Teen Arrested In NJ Wal-Mart PA Incident

It didn't take long to find the perp in last Sunday's racial PA incident at a New Jersey Wal-Mart. The suspect is a 16 year old boy who was arrested Friday in Atlantic County on bias intimidation and harassment charges.

The teen was released to the custody of his parents and is from Atlantic County, NJ according to deputy police chief John Dalesandro of the Washington Township Police Department.

Wal-Mart officials condemned the incident, saying the behavior was "unacceptable."

Authorities haven't determined as of yet whether the 'all Black must leave' announcement was ad-libbed or premeditated. They are investigating a second youth who accompanied the arrested teen to the store.

Yes, You Teabaggers ARE Racist

Aww, the poor white wing teabaggers are upset because they've been called by the 'liberal media' on their racism.

While I'm concerned and rightfully so about how hordes of motivated, intellectually challenged conservative leaning voters will affect the mid term elections if we liberals don't stop fighting each other and focus on who the real enemy to our country's recovery is, I'm rolling on the floor laughing at the fact their so-called grass roots movement is made up overwhelmingly of illiterate white people.

And yes, it IS about the fact that we have an African-American president in office, so you can stop telling that lie, too.

You've got white supremacists involved. Peep this from Stormfront that Jack and Jill Politics unearthed.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think every WN needs to not only attend the April 15th Tea Party nearest you (I’m going to the Alamo in San Antonio) but then stay involved and help provide leadership to this movement.

I believe that this is the white revolution we’ve been waiting for.

It doesn’t look what we expected but this is it.

I’ve seen probably 50 videos on TV showing previous marches and what strikes me is that the participants are all WHITE. It stands to reason . . . we’re the ones being taxed to support Affirmative Action, Welfare and other worthless social programs. It’s our tax dollars going to ACORN and supporting the 12 million illegals swarming into our neighborhoods.

Are 'we're not racist' and 'socialist' your new covert ways of saying the n-word?

And let's not forget all those 'Real Americans' who have the delusionally misguided belief that President Obama is not a United States citizen.

Read the birth certificate and the birth announcement y'all dug up.

Let's not forget that the people shouting 'kill him' and 'He's an Arab' during the McPalin hate rallies (oops, the 2008 GOP campaign) didn't just turn off their televisions and sulk while we giddily celebrated Victory over Conservatism Day on November 4, 2008 or sang 'Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye' to Dubya on January 20, 2009 during the president's inauguration.

They're mad, want to take their version of America back and are what's fueling the Teabagger movement. They are the huddled vanilla flavored masses yearning to breathe free and see the White House reoccupied by a white president and his family in 2013.

Even if the intelligent Black president cut their taxes, gives them affordable health insurance and saved them from a depression caused by the jacked up policies of the previous knowledge- challenged white president and a failed political philosophy they enthusiastically supported, to them, if their president ain't white, it ain't all right.

But hey, just as they've done throughout their history in this country, there are white peeps who will consistently vote and act against their own economic interests, and there are peeps who will eagerly manipulate that for their own purposes.

Exhibit A: The War To Perpetuate Slavery. Southern white males fighting and dying to keep slavery alive. Never mind it was a system that depressed their wages and was keeping them poor while the planter class got rich.

Please stop trying to produce the mythical Black person you claim was at your overwhelmingly white rallies or is part of your movement.

Because unlike y'all, we've learned a long time ago that all our skinfolks AIN'T our kinfolks. So y'all can parade Angela McGlowan, Paul Scott and whatever other Negro sellout or Photoshopped picture you come up with to pimp your message. We Black folks who don't watch Faux News and vote Democratic see y'all for what you are and ain't falling for the okey doke.

On November 2, those of us who truly love this country and don't want the United States to fail need to be at the ballot box voting to insure that ignorance does not rule the day.

Yes, your teabagger movement is racist, and no amount of spin will change that.

Winter Olympics: Why Team USA Is Nearly White As Snow

TransGriot Note: My latest piece for Global Comment

With the Vancouver Games starting today and it also being Black History month, I have pondered why we haven’t had as many excellent African-American winter Olympians as we consistently produce for the Summer Games. The Olympics, after all, mean a lot to me.

