In Africa, A Step Backward On Human Rights

TransGriot Note: From a March 12 op-ed in the Washington Post

by Desmond Tutu

Hate has no place in the house of God. No one should be excluded from our love, our compassion or our concern because of race or gender, faith or ethnicity -- or because of their sexual orientation. Nor should anyone be excluded from health care on any of these grounds. In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights. We knew this was wrong. Thankfully, the world supported us in our struggle for freedom and dignity.

It is time to stand up against another wrong.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are part of so many families. They are part of the human family. They are part of God's family. And of course they are part of the African family. But a wave of hate is spreading across my beloved continent. People are again being denied their fundamental rights and freedoms. Men have been falsely charged and imprisoned in Senegal, and health services for these men and their community have suffered. In Malawi, men have been jailed and humiliated for expressing their partnerships with other men. Just this month, mobs in Mtwapa Township, Kenya, attacked men they suspected of being gay. Kenyan religious leaders, I am ashamed to say, threatened an HIV clinic there for providing counseling services to all members of that community, because the clerics wanted gay men excluded.

Uganda's parliament is debating legislation that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, and more discriminatory legislation has been debated in Rwanda and Burundi.

These are terrible backward steps for human rights in Africa.

Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear.

And they are living in hiding -- away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offense is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said "Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones." Gay people, