Words From a Wicked Woman

I had a very nasty fall the other night and injured my knee and foot. Right now I’m in a great deal of pain and can barely concentrate on what I’m doing at any given time. So, although this blog has just officially opened this week, I’m going to need to take a couple of days off while my body heals. I wish I didn’t have to do it, but there is no other way.

Although I am not up to writing at the moment, I will post an article I wrote a few years ago under my pseudonym at the time. I don’t know which one at this moment, but I’ll be sure to make it a good one. Hey, I can’t have you forget about me now, can I? Look for the new old article in the next 24 hours or so.

I’ve had the horrible feeling for a long time now that Barbaro would never leave the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center. I was so pleased when it seemed that I’d be proven wrong. Alas, it was not to be. Barbaro was euthanized today and we are lesser for this magnificent creature’s demise. He will always be the legend-that-almost-was–his life cut short prematurely. But no one can ever doubt that this gift of grace had heart. It is, indeed, a very sad day.

Barbaro was more than just a winning racehorse, though something not quite akin to a household pet. Nevertheless, I plan to fervently hug my two girls–Lola, my Airedale and Berry, my mixed-breed devil–as soon as I finish here. They remind me every day of the unparalleled beauty of unconditional love.

Technorati Tags: death

Respect yourself, respect yourself
If you don’t respect yourself
Ain’t nobody gonna give a good cahoot, na na na na
Respect yourself, respect yourself

So say the Staple Singers in the song “Respect Yourself” from the 1972 album Be Altitude: Respect Yourself. It occurred to me as I was searching for housing information for disabled people that I was running across all these souls who, for one reason or another, didn’t like who they were. They disliked the way the rest of the world reacted to them and so they downplayed their difference instead of acknowledging it and moving on. These weren’t only disabled people, but gay people and black people and . . . and . . . Anyone who wasn’t white, hetero and able-bodied seemed to face the same issue at some point in their lives: whether to come out of the closet. “Coming out” isn’t only a gay thing and it isn’t always something one does in front of a crowd of family, friends and peers. The most important step in coming out is acknowledging to oneself that there is something that sets him or her apart from the majority of other people in one’s environment. Having “come out” to oneself, the next thing is to accept the difference and become comfortable with it. As any out gay person knows, that is far easier said than done. It often takes many years to get comfy in one’s own skin. It’s almost as though coming out is giving birth to an infant. That child has to grow up in the world for a few years, make the usual mistakes, learn the usual things, go through puberty, grow physically, emotionally and spiritually to become a mature adult. It doesn’t happen overnight.

I used to hang out in African history newsgroups on Usenet in the mid 90s or so. I’d often encounter a number of North Africans, particularly Egyptians, who’d swear on the holy Koran that the population’s phenotype is the same now as it was upwards of 3000 years ago. Given the number of times North Africa, especially Egypt, has been invaded by everyone from Nubians to Babylonians to Visigoths to Greeks to Romans it is impossible that the population has not changed. Invaders have this nasty habit of leaving their seed everywhere. If they didn’t, all black folks would be approximately the same color with minor variations. We aren’t. We range in shade from what used to be called “light, bright and damn near white” to a brown so dark that it looks blue. All of them are lovely, in my opinion. Unfortunately, my opinion is not shared by many. Slavers and colonists found that it was in their interest to divide populations, turning them against each other, as a way of controlling them. We see the legacy of that today in the genocides of Rwanda and Sudan. People with certain physical characteristics were labeled Semitic and, therefore, Caucasian while their brethren were labeled Negroid–black. Very bad things happened to black people while Semitic people might be spared some of the hardship and may even inflict it on their “lesser” black neighbors. Consequently, we have the Janjaweed who are Muslim and darker than a paper bag, but consider themselves to be Arabs, slaughtering Nubians–black Africans–in southern and western Sudan. It does not help that those in the south are also Christian or animist. However, it is a mistake to characterize the slaughter as sectarian because it isn’t. Black Muslims are being killed just like black Christians. The Christian Science Monitor called it what it is–racism–in a 2004 article.