Whether they take place in the summer or winter, I’m parked in front of the television during that fortnight of competition. I get excited when I see the torch lighting ceremony happen in Greece and eagerly count the days down to the opening ceremonies in the host nation. I get a little emotional when the closing ceremonies occur and see the flame extinguished until the next Olympiad.

There are many reasons why I love the Olympics. For that two to three week period the Games are occurring we are literally one planet cheering the athletes no matter what nation they are from.

It’s unpredictable and controversial at times. Just ask the Russians and Americans about the 1980 ‘Miracle on Ice’ or the 1972 USA-USSR basketball gold medal game in Munich. The Canadians, meanwhile, are still angry about Jamie Sale and David Pelletier being robbed of an 2002 pairs figure skating gold medal by shady judging.

You never know who the star athlete of that particular Games may be, which is why we have all been delighted by Michael Phelps in 2008, Nadia Comaneci in 1984, and Jean-Claude Killy in 1968.

The games are always a perfect blend of pageantry, history, high level sporting achievement, heartbreaking defeats, upsets, victory and high stakes drama all played out on an international athletic stage.

African-Americans have a long and distinguished history in Summer Games competition dating back to the 1904 St. Louis Games. George Poage not only was the first African-American competitor, he took two bronze medals in the 200m the 400m hurdles.

From Jesse Owens to Flo Jo to the Dream Team, it’s a long and proud history of sterling athletic achievement. But when it comes to the Winter Games, we’ve been invisible.

The Winter Olympics were first held in Chamonix, France, in 1924. It wasn’t until the 1980 Lake Placid Games that Willie Davenport and Jeff Gadley became the first African Americans ever to qualify for a US winter Olympic team. Davenport and Gadley were members of the USA 4 man bobsled team that finished 12th.

Davenport stated in a February 21, 1980 JET magazine interview,

“There is myth in this country that Blacks can’t make the American winter Olympic team. Jeff and I proved this to be wrong and that you don’t have to be rich and white to make it.”

The interesting footnote to this piece of sporting Black history is that Davenport was the 1968 gold medalist and 1972 bronze medalist in the 110m hurdles. He was also a five time Summer Olympian dating back to the 1964 Tokyo Games.

The first African-American Winter Games medalist was Dr. Debi Thomas, who won a bronze medal in the 1988 figure skating competition in Calgary. The first African-American winter gold medalist was Vonetta Flowers, who won it while competing in the 2 woman bobsled with Jill Bakken during the 2002 Salt Lake City Games.

Four years later, in Torino, speedskater Shani Davis became the first African-American male ever to win a winter Olympic gold medal and the first to win an individual event Winter Olympic gold medal when he won the 1000m.

So why the imbalance of African-Americans in Winter and Summer Games participation?

There are several things factoring into the 84 year gap between the first medals awarded to African-American participants in the summer and winter Games.

One of the first is exposure. Many of the winter sports contested in the Olympics are dominated by Europeans and don’t get the type of television coverage in the States as they get overseas. If it’s not covered on TV in the States, that particular sport is virtually invisible to the casual US sports fan.

As Tiger Woods, Peter Westbrook and the Williams sisters have proven, if you see yourself represented on the screen in a non-traditional sport, kids will gravitate to it. There’s a wave of African American kids participating in golf, fencing and tennis as a result of the trailblazing efforts of those athletes. Since Shani Davis’ 2006 gold medal winning appearance in Torino, speedskating has witnessed an uptick in participation by African American kids wanting to be like Shani.

Contrary to Willie Davenport’s 1980 statement, money matters in making a winter Olympics team. Most winter sports require expensive outlays for equipment, training, and coaching. They also require access to facilities that are hundreds or thousands of miles from the urban areas where most African-Americans live.

Read the rest here.

Transsister Slams Trans Community Bigotry Aimed At Black Transwomen

I've talked about and written commentaries slamming the 'Black Transwomen Are Ugly' meme that keeps popping up like kudzu in the blogosphere and beyond.

While searching through YouTube this weekend for fresh trans related video, I stumbled across this video from a transsister who was letting somebody have it about a 'Top 100 Ugly Black Transsexuals' video posted on YouTube (that I haven't found yet).

You know if I do, somebody's getting called out. But while I'm searching for that video bigotry aimed at Black transwomen, enjoy this YouTube takedown of it by a biracial transwoman about it.

