From The "Not the State of the Union" Address

My favorite line from a spectacular speech:



"...dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It's not just quitting on yourself, it's quitting on your country - and this country needs and values the talents of every American...."

I love how every time The Prez talks what I hear between the lines is "Ya'll need to step up," but *Damn*!

(Brief aside: I also liked this too -- In this budget, we will end education programs that don't work and end direct payments to large agribusinesses that don't need them.

Happy Black History Month!

Confession: I love this man....

Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards. Though race related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race. It is an issue we have never been at ease with and given our nation’s history this is in some ways understandable. And yet, if we are to make progress in this area we must feel comfortable enough with one another, and tolerant enough of each other, to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us. But we must do more- and we in this room bear a special responsibility. Through its work and through its example this Department of Justice, as long as I am here, must - and will - lead the nation to the "new birth of freedom" so long ago promised by our greatest President. This is our duty and our solemn obligation.

Eric Holder, Attorney General of the United States

After the Hearts and Flowers

Heaven help me for turning into some kind of cock-eyed optimist, but I want to see something positive come out of the horrible Rihanna - Chris Brown case. After this high profile case of (alleged) abuse, I hope that the black community will begin a serious discussion of domestic violence.

I know this is something of a dream. After all, many in our community excused R Kelly for his mistreatment of a minor -- in spite of the fact that it was pretty much an open secret in Chicago and elsewhere that Kelly was/is attracted to underaged girls, AND that bootleg copies of his notorious video could be purchased on the streets in the 'hood there. Already comments from the Brown camp are beginning work on his rehabilitation: he's a 'good kid', young people 'make mistakes'. There are even rumors that somehow Rihanna has some culpability for what happened to her , which we will learn 'once all the facts come out' Fans have begun rallying to his defense.

All this is, quite frankly, disgusting and inexcusable. "Good kids" don't hit women. It is not a "mistake" to bite women. Victims should not be blamed for their being attacked; they do not bring the abuse on themselves, no matter what 'facts' may or may not come out. We all need to remember these things as further information about this incident comes to light.

Many of us know adults who, as children, interposed themselves between male and female relatives and taken the impending attack upon themselves to stop men from abusing women further. At some point, we all -- particularly us men -- need to stop paying lip service to 'respecting the black woman' and actually prove it by saying "No more," "Never again." Let us use this high profile example of what happens far too often in our communities to take a firm stand and come together to stop violence against women. Enough is enough

Happy Valentine's Day

Photo from Reuters Pictures

Soundtrack:
Rickie Lee Jones, "It Must Be Love" from The Magazine

25

ACOUSMATIC SOUND
(or 25 Random Things About Me)

For all my friends on Facebook

Born into absence
A waving shadow lurking on every corner
The usual tropes of Blackness: Mississippi, Alabama, Ghetto, Grits
Hercules with a cane
To cut into the world, to scratch at the resistance
I slept like a falling comet, shedding skin

My couplets would not adhere
Declaring Victory in the War on the Body
Men in sequined dresses lip synching to Gospel House
Youngbloods young sons blazing
Spending all my nights in twilight
A song from the second throat

A room full of attributes:
(It's not a hometown story without the Electric Slide)
Create a context for itself, in the context of no context
Smell of dust and day-old sweat
Tattooed ‘A’ above the heart
A gesture undertaken in the face of saturation

Your Greatest Hits ain’t like mine
Cracks in the clouds beyond the yellow prairie
The non-guilty conscience regreting the things undone, underdone
The kinds of silence found in a black man’s face
Yes I am, but I’m not that one
This is not a story to pass on

His standard farewell phrase: Break Free

Taxing

I think I've figured it out: President Obama has a Secret Plan to revive the economy. He'll nominate someone for a Cabinet post or other position in his administration. This will force them to pay their back taxes, thereby reducing the deficit, and making more money available for his economic stimulus plan.


