Words From a Wicked Woman

The following is the first in a series concerning bias against LGBT in all facets of life, including crime and employment, called Fighting Hate. We will look at what’s going on, who is doing what to whom and how. If we don’t know what’s happening, we can do nothing about it.

Passage of the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 (H.R. 1592) by the U.S. House of Representatives in a 237-180 bipartisan vote on May 3 signaled the success of a 230-plus member coalition led by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) that includes gay and civil rights organizations, labor, law enforcement professionals, religious groups and professional governmental entities in fighting hate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. The coalition includes: the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, America’s premier civil rights coalition; the American Civil Liberties Union; various unions under the AFL-CIO umbrella; all of the mainstream Protestant denominations and several major Roman Catholic social justice organizations; several major Jewish organizations including Hadassah, the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee and the National Council of Jewish Women; law enforcement organizations like the National Sheriffs’ Association, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association and National District Attorneys Association, and; several associations of governmental entities such as United States Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities.

The bill expands existing federal hate crimes laws to include offenses motivated by actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or disability; provides “technical, forensic, prosecutorial, or any other form of assistance in the criminal investigation or prosecution” of bias-motivated crimes under state, local and tribal laws, and; allows jurisdictions to apply for federal grants to help local, state and tribal entities prevent hate crimes committed by juveniles. A little-recognized provision would extend the federal government’s ability to intervene even if the offense was not committed on federal property or the victim was not engaged in one of six federally protected activities at the time the offense occurred as current laws require. The protected activities are: voting; participating in a federal program; working, or applying to work, for the federal government; serving on a jury; participating in a federally-funded program, and; engaging in interstate commerce. The measure is expected to reach the floor of the Senate, where it is called the Matthew Shepard Act (S. 1105), very soon. President George Bush has vowed to veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

What many people do not realize is that the H.R. 1592 coalition includes several black civil rights organizations whose constituency is already included in existing hate crimes laws. However, because they believe it is the right thing to do, they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with HRC and other gay rights advocacy groups to support the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes. In doing so, they have become targets of the Religious Right in general and black Religious Right proponents in particular.

In a statement released upon his introduction of the bill, Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee and founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) said, “This legislation is a constructive and measured response to a problem that continues to plague our nation. Behind each of the hate crime statistics is an individual or community targeted for violence for no other reason than race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability. These are crimes that shock and shame our national conscience and should be subject to comprehensive federal law enforcement assistance and prosecution.”

According to Hate Crimes Statistics, 2005, an annual report released last October, “7,163 criminal incidents involving 8,380 offenses were reported in 2005 as a result of bias toward a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnicity/national origin, or physical or mental disability.” Of those incidents, 54.7% were motivated by race, 17.1% by religion, 14.2% by sexual orientation, 13.2% by ethnicity/national origin and .7% by disability. It is generally believed that bias crimes based on sexual orientation are widely underreported. Indeed, many jurisdictions do not keep records of such offenses at all and there are no FBI statistics on gender identity-based hate crimes. The Justice Department is required by the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990 to collect data on bias-motivated offenses from legal jurisdictions throughout the country.

Religious Rights organizations vehemently opposed H.R. 1592 after it was introduced by, claiming that it was an attack on Christian values.

In an editorial titled “Conyers’ ‘Hate Grandma’ bill introduced in House” on the Religious Right “news” site WorldNetDaily.com, Janet Folger, president of the Christian activist group Faith2Action, wrote that the congressman “must hate free speech. He must hate equality. And he must hate…grandma. And I think it’s a crime.” She goes on to say that H.R. 1592 would increase the penalties for any crime committed against LGBT and that it would be safer to rob a heterosexual senior citizen. “So, if you’re going to mug someone, better make sure it’s grandma (unless she’s become a lesbian) – because if the guy whose money you steal happens to be a homosexual, you’re looking at a triple sentence. Go after grandma, and it’s one-third off! Hey, why don’t we save everyone a lot of time and just hand out “Conyers’ Coupons for Criminals!”

The so-called “Conyers’ Coupons for Criminals” is a concept almost too convoluted to take seriously, but theoretically indicates the lower level of culpability imposed by committing a crime against a non-protected class; in this instance, a non-LGBT person as opposed to someone who would be protected under an extension of current hate crimes laws.

“The legislation is ostensibly designed to aid local law enforcement officials, but the real objective is to make homosexual behaviors, cross-dressing, and transsexualism into federally protected minority groups. Changeable behaviors are thus to be accorded the same federal protection as race,” wrote the Rev. Louis P. Shelton, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, on that group’s web site. He went on to say, “If signed into law, H.R. 1592 will usher in the death of religious freedom and speech in this nation. Any critical comments about homosexual sodomy will be considered ‘hate speech’ and outside the bounds of First Amendment protections. It has already happened in Canada and it will happen here if H.R. 1592 and other laws like it are not soundly defeated.” The page includes the graphic on the right of a WANTED poster with a supposed picture of Jesus and the heading “For Violation of the Proposed Hate Crimes Law In His Teachings And In His Book ‘The Bible.’”