Y'all Already Have WET And The NAAWP, So Stop Trippin'

Whenever you have a situation in which a white person acting in a racist manner gets called on it by African American or other people of color, the first thing that comes out of their mouths besides a weak 'I'm not racist' comment is a tired overused meme.

If you peruse the comment threads for the defenders of racist white people behaving badly, the first thing they'll say is, 'Well, Black people have BET and the NAACP, why can't we have a WET, a Congressional White Caucus or a NAAWP?' or some variation of the above weak line.

Some of you swimming in vanilla flavored privilege fail to realize that you already have White Entertainment Television. It's called NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, MTV and every other cable network besides Telemundo, BET and TVOne.

And of the three, guess which one is owned by a Black person.

If you said BET, wrong. While Telemundo was founded by Angel Ramos in 1954 it's an NBC network. Black Entertainment Television is owned by Viacom, not Bob Johnson.

TVOne is the Black owned cable network, and thank you Cathy Hughes for not only ensuring Black radio's survival into the 21st century by founding and being the chairperson of RadioOne, but saving us from Buffoonery Everyday Television.

As a matter of fact, the bitterly sarcastic joke in the African American community concerning NBC is that its letters stand for 'Nothing But Caucasians' in reference to its less than diverse programming. The last time NBC had any shows on with predominately Black casts was 'Cosby' and 'A Different World'.



As for the NAAWP, the National Association For The Advancement of White Privilege and the Congressional White Caucus, it exists too.

The Congressional White Caucus is called the Republican Party. The NAAWP is the Republican Party, the Conservative movement and the interlinked spiderweb of organizations connected to it.

Everything in this culture and our society revolves around whiteness. Because of the Jim Crow segregation you started and maintained for 100 years and the near genocidal level of violence directed at us, for our own edification, safety, survival and cultural uplift we've had to form all Black organizations in which our culture and our people are celebrated, not denigrated.

That's why the NAACP exists. Black newspapers. Black magazines. Black Greek letter fraternities and sororities. Black social clubs such as The Links and 100 Black Men. Historically Black colleges and universities. Black music. Black radio. The Miss Black America Pageant. Black authors and poets writing books and poetry steeped in our culture. Black History Month. The Blackosphere.

Shall I continue?

Y'all already have WET and the NAAWP, so stop trippin'.

UMass Amherst Student Facing 30 Years For Defending Himself Against Hate Attack

Nope, that post headline is not a typo. University of Massachusetts Amherst student Jason Vassell is facing 30 years in jail for defending himself against two white men who attacked him on campus.

In the early morning hours of February 3, 2008 Jason was in his first floor dormitory room at Mackimmie Hall when he discovered two inebriated white males, Jonathan Bowes and Jonathan Bosse peering into it.

They weren't UMass students He told the two men to leave, and after declining their vitriolic invitation to fight, broke his dorm room window while repeatedly uttering 'nigger' and other racial slurs at him.

After calling an on-campus friend for help while the RA's called the UMass police, Bowers and Bosse bumrushed their way into the dormitory lobby and assaulted Vassell, breaking his nose in the process.

After warning his assailants, Vassell took out a pocketknife and defended himself from the unprovoked assault against the two assailants.

So, in light of the fact you have two inebriated white males with a history of racial attacks and associations with white supremacist groups who jumped this off against a person with no criminal record and an exemplary academic and personal reputation, several witness in the Mackimmie dormitory who corroborated Vassell's story, videotaped evidence blowing Mack truck sized holes in the stories Bowers and Bosse told the UMass po-po's that Vassell 'viciously attacked' them, and medical evidence of Vasser's injuries, who did Northwestern District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel choose to press charges upon in this case?

Jason Vassell.

Thanks to ingrained racism in the UMass PD, whose officers on the scene repeatedly stated that Vassell was a 'drug dealer' and the prosecutors office, the decision on who to prosecute were made based on the race of the persons involved, not the evidence.

Incredibly, Vassell was charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and is facing thirty years in jail for defending himself against these racist thugs who sent him to the hospital with a broken nose and a concussion.

Meanwhile, the legal system turned a blind eye to the thugs in question and the serious felonies they committed, including the potential hate crime violations.