Tom Daschle: $140, 000

Tim Geithner: $34, 000

Nancy Killefer: $946.69 (every little bit helps)

Seriously -- Is this what goes on in Washington DC and the 'halls of power'? People 'forget', make 'mistakes', are 'unaware' of the amount they are supposed to pay on April 15th? To be honest, I am not and cannot get on a high horse about this -- I've had my own difficulties with the IRS (courtesy of a period of severe depression) -- which have since been resolved. Although it's not accepted by the tax man, at least I have a note from my psychiatrist. What's these folks' problem? Was the late Leona Helmsley right and "only the little people pay taxes"?

Addenda: What also may have nixed Daschile was reporting like this from Salon's Glenn Greenwald. Although his fellow Senators love him, Daschile's ties to the health care industry and his wife's lobbying activity would have had lead to him needing to do some explaining to do to the rest of us.

Stephen Colbert Explains it All for You....

Thanks to The Colbert Report, Elizabeth Alexander conducted a poetry explication session for what was probably the largest class of students in the history of the world last night....

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Elizabeth Alexander

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Bravo and Brava!

(A fellow Prufrock Fan!)

Let us begin.....

"Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off,
and begin again the work of remaking America"



Shortly after noon (EST), the new Whitehouse.gov website appeared.

President Barack Obama's new administration ordered all federal agencies and departments on Tuesday to stop any pending regulations until they can be reviewed by incoming staff, halting last-minute Bush orders in their tracks.

Judge Suspends Guantanamo Cases at Obama's Request

Welcome this New Day

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them - that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply....

Interactive video and transcript


And -- How 'bout That Dress: Wow!!




Praise Song for the Day

A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration



Elizabeth Alexander







Each day we go about our business,

walking past each other, catching each other’s

eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.



All about us is noise. All about us is

noise and bramble, thorn and din, each

one of our ancestors on our tongues.



Someone is stitching up a hem, darning

a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,

repairing the things in need of repair.



Someone is trying to make music somewhere,

with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum,

with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.



A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky.

A teacher says, Take out your pencils. Begin.



We encounter each other in words, words

spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,

words to consider, reconsider.



We cross dirt roads and highways that mark

the will of some one and then others, who said

I need to see what’s on the other side.



I know there’s something better down the road.

We need to find a place where we are safe.

We walk into that which we cannot yet see.



Say it plain: that many have died for this day.

Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,

who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,



picked the cotton and the lettuce, built

brick by brick the glittering edifices

they would then keep clean and work inside of.



Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.

Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,

the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.



Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,

others by first do no harm or take no more

than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?



Love beyond marital, filial, national,

love that casts a widening pool of light,

love with no need to pre-empt grievance.



In today’s sharp sparkle, this winter air,

any thing can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,



praise song for walking forward in that light.



Copyright © 2009 by Elizabeth Alexander. All rights reserved. Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press, Saint Paul, Minnesota. A chapbook edition of Praise Song for the Day will be published on February 6, 2009.

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President

A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama
By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire


Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009


Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.


O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.


AMEN.

New Year, New You?

(Soundtrack: Charles Mingus' New Now Know How)

Welcome to 2009! While I don't believe in New Years Resolutions (and since they tend not to last past Groundhog Day), I do like to think about goals, possiblities, things I'm shooting for and would like to accomplish in the coming year. One of the big ones is simply to Finish Things.

I have a lot of ideas, thoughts on scraps of paper, projects in various stages of (in)completion -- if I just decided to go ahead and finish some of these darned things, I'd look like one of the most productive mamby-pambys in the universe! It's easy to see how some of these things, both at work and at home, began to pile up. Sometimes the idea of doing them proved more interesting than the actual execution. Some things were just dropped on me, and no one likes to do things they really don't want to do. Various "I need this now!" items showed up, pushing other projects to the side.