“Race - not religion - is the fundamental fault line in Sudan, though religion has certainly added fuel to the fire in the south. Indeed, since independence from the British in 1956, the demon of Sudan has been race. The Arab north, except for brief periods when token Africans were included in government, has exclusively held political and military power. To protest political exclusion, military repression, enslavement, and economic exploitation, Africans in the south rose against the state several years after independence,” writes Makau Mutua, a law professor and director of the Human Rights Center at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Mutua adds, “President Omar Bashir and his fundamentalist Islamic government declared a holy war against African groups in the south - the Dinka, Nuba, and Neur peoples.”

As mentioned, many, though not all, Egyptians consider themselves to be Caucasian just like the Janjaweed. Furthermore, feelings of superiority are endemic. There is a population in southern Egypt near the Aswan Dam that is more Negroid than people below the dam in the north (the Nile flows south to north and empties into the Mediterranean Sea). Priceless Nubian antiquities were destroyed when the dam was built and the world lost one of the most important caches of artifacts that may have contained clues to understanding the as-yet-indecipherable Meroitic script. There was a great hew and cry from archeologists, anthropologists and other scientists when it was learned these lands would be flooded. Unfortunately, the Egyptian government felt it was more important that the dam be built and there was little time for experts from the United Nations to find and catalog these treasures. I know why I think this happened. It is obvious to me. However, an Egyptian from Cairo or Alexandria may feel differently. I say that it was naked racism. It is the same racism that commands a great many to deny they have any black blood no matter how dark-skinned they happen to be and in defiance of history and logic. You see, black is shameful. Black is never to be admitted. Respect yourselves, my Egyptian friends.

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Watergate conspirator, former CIA operative and author E. Howard Hunt died in Miami Tuesday after a long bout with pneumonia. He was 88. Most of this blog’s readers weren’t even born when five men Hunt hired broke into Democratic National Committee headquarters at the posh Washington, D.C. Watergate Towers apartment, hotel and office complex in 1972, let alone remember the hearings and scandals that followed. Consequently, Hunt is a complete unknown to most of the generation that grew up with computers, video games and cable television. But I am here to say that I remember him and he was a really nice man.

I was 10-years-old when the Watergate break-in took place. I would have to wait 10 more years until I met the man who was at the beginning of the largest political scandal to ever take place in the United States. It was 1982 and I was in my last year at Kent State University. I’d gotten involved with a student group called the “All-Campus Programming Board” the prior year through their Concert Committee and had been chosen as one of three people responsible for producing rock concerts attended by people from all over Northeastern Ohio. The two big ones that year were The Clash and comedian Robin Williams. (No, he wasn’t a rocker then any more than he is now. He just happened to fall under our purview.) The three of us were pretty darn good at our various jobs–Chris was the production manager; Joe actually booked the shows; and I handled publicity–so it wasn’t unusual for the other board chairs to ask us for help with their programming too. Vince, (a pseudonym because I can’t remember his real name), the guy who booked speakers had scheduled E. Howard Hunt as the first speaker that year and had asked if I’d help him with publicity for the engagement. That lead to me helping him during the actual event.

I seem to remember spotting them even before I sat down at the ballroom entrance: two guys in their late-20s or early-30s, clean cut, medium height, medium build, medium hair color, dark trench coats and mirrored sunglasses. At a school full of teenagers and young adults in jeans, sweatshirts and long hair, they stood out like sore thumbs. A few minutes later, after the crowd had thinned, they come up to the table where I was taking tickets to Hunt’s lecture, smiled and showed their badges. They were FBI agents there to attend the event. Only 20-years-old then, it was the first time I’d been confronted by federal authorities. And yes, they did have guns, although they were only a slight bulge under their coats. I admit it, I was impressed, even though I was a young cynic about anything having to do with the government. I may have only been a pre-teen during Watergate, but I’d learned early on to never trust the Feds. (Does anyone remember COINTELPRO?) It didn’t help that Ronald Reagan was president. Knowing a bit of Hunt’s history, it wasn’t difficult to determine why they were there and why they’d taken a place in the shadows in the back of the ballroom.

