a particular person with the complete and secure knowledge that it isn't about race. (And I am fairly certain that the parade of nations that has made it way through my bed including some lesser known island nations in Micronesia is a certain indicator that the days of only white men in my bedroom are long gone). But I understand the anger. I appreciate the anger. And I hope that the reasons for the anger will one day no longer be there.
But that is going to take more intentional work on the part of brown and black men to examine the decisions we make, understand the decision we make, heal from any wounds that we have taken, and then look again at who we love and who we fuck. And, if at that point you still have a preference for this or that type of person that includes a particular shade of skin, you at least know that it is actually a preference and not a choice that was made for you by history, racism, and a standard of beauty that most often doesn't include men with skin like ours.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
I Love Old White Women
It's true...I totally love old white women. Specifically, I love several old white women that have been working it for years and continue to work. To be more specific, I am talking about Phyllis Diller, Carol Burnette, Carol Channing, and that best of the best of elder white funny ladies....Miss Betty White.
First let me take a moment to congratulate Miss Betty White on her Emmy win on Saturday for her guest appearance on Saturday Night Live. If you missed the episode that she hosted, you have done yourself wrong. This woman had me laughing so hard, I thought one of my nuts was going to shoot out of my crotch and rocket into orbit. My favorite was her skit with Molly Shannon as Sally O'Malley. Between Betty, Tina Fey, and Molly I was just about put in the ground from an overdose of hilarity.
But, really, I love old white women.
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. They have this confidence and conviction about them that says, basically, I don't give a fuck. Some of them, like Vicki Lawrence, will straight up come out an tell you that she doesn't give a fuck. Refined ladies like the now late Dixie Carter would have batted immaculately curled eyelashes and said, "I don't give a fuck...bless your heart."
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. They start to tell the damn truth and don't care how it sits with you, and their funniness quotient goes up about 75%. Those are all admirable qualities of black women. And....like black women....you know better than to mess with an old ass white lady with one foot in the grave. She will take you out and smile while doing so. "The secrets in the sauce."
TOWANDA! I am just saying.
So today, in honor of Betty White's Emmy win...I raise a toast to all the old white ladies in the world. This season of Glee will feature at least one episode as Carol Burnette as Sue Sylvester's Mom...Carol Channing is still out in the world, well....Palm Springs which is not really reality, cracking people up, and I think Phyllis Diller is one of the undead. So, thank you old white ladies for making us laugh, making us cry, and making us take ourselves a little less seriously. And to you Betty, thank YOU for being a friend.
First let me take a moment to congratulate Miss Betty White on her Emmy win on Saturday for her guest appearance on Saturday Night Live. If you missed the episode that she hosted, you have done yourself wrong. This woman had me laughing so hard, I thought one of my nuts was going to shoot out of my crotch and rocket into orbit. My favorite was her skit with Molly Shannon as Sally O'Malley. Between Betty, Tina Fey, and Molly I was just about put in the ground from an overdose of hilarity.
But, really, I love old white women.
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. They have this confidence and conviction about them that says, basically, I don't give a fuck. Some of them, like Vicki Lawrence, will straight up come out an tell you that she doesn't give a fuck. Refined ladies like the now late Dixie Carter would have batted immaculately curled eyelashes and said, "I don't give a fuck...bless your heart."
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. They start to tell the damn truth and don't care how it sits with you, and their funniness quotient goes up about 75%. Those are all admirable qualities of black women. And....like black women....you know better than to mess with an old ass white lady with one foot in the grave. She will take you out and smile while doing so. "The secrets in the sauce."
TOWANDA! I am just saying.
So today, in honor of Betty White's Emmy win...I raise a toast to all the old white ladies in the world. This season of Glee will feature at least one episode as Carol Burnette as Sue Sylvester's Mom...Carol Channing is still out in the world, well....Palm Springs which is not really reality, cracking people up, and I think Phyllis Diller is one of the undead. So, thank you old white ladies for making us laugh, making us cry, and making us take ourselves a little less seriously. And to you Betty, thank YOU for being a friend.
Monday, August 16, 2010
One Liner of the Week Award: Server at My Moon in Williamsburg
Now and again, someone says something so racist and so off the cuff/out of the blue, that you can do nothing more than laugh. In fact, when the person is a clueless European waitress, it makes it even more hilarious.
Yesterday, I went to a send-off brunch for my dear friend Natasha. Tasha is one of those amazing and beautiful people that can't help but do good work in the world. She is off on August 31st, my birthday incidentally, to the Solomon Islands where she is working with the American Bar Association to draft anti-sex trafficking laws for the island nation.
To begin with, My Moon is beautiful. It is an old warehouse that has been turned into a restaurant/bar. It's easy to find it, as it is just a couple blocks from the L train. The atmosphere was nice, but the hamburger I had was probably the worst burger ever. The meat was juicy but flavorless, the bun toasted just enough to be dry without being crisp, and if that wasn't bad enough, there was the server.
I enjoy eating jalapenos on my hamburger. So when it came to be my turn to order, I said:
"Do you have jalapenos? Could I get some jalapenos on my burger?"
The server looks at me for a second and then she says, "We must have jalapenos, there are three Mexicans working in the back."
Half of our table looked up in disbelief. Allison looked at me and said, "Did she just say..."
And I just nodded and said, "Yup."
And that, my dearest readers, is the One Liner of the Week.
Yesterday, I went to a send-off brunch for my dear friend Natasha. Tasha is one of those amazing and beautiful people that can't help but do good work in the world. She is off on August 31st, my birthday incidentally, to the Solomon Islands where she is working with the American Bar Association to draft anti-sex trafficking laws for the island nation.
To begin with, My Moon is beautiful. It is an old warehouse that has been turned into a restaurant/bar. It's easy to find it, as it is just a couple blocks from the L train. The atmosphere was nice, but the hamburger I had was probably the worst burger ever. The meat was juicy but flavorless, the bun toasted just enough to be dry without being crisp, and if that wasn't bad enough, there was the server.
I enjoy eating jalapenos on my hamburger. So when it came to be my turn to order, I said:
"Do you have jalapenos? Could I get some jalapenos on my burger?"
The server looks at me for a second and then she says, "We must have jalapenos, there are three Mexicans working in the back."
Half of our table looked up in disbelief. Allison looked at me and said, "Did she just say..."
And I just nodded and said, "Yup."
And that, my dearest readers, is the One Liner of the Week.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Queer Allies to Muslims Ramadan Fast
I woke up this morning at 5:20am. The sky was just lightening, and David stumbled past me as I was squinting over a sesame seed bagel, trying to quietly apply butter to it, while Mimzy the Dog shook her head and tried to will me to drop the entire bagel situation on the floor.
Ramadan Mubarak!
Today is the first day of Ramadan a time of fasting, celebration, good works, and renewal in the Muslim community. It is a time to reflect on your life, let go of worldly obsessions, intensify your relationship with God, and build community. During this time, Muslims around the world gather before sunrise and after sunset for communal meals (Sahur and Iftar) and celebration. And, from sunrise to sunset, the Muslim community fasts: Muslims neither eat nor drink, unless physical or health needs dictate otherwise.
I am not a Muslim nor is my family, but this year I am participating in the Ramadan fast as an act of solidarity with the Muslim community. And I am asking all queer folks that are able to also join me in this act of support and unity with our queer Muslim family and the Muslim community as a whole.
I wrote an open letter two days ago to Mike DiSanto, an openly gay candidate for New York State Senate, who chose to use Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment to further his political career (specifically his statement was against Cordoba House mosque which will be near Ground Zero). His actions were shameful and reflect extremely poorly on the queer community. In an effort to demonstrate to the broader Muslim community and specifically to our queer Muslim brothers and sisters, that not all members of the queer community are Islamophobes, I chose to commit myself to this fast for the month of Ramadan and to ask others to join me as well.
I am not as tough as some of my beloved Muslim family of choice, so I will be drinking water and juice during the day. Since announcing this call via Facebook, a number of folks have also signed up to participate and/or announced their spiritual support of our solidarity work even though, for health reasons, they themselves cannot participate. If you are interested, please consider signing up for our Facebook group.
This solidarity action is an act of love, and it is also an act of bridge building. The queer community often slams people of faith due to the many atrocities committed in the name of God. Yet, many of us are people of faith and understand that actions taken in the name of God and religion are actions of misguided and hateful human beings and not the fault of faith itself.
No major religion on the planet can claim a wholly peaceful history. Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Christians, and other faiths all have had evil and terrible works done in their name and often times in direct contradiction to the core of the teachings of the particular faiths. Murder in the name of Christ, jihad in the name of Allah, apartheid and oppression of Palestinians in the name of the Jewish faith, partition in India, Hindu fundamentalists, all of these are historical actions by human beings using faith as an excuse to exercise power. None of these actions are because of the faith itself. And we all know of tremendous people and acts of justice done because of an understanding and deep commitment to the love and peace at the core of each of these religions. We venerate heroes like Malcolm X, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr, Susan B. Anthony, and so many others that were all people of faith.
And, frankly, we found out first hand what happens when the queer community discounts or ignores people of faith: Proposition 8. We lost that electoral fight because the enemies of the queer community knew that they needed to reach out and build bridges with folks that would normally not be their allies. The religious conservative right made intentional connections to African-American and Latino communities. For 20 years they reached out, provided support, created dialogue, and brought them into their way of thinking. And even though we all understand that the religious right could actually care less about people of color and our struggles for liberation, they understand exactly how to build with a community around an issue and find common ground in order to do so.