Bowes only received misdemeanor charges carrying a maximum sentence of 18 months in jail. On March 13, 2009 a jury acquitted John Bowes of a misdemeanor civil rights violation and found him guilty of misdemeanor disorderly conduct.

His punishment? A year of probation. John Bosse was never charged.

In the meantime, the court case against Vassell grinds on.

Sounds like the ugly echoes of the Jena 6 and the Jersey 4 cases.

White peeps start crap, then Black peeps get legal hammer thrown at them by white dominated justice system for daring to defend themselves against the white peeps who started the mess in the first place.

On December 31, 2008, Jason’s defense submitted a Motion to Dismiss his charges on the grounds of selective prosecution.

This 52-page document lays out in greater detail the events of that evening. It adds radio transcripts of the UMass Police responding to the incident, taped interviews between police investigators and Bowes and Bosse, eyewitness statements, the criminal histories of Bowes and Bosse, as well as the charges that could have been brought against Bowes and Bosse.

This document has demonstrated that both Bowes and Bosse have histories of violent racially motivated assaults; that the UMass Police Department’s investigation was racially biased by immediately assuming Jason’s guilt while treating Bowes and Bosse with care and respect; and that the prosecution has continued this bias through their selective prosecution of Jason Vassell.

There is racist and clueless BS being spouted by some commenters on the various Massachusetts area media sites covering this case. In addition to dissing Justice For Jason, they are futilely trying to rationalize the attack by Bosse and Bowes upon Vassell with specious logic.

It's time to wake up and smell the injustice and get a sobering dose of reality.

Whites have had a consistent centuries long history of initiating and visiting racist violence upon people of color, not the other way around.

We know the justice system is stacked in your favor, so POC aren't going to just start any crap unless we are provoked, attacked, or in fear of or defending our lives. But if we're put in that no win situation, we will end it.

So don't start none, won't be none.

Speaking of the Justice For Jason group, they are keeping track of the ongoing legal fight to get the charges dismissed and clear his name.

It would be a travesty of justice to have Jason Vassell's life ruined and society lose his potentially valuable contributions to it because he defended himself in an unprovoked attack perpetrated by drunken, racist thugs.

Black First-Transgender Second

There's a lot of things over the last thirteen years that have changed about me.

I went from long hair just past my shoulders to the short style I currently wear. I have a wig collection that rivals Kim Fields' Living Single character Regine Hunter. I've gone from wearing predominately red toned lipsticks to neutral colors and plums. I'm more outgoing and happy as a person. My body now matches my gender identity.

But the one common thread through all those various changes is a fundamental one:

I'm still Black.

When you're a transgender person of color it's the one time when being an ethnic minority is an advantage. I say that because people tend to focus on your skin color first before all the other issues that make you the unique individual that you are come into play.

I make no bones about the fact that I am a proud African-American and I'm not going to apologize for that. Neither am I going to allow some sadly misguided elements of the African-American community to stupidly assert that because I'm transgender I'm not a 'real' African-American. The only thing that changed was my body configuration. That doesn't disqualify me or any other African-American transpeeps from our rightful place at the African-American family table.

I've had to call out some of the ignorant peeps here for sarcastically referring to me as 'Monica Black' because my monthly newspaper column in THE LETTER deals with GLBT issues from an African-American perspective like my blog does.

I love ESSENCE, EBONY and Jet magazines and read them faithfully. I love everything about my people's history, our culture and never tire of learning more about it. I love the flavor we live our lives with. I love the sprituality threads that run through our culture.

It's just that for me to truly be the best person I could be and do my part to uplift the race I had to deal with the gender issues once and for all. I submit that the only thing tougher than being a Black woman or a Black man in American society is being emotionally a Black woman or a Black man in a mismatched body.

I'm evolving into my role as an African-American woman with a transgender history. I'm ecstatically happy and proud of that. I thank God for finally infusing me with the courage and faith to step out and make those necessary adjustments in my life.

I've been blessed with the writing skills and the talent to translate my life experiences into flowing prose. I'm working toward publishing some of the novels I've been working on. I want to continue to evolve into a positive role model for the transkids that are sorting out this issue and let them know that your dreams don't have to die because you transition.