Interviewed by TWW just hours before the House vote, HRC Regional Field Direction Colin O’Dea said, “I think [the vote will] be a little closer than people thought. I think the Religious Right did a lot more work than we thought they were going to do and caught us a little bit off-guard–not just HRC, but the progressive community as a whole.”

According to the blog Pam’s House Blend, a good read for a summary of the Religious Right’s anti-hate crime bill activities before and after it passed the House (also see these articles), members of Congress were blanketed with e-mail, faxes, letters and phone calls urging them to vote against the measure. Although efforts to amend hate crimes laws to include LGBT people have been introduced since the 1970s, opposition was particularly strong this time, including a failed petition stating that hate crimes legislation would: “Silence the Bible-believing Churches, Pastors and Christians”; “Elevate homosexuality and gender confused individuals such as drag queens, cross-dressers, she-males, etc. to the status of federally-protected minorities. These behaviors will be considered equal to race under the federal law,” and; “Fund anti-Christian curriculum for children K-12, through the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice to promote homosexuality and cross-dressing as normal behaviors,” among other false and inflammatory accusations.

Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr., senior pastor of the Washington, DC-area Hope Christian Church and leader of the ultra conservative black Christian political group High Impact Leadership Coalition, held a news conference about a week before passage of H.R. 1592. Flanked by several other black ministers, he said that their joining with conservative white Christians “represents a landmark transition that’s going on in our nation. In fact, what is going on is that there is an amalgamation–a coming together of the black church . . . and the white church against this kind of legislation.” (See this transcript of his statements.) Jackson, at No. 22, was voted one of the 50 Most Influential Christians in America by Church Report Magazine last January. Bishop T.D. Jakes (No. 4), The Potter’s House in Houston, TX; Bishop Eddie L. Long (No. 34), New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Lithonia, GA, and; Dr. Creflo A. Dollar (No. 48), World Changers International are the other black ministers/pastors on the list–all falling squarely in the Religious Right camp.

O’Dea, the HRC regional field director noted that events like Jackson’s press conference are big news because they are so rare. “In communities of color, there are more supporters than most people would think. It makes bigger news when the minister of a mega-church comes out in favor of standing with Bush or standing with the Republicans because [it happens infrequently].”

He is quite right. Much to Jackson’s consternation, by and large, black leaders have been strong supporters of efforts to include LGBT in hate crimes and other pieces of civil rights legislation. “[H.R. 1592] has been endorsed by the NAACP, by other black leadership in high-ranking, kind of official, capacity. But, unfortunately, many of the forerunners of the Civil Rights Movement in the early days are now out-of-touch with what is going on. They are not moving in step with the real grassroots of the black community. So we have a limited number of autonomous, self-appointed leaders who are standing to speak inappropriately for the black community,” he remarked.

Although Jackson did not name specific black leaders, it is a sure bet he included members of the CBC, long-time advocates of civil rights for LGBT people, including support for employment protection, opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act and inclusive hate crime legislation.

An analysis of the May 3 House vote reveals that only 11 members did not co-sponsor the bill (including one deceased and one Senate member), and; only four members did not vote for the bill (one deceased, one Senate member and two absent members). In short, H.R. 1592 received the overwhelming support of CBC members. (Voting results taken from GovTrack.us.)

In a press release issued upon passage of H.R. 1592, CBC Chairwoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-MI) said, “One of our most important charges is to protect and defend [America's] citizens, which is precisely what H.R. 1592, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, introduced by one of the founders of the Congressional Black Caucus, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Jr. [does]. . . . As we celebrate two centuries of the end of the African Slave Trade, it is our hope that today will be the beginning of the end of the decades of mindless hatred, bigotry, and discrimination against all God’s children. All Americans have an investment in a stable, violence free government, and that is exactly what this bill provides.”

Jackson may not have enumerated specific black leaders for condemnation, however, he did single out the venerable National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) for their support of the bill. Former U.N. ambassador and current NAACP Chairman of the Board Julian Bond has been a steadfast supporter of gay rights. As an advisor and colleague of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he has a unique and unquestionably authoritative view of discrimination in America. When asked in a September 2006 interview conducted by America Online’s Black Voices why a lot of black people think that black rights are reduced when others gain their own, Bond responded, “I don’t know. I think it’s because they don’t have an understanding of the universality of rights. They somehow think, wrongly, that if Joe gets rights, then John loses rights. Which of course, doesn’t make sense. This is a win-win game for everybody.”

In his keynote address at the 2005 Equality Virginia annual dinner, Bond said, “Gay and lesbian rights are not ’special rights’ in any way. It isn’t ’special’ to be free from discrimination–it is an ordinary, universal entitlement of citizenship. The right not to be discriminated against is a common-place claim we all expect to enjoy under our laws and our founding document, the Constitution. That many had to struggle to gain these rights makes them precious–it does not make them special, and it does not reserve them only for me or restrict them from others.”