This fast in solidarity with the Muslim community, for me, is to recognize my commonality with Muslims as a person of faith. It is to create intentional connections and support of a community that is under siege. It is to demonstrate through action that queer people and queer people of faith support the Cordoba House project and see it for what it is: an act of generosity, vision, and community building originating in the Muslim community but benefiting the entire Lower Manhattan area and the people that live therein. And, this solidarity fast is an act of being an ally without asking for anything in return. My hope is that over the long term by showing my respect and honor for the Muslim community and Islam that, in time, I will participate in a shift in attitude that will create more and stronger support for my queer Muslim family. It is also my belief that by creating intentional bridges between the queer community and the Muslim community, we will create better, stronger, and long lasting mutually supportive relationships that will also demonstrate our love for our queer Muslim family. I will use an older but goody…none of us are free until all of us are free.
Asalaam aleikum!
Ramadan Mubarak!
Today is the first day of Ramadan a time of fasting, celebration, good works, and renewal in the Muslim community. It is a time to reflect on your life, let go of worldly obsessions, intensify your relationship with God, and build community. During this time, Muslims around the world gather before sunrise and after sunset for communal meals (Sahur and Iftar) and celebration. And, from sunrise to sunset, the Muslim community fasts: Muslims neither eat nor drink, unless physical or health needs dictate otherwise.
I am not a Muslim nor is my family, but this year I am participating in the Ramadan fast as an act of solidarity with the Muslim community. And I am asking all queer folks that are able to also join me in this act of support and unity with our queer Muslim family and the Muslim community as a whole.
I wrote an open letter two days ago to Mike DiSanto, an openly gay candidate for New York State Senate, who chose to use Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment to further his political career (specifically his statement was against Cordoba House mosque which will be near Ground Zero). His actions were shameful and reflect extremely poorly on the queer community. In an effort to demonstrate to the broader Muslim community and specifically to our queer Muslim brothers and sisters, that not all members of the queer community are Islamophobes, I chose to commit myself to this fast for the month of Ramadan and to ask others to join me as well.
I am not as tough as some of my beloved Muslim family of choice, so I will be drinking water and juice during the day. Since announcing this call via Facebook, a number of folks have also signed up to participate and/or announced their spiritual support of our solidarity work even though, for health reasons, they themselves cannot participate. If you are interested, please consider signing up for our Facebook group.
This solidarity action is an act of love, and it is also an act of bridge building. The queer community often slams people of faith due to the many atrocities committed in the name of God. Yet, many of us are people of faith and understand that actions taken in the name of God and religion are actions of misguided and hateful human beings and not the fault of faith itself.
No major religion on the planet can claim a wholly peaceful history. Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Christians, and other faiths all have had evil and terrible works done in their name and often times in direct contradiction to the core of the teachings of the particular faiths. Murder in the name of Christ, jihad in the name of Allah, apartheid and oppression of Palestinians in the name of the Jewish faith, partition in India, Hindu fundamentalists, all of these are historical actions by human beings using faith as an excuse to exercise power. None of these actions are because of the faith itself. And we all know of tremendous people and acts of justice done because of an understanding and deep commitment to the love and peace at the core of each of these religions. We venerate heroes like Malcolm X, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr, Susan B. Anthony, and so many others that were all people of faith.
And, frankly, we found out first hand what happens when the queer community discounts or ignores people of faith: Proposition 8. We lost that electoral fight because the enemies of the queer community knew that they needed to reach out and build bridges with folks that would normally not be their allies. The religious conservative right made intentional connections to African-American and Latino communities. For 20 years they reached out, provided support, created dialogue, and brought them into their way of thinking. And even though we all understand that the religious right could actually care less about people of color and our struggles for liberation, they understand exactly how to build with a community around an issue and find common ground in order to do so.
This fast in solidarity with the Muslim community, for me, is to recognize my commonality with Muslims as a person of faith. It is to create intentional connections and support of a community that is under siege. It is to demonstrate through action that queer people and queer people of faith support the Cordoba House project and see it for what it is: an act of generosity, vision, and community building originating in the Muslim community but benefiting the entire Lower Manhattan area and the people that live therein. And, this solidarity fast is an act of being an ally without asking for anything in return. My hope is that over the long term by showing my respect and honor for the Muslim community and Islam that, in time, I will participate in a shift in attitude that will create more and stronger support for my queer Muslim family. It is also my belief that by creating intentional bridges between the queer community and the Muslim community, we will create better, stronger, and long lasting mutually supportive relationships that will also demonstrate our love for our queer Muslim family. I will use an older but goody…none of us are free until all of us are free.
Asalaam aleikum!
Monday, August 9, 2010
An Open Letter to NY State Senate Candidate Mike DiSanto
I wrote this open letter today to Mike DiSanto a "Democrat" challenging Republican State Senator Marty Golden in Senate District 22 in Brooklyn. This letter was written in response to a statement that Mr. DiSanto published against the building of the Cordoba House mosque near the site of 9-11. Mike DiSanto is openly gay, and until today I was supporting him. I can not in good conscience continue to do so, and it is my hope that the people of District 22 will follow my lead and say no to religious intolerance and anti-Muslim sentiment. The real disservice to the families and victims of 9-11 is continuing the vicious cycle of intolerant rhetoric and judgment that makes us blind to the work of healing.