I was first introduced to Hunt a few minutes before he was to take the stage. It may be a trick of memory, but I could swear that he had some other men with him that remind me now of bodyguards or some such. I could be wrong about that. What I am sure I do remember is how well he was received. One of the more than 80 books he’d write over his lifetime had just been published, though I’m not sure whether it was Hargrave Deception (1980) or Gaza Intercept (1981), and many in the audience were familiar with his work as a novelist. Of course, fiction was the last thing they had on their minds, but Hunt repeatedly demurred when asked about anything having to do with Watergate or national security, citing legal obstacles. Yeah, I bet those legal obstacles were Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum sitting in the back of the room.

Hunt was the real deal. This man truly did have facts locked in his head that would have been highly embarrassing to the U.S. He was instrumental in planning the Bay of Pigs invasion and overthrowing a few governments in Central and South America. Conspiracy theorists have long held that he played an integral part in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, claiming that he was photographed in Dallas on November 22, 1963 although Hunt maintained that he was in Washington that day. Furthermore, it has always been believed that Hunt knew more than he’d ever say about the events of June 17, 1972 when Bernard Barker, Virgilio González, Eugenio Martínez, James McCord, Jr. and Frank Sturgis (collectively known as the “plumbers”) were caught by a night watchman burglarizing the DNC offices. Add to that his supervision with then-fellow CIA operative G. Gordon Liddy of the burglary of Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist and it is not difficult to see why the government wanted Hunt to keep his mouth shut. He’d spent 33 months of what was originally a 35-year sentence in 13 different federal prisons. He was a father and grandfather by the time he lectured at Kent and I’m sure he had no desire to see the inside of a prison again. He was well aware that the government had eyes on him, at the very least.

After the lecture ended and the audience left, there was only Hunt, Vince and the few remaining people who had worked on the event, including me, left in the ballroom. Some people had copies of books he’d written and asked him to autograph them. Most of us hung around because we knew we were in the presence of history. To be sure, this was a man who had betrayed everything this country was supposed to stand for. However, none of us doubted that he’d done what he did because the president of the United States had asked him to and he was a true-blue patriot. I may have been cynical about the government, and generally thought of patriotism as an outmoded and foolish idea, but I had to admire the man. There was something about him I can’t explain. He was charming, for certain. However, I also got the impression that he had been betrayed by the people he’d trusted most–including Richard Nixon. In the end, he’d done this country a favor by precipitating that man’s downfall. If I thought Reagan was evil, Nixon was more so. We, as a country, were much better off without him. For all the things Hunt had done while in the employ of the federal government, he was a tired old man when I saw him that night. He spoke of his children and grandchildren and it was easy to see him laughing and playing with them. He wasn’t some right-wing über-spook. He was simply Mr. Hunt, private citizen, no better and no worse than anyone else in his mid- to late-60s, though maybe appearing a bit worse for wear. (The picture that accompanies this article was taken around the same time I met him.) When he raised his tired bones to leave, along with his handlers, I was sorry the conversation he’d struck up with us was over. He was a highly intelligent, literate and affable person. I always like speaking with people who fit that description. That this person was also a historic figure just added to his appeal.