The NAACP, the CBC, Conyers and Julian Bond were not the only prominent black organizations and individuals endorsing H.R. 1592. Joining them are the A. Philip Randolph Institute; the African Methodist Episcopal Church; the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; the Congress of National Black Churches; the National Black Police Association; the National Urban League, and; the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition Union, among others. Read the entire list of supporters.

Technorati Tags: activism, african-american, blacks, christianity, discrimination, gay, harry jackson, hate crimes, homosexuality, hrc, john conyers, legislation, lesbian, lgbt, politics, religious right

I previewed a six-segment series of articles about what it means to be a beautiful black woman in my April 26, 2007 post The Beauty of Imus: Talking About Sex & Race. All of us are bombarded with standards of beauty that could make any woman of color feel as though she is almost irreparably defective, dreamed up by advertising agencies in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Buenos Aires, Johannesburg and Tokyo. Although many of these cities are not in Europe, it is a European standard they purvey. The women are tall, skinny to the point of anorexia, lighter-skinned and often blonde, even in those countries where blonde is anything but a natural hair color. What message does this send to those of us who don’t fit the European mode? Certainly, it is nothing healthy.

Anorexia is a growing problem among black American women. According to the article Dying to be Thin: Minority Women: The Untold Story on NOVA Online, “Much research is now focused on identifying factors that affect the onset of eating disorders among African-American women. It seems that eating disorders may relate to the degree to which African-American women have assimilated into the dominant American social milieu — that is, how much they have adopted the values and behaviors of the prevailing culture.” NOVA Online is the Internet outlet for the outstanding NOVA series aired on public broadcasting stations around the U.S. If authors Marian Fitzgibbon and Melinda Stolley are correct, it is reasonable to assume that this adaptation of prevailing culture is hurting our girls and young women in other ways as well.

Every black woman born after 1900 knows that the one physical characteristic that causes us the greatest stress is our hair. A black woman will spend eight hours or more in a beauty parlor at least one Saturday of every month so that she can feel as though she looks fabulous. For many of us, a weekly visit to our favorite stylist is a must. Our grandmothers did it, our mothers did it, we do it and we’ve bullied our daughters into doing the same thing. Our goal is to emerge from that place of pain, sweat and tears with bone-straight, appropriately curled or waved hair by any means necessary.

An article in the September 2006 issue of Black Enterprise Magazine states that one black-owned Fantastic Sam’s franchise in Matteson, Illinois expected revenues of $450,000 by the end of that year. Johnny Williams, the franchisee, said, “The typical African American female gets her hair done weekly . . . Weekly clients generate a lot of revenue for a hair salon.” It would seem so. Black Enterprise estimates total industry sales at $55 billion and that figure is expected to grow, “driven by both the youth market, with its disposable income, and image-conscious baby boomers wanting to keep their look current,” Williams adds.

This habit is further fueled by magazines like Sophisticate’s Black Hair Styles and Care Guide, Hype Hair, Black Beauty & Hair, the British magazine BlackHair and the Dutch-language publication Black Expressions.

The Internet has entered the game on a very strong footing as well. In addition to online sites for print media, there are also sites with no tactile complement. These include Jazma.com, Internet presence of one of the world’s best black salons, Jazma Hair, Inc. in Toronto, Canada; a very robust section on black hair care at iVillage.com; famed Florida stylist Dwayne Pressley; the black hair care catch-all-and-everything site, BlackHairMedia.com, and; two sections on About.com about black hair care–one for whites who adopt black and mixed-race children and another for black women.

Both black hair care magazines and web sites promote an image of black women who have long, straight hair, even if that means gluing synthetic or human hair strands to their own, shorter, hair. A case in point is the May 2007 23rd Anniversary issue of Sophisticate’s Black Hair Styles where the editors have chosen “The 10 Best Styled Women of 2007.” The winner is singer Mary J. Blige who sports long, light brown hair with blonde tinting. Fellow singers Beyoncé and Kellis, one of only two in the list with short hair, round out the top three. Also making the list are the usual suspects: actress Gabrielle Union; media mogul Oprah Winfrey; talk show host/former supermodel Tyra Banks, and; Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry. Singer/actress/American Idol winner Fantasia is the only other woman with short hair. With the exception of Oprah, none of the women could be considered what we in American black culture like to call “thick” or “heavy.” Where is Oscar-winner/American Idol loser Jennifer Hudson’s “Effy” to Beyoncé’s “Deena,” their respective characters from the 2006 Oscar-winning movie Dreamgirls? If ever there was a real woman’s “It” girl, Hudson is the one!