And sometimes I just got scared. I didn't think I could do them. Or do them well. Or these items had to be "perfect" (an interesting insight I heard toward the end of 2008 was how perfectionism often leads to procrastination). Done is better than Not Done: Finished is better than Perfect -- especially if it's going to take forever to make it perfect. And there's always the 'revision process' and going back and improving things and making them better later.

So that's it, my Big Hairy Goal for 2009 summed up in two words: Finish it! We'll see how that goes.

Here's another Goal, or perhaps better put, a mantra for the new year, from Zen Habits blogger Leo Babuta: Stop waiting for happiness. Happiness is right here, right now. An interesting thought with intriguing, life altering implications.

Disagreeing -- and feeling disagreable

Like many same-sexers, I'm none too pleased by the choice of the Rev Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at next month's inaugural. The President-Elect defended the choice today, saying



I think that it is no secret that I am a fierce advocate for equality for gay and lesbian Americans. It is something that I have been consistent on and something that I intend to be consistent on during my presidency. What I've also said is that it is important for American to come together even though we have disagreements on certain social issues. I would note that a couple of years ago, I was invited by Rick Warren's church to speak despite his wariness that I held contrary views.... that's what this campaign was about....We're not going to agree on very single issue...but what we have to do is be able to create an atmosphere that we can disagree and not be disagreeable....

Well, Okay Barack...but as my partner said this morning, there has to be a limit to all this "Team of Rivals" stuff. And let me be clear: I'm not only disapointed because of Warren's support for California's Proposition 8, but also because of his position against a woman's right to choose as well. If a minister had said "I don't believe black and white people should be able to get married" (and you know I'm not a fan of the "Gay=Black" formua) or, "I don't believe a woman has the right to control her own body" -- how 'agreeable' would we be toward someone with these views?

As The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder points out, some of us have been here before (Remember Donnie McClurkin?)....

One reason the Rick Warren thing is a big deal to gay rights activists is because, after their experience with President Bill Clinton, the gay community is unusually sensitive to getting the shorter angle of presidential triangulation....

Clinton was willing to say the word "gay" in public and appear in black tie at the Human Rights Campaign dinner, but, in the eyes of the gay political community, his commitment to gay rights vanished both times it counted most.

Relative to other minority groups, the LGBT community is disproportionately dependent on the goodwill of the president, because almost all of their big-ticket agenda items are federal laws (the military, DOMA repeal, hate crimes, ENDA, the Permanent Partners Immigration Act, etc.). And relative to other minorities, gays still want and need basic reassurance that they are an ordinary part of American life and politics. So everyone is peering anxiously at Obama wondering if he is going to let them down like Clinton did.


Huffington Post offers differing views on 'What Now/What Next'

Lee Strnanahan: There's something bigger at play here and you can't say Obama didn't warn you. He talked about reaching out, about expanding our politics and that crazy bastard actually meant it. Nobody on the left or right quite knows what to make of it. We want to cram Obama into our old, divisive, two toned ideological and political frame and if he doesn't fit, we'll attack him too. Attacking is what we're used to doing.

Jon Hoadley: If we want to enact pro-equality policy and change, we need to take a page out of Harvey Milk's playbook: we have to give them hope. We need to say what we want, not just what we don't want.

Oh, well, I guess it's 'only a prayer.' And perhaps you'll get some goodwill cover for some of your more controversial choices that would upset the Right. At least the rest of the January 20th program looks like it will be great.

Musical Selections
The United States Marine Band

Musical Selections
The San Francisco Boys Chorus and the San Francisco Girls Chorus

Call to Order and Welcoming Remarks
The Honorable Dianne Feinstein

Invocation
Dr. Rick Warren, Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA

Musical Selection
Aretha Franklin

Oath of Office Administered to Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
By Associate Justice of the Supreme Court
The Honorable John Paul Stevens

Musical Selection, John Williams, composer/arranger
Itzhak Perlman, Violin
Yo-Yo Ma, Cello
Gabriela Montero, Piano
Anthony McGill, Clarinet

Oath of Office Administered to President-elect Barack H. Obama
By the Chief Justice of the United States
The Honorable John G. Roberts, Jr.