Dear Mr. DiSanto:
I read your statement today concerning the Cordoba House mosque, and, frankly, I am not only appalled but also rather disgusted.
Using intolerance as a tool to further your own political career is extremely disheartening. It is a tactic used most often by the Right, but I see that it is alive and well here in New York on the "Left." as well. You are a discredit to fair minded and justice focused citizens, and your campaign has done a great disservice to the Muslim community in the area of Brooklyn that you seek to represent as well as to all those working to build cross community bridges.
And, on the eve of Ramadan, one of the holiest times in the Muslim year, your choice to participate in fear mongering and anti-Muslim sentiments is not only disgusting it is reprehensible. It is this sort of blatant intolerance masked as compassion that continues to create real, hurtful, and deep divides not only along along religious lines but along racial lines and, as you know as an openly gay man, along lines of sexual orientation and gender diversity. Your "not in my backyard" attitude is the same that was used during redlining which kept black families from moving into white neighborhoods and the ghetto mentality that kept Jews segregated and made gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities band together for their own protection in geographic isolation.
For the record, I am not a Muslim. I am a Christian, and I support the right of the Cordoba House to be built near Ground Zero not only as an act of religious freedom but also in the spirit in which it is being built: to demonstrate that just as not all Christians are the hateful gay-hating life destroying conservatives the likes of Fred Phelps and his ilk nor are all Muslims jihadis out to take down the United States. The best and most powerful honor that the Muslim community can do to those lost to hateful betrayers of true Islam is to create a space that demonstrates the peace, beauty, and love that is the core of Islam just as it is at the core of Christianity and Judaism. The Cordoba House facility, according to its website, will create a community space open to all New Yorkers and will provide critical access to facilities that are otherwise not present in Lower Manhattan.
As a private citizen, you are entitled to your own opinion. As a candidate for public service, you have shown an overwhelming lack of understanding of the power of words and the role of a community leader. I expect my public servants to rise above the immediate emotions of a situation and look at concerns through a sophisticated lens that respects those that feel aggrieved but protects those that are innocent from mob mentality. The Cordoba House has a right to exist in the location where it will exist.
The LGBT community saw this week proof positive that no matter the feeling of the majority, it is the minority, when their fundamental rights are being challenged, that must be upheld and protected. It is a shame that you can not see the parallels between Proposition 8 and the "majority" of Californians that voted against gay marriage and the mass religious intolerance that says that this mosque should not be built.
If I could stop payment on my donation to your campaign, I would. Seeing that I can not, and considering that I would not willingly make a gift to the campaign of a Republican, I will be making a donation to Cordoba House for the construction of their new mosque and cultural center.
Yours,
W. Brandon Lacy Campos
Dear Mr. DiSanto:
I read your statement today concerning the Cordoba House mosque, and, frankly, I am not only appalled but also rather disgusted.
Using intolerance as a tool to further your own political career is extremely disheartening. It is a tactic used most often by the Right, but I see that it is alive and well here in New York on the "Left." as well. You are a discredit to fair minded and justice focused citizens, and your campaign has done a great disservice to the Muslim community in the area of Brooklyn that you seek to represent as well as to all those working to build cross community bridges.
And, on the eve of Ramadan, one of the holiest times in the Muslim year, your choice to participate in fear mongering and anti-Muslim sentiments is not only disgusting it is reprehensible. It is this sort of blatant intolerance masked as compassion that continues to create real, hurtful, and deep divides not only along along religious lines but along racial lines and, as you know as an openly gay man, along lines of sexual orientation and gender diversity. Your "not in my backyard" attitude is the same that was used during redlining which kept black families from moving into white neighborhoods and the ghetto mentality that kept Jews segregated and made gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities band together for their own protection in geographic isolation.
For the record, I am not a Muslim. I am a Christian, and I support the right of the Cordoba House to be built near Ground Zero not only as an act of religious freedom but also in the spirit in which it is being built: to demonstrate that just as not all Christians are the hateful gay-hating life destroying conservatives the likes of Fred Phelps and his ilk nor are all Muslims jihadis out to take down the United States. The best and most powerful honor that the Muslim community can do to those lost to hateful betrayers of true Islam is to create a space that demonstrates the peace, beauty, and love that is the core of Islam just as it is at the core of Christianity and Judaism. The Cordoba House facility, according to its website, will create a community space open to all New Yorkers and will provide critical access to facilities that are otherwise not present in Lower Manhattan.
As a private citizen, you are entitled to your own opinion. As a candidate for public service, you have shown an overwhelming lack of understanding of the power of words and the role of a community leader. I expect my public servants to rise above the immediate emotions of a situation and look at concerns through a sophisticated lens that respects those that feel aggrieved but protects those that are innocent from mob mentality. The Cordoba House has a right to exist in the location where it will exist.