But just because I transitioned doesn't mean I escaped the BS that Black people face in this country. I still grew up in the 'hood. All I did was swap one set of gender related issues for another one. I still get followed in upscale department stores. My intelligence is still discounted. I still get called the n-word by the ignorant folks in addition to having the b-word included in the epithets they spew at me. Being transgender adds another layer of drama to the mix as well.

The one thing that would make my life and other African-American transpeople's lives infinitely better is to be unconditionally loved and accepted by our own people. We get enough Hateraid from 'errbody' else and we don't need added drama from our own peeps as well. We've got a lot of work to do just to get to the point in which unconditional love and acceptance automatically happens, but it's something that I pray will happen in my lifetime.

As we work together as a communty to make that a reality, please bear in mind that I STILL am and always will be Black first, transgender second and proud to be both.

July Ebony Magazine Explores Culture of Disrespect

If you haven't done so or don't have a subscription to Ebony magazine, you may want to head to your nearest bookstore or magazine rack and purchase the July issue.

I've already read it. One of the must read articles is by my fellow Houstonian and frequent CNN commentator Roland Martin, who writes an essay about why certain terms are strictly in house things that other cultures can't say.

But I'm not going to spoil the fun of reading one of our iconic magazines for you. I strongly urge you to get this issues and read it for yourselves.

If Anna Nicole Smith Were Black, Would She Be Getting Such A Glorified Post Mortem? No

photo-Anna leaving the Supreme Court


Wednesday, February 21, 2007
By: Tonyaa Weathersbee, BlackAmericaWeb.com

Maybe it's out of respect for the dead that Rush Limbaugh hasn't called ex-stripper and Playboy centerfold Anna Nicole Smith a "ho," the insult he leveled at the black stripper who accused three Duke University lacrosse players of raping her in a bathroom.

But I suspect that when people like Limbaugh see white women who behave like Smith, they see her through the prism of quirkiness and outrageousness. With black women, they're quicker to turn the morality lens on us.

And when they look at us with that lens, they tend to freeze us in it.

First of all, let me say that it is always a sad thing to hear of anyone dying before their time, whether that person is a 19-year-old black guy who gets gunned down by gang bullets or a 39-year-old blonde bombshell like Smith, whose excesses finally caught up with her. Sadder still is that Smith leaves behind a five-month-old daughter, Dannielynn, who will never know her mother.

But when you strip away the spin and apply the morality standards to her life that black women, and especially poor black women, are lambasted for not living up to, you find someone who fell far short of those standards.

Yet in spite of that, she's being iconized.

Let's see. Smith began her climb to fame as a stripper. She posed naked in Playboy, and achieved her greatest fame as a Guess? Jeans model. She had no great artistic talent to dwarf those superficial beginnings, so she built her life on trying to find bizarre ways to stay in the spotlight.

By the end of her life, she had become a drug abuser and had given birth to a daughter out-of-wedlock. Three men are claiming to have fathered her daughter -- one of which includes a married man, Prince Frederick von Anhalt -- who claims they had an affair since the 1990s.

While no one will know, at least for a while, who Dannielynn's real daddy is, what is clear is that Smith was a tad promiscuous. She did triple the things that got Janet Jackson vilified for exposing a nipple ring at the 2004 Super Bowl, but even her death won't make her go away.

The headlines and newscasts have been dominated by her. Journalists are combing her old stomping ground in Mexia, Texas to uncover clues about her childhood. She's being dubbed as a "tragic beauty," and, laughably, being compared to Marilyn Monroe -- even though her closest brush with movie fame came in a "Naked Gun" spoof.

Yet when I think about how Smith lived her life, and all the empathetic airings of the circumstances surrounding her death, I have to wonder: If she were black, would there have been a rush to euphemize her? Would writers be struggling to find meaning in her life, a life that was basically driven by her need to be in spotlight?

The answer I keep coming up with is no.

Even a black woman as talented as Jackson wasn't able to make outrageousness work for her. Her wardrobe malfunction, for example, sent America into a tizzy for months. No one saw it as gutsy, or even accepted it as a mistake as much as they saw it as immoral, as all that was wrong with America.

She couldn't apologize enough for it. And people wouldn't let it go.

Some pundits even blamed her and "Nipplegate" for galvanizing morals voters and causing John Kerry to lose the 2004 presidential election.
Anytime she visited a new place, few media smart-alecks could resist admonishing her to keep her clothes on.