Inaugural Address
The President of the United States, The Honorable Barack H. Obama

Poem
Elizabeth Alexander

Benediction
The Reverend Dr. Joseph E. Lowery

The National Anthem
The United States Navy Band “Sea Chanters”

Inaugural Poet Elizabeth Alexander

Dear President-Elect Obama:

Today's choice of Elizabeth Alexander as Inaugural Poet shows not only great poetic taste, but also that you read my blog as well Thank you, sir, I'm honored...(okay so I had Patricia Smith for Poet and Elizabeth for NEA Chair, but, still...).

And, uh, in case you were wondering, yes, I am available to join your team as either White House Poet in Residence, or IT Librarian of Congress....either/or, sir, not a problem: I'd love to say (a la The West Wing) "I serve at the pleasure of the President of the United States"...




Ars Poetica #100: I Believe

Poetry, I tell my students,
is idiosyncratic. Poetry

is where we are ourselves,
(though Sterling Brown said

“Every ‘I’ is a dramatic ‘I’”)
digging in the clam flats

for the shell that snaps,
emptying the proverbial pocketbook.

Poetry is what you find
in the dirt in the corner,

overhear on the bus, God
in the details, the only way

to get from here to there.
Poetry (and now my voice is rising)

is not all love, love, love,
and I’m sorry the dog died.

Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,

and are we not of interest to each other?

Elzabeth Alexander

World AIDS Day + 20

Can it really be 20 years we've been commemorating World AIDS Day? Sweet Heavens....

In honor of the day, and of the brave, openly gay men who marched in Haiti today (thanks Rod 2.0), I offer this excerpt from poet Kwame Dawes' work on AIDS in Jamaica, parts of which appeared in the Spring 2008 edition of Virginia Quarterly Review

...For Jamaicans survival has always been a delicate and necessary art of deflection. We hear about a murder and go through a series of questions. Where was the person killed? The farther away from where we live, the better. Did the person fight back? Because I would never do that. Did the person have a big car the killer may have wanted? Was it the middle of the night? And the list goes on. Eventually, we find a reason why what happened could not happen to us. That’s not me; that could never be me.

The same has been true for HIV/AIDS. As long as it was seen as a gay disease, heterosexuals could ignore the deaths. It could never happen to them. When news came that heterosexuals were dying as well, we came up with new questions. Did the person frequent prostitutes? Did he have sex abroad, or here with someone foreign? Was he promiscuous? Who exactly did she sleep with? Was it rough sex? Were they somehow perverse? Anything to keep the disease far away, to pretend it could never reach us. But I can no longer live this way. In the months I have spent traveling around the island, this other Jamaica, going to towns I have not visited in years, meeting and listening to countless people, I have made friends—and now I have to accept that HIV/AIDS is a part of my life. I know that in time, I will hear of someone’s passing. I will hear of someone’s succumbing to the illness. I now live with it as a constant presence, not something I can simply deflect. And, fortunately, it has not destroyed the humanity of the people I now call my friends, but rather it taught all of us something about the frailty of human life—and something of our capacity to find hope in the midst of such struggle.


I also want to join the call for President-Elect Obama to appoint an "AIDS Czar" to create a national strategy in the government's fight against the disease. Either of the names mentioned in the Bay Area Reporter article linked above would be great (Dr. Helene Gayle, or Jesse Milan Jr), although, I think appointing the married, openly gay, HIV+ Mr. Milan would be extraordinary and be a pronounced break with the past on many levels.

Oh, The Times, they are a' Changin....

Judge Orders Five Detainees Freed From Guantánamo

In the first hearing on the government’s justification for holding detainees at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, a federal judge ruled Thursday that five Algerian men were held unlawfully for nearly seven years and ordered their release.