The LGBT community saw this week proof positive that no matter the feeling of the majority, it is the minority, when their fundamental rights are being challenged, that must be upheld and protected. It is a shame that you can not see the parallels between Proposition 8 and the "majority" of Californians that voted against gay marriage and the mass religious intolerance that says that this mosque should not be built.
If I could stop payment on my donation to your campaign, I would. Seeing that I can not, and considering that I would not willingly make a gift to the campaign of a Republican, I will be making a donation to Cordoba House for the construction of their new mosque and cultural center.
Yours,
W. Brandon Lacy Campos
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.
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.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Hey Target! An Apology is Not an Amends!
Yestereve, I was having dinner with my dear friend Shelly Horn at Spice in Chelsea, when I checked my Facebook page via my phone. An ally/comrade/acquaintance of mine in Minneapolis had posted a link to a story from the Minneapolis Star Tribune in which Target CEO Gregg Steinhafel offers an apology for the corporate donation to Minnesota Forward and pledges to establish a review committee for any future political contributions to ensure that the money does not go to candidates that are going to piss off the Target employees and shoppers in the future (paraphrasing is all mine). This friend of mine from back home had posted this article on my wall saying, "In your face Brandon Lacy Campos, boycotts are effective."
Now. I am going to say this for the last damn time. Never in ANY of my writing on this subject have I ever said that boycotts are ineffective, and least of all in my blog Why Not To Boycott Target. I have, indeed, reference successful boycotts in order to illustrate WHY they were successful and HOW they were organized. Disorganized boycotts with no concrete organization or political goals, such as the call for a Target Boycott, hurt workers without doing anything to engage them or empower them to be a part of the solution. The grape boycott was exactly the opposite, it included the farm workers who helped strategize the boycott. They had an understanding that immediate personal economic loss would lead to higher wages and better working conditions.
I have been very clear to keep my analysis to this particular circumstance and suggest strategies that would get us to where we need to go and build stronger coalitions along the way. And, for the last time, I have offered unconditional support to any individual that chooses to not shop at Target because of the MN Forward donation. That is the last I will say on that subject.
But, what disturbs me most about the statement, "In your face Brandon Lacy Campos, boycotts are effective,:" is not that there seems to be some "gotcha game" being played between people that are allies, nor is it that instead of seeing the suggestions for action as disagreement about strategies and a political dialogue but instead as an opportunity to silence or deride folks in the same community, it is the fact that anyone could read that piece of crap apology in the Star Tribune and think to themselves, "WE WON!"
Nowhere in the article did Target agree to withdraw their donation. Target did not agree to lead by example and remove itself from future political contributions, thereby recognizing that the Citizens United ruling was foolish and bad for democracy, nor did the company even give lip service to justice by offering an offsetting donation to an LGBT rights organization. All that was offered was a lukewarm "I'm sorry," that sounded more like an apology that some employees and some people in the community were angered by the donation instead of a sincere regret at the damage done to the community of workers at Target and the community at large. The difference between an apology and an amends is this: An apology is meant to make the apologizer feel better, an amends is meant to fix the damage done and put things right with the aggrieved.
This was an apology and not an amends, and, therefore, I reject it.
I was debating whether or not to write about the apology today, but no sooner did I have that thought, that a friend of mine from college posted a note on my wall saying that he thought he heard that Target apologized. It helped me realize that Steinhafel was playing a smart media game. It is easy for anyone that hasn't actually read the newspaper article to assume that along with the apology came a remedy. And the way that the grapevine works, that apology, without analysis, will, indeed, take some of the pressure off of Target.
Thankfully our community is full to the brim of smart folks that saw it, read it, and then kept right on planning actions against Target.
I maintain that boycotting Target is the wrong approach to this situation. I will be checking in today with a friend of mine that met with the LGBT employee group at Target a couple of days ago, and I am anxious to hear how that went.
And let me be clear, I do support direct actions at Target Stores, and in that vein, if you are in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, there will be a peaceful demonstration tomorrow at the Southdale Mall Target Store at 7000 York Avenue from 11am-1pm.
Let's keep the pressure up, but let's also keep eye ours on justice and not just us.
Now. I am going to say this for the last damn time. Never in ANY of my writing on this subject have I ever said that boycotts are ineffective, and least of all in my blog Why Not To Boycott Target. I have, indeed, reference successful boycotts in order to illustrate WHY they were successful and HOW they were organized. Disorganized boycotts with no concrete organization or political goals, such as the call for a Target Boycott, hurt workers without doing anything to engage them or empower them to be a part of the solution. The grape boycott was exactly the opposite, it included the farm workers who helped strategize the boycott. They had an understanding that immediate personal economic loss would lead to higher wages and better working conditions.