There is a very small glimmer of hope for those of us who choose to wear short and/or natural hair. Almost all black hair care magazines and web sites have a small section for us. They are usually pretty thin on content, but at least they are there. The exception is the web site Nappturality.com geared specifically toward women who wear their hair naturally and love it–or are learning to. According to the home page, “Here you will find photos of all natural styles, comb coils, two-strand twists, afro puffs, afros, dredlocks (dreadlocks), locs and many other natural styles. Styled by napptural-haired women on their own hair. . . Nappturality is all about embracing your NAPPtural, natural hair. Many, many thousands of African American women and women of African descent all over the world have stopped relaxing their hair and are wearing their natural hair proudly. All have different reasons for doing it — damage, scalp problems, illness, hair loss, finances, curiosity or maybe simply being tired of wasting all day Saturday waiting in a salon. Others saw someone on the train wearing a fierce set of locs, coils or twists and started to rethink their choices.” Members write of their journeys to natural hair, there are hair maintenance tips, product suggestions and, yes, lots of photos, particularly in the forums. Most of all, this is a site where women can get affirmation for their decision to go natural. In a world choking with long-haired, straight-haired blondes of African-descent, Nappturality.com is a breath of very fresh air.

A site of interest for those of us curious about the meanings and origins of our fascination with all things hair can be found at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. The American Mosaic Project–a field study research program in American multicultural studies–hosts “a collection of verbal and visual representations of African American women’s styles” under the banner Sunday Morning Celebration. The representations include articles about church; hats and fashion; music, and, of particular interest; hair.

“African American women’s search for societal acceptance often encompasses struggle between natural and socially constructed ideas of beauty. As an essential component in traditional African societies, cosmetic modification is ritualized to emphasize natural features of blackness. Defined by social occasion such as childhood development to maturity, indicators of marital status or the group to which you belong, beautification of the hair and body play an essential role. In our racially conscious society, presenting a physical image and being accepted is a complex negotiation between two different worlds,” begins the section about black hair.

It seems evident that black women are searching–longing–for acceptance, but from whom? The majority European-descendant population in the U.S. and Europe have a distinct need to see themselves even if that “self” has a black face. DiversityInc.com suggests that it may be very necessary for future and current employees to adopt straight hair in order to get and keep a job in some instances in the succinctly-titled article “Your Hair or Your Job?.”

“Many black people have grown more comfortable with embracing hairstyles that emphasize the characteristics of their hair, and corporate America increasingly is more accepting of braids and short afros. But traditionally conservative industries such as banking and law still may turn you down if you don’t look like what they perceive as executive material. Wearing braids or dreadlocks could be the deciding factor in whether you get the job—and, if you do get hired, getting promoted,” says the article. That is racism.

The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission published a new Compliance Manual in April 2006 based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Under the new rules, Section 15 defines racial discrimination to encompass: ancestry; physical characteristics; race-linked illness; culture (emphasis added); perception; association; subgroup or “race plus” (see the link for a definition), and; reverse.

Furthermore, the Manual states that appearance and grooming standards “generally must be neutral, adopted for nondiscriminatory reasons, consistently applied to persons of all racial and ethnic groups, and, if the standard has a disparate impact, it must be job-related and consistent with business necessity.” In elucidating this requirement, the Manual specifically mentions hair.

“Employers can impose neutral hairstyle rules – e.g., that hair be neat, clean, and well-groomed–as long as the rules respect racial differences in hair textures and are applied evenhandedly. For example, Title VII prohibits employers from preventing African American women from wearing their hair in a natural, unpermed “afro” style that complies with the neutral hairstyle rule. Title VII also prohibits employers from applying neutral hairstyle rules more restrictively to hairstyles worn by African Americans.” (EEOC Compliance Manual, April 19, 2006. Viewed 05/14/2007.)

An article about the new rules on a web site belonging to defendants’ law firm Ford & Harrison, LLC analyzes the rules and reminds its clients, “[W]hile employers may establish policies regulating hairstyles, such policies must be equitably enforced and should acknowledge differences in hair textures.” In other words, companies cannot refuse to hire black folks because they don’t like hair worn naturally and expect no repercussions.

The reasons for choosing to wear one’s hair in a particular style are complex. Many of us have been brainwashed to believe that anything that resembles whites must be the way toward all good things in life. Others enjoy their masochistic journeys into beauty salon hell every week and don’t mind the burning, dry, itchy scalp and damaged hair they will inevitably suffer as a result of chemical straighteners. Where else can we get someone to pamper us for hours on end, even if we do have to sit and wait and wait and wait until our favorite operator finishes gabbing with her quadruple-booked other favorite client to get to us? I have abandonment issues, balance problems and a short fuse. For me, the entire lonely and unsure obstacle course of hair dryers, hydraulic lift chairs, sinks, curling irons, hair rollers and the like would be like watching paint dry on a beige wall. Therefore, like Aulelia, our guest columnist, I wear my hair in a natural, although very short, style that is more indicative of who I am.