Longtime Head of House Energy Panel Is Ousted

Representative Henry A. Waxman of California ousted Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan from his post as chairman of the influential Committee on Energy and Commerce on Thursday, giving President-elect Barack Obama an advantage in his plans to promote efforts to combat global warming....

Besides seating a committed environmentalist as head of the energy committee, the vote also removes one of the auto industry’s best friends from a key leadership post — further evidence of how much power the American car-makers, whose executives have been pleading for federal money, have lost in Congress.

And here in B-town.....


Hopkins balks at Confederate banner
Changing course after 20 years, university tells groups it won't rent them space for January march

Every January, descendants of Confederate soldiers gather in Wyman Park to march under the banner of the Confederacy, sing "Dixie" and lay wreaths at the monument to Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, legendary generals of the Confederate States of America.

And afterward, for 20 years now, everyone has gone across the street to the Johns Hopkins University for coffee and refreshments, with some of the 200 descendants and observers still wearing the uniforms of Confederate re-enactors and carrying the flag. But next year will be different.

Hopkins has informed the Maryland divisions of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans that it will not rent space to them. The Jan. 17 event is scheduled for only a few days before the inauguration of the nation's first African-American president. The university received complaints after the march last January and says that it no longer wants to see the Confederate flag flying on campus....

(And in case you're wondering why Baltimore has the world's largest double equestrian statue, depicting two Honored Sons of the South, a bit of history: Maryland was a slave state, Baltimore was home to more than 2,000 slaves, and the city was quite the font of Southern Sympathy during 'The Late Unpleasantness', and the first blood of the war was shed here -- by a black man, Nikoles Biddle, of course....)

Now to decolonize some of the MINDS on campus at Hopkins, across the US and elsewhere...That will be some real change!

Please, Please, Please

Congratulations to a real sweetheart, Jericho Brown, on the publication of his extraordinary and heartbreaking first collection, Please (New Issues Press). An interview with him recently appeared on the National Book Critics Circle blog, and IMHO he's right on the verge of 'blowing up' into a very well deserved major success.

Here's the opening poem, which originally appeared on Post Road:







Track 1: Lush Life
The woman with the microphone sings to hurt you,
To see you shake your head. The mic may as well
Be a leather belt. You drive to the center of town
To be whipped by a woman’s voice. You can’t tell
The difference between a leather belt and a lover’s
Tongue. A lover’s tongue might call you bitch,
A term of endearment where you come from, a kind
Of compliment preceded by the word sing
In certain nightclubs. A lush little tongue
You have: you can yell, Sing bitch, and, I love you,
With a shot of Patrón at the end of each phrase
From the same barstool every Saturday night, but you can’t
Remember your father’s leather belt without shaking
Your head. That’s what satisfies her, the woman
With the microphone. She does not mean to entertain
You, and neither do I. Speak to me in a lover’s tongue—
Call me your bitch, and I’ll sing the whole night long.


Run, don't walk, to your local bookseller and get this fine and moving book.

What's in Barack's Bookbag?

Hey! *I* was about to do the whole Oprah/Obama line -- and then the NYTimes steals it right from under me!



For Books, Is Obama New Oprah?

When President-elect Barack Obama appeared on “60 Minutes” on CBS on Sunday in his first interview since winning the election, he mentioned having read “a new book out about F .D. R.’s first 100 days” without specifically naming a title or author.

That tantalizing reference set off a scramble for the claim to First Reader rights all day Monday before a spokesman for Mr. Obama disclosed what the president-elect had actually read.

Perhaps we both, ur... 'borrowed' ... the idea from yesterday's "GalleyCat" blog:

Barack Obama can sell books. Yesterday, he admitted to reading two books about Franklin D. Roosevelt, (see below) sparking a major run at the bookstore.