I have been very clear to keep my analysis to this particular circumstance and suggest strategies that would get us to where we need to go and build stronger coalitions along the way. And, for the last time, I have offered unconditional support to any individual that chooses to not shop at Target because of the MN Forward donation. That is the last I will say on that subject.
But, what disturbs me most about the statement, "In your face Brandon Lacy Campos, boycotts are effective,:" is not that there seems to be some "gotcha game" being played between people that are allies, nor is it that instead of seeing the suggestions for action as disagreement about strategies and a political dialogue but instead as an opportunity to silence or deride folks in the same community, it is the fact that anyone could read that piece of crap apology in the Star Tribune and think to themselves, "WE WON!"
Nowhere in the article did Target agree to withdraw their donation. Target did not agree to lead by example and remove itself from future political contributions, thereby recognizing that the Citizens United ruling was foolish and bad for democracy, nor did the company even give lip service to justice by offering an offsetting donation to an LGBT rights organization. All that was offered was a lukewarm "I'm sorry," that sounded more like an apology that some employees and some people in the community were angered by the donation instead of a sincere regret at the damage done to the community of workers at Target and the community at large. The difference between an apology and an amends is this: An apology is meant to make the apologizer feel better, an amends is meant to fix the damage done and put things right with the aggrieved.
This was an apology and not an amends, and, therefore, I reject it.
I was debating whether or not to write about the apology today, but no sooner did I have that thought, that a friend of mine from college posted a note on my wall saying that he thought he heard that Target apologized. It helped me realize that Steinhafel was playing a smart media game. It is easy for anyone that hasn't actually read the newspaper article to assume that along with the apology came a remedy. And the way that the grapevine works, that apology, without analysis, will, indeed, take some of the pressure off of Target.
Thankfully our community is full to the brim of smart folks that saw it, read it, and then kept right on planning actions against Target.
I maintain that boycotting Target is the wrong approach to this situation. I will be checking in today with a friend of mine that met with the LGBT employee group at Target a couple of days ago, and I am anxious to hear how that went.
And let me be clear, I do support direct actions at Target Stores, and in that vein, if you are in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, there will be a peaceful demonstration tomorrow at the Southdale Mall Target Store at 7000 York Avenue from 11am-1pm.
Let's keep the pressure up, but let's also keep eye ours on justice and not just us.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Why the Prop 8 Decision Really Matters...
Let me begin by saying that the decision by United States District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker in California was a rousing victory. For same-sex marriage advocates, the victory is that the fundamental right to marry has been acknowledged to include same-sex couples. I am very happy for them, but that is the very last reason that I am excited about this ruling. Indeed, and this can be addressed in another blog--and has been addressed widely and coherently by the Beyond Marriage Coalition--the same-sex marriage movement (please note I said the movement and not the goal) is, in many ways, harmful to the overall fight for queer liberation, supports and injects assimilationist values in the queer movement, and has diverted an overwhelming amount of resources into a narrow issue that, while relevant to all same-sex couples, is not a priority for many queer folks particularly many queer people of color, gender queer, polyamorous and non-monogamous queers, people living with HIV/AIDS and so many other segments of the movement and community.
The true victory of the ruling in Prop 8 is what was contained in the judgment and the facts found by the court. These particular findings, particularly if upheld by the 9th Circuit Court, which is where this fight moves next, have the potential to radically and permanently alter the social landscape of the United States in much the same way that Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia did for people of color.
I am not a lawyer, but, as I mentioned recently, reading rulings gives me a woody.
To begin with, Judge Walker establishes the basis for judgment. The plaintiffs assert that Prop 8 denies them both Due Process, which is protected by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and equal protection under the law, which is also included in the 14th amendment. On page 109, Judge Vauhn makes his first judgment that is critical: he applies the requirement of strict scrutiny.
In the legal system, when making a challenge to a law, there are different levels of examination that a judge can choose to apply to the case. The most stringent of those is strict scrutiny which demands that the government must show a fundamental and compelling argument for why it is enacting laws that restrict a fundamental right. If the Judge had decided that the government must only show rational basis when denying a group of citizens a fundamental right, he would basically be saying, "Come up with a logical argument, you don't really have to have any interest besides your argument, and if the argument sounds good, well, heck...it's good enough for me too." When strict scrutiny is applied the judge is saying, "Not only better this argument be good and rational, you have to prove to me how the state itself would be harmed by allowing this right to be practiced...and when I say harmed...you better give me dollars and cents, floods, famines, plagues, and the spontaneous cloning of Sarah Palin every time a gay gets married..." Amen.
By establishing the requirement of strict scrutiny, Judge Walker sets a precedent for examination of the case that the 9th Circuit is unlikely to overturn, which means that the appeal will also be held to a higher standard and the burden of proof lies with the defendants and not the plaintiffs. This is key.
Then Judge Walker does something that makes me want to lay a wet sloppy one on him. On page 113 of the ruling, he states:
Translation: "Get it together....men no longer own women, and women are no longer required to be barefoot and pregnant at home."