In researching this article, I was reacquainted with things I already knew and information that wasn’t available to me in 1982. Hunt kept a very close eye on politics throughout his life. His website has some notes on current events and figures from recent history. He didn’t think much of Colin Powell or Madeline Albright, for example, and had zero sympathy for Gitmo detainees or Arabs in general whom he felt attempted to shaft us through OPEC at every opportunity. In short, Hunt was a ravenous hawk. No great surprise there. As much as I may disagree with his politics, I cannot get the image and impression of him as loving, doting grandfather out of my mind. To me, that’s what he will forever be. He didn’t have to treat us youngsters with great respect and patience as he did at Kent. He could easily have given a perfunctory greeting, given his lecture and politely excused himself. Believe me, it’s been done before. He didn’t do that. He was genuinely interested in our thoughts and feelings, spending a good hour with us after the lecture and questions from the audience were over. Although I don’t remember the substance of most of the conversation, I do remember that he made us laugh along with him.

A sentence on Hunt’s web site mentions that he’d been ill in bed for quite some time at the writing. There was no date, but I wonder if he was then ill with the pneumonia that subsequently killed him. He was old and had lived a good and interesting life, though there were definitely difficult times. His first wife, Dorothy, was killed in a plane crash in 1972. The timing was so suspicious that there were three different investigations by the FBI, Congress and the National Transportation Safety Board. It is widely believed that Dorothy knew a great deal about events before and shortly after the Watergate break-in, making her death highly fortuitous for some in Washington. Now, her husband is with her. I wish him godspeed. He was a really nice man.

Technorati Tags: obituary, plumbers, reminiscence, watergate

Jasmyne Cannick wrote today that the white gay intelligentsia/power structure is hypocritical for demanding actor Isaiah Washington’s head due to his use of the word “faggot” in reference to Grey’s Anatomy cast mate T.R. Knight, who has subsequently come out as gay, while failing to demand that supposed comic Charles Knipp’s performances of a blackface character he calls Shirley Q. Liquor be canceled whenever and where ever they may be. Yep, I agree. The two are both vile, disgusting and have no place in modern society. I also agree that the white gay power structure in this country is often hypocritical, racist and dismissive of the concerns of black people in general and black gays in particular. Why, then, can’t I get all that upset about various white gay folks calling for Washington’s termination from a television show? Maybe it’s because I can’t see two wrongs making anything right here.

I think the petition demanding that ABC/Disney fire Washington for his escapades is overkill. That’s not to say that the option shouldn’t be open to the network; just that the petition, which isn’t really worded as a petition, requires far more energy than the incident warrants. Washington deserves censure, for sure. He probably needs to get himself into counseling as well, especially if Washington has a history of violence as the petition alleges. I’d even go so far as to say that ABC/Disney should make counseling a condition of future employment–ever–at the network and at Disney Studios and its subsidiaries. Washington is a man with a problem. In fact, I think it’s the same problem that plagues actor/comic Michael Richards: rampant bigotry. Both men display a rage toward their objects of derision that is pathological, destroying themselves and everything (or everyone) around them. Bigots have a bad habit of thinking that it is only the people toward whom their hatred is directed who are hurt. That’s not at all true. They also hurt all of the people who look like or identify with their targets, people who are higher on the intellectual evolutionary ladder, friends and family on both sides as well as any witnesses to their hateful diatribes. In this case, as in the Richards case, that includes millions of people–and that’s only in the U.S. If one includes those around the world, that’s tens of millions of people. That’s an awful lot of hurt folks.

Cannick has written about “comic” Charles Knipp for some years now, as has author/lecturer/activist Keith Boykin, as have a host of others. I have yet to see Knipp’s act, but can draw some conclusions about it by reading news accounts of his shows being canceled in Boston and New York City and the negative press he has garnered thus far. Oh, and there is that MySpace page.

The first thing I gather is that the character Shirley Q. Liquor is egregiously offensive to a great many people. Knipp says the character is based on a woman he’s only barely smart enough not to call his “Mammy”–his childhood housekeeper in Texas. His reflections on pleasant childhood memories are stomach-churning in their familiarity based on movies like Gone With the Wind. “While there were many factors leading up to the creation of the character, Knipp said that Shirley Q. Liquor’s voice is partly inspired by Fannie Mae, his family’s housekeeper when he was growing up,” reads a 2002 Daily Free Press article written shortly after the Boston show was canceled. “Fannie had 16 children and taught me to say ‘how you durrin’ just like she did when I was five years old. She thinks my character is hilarious,” says Knipp. The character Liquor frequently misuses and mispronounces words and is mother to 19 children. She’s also big, fat and juicy in a mumu that serves as a dress. I have nothing against fat women, since I am one. However, I do have something against fat women who are made to look sloppy and slovenly as Knipp does with his character.