To those who choose to have their hair straightened so that they hatch from their salon incubators looking like somewhat more curvy white women, have at it. Add to the revenues of a black business owner! But, for goodness sakes, think about what you’re doing, why you’re doing it and what you’d like your style to convey about you. Everyone’s style is, ultimately, unique and you don’t have to justify your actions or apologize to anyone. Nevertheless, before you commit to a signature look, maybe it’s best to decide for yourself if black beauty is kinky or straight.

Technorati Tags: african-american, celebrities, discrimination, hair

I learned of radio personality Don Imus’ filthy remarks (link requires NY Times TimeSelect subscription) about the conference-winning Rutgers University women’s basketball team while laying in a hospital bed three days after they were made on his WFAN-FM morning show simulcast on cable’s MSNBC and the CBS radio network. In calling the Rutgers women “nappy-headed ho’s” he unleashed a firestorm of denunciations that ended in his firing from both broadcast outlets. For once, big media did the right thing. Frankly, I was shocked, though extremely pleased. In one fell swoop, Imus had turned what should have been a celebratory moment into one of hurt, confusion and anger. Not being an athlete on any level, nor particularly being a sports fan, I cannot say whether it was worse for those young women to get to the NCAA women’s basketball championships and lose or to then be denigrated by a sexist bigot with a national audience. I only know that these beautiful, talented young women–someone’s daughters, sisters, girlfriends–did not in any way deserve to be diminished by a man with a malfunctioning brain. In the end, they were not diminished. They were held up as examples of grace and maturity in the face of ugliness, meeting with Imus and his wife at the New Jersey governor’s mansion, respectfully expressing their pain and, ultimately, accepting his apology. Brava, Rutgers women! Brava!

Don Imus is symptomatic of an illness in America. We live in a society that does not value women or people who are not white, no matter their accomplishments. In effect, it is a society that causes people of color to devalue themselves. This is especially true for women of color in general and black women in particular. Young black women are bombarded by images of singers like Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey and Rihanna–ligher-skinned, long-haired and slender (though, in Beyoncé’s case, with curves), or; actresses like Halle Berry, Gina Torres and Thandi Newton, if there are any black actresses at all. If I am nothing else, I am a black woman. However, I don’t look like any of the above-named celebrities and neither do most black women. Yet, the message we receive from various media is that we are all supposed to have long, luxurious, straight hair and lighter skin. The idea is that the closer one is to being white, the more acceptable one becomes. Anything less and that person is easily discarded. In black society, this takes the form of “colorism,” the idea that lighter-skinned blacks with “good” hair are more valued than their darker, kinkier-haired kin. Colorism was born during the slave era when mulattos were allowed to live and work in the master’s house and not out in hot, often dangerous, fields. It was a way for slave owners to keep their property in line, turning them against each other. The effects were devastating and can be felt even to this day.

The celebrated 2005 documentary short A Girl Like Me from then-16-year-old New York City filmmaker Kiri Davis is a powerful modern introduction into the minds of the black female teens who were interviewed for the film. They speak of being devalued in their communities because they have darker skin and/or kinkier hair when the ideal is lighter skin and chemically-processed or naturally straight hair. In other words, these are the “nappy-headed” young women of Imus’ comments. They don’t stop there, however, the young women touch on what it means to be black in general. One particularly heart-breaking portion comes near the end when Davis reproduces the “doll experiment” originally performed by Dr. Kenneth Clark and used in the historic United State Supreme Court case Brown v. Bd. of Education, argued by future Supreme Court associate justice Thurgood Marshall. Clark’s experiment placed two dolls on a table and asked young children various questions relating to likeability and beauty. The same questions asked more recently resulted in an eye-opening and disheartening look at the deleterious effects of racism on the self-esteem of black children.

I am extremely fortunate to have been raised in an environment that eschewed images of white skin and long hair as the only examples of beauty and intelligence. My mother was an educator and educated. (Believe me, there is a difference.) She taught me to love black American history as well as the history of Africans on the continent and in the diaspora. It is a love I carry and feed to this day as it carries and feeds me. I grew up in the 1960s and 1970s when black really was beautiful and old practices of bleaching skin and straightening hair were on the wane. It was the days of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcom X and Huey P. Newton. Women young and old were encouraged to wear their hair naturally and the darker skinned the more “authentic” was one’s blackness. Music actually said something to listeners not only about love, but about politics and the wrongs being done in our name. To be a black child in a black neighborhood with supportive and accomplished black adults around to guide young people was to be in an enriching soup. Times do change.

By any sane person’s measure of decency, Imus’s remarks were despicable and he deserved to have his cowboy hat handed to him on the way out. However, no one can doubt that his actions began a conversation in America about the intersection of race and sex that is a long time coming; and so it will be here at Words From A Wicked Woman. For the next six weeks, this blog will focus almost exclusively on race and sex in its varied forms, but I need your help in doing so. I would like to include personal stories of women, especially, who have been adversely effected by discrimination based on sex, gender expression, race, skin color or grade of hair. While I include workplace discrimination, I am particularly interested in discrimination from peers and social groups. Members of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities are specifically encouraged to write. I’d also like to know of the joys of being who and what you are. Do you adore being a woman? Do you like having “nappy” hair and darker skin? Do you feel comfortable in your lighter skin and straight hair? Tell us what you think. Feel free to write to me at thewickedwoman at adelphia dot net. Yours may be the story I tell next.