But wait, it gets even better when Judge Walker establishes in his ruling the direct connection between heterosexism and sexism! Now, progressive folks have been screaming for years that the root of homophobia and heterosexism is straight up sexism...now...it is part of the judicial record. Why is this important you ask? There is a huge body of case law, and it is clearly established in all 50 states and the federal government that discrimination based on sex is illegal and can not be justified in any way under the Constitution. Judge Walker states, "Sexual orientation discrimination is thus a phenomenon distinct from, but related to, sex discrimination."
And then Judge Walker offers up a coup de grace when he writes:
This is critical. The judge has now created a ruling that requires that lower courts, when receiving cases challenging based on sexual orientation MUST also recognize them as sex discrimination. While the jurisprudence around sexual orientation is limited in many polities, the body of judicial rulings around sex discrimination are not. The judge has just opened a huge door and expanded the ways in which queer folks should be protected not only based on sexual orientation but on sex.
Next Judge Walker does something that makes me want to go from making out with him to being his number one butt boy...he states that:
This statement is extremely critical in two respects. The first is that this statement says flat out that any and all future legislation that attempts to legislate based on restricting the rights of queer folks MUST adhere to the standard of strict scrutiny, thereby excising the possibility of rational basis review, and then he smacks the Prop 8 advocates in the face by saying that even if he hadn't chosen to apply strict scrutiny to his ruling that the law was so laughable and so ass backwards that it would not have stood up even against the lowest standard of judicial review. WORK! WORK! WORK!
The judge also tosses out the argument that just because an idea, practice, or legal tradition has an "ancient lineage," meaning that "things have always been this way," is irrelevant to a discussion of a fundamental right, and, in fact, has no place in a legal discussion.
And finally, and I believe this is, in my non-lawyer opinion, the most significant of all:
The good judge says that if a right has been deemed fundamental then no body politic, whether it be a state legislation, a city council, a county legislature, a referendum of the voters or the U.S. Congress can vote to alienate those rights.
To summarize, the good judge ruled that strict scrutiny must be applied to questions of sexual orientation; discrimination based on sexual orientation is equivalent to sex discrimination; old prejudices and attitudes, no matter how long they have been held, are not legitimate reasons to deny a group of people their fundamental rights; and moral tyranny by a legislature or the voting public can not be tolerated, and, in fact the public does not have the right to take a way a groups fundamental human rights through an electoral process.
The ruling was 138 pages long, and there was a tremendous amount of thought, examination, and introspection that went into it. The judge backed up his fact finding and rulings with both judicial precedence and peer reviewed research. He systematically ripped apart the arguments of the defendants, and in one ruling wiped out the age old attacks on queers by the Right that says we are not good enough to marry, raise families, or have sex. He uses conservative jurisprudence to bolster his ruling even quoting Bowers v Hardwick, a case that went the wrong way for queer folks, to establish the reasoning behind why Prop 8 is wrong. These are the true reasons why the ruling on Prop 8 is a victory for the queer community. And through a smart, strategic, and nuanced reading of this ruling, the queer movement has a new collection of tools in the fight for our liberation. Marriage was the vehicle....but it isn't and should never be the focal point or the end point. Liberation is the end point, and we need to continue to define what that looks like and create a strategic way for ALL of us to get there without sacrificing or setting aside our history of sexual liberation, gender expression, kink, joy and all around queerness.
The true victory of the ruling in Prop 8 is what was contained in the judgment and the facts found by the court. These particular findings, particularly if upheld by the 9th Circuit Court, which is where this fight moves next, have the potential to radically and permanently alter the social landscape of the United States in much the same way that Brown v Board of Education and Loving v Virginia did for people of color.
I am not a lawyer, but, as I mentioned recently, reading rulings gives me a woody.
To begin with, Judge Walker establishes the basis for judgment. The plaintiffs assert that Prop 8 denies them both Due Process, which is protected by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and equal protection under the law, which is also included in the 14th amendment. On page 109, Judge Vauhn makes his first judgment that is critical: he applies the requirement of strict scrutiny.
In the legal system, when making a challenge to a law, there are different levels of examination that a judge can choose to apply to the case. The most stringent of those is strict scrutiny which demands that the government must show a fundamental and compelling argument for why it is enacting laws that restrict a fundamental right. If the Judge had decided that the government must only show rational basis when denying a group of citizens a fundamental right, he would basically be saying, "Come up with a logical argument, you don't really have to have any interest besides your argument, and if the argument sounds good, well, heck...it's good enough for me too." When strict scrutiny is applied the judge is saying, "Not only better this argument be good and rational, you have to prove to me how the state itself would be harmed by allowing this right to be practiced...and when I say harmed...you better give me dollars and cents, floods, famines, plagues, and the spontaneous cloning of Sarah Palin every time a gay gets married..." Amen.