And then there's this:

Yes We Can Sell Out First Printing: Obama Campaign Photo Book Is Pre-Sale Hit

Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History-Making Presidential Campaign, the book of Scout Tufankjian's campaign trail photos, is a pre-publication hit for powerHouse Books. The publisher reports that it has sold out the 55,000-copy first edition of the book nearly a month before its scheduled mid-December release date. A second printing of 25,000 copies has been ordered to arrive at the same time

And please don't forget to stop by the magazine rack on your way out of the bookstore...
Obamas Drive Magazine Sales

Mr. Obama’s status as a recurring cover star is thanks in part to the healthy sales that the Obamas bring in. Last week’s issue sold more than 1.1 million copies on the newsstand, and in June the issue with the Obamas on the cover sold about 900,000 copies. That is just about what the magazine sells when it puts its array of Hollywood celebrities on the cover.

The First Family could revive the publishing industry all by themselves. Who needs a bailout? Detroit should just put a photo of The Obamas on each new car!

BTW: If you want to understand why he's reading Alter's book, check this:

FDR was not a socialist as he is often portrayed today. To the contrary, he was a pragmatist fighting for the survival of free enterprise and individual rights against a rapidly growing populist movement towards socialism or fascism ...This book does a great job of reminding us what FDR faced and who he really was. We can only wonder if another FDR will be able to hold us together in the next downturn when a wave of hungry, destitute, ailing old baby boomers is clambering (and voting en masse!) for government help while the economy disintegrates around them hampered by a mountain of debt.

....Seems I've heard some of that before...


Here's what I remember of mentions of The Prez-Elect's recent reading:

The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria


The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope by Jonathan Alter

F D R by Jean Edward Smith



Selected Poems by Derek Walcott


Just Received:

State-By-State: A Panoramic Portrait of America by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey (Hat Tip: Mark Savaras at The Elegant Variation)


and, of course, the book EVERY political pundit can't seem to stop referring to:


Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Stop the H8 Baltimore Edition

Scenes from Baltimore's Stop the H8 rally, 15 November 2008











Catching up, and trying not to think about Certain People who have aggravated me recently, like the Senate Democrats on the Joe Lieberman issue (Shame! SHAME!!!), or Baltimore's own Cardinal James Francis Stafford and his astonishingly incendiary and idiotic anti-Obama remarks at my Library School Alma Mater, THE Catholic University of America (I need to be careful -- I might run into His Eminence on the street outside work!).

Ah well, at least it looks like one of my picks, Eric Holder, will be the new Attorney General, so all is not entirely wrong with the world today...

“We owe the American people a reckoning. It is our responsibility as citizens to preserve and protect our constitution… Let me be clear: I firmly believe that there is evil in the world, and that we still face grave dangers to our security. But our ability to lead the world in combatting these dangers depends not only on the strength of our military leadership but our moral leadership as well. … To recapture it, we can no longer allow ourselves to be ruled by fear. We must evaluate our policies and our practices in the harsh light of day and steel ourselves to face the world’s dangers in accord with the rule of law.” -- Eric Holder

!!HOORAY!!

Here are a few photos from Baltimore's "Stop the H8" rally last Saturday. Many thanks to Doug Rose, Mark Patro, and Steve Charing (BTW: if the photo is from a long distance away or fuzzy, like the ones above, then they're mine!)



Towleroad is gathering and posting a collection of photos from around the country.






























Poet Emmanuel Xavier and actor Wilson Cruz (photo by Leo Toro)...okay so they were in New York, not Baltimore, but Emmanuel is a friend and as for the stunning Mr Cruz, well... a guy can can dream can't he? (Thanks Andres!)

Since the rally, I've been thinking a lot about Wanda Sykes. She took to the podium on Saturday in Las Vegas and took the opportunity to not only come out as a lesbian, but also as married. I was particularly struck by her saying this:

"You know, I don't really talk about my sexual orientation. I didn't feel like I had to. I was just living my life, not necessarily in the closet, but I was living my life...Everybody that knows me personally, they know I'm gay. But that's the way people should be able to live their lives."