Technorati Tags: african-american, celebrities, discrimination, documentary, gay, hair, health, homosexuality, lesbian, lgbt

By the time you read this Barack Obama, senator and candidate for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination, will have spoken at a public rally in Cleveland, Ohio and I will not have attended. Frankly, I’m a little bit disappointed. I don’t really support Obama, but I don’t really oppose him either. Let’s say I’m keeping an open mind. Various news outlets have reported that blacks generally don’t support Obama’s candidacy because he didn’t go through the civil rights strainer of the 1950s to 1970s, but who in this generation did? We weren’t born in the ’50s and we were kids in the ’60s and ’70s, people! This analysis would suggest that the only qualified black candidates are those 60-years-old and above. I think said analysis is supremely faulty. Assuming this supposed lack of support is, indeed, real, I think another reason is more germane: Obama has a unique background that frightens some, less sophisticated, black people.

The good senator from Illinois grew up in Hawaii where discrimination has a long and dishonorable history, but primarily against Native Hawaiians and not as profoundly against blacks. His father was Kenyan and his mother was from Kansas, both educated at the University of Hawaii where they met. Obama’s father returned to Kenya after a time while and he and his mother remained in Hawaii with his grandfather, a World War II veteran, until she married an Indonesian. Obama has mixed-race Indonesian-Caucasian siblings. He received an Ivy League undergraduate (Columbia University) and graduate (Harvard Law School) education, serving as Harvard’s first black law review president.

Obama is an exemplary individual no matter what his race. I believe the primary obstacle to his acceptance by black voters is that he is in an elite class. By virtue of his accomplishments, he has surpassed the achievements of the average black American and that bothers some people. It also does not help that, traditionally, what is good for white people is not good for anyone else. Therefore, his support among large numbers of whites may be problematic for some, though not all, black folks. And here we run into a serious problem with the news media in general: the habit of monolithically classifying all black Americans. It’s a hell of a lot easier than doing the necessary background research, not to mention keeping an open eye, to learn we are as diverse as our skin colors. Broadcast media, especially, has a tendency to suffer from this myopia. Add the two together and you get a general pronouncement that blacks don’t support Obama.

There are plenty of reasons not to support the man. I’m not crazy about his positions on marriage equality, but I’m not crazy about any candidate’s position except that of Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). I believe he’s too moderate for my tastes as well. I want a left-leaning Democrat because I’ve had enough of the center. I’m not sure Obama isn’t saying one thing to his audiences in Iowa and New Hampshire and another to his audiences in Brooklyn and South Central. I have no evidence of this either way. I just have my suspicions because he can’t be all things to all people as he appears to attempt to be. I will wait and see.

. . .

I was so proud of Best Lead Actor nominee Forest Whitaker and Best Supporting Actress nominee Jennifer Hudson for their wins last night at the Oscars™! I was also very proud of Dreamgirls’ Eddie Murphy for his nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category, but he lost in an upset to Little Miss Sunshine’s Alan Arkin. I won’t say that Murphy was robbed because I think reasonable people could disagree. I will say, however, that his performance as James “Thunder” Early was far and away his best and proved that he is very capable of handling dramatic, non-action roles. The biggest upset for me was Melissa Etheridge’s win for Best Original Song with “I Need To Wake Up” from the Al Gore-inspired documentary An Inconvenient Truth. She was nominated with three songs from Dreamgirls, all written by Henry Krieger with different lyricists, and Randy Newman’s song “Our Town” from the animated movie Cars. I love Etheridge and Newman always writes fabulous music, but the odds were with Dreamgirls. Personally, I can kind of see it. With three songs from the movie nominated, Krieger canceled himself out and these were not the strongest songs in the movie. At least one of those, “And I’m Telling You,” was ineligible because it was from the Broadway play.

Ten-year-old Best Supporting Actress nominee for Little Miss Sunshine, Abigail Breslin, was little-girl-elegant in a little pink dress with a flowered bodice, Swarovski crystal handbag, Jimmy Choo shoes and, get this, Harry Winston jewels. Even with the Jimmy Choos and the jewels, she was appropriately dressed for the occasion. On the other hand, I really do have to wonder what in the HELL the beautiful Penelope Cruz was thinking when she chose her dress. UGH! How many birds had to die to make that skirt? It was hideous to boot! Not too far away on the scale of Hideous Oscar Ensembles of 2007 was Cameron Diaz’s white Valentino gown. It was lovely until your eyes got to the hem. I get that it is supposed to be asymmetrical, but it looked as though someone should be arrested for drunk sewing. Yuck! Finally, behind Penelope and Cameron was the delightful Kirsten Dunst who wore a form-fitting, light blue tuille, embroidered gown from Chanel Haute Couture. If that’s what Karl Lagerfeld is designing these days, maybe it’s time he retired and Chanel hired some new talent. The neckline was all wrong and, again, there were feathers, although not nearly as many as Cruz’s dress. In addition, she needs to do something about her bangs. With that dress, as hideous as it was, and with the rest of her hair, bangs were simply a very bad choice.