I wonder what those so-called morals voters are saying now, as the tawdry details of Smith's daughter's paternity continue to eat up much more air time than the 2004 Super Bowl did.

Now, none of this is to say that black women ought to be out there fighting to get famous for being loose or promiscuous. But as I constantly am bombarded with the details of Smith's life, I can't help but to think about how race and wealth is lived in this country. I think about how Smith receives adulation and empathy in spite of the way that she lived her life, and black women like Jackson, as well as the Duke stripper, receive only contempt and are held up as examples of black immorality if they take off their clothes in public or have babies out of wedlock. And while I'm all for black women holding themselves to high behavioral standards, I still don't like it when we're held to a double one.

One that makes the lower standards fine as long as they come in creamy blond packaging.

I'll Get Over Slavery After Y'all Apologize For It

I've observed over my lifetime that when some legislator makes a racist remark, nine times out of ten they'll be a member of the GOP. So when I heard about Virginia Del. Frank D. Hargrove remarks in opposition to a measure that would apologize on the state’s behalf to the descendants of slaves and Googled his name, I wasn't surprised when I saw the (R) come up next to it.

It took me back a few years to a incident that happened when I was working for a major airline. We had a 45 minute break before we had to start working a flight. The crew was already in the gate lobby waiting to board the aircraft once it cleared customs. This was one of those rare moments in which the entire flight crew was African-American and we spent time talking about a variety of subjects.

One of the topics we discussed was then President Clinton's recent apology to the survivors of the Tuskegee Experiment. One of the pilots remarked that he needed to do another apology for slavery. We were discussing that when one of my white co-workers who had been ignoring our conversation until then remarked,"Y'all need to get over slavery." Incensed, I shot back, "When our Jewish friends stop memorializing the Holocaust, I'll get over slavery."

Later in the break room after listening to her enunciate her feelings about it, I explained to my co-worker why African-Americans are sensitve about that 'get over it' comment. I pointed out to her that Jews not only will not ever forget the Holocaust, there are museums, documentaries and oral histories passed down that keep that story alive for their future generations.

So why should African-Americans stay silent about our Holocaust?

The federal governemnt has apologized to the surviving Japanese-Americans who were interred in World War II camps and paid $250K in reparations. The German government not only apologized for the Holocaust but paid reparations. In 1992 the Japanese prime minister admitted that some women in the Asian countries they occupied during World War II were forced by the Japanese Army to become 'comfort women' sex slaves. However, the Japanese government has yet to apologize, compensate or claim full responsibility.

140 years after the Civil War ended we have yet to hear the words 'We apologize' from our government over the 246 years my ancestors spent in chattel slavery and the governmental infrastructure that arose to support it.

I was feeling Del. Dwight C. Jones, head of Virginia's Legislative Black Caucus when he stated, “When somebody tells me I should just get over slavery, I can only express my emotion by projecting that I am appalled, absolutely appalled.”

I'm more than appalled. I'm agitated about the insensitive, flippant nature of the comment. Many of the ills that Black America faces have their roots in slavery.

I'm aware that I didn't grow up on a plantation or that you personally did not own slaves. The irrefutable facts are that some of your ancestors owned some of mine. I'm reminded of that every time I check out my family tree or have to look through property records to find my ancestors. My great-great-grandmother on my father's side was born a slave in the state I now reside in. I have another ancestor on my mother's side who didn't arrive at Ellis Island in 1810 but at the port of New Orleans in chains.

Before this is dismissed as another call for reparations, continue reading for a moment. I'm not expecting it to happen in my lifetime. I have better odds of the Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol showing up on my front doorstep with a million dollar check than having a $175,000 reparations check (the value of 40 acres and a mule in 2007 dollars) from the feds hit my mailbox.

All I and other African-Americans are asking for is a fair shot at earning our money, living our lives and having our grievances heard without having to go through major drama to do so or being dismissively told, "get over it."

It would also help if we heard the words 'I'm sorry' from our government for its role in the slave trade.

January 2007 TransGriot Column

Cleaning Up Our Own House
Copyright 2007, THE LETTER


Happy New Year TransGriot readers!

This month marks the third anniversary of my column, the third year of the founding of Transsistahs-Transbrothas and the second anniversary of my TransGriot blog.
Thanks to all of you who have expressed to me during the year how much you enjoy reading TransGriot. That makes my editor Dave and I very happy.