To my ear, that strikes me as the default "Black Position on Homosexuality." We don't care what you do, keep it quiet, live your live, and we'll leave you alone. It's how most black gay people live, I think -- within our communities, as opposed to in 'gay ghettos' like what The Castro, The Village, Boy's Town, or Dupont Circle used to be before being slowly gentrified out of existence by 'trendy' straights. We really don't tend to march or put on t-shirts or demand our les/bi/gay rights. The velvet closet of the black community suits us just fine.

Except when it doesn't:

Syracuse man was killed for being gay, police say
SYRACUSE, NY - Dwight R. DeLee shot and killed Moses "Teish" Cannon with a .22-caliber rifle Friday night because he didn't like that Cannon was openly gay, Syracuse police said.

Cannon's family accepted his sexual orientation. The Post-Standard reports "pictures of Cannon in women's clothing were on display in the family's living room, and the family selected one" for the newspaper to publish."

We can sit in the warm bubble bath of acquiescence all we like, but unless and until we come out, speak up, and stand up for ourselves in our homes, *in our churches*, and in 'da hood', crimes like this will continue to occur. Just as the election did not end racism, so, too, we are not in a 'post-gay' society.

A few other things about the rally: Like most over 30 people who went to these events I was struck by how young most people were. Fresh faced and full of excitement, a very welcome sight for those of us who are veterans of various Marches on Washington and other demonstrations. Everyone had either digital cameras or cell phones, so these were probably the most FaceBooked protests ever. And the first and loudest cheer from the crowd went up at the first mention of the name of our President Elect.

And I saw one person carrying a "Gay is the New Black" sign.

Now, this is not a new idea, as this article from 2003 attests, although it has been updated for our times. Over the course of time, and particularly in the fashion industry where the phrase originate, a lot of things have been "The New Black" (although there are those of us who will insist that Black is ALWAYS Black).

I have problems with this formulation (as a black gay person, does that mean that Half of me is the new Other Half of me?), and I confess I wimped out and didn't engage the person with the sign to ask what it meant (see my opening comments on why that may have been for the best!). So, I'll leave it to someone very much smarter than I am, Mendi Lewis Obadike, to break down why this particular phrase gives many of us pause:

Here are a few of the reasons why that slogan rankles me:


1.Queer people didn't start being gay or start having to fight injustice with the end of Jim Crow, nor with the election of a black president of the US. The struggle is old; "gay" is not "new".

2.Black people didn't stop being black or stop having to fight injustice with the end of Jim Crow, nor with the election of a black president of the US. The struggle continues; "black" is not "old".

3.Queer black people experience discrimination based on sexuality and race at the same time. The struggles are coterminous.

4.Who is the ideal audience for this sign?

(a) Queer black people? Probably not, since the slogan seems not to acknowledge that we exist.

(b) Straight black allies in the crowd? If so, what is the message? Your struggle is over? Seems like a strange way to strengthen alliances.

(c) Straight black people you imagine to be your enemies? Seems like a strange way to pull them in.

(d) Other people of color? Probably not, since, the slogan seems not to acknowledge any other races of people have had struggles or movements of any importance.

(e) Antiracist queer white people? Maybe, but don't anti-racists struggle to make our visions of community more complex instead of narrower?

(f) Queer white people who don't really think about race? Yes, to me it seems like the ideal audience for this sign is white queer people who want permission to think simply and narrowly about what the queer community is and who matters in it.

The most generous reading I can make is that "gay is the new black" is a sloppy way of saying "discrimination against gay people is a serious civil rights issue that we should all care about" or "we have fought problems this big before and won" or "this issue is going to take all of us working together" or "none of us is free until all of us are free". Why be sloppy about it for the sake of a presumption of wit when there is so much at stake and the risk is so big?

The odd thing about the Advocate cover above is that, while the accompanying article makes some good points about how the gay/black equasion is a less than perfect fit, and includes a question mark at the end (Gay Is The New Black?), the cover does not.