It was nice to have two lesbians take center stage at this year’s ceremony. Host Ellen Degeneres did an admirable job given that she had to keep things rolling for approximately four hours. It’s true that some of her bits were serious misses–like the one where she could be seen vacuuming the first row of the auditorium in preparation for the long-awaited end of the broadcast–but she was mostly quite up to snuff. Aside from her monologue in the beginning, I loved the bit she did with Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg where she gave the latter a digital camera and asked him to take a quick snapshot of her with his fellow Oscar™-winning director. Degeneres’s partner, actress Portia de Rossi, was definitely one of the beautiful people of the evening. I don’t like skinny or thin women, but if she just had to be that way, her navy Zac Posen halter stood her in great stead.

The second upfront lesbian of the evening was the aforementioned Etheridge who, with her wife, actress Tammy Lynn Michaels, formed the epitome of the Hollywood power couple in the Best Dykes To Watch Out For category. Etheridge wore a navy woman’s tuxedo while Michaels wore an ethereal black Pamela Roland gown with upswept hair. If I had to say one thing about each of their outfits I’d say that I would have liked Etheridge’s tux jacket to be more tailored and Michaels to have worn a different color with her pale complexion. Actually, I think I would have chosen another dress for Michaels altogether, although that one was not bad at all. I just think that it could have been better.

. . .

Apple, Inc. began its advertising campaign for the new iPhone with two 30-second spots during last night’s Oscar™ broadcast on ABC. The ads featured clips from famous films of characters answering their telephones with “Hello” and ended with two black screens with white type that read, “Hello” and “Coming in June.” Now that Apple and Cisco have ironed out their trademark dispute over the “iPhone” name, let the marketing campaign begin!

The much-anticipated combination Internet device, telephone, iPod and, as the iPhone page says, “High Technology” product was introduced at Macworld San Francisco in January where it was demonstrated by keynote speaker, iconic Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. The iPhone brings with it a beautiful, crisp, 3.5-inch-wide touch-screen display that that can be used both horizontally and vertically depending on whether it’s being used to watch video, play music or games, dial the phone, type on the QWERTY keyboard or operate one of the ten applications included in addition to the Safari web browser and Mail. People practically salivated over the two prototypes on display after the keynote–only three in the entire world. Journalists had to practically sign over their first born child, their spouse and their income for the next 20 years just to get their hands on one so that they could at least tell readers they’d seen it up close. Time magazine writer Lev Grossman describes his pre-release visit to Apple’s Cupertino, CA headquarters to scope out the theretofore über-secret device.

“If you’ve ever wondered how it works, this is how it works: I don’t call Steve, Steve calls me. Or more accurately, someone in Steve Jobs’s office calls someone in my office—someone at a much higher pay grade —to say that he has something cool. I then fly to the metastasized strip mall called Cupertino, Calif., where Apple lives, sign some legal confidentiality stuff and am escorted to a conference room that contains Jobs, some associates, and some lumps concealed under some black towels. I stare at what was under the towels. Everybody else stares at me. . . . This is how Apple, and nobody else, introduces new products to the press. It can be awkward, because Jobs is high-strung and he expects you to be impressed. I was, fortunately, and with good reason.” Journalists after the introduction didn’t fare much better.

I don’t know if the “Hello” ads that appeared during the Academy Awards™ will be shown at any other time, however, I believe it was wise to start the campaign even though Apple can’t even take iPhone orders now because the device hasn’t been approved by the Federal Communications Commission as yet. The Oscar™ telecast generally garners one of the largest viewing audiences in the world and serves as a premier opportunity for Apple to keep the brand in consumer minds. Such an early launch campaign may also give potential buyers the opportunity to save their pennies because they’ll need a whole lot of them to acquire even the less expensive model–49900 of them, to be exact–that comes with 4GB of storage. The more expensive model will sell for $599 and will have 8GB of storage.

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Earlier this week I announced that I planned to write a post about the changes that have taken place at long-time voice of black LGBT communities Venus Magazine because publisher Charlene Cothran recently experienced a religious conversion and is no longer one of us. I, like so many other LGBT writers, black and otherwise, wrote for the magazine for a time and felt a particular rage and cynicism at the betrayal not only of us, but of all LGBT around the world, particularly LGBT of color since there are so few media outlets who even acknowledge our existence. For those who wrote for Venus, Charlene was not only a business associate, but a role model, mentor and friend. I dare say that her personal relationships saved her from legal action on more than one occasion when we later had a hard time collecting our fees as we almost always did. It wasn’t that she was a cheapskate or deadbeat, although it seemed that way at the time, but because she was faced with the realities of an ever-changing advertising market where few large sponsors existed who paid their bills. As Cothran’s financial difficulties mounted, there were many times the magazine never made it to newsstands and mailboxes. Yet, each time Venus emerged, we, as a community, were deeply grateful we could breathe a collective sigh of relief. We, as a community of black LGBT, had survived another day.