Something that didn’t make me happy was the drive-by show that Chuck Knipp performed at The Connection during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. The reports that I’ve received about it from several people that attended were that they didn’t find it funny and they observed people leaving during the performance.

While that is gratifying to hear, the differing race-based reactions to the SQL minstrel show controversy have exposed the need to have a conversation about racism in the GLBT community.

We are a microcosm of society at large. Since racism is prevalent in the parent society, then our subset of it is also contaminated and it is naïve and foolish to think that we aren’t. When we started planning the first Transsistahs-Transbrothas Conference back in 2005, we had a critic of it post a comment on a predominately white transgender Internet list in response to my letter explaining why we were having TSTBC that said ‘It’ll make it easier for them to service their tricks.”

The March 2002 NGLTF report entitled ‘Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud’ highlights the problem. From April to September 2000 a survey was done at nine Black Pride events in an attempt to learn more about the African-American GLBT community. Guess what one of the issues was for the 2,500 respondents that cropped up?

When asked the question if the racism of GLBT whites was a problem for GLBT blacks within the community, 48% of the respondents agreed with the statement. The numbers were even higher among my fellow transgender survey respondents at 57%.

When asked about their interactions within white GLBT orgs, 39% reported negative experiences within those organizations, 29% reported positive ones and 39% of respondents reported both negative and positive experiences in White GLBT orgs.

When asked about their experiences in white GLBT clubs, 36% reported negative interactions in white GLBT clubs, 30% reported positive ones and 31% reported negative and positive experiences in those clubs.

I can cosign on that last one. I’ve been called the n-word by a white gay patron of one club back in my hometown and denied entrance at another one with the excuse that it wasn’t a transgender bar. However, I observed from the entrance door white t-girls not only inside the club but partying with the predominately white gay male crowd. I’ve had people in the pageant world report that even with equal status level in terms of titles, et cetera, they receive far less appearance money from promoters for performing in shows than their white counterparts.

Accumulations of those negative experiences over time and the frustration of dealing with white GLBT community indifference in tackling the problem head on eventually leads us to say ‘enough’. If you wondered why Black GLBT people have separate pride events, pageant circuits, and conventions such as TSTBC, racism in the community is a major component of why those organizations exist.

As GLBT peeps we are fighting for recognition of our constitutional rights. We need all sectors of our community engaged in this process. It is to our advantage to find a way to work together building a diverse, multicultural community that respects all of its members and face the reality that 40 years of post Civil Rights Movement education and policies did not magically erase 400 years of negative racial attitudes.

There needs to be a long-term commitment from all leaders in the GLBT community to aggressively tackle this nettlesome problem. However, it can’t be just people of color doing the grunt work on this issue. I’m glad to hear that Fairness will spend time in 2007 focusing on anti-racism work.

It couldn’t come at a better time.

My Comments-Miss USA Controversy

As you probably guessed, I have some thoughts about the Miss USA controversy and they are rooted in what happened to Vanessa L. Williams.

I realize this is The Donald's pageant. As the owner of it he can make whatever decision he chooses to make concerning the status of Tara Conner. But I still have to wonder what would have happened if it was Tamiko Nash running buck wild in New York. Based on what happened to Vanessa Williams, my highly skeptical answer would have been no.

Let's flip da script for a moment. Let's assume that Tamiko Nash is wearing the MIss USA crown instead of Tara Conner. If Tamiko Nash had been hanging out with gangsta rappers, caught drinking while underage, running around with various Manhattan playa-playas and was headed to rehab for an alleged coke addiction, I have to question whether US public opinion or the media would have allowed a sistah to screw up on that massive scale with little or no media attention when there was a Caucasian first runner-up available to replace her.

Now let's take our alternate history scenario further and assume that The Donald did cut his wayward African-American queen some slack and offered her the same deal that he gave Tara Conner. I can see the right wingers screaming on Faux News and right-wing talk radio that he was caving in to the Black community. They'd be railing about his 'keeping a woman of questionable morals' in that spot to represent the USA at the Miss Universe Pageant and taking every opportunity to use the incident to attack African-Americans in general.

Let's exit our alternate universe and slide back to reality. In terms of how most African-Americans perceive our culture, young White people get multiple chances to screw up, young Blacks and other minorities do not.