The comic says that he has many supporters, including RuPaul, Patti LaBelle, the Dixie Chicks and others. I write RuPaul off right away given her penchant for straight, blond wigs. I do, however, have to wonder why LaBelle would be supportive. Is she really, or is she just too polite to tell this guy that he’s an ass? Only LaBelle knows for sure.

The second thing that I can conclude is that Charles Knipp is a purposeful racist. At this point, I have to believe that he continues to perform his offensive act out of sheer spite. There have been too many protests and articles written in the press for him to be unaware of how hurtful and hated he is. There is no higher message here. There is no redeeming value. The mere fact that his act is performed in blackface is a major clue that this guy is an arrogant, willful racist who has every intention of demeaning black people. His act is not a loving homage to Southern black women. It is an insult. There is no doubt that the South is filled with black women who didn’t have the advantages that black women in the North had then or now. They didn’t have the access whites and many Northern blacks had to education and birth control. Therefore, it wasn’t uncommon for them to have very little book knowledge but a great deal of common sense. The one thing most of them had in common was the desire to keep their own children from having the lives they had. They wanted better for their children and worked very hard to make that happen. These are the qualities worthy of emulation, but they aren’t funny. No, those are deeply serious hurdles black women had to overcome to hold their heads up high. So although she may have raised some white chick’s kids because their mother couldn’t be bothered, Knipp’s black housekeeper did so in order to give her own a better life. Frankly, it pisses me off that Knipp would dare make fun of that.

Today, there is a black straight man who is a homophobe and a white gay man who is a racist. Both forms of bigotry are evil and insidious in our society. Knipp will be performing at the Factory in West Hollywood on February 11; The Bourbon Pub/Parade during Mardi Gras in New Orleans on February 15 and 20 and; Chez Est in Hartford, CT on February 23. It is my dearest hope that civil rights groups, gay rights groups and outraged citizens will protest each and every one of this man’s performances, raising a nasty stink that will make promoters think twice about hiring this racial assassin again. It’s not like the guy doesn’t have other characters, he does, but Shirley Q. Liquor is the one that gets him hired.

In contrast, Isaiah Washington only has his own intrinsic talent with which to earn a living as an actor. I think it is good and healthy that his despicable actions and words are being challenged. I also think that termination of employment should be an option that is put on the table for serious discussion. However, in the end, I think Washington may be redeemable given time, education and counseling. It is in Disney’s best interests to do so given their family image. By “family image,” I do not mean “family” as in Focus On the Family. I do mean “family” as in accepting of people who are decent, contributing members of society in all their varied forms. I also mean “family” as in LGBT people who go down to Disney World every year, pouring millions of dollars into corporate coffers and the local economy. In this case, money should talk while the bullshit that Washington has spewed should walk, even if he doesn’t.

The homophobe and the racist are both bad actors (pun intended). Neither one of them should get away with their misdeeds. In reading about Knipp, I learned that the overall gay community hasn’t been completely silent about the offensiveness of Knipp’s act, but they haven’t been very vocal either, with few exceptions. The way to solve that problem is not to give Washington a pass because that just perpetuates the wrong he’s already done. The thing to do is to hold groups like GLAAD, HRC and others accountable to black LGBT for their lack of presence in the Shirley Q. Liquor debate. The very last thing these groups want is to be held up to be racists themselves. That, frankly, would do a heck of a lot more damage to them as organizations than Charles Knipp can ever do to us as black people.

Technorati Tags: activism, african-american, celebrities, homophobia, isaiah washington, racism