In preparing to write the announced post, I was ready to express my outrage at the idea that a person can make a choice to be queer or straight by finding Jesus, as Cothran is now evangelizing, or through any other method. I know that simply is not true based on scientific research, the travails I’ve heard witnessed at religious gatherings and plain old common sense. The fact that Cothran has turned such a venerable publication into a mouthpiece for the ex-gay movement is a slap in the face of hundreds of millions of LGBT throughout the world. She says that she has not been contacted by anyone in the ex-gay movement and that she preaches love for LGBT even while saying that there is something inherently wrong with us. I have every reason to condemn Cothran, as do others. She deserves the cynical comments and the venom with which many of them are delivered. However, I am beginning to wonder if she also deserves some small measure of compassion.

I ran across an article in the Chicago gay newspaper Windy City Times about the conversion Cothran and her magazine have experienced. Aside from being informative, the article impressed upon me the loneliness Cothran feels. “’Don’t think that I’m being welcomed with open arms now in Black churches, because I’m not . . . I’m in a place where it’s just me and God,’” the newspaper quotes her as stating.

It seems that even black churches are not so gullible as to believe a person can really change their orientation. And why should they? Ever heard of a heterosexual willingly becoming homosexual or even bisexual other than in behavior alone? And that is the problem with many of these conversions: they assume sexual orientation is only about behavior. Of course, LGBT know that is far from the case. Behavior is, in the end, only a small part of the orientation equation. A person is attracted to whomever she or he will be. Attraction takes in pheromones, concepts of external beauty, qualities we each believe draw us one to the other and myriad other elements. No one knows why we are attracted to the people we are whether they be same-sex or opposite-sex attractions. It is one of those great mysteries in life that many Bible-thumpers are not content to leave as mysteries. Indeed, they are full of the arrogance of their ilk, claiming to be able to change to whom we, as LGBT, are attracted even though they have no greater understanding of it than we do ourselves.

Cothran has noted that she was spiritually conflicted through most of her life living as a lesbian. She had been raised in a fundamentalist Christian environment that denigrated and condemned LGBT people. Yet, here she was, one of the very “sinners” her faith tradition found so unlovable. With courage, she went on to build a good life for herself, complete with life partner, and a business that influenced millions around the world. Cothran’s mark on modern black LGBT communities cannot be overstated. Venus may not have been the first magazine dedicated to our lives, but it was probably the most distinguished. Therefore, financial troubles aside, choosing to give that up and turn that reputation on its head must have taken something truly profound. She has said it was a call from a pastor who is a “former” lesbian, but that her unhappiness with herself began to reach critical mass in 2004 while attending a Pride event in Chicago. That information is contained in the Windy City Times article and so I direct you to that website.

I had every intention of slugging this post with a sensational, but true, headline alluding to the fact that I’d sent Cothran e-mail that posed 15 questions relating to her re-purposing of Venus as a tool supporting “deliverance” from homosexuality and that she’d chosen not to respond. (Originally, I’d planned simply to comment on what was plainly stated on the Venus Magazine website and been said in the black LGBT blogging community but realized that I owed Cothran more than that.) Maybe she didn’t get my e-mail. I tend, however, to believe that she made a conscious decision not to answer. And that’s alright. But in doing so, she’s also choosing to abide by whatever conclusions, speculation and inferences I draw. Frankly, those conclusions, speculation and inferences are putting her in an extremely unfavorable light. So much so that in the course of writing this post I had to give her something I’ve never given anyone else: I have to give her one more chance. I want Charlene Cothran to answer the 15 questions I posed to her last Tuesday evening. I want to understand why she has done what she has done above and beyond my own experience in dealing with religious zealots who are almost always motivated either by greed or internal conflict. I want to understand what science she bases her conversion upon and why she believes all peer reviewed, accepted scientific evidence is to now be discounted as being done by individuals with a profit motive. I need to know these things because I am going to be forced to tear into someone who may not have paid me when she should have, but whom I’ve always admired and respected. I am trying to find compassion and a compassionate way of portraying what is otherwise a sad and utter betrayal.

With that in mind, if you are a Venus Magazine reader, former contributor or critic, I ask you to write to Cothran and ask her to please answer my 15 questions. If she isn’t interested in answering those, I have no problem with a phone interview or even a different set of questions. My goal is simply to be as fair as possible as opposed to simply blasting her. I have not in any way changed my mind about the futility of what she’s doing, the damage that this type of message creates or the palpable anger that is present in the overall black LGBT community. However, I also believe that she has a right to comment and I would rather not go forward without affording her every opportunity to do so. I will be sending her this posting.

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