Gay is the new black in only one meaningful way. At present we are the most socially acceptable targets for the kind of casual hatred that American society once approved for habitual use against black people. Gay is the dark pit where our society lets people throw their fears about what’s wrong with the world. (Many people, needless to say, still direct this kind of hatred toward black people too. But it’s more commonly OK to caricature and demean us in politics and the media in ways from which blacks are now largely exempt.) -- Michael Joseph Gross

I understand the need to sell magazines by being provovative, but this still makes me uncomfortable (and feels like a bit of a bait and switch). More people are going to see the cover, and either instantly agree or disagree, than take the time to read the more reasoned article. More black people of all sexual orientations, are going to see that cover and be put off by it than will read the article. The addition of a mark of punctuation on the cover might have lead magazine rack browsers to think and consider the proposition, rather than turn them off.

I can only hope that Prop 8 causes "the gay community" to consider its approaches, tactics, and how it talks to all segments of the country in the fight for civil rights.

"Scrum in the Hood"

I promise to post photos from Saturday's "Stop the H8" rally here in Baltimore very soon...but

Since my partner and I got hooked on Rugby thanks to watching the Wallabies, the All-Blacks, and the Tri-Nations tournament on Fox Sports, I can't resist pointing to this video and article about The Hyde Leadership Public Charter School in Washington DC, from the New York Times.

When the team starts the post-game singing of "Lift Every Voice and Sing," I get all choked up....
Aim High, boys!


Here's a link for those who wish to contribute to Hyde

Advising the President: Patricia Smith for Inaugural Poet‏!

The President-Elect has a more than a few things on his plate right now, including a number of vacancies in the Executive Branch. One position that needs to be filled relatively soon is "Inaugural Poet‏". True it's only a one-day job -- but what a day!

I'm adding my name to the endorsement list for Patricia Smith for Inaugural Poet‏. One of the Founders of Slam as well as an amazing 'on the page' poet, her new book about Katrina Blood Dazzler is a finalist for this year's National Book Award. And she is from Chicago, and we've already seen how the new Prez likes his homie's:)

Patricia Smith:
XXXL VILLANELLE

We've lost them all beneath their swaddling clothes.
Cavernous sweats and denims droop with air
and hide our loves inside. They strike the pose,

craft the swagger, these boys everyone knows
are surely doomed. And yet they're wrapped with care.
We've lost them all beneath those swaddling clothes.

Inside that hug, they're smaller than their woes.
Their lives can't reach them. They don't fear the air.
Love hides inside—they coil, they strike. The pose,

if strutted right, can shield them from the blows
that must rain down. No, we can't save our heirs.
We've lost them all beneath their swaddling clothes.

That they choose this soft way to drown just shows
despite our touch, our kiss, the ways we cared,
they must hide love inside. They struck the pose

of men—because, as we have come to know,
no babies thrive upon the streets they dare.
We've lost them all beneath their swaddling clothes.
They hide our love inside, then strike the pose.


And since I'm playing 'Acting Adviser to the Transition Team' here, allow me to toss another name out -- how about Poet and Yale Professor Elizabeth Alexander to replace the departing Dana Gioia as Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts ?





Elizabeth Alexander:
ARS POETICA #23: "WHASSUP G"

From the Latin negrorum, meaning
“to tote,” said Richard Pryor
in an etymological mode.

Look it up in Cab Calloway’s
Hepster’s Dictionary, the giant book.
Be negro, be ‘groid, be vernacular, be.

Hey, yo, Hey bro’, Hey blood,
high five, big ups, gimme some skin,
keep it on the QT, the down low, the real side.

What it is? What it look like?
Vernacular: Verna, a house-born slave.
Ask your mamma what it means.

Old school lyin’ and signifyin’.
That chick has a chemical deficiency:
no assatol.

And who knows,
on the radio, what evil lurks
in the hearts of men? The shadow do,

quoth the brethren, and fall out,
cack-a-lacking and slapping,
high-top fade to black.

(From American Sublime)



Power to the Poets!