By establishing the requirement of strict scrutiny, Judge Walker sets a precedent for examination of the case that the 9th Circuit is unlikely to overturn, which means that the appeal will also be held to a higher standard and the burden of proof lies with the defendants and not the plaintiffs. This is key.
Then Judge Walker does something that makes me want to lay a wet sloppy one on him. On page 113 of the ruling, he states:
The evidence did not show any historical purpose for excluding same-sex couples from marriage, as states have never required spouses to have an ability or willingness to procreate in order to marry. Rather, the exclusion exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage.That time has passed.
Translation: "Get it together....men no longer own women, and women are no longer required to be barefoot and pregnant at home."
But wait, it gets even better when Judge Walker establishes in his ruling the direct connection between heterosexism and sexism! Now, progressive folks have been screaming for years that the root of homophobia and heterosexism is straight up sexism...now...it is part of the judicial record. Why is this important you ask? There is a huge body of case law, and it is clearly established in all 50 states and the federal government that discrimination based on sex is illegal and can not be justified in any way under the Constitution. Judge Walker states, "Sexual orientation discrimination is thus a phenomenon distinct from, but related to, sex discrimination."
And then Judge Walker offers up a coup de grace when he writes:
Proposition 8 targets gays and lesbians in a manner specific to their sexual orientation and, because of their
relationship to one another, Proposition 8 targets them specifically due to sex. Having considered the evidence, the
relationship between sex and sexual orientation and the fact that Proposition 8 eliminates a right only a gay man or a lesbian would exercise, the court determines that plaintiffs’ equal protection claim is based on sexual orientation, but this claim is equivalent to a claim of discrimination based on sex.
This is critical. The judge has now created a ruling that requires that lower courts, when receiving cases challenging based on sexual orientation MUST also recognize them as sex discrimination. While the jurisprudence around sexual orientation is limited in many polities, the body of judicial rulings around sex discrimination are not. The judge has just opened a huge door and expanded the ways in which queer folks should be protected not only based on sexual orientation but on sex.
Next Judge Walker does something that makes me want to go from making out with him to being his number one butt boy...he states that:
The trial record shows that strict scrutiny is the appropriate standard of review to apply to legislative classifications based on sexual orientation. All classifications based on sexual orientation appear suspect, as the evidence shows that California would rarely, if ever, have a reason to categorize individuals based on their sexual orientation. Here, however, strict scrutiny is unnecessary. Proposition 8 fails to survive even rational basis review.
This statement is extremely critical in two respects. The first is that this statement says flat out that any and all future legislation that attempts to legislate based on restricting the rights of queer folks MUST adhere to the standard of strict scrutiny, thereby excising the possibility of rational basis review, and then he smacks the Prop 8 advocates in the face by saying that even if he hadn't chosen to apply strict scrutiny to his ruling that the law was so laughable and so ass backwards that it would not have stood up even against the lowest standard of judicial review. WORK! WORK! WORK!
The judge also tosses out the argument that just because an idea, practice, or legal tradition has an "ancient lineage," meaning that "things have always been this way," is irrelevant to a discussion of a fundamental right, and, in fact, has no place in a legal discussion.
And finally, and I believe this is, in my non-lawyer opinion, the most significant of all:
That the majority of California voters supported Proposition 8 is irrelevant, as “fundamental rights may
not be submitted to [a] vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” West Virginia State Board of Education v Barnette, 319.
The good judge says that if a right has been deemed fundamental then no body politic, whether it be a state legislation, a city council, a county legislature, a referendum of the voters or the U.S. Congress can vote to alienate those rights.
To summarize, the good judge ruled that strict scrutiny must be applied to questions of sexual orientation; discrimination based on sexual orientation is equivalent to sex discrimination; old prejudices and attitudes, no matter how long they have been held, are not legitimate reasons to deny a group of people their fundamental rights; and moral tyranny by a legislature or the voting public can not be tolerated, and, in fact the public does not have the right to take a way a groups fundamental human rights through an electoral process.
The ruling was 138 pages long, and there was a tremendous amount of thought, examination, and introspection that went into it. The judge backed up his fact finding and rulings with both judicial precedence and peer reviewed research. He systematically ripped apart the arguments of the defendants, and in one ruling wiped out the age old attacks on queers by the Right that says we are not good enough to marry, raise families, or have sex. He uses conservative jurisprudence to bolster his ruling even quoting Bowers v Hardwick, a case that went the wrong way for queer folks, to establish the reasoning behind why Prop 8 is wrong. These are the true reasons why the ruling on Prop 8 is a victory for the queer community. And through a smart, strategic, and nuanced reading of this ruling, the queer movement has a new collection of tools in the fight for our liberation. Marriage was the vehicle....but it isn't and should never be the focal point or the end point. Liberation is the end point, and we need to continue to define what that looks like and create a strategic way for ALL of us to get there without sacrificing or setting aside our history of sexual liberation, gender expression, kink, joy and all around queerness.
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