Whether that's an accurate perception or not, the differing results as to what happened to Vanessa Williams in 1984 and Tara Conner in 2006 only confirm the suspicions of African-Americans that there IS one.

Double Standard

Trump Blasted for Keeping `Party Girl' Miss USA While Black Runner-Up Waits In Wings

Wednesday, December 20, 2006
By: Monica Lewis, BlackAmericaWeb.com

Let the conspiracy theories begin.

Despite developing a "party girl" reputation and even breaking the law by engaging in underage drinking, Miss USA Tara Conner will keep her crown, knocking down any chance of first runner-up Tamiko Nash taking over the title.

In a press conference Tuesday, Donald Trump, who owns the Miss Universe organization, said he would not dethrone Conner, whose alleged behavior has come under serious scrutiny in recent days. The former Miss Kentucky has reportedly been caught drinking in numerous New York nightclubs, engaging in an open mouth kiss with the reigning Miss Teen USA and been involved in flings with some of Manhattan's most eligible bachelors.

But Conner, who is white, stood by Trump's side as he publicly issued a vote of confidence, calling his wayward beauty queen "a good person." Had Trump pulled the trigger and sent Conner packing, Nash would have stepped in becoming the fifth black woman to hold the Miss USA title. Instead, Nash remains in her current role while Conner keeps the crown -- and enters rehab for drinking and after allegedly testing positive for cocaine.

"I've always been a believer in second chances," Trump, who owns the Miss Universe Organization, said at a podium inside the atrium of Trump Tower along New York's famed Fifth Avenue. "Tara is a good person. Tara has tried hard. Tara is going to be given a second chance."

According to reports, Trump was prepared to dethrone Conner, who just turned 21 Monday, before meeting with her prior to the scheduled press conference. However, he chalked up Conner's behavior to what happens to many small-town women who come to New York, the city that never sleeps.

In 2002, Miss Russia Oxana Fedorova won the Miss Universe pageant but was stripped of her title after violating her contract. Trump said Fedorova didn't show up for some photo shoots and charity events. It was the first time a titleholder had been ousted in the contest's more than 50-year history. Fedorova denied she was fired and said she gave up the title voluntarily.

In Nash's home state of California, many people have been talking about the controversy and the apparent blind eye given to Conner.
Paula Kimber, publisher of the California Advocate, a Black newspaper, said she disagrees with Trump's choice.

"The general feeling here is that if the races were the other way around, it wouldn't be the same result," Kimber told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "I couldn't imagine (Nash) keeping the title if it had been her who did all of this stuff."

This turn of events has many looking back to the mid-1980s when Vanessa Williams was forced to relinquish her crown when nude pictures of her, taken before she became the first Black Miss America, surfaced. Williams, who went on to have a professional
acting and singing career that could be envied by other beauty queens who served out the duration of their reigns, was thought unfit to represent a title that makes its holders an instant role model.

Melissa Lacewell Harris, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, said the situation speaks volumes about white privilege in America.

"Giving her a second chance is indicative of how White America works.
It's true for everyone from white fraternity boys to even people like George Bush, who can have mediocre grades and a failing international war and still be given a second chance," Lacewell Harris told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

"Over and over again, the mistakes young white people make are not held against them," Lacewell Harris said, adding that, if true, Conner's behavior don't seem to flow with the family values that a person in her position should display. "But when young Blacks make mistakes, it more than likely limits their opportunities forever.

"For the privileged people, whether it is white or the wealthy, they don't have to live perfect lives to have equal opportunities," Lacewell Harris continued. "They're allowed to make mistakes and even fail. Yet with (blacks), any moral misstep or miscalculation can lead to a lifetime of pain."

While some may feel as if debating whether or not Conner should keep her crown is a trivial matter, Lacewell Harris said, this latest turn of events could address some larger, more compelling issues plaguing society.

"This type of scenario is a litmus test and sets the stage for what's possible, not only on the cultural front but in a political sense," she told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

"In a certain way, the way Barack Obama is playing with the idea of running for president leaves us in the position where we need to asking are we ready for Black leaders," she added. "If there's a sense of discomfort of going to a Black girl when there's a problematic white girl holding the crown, maybe Barack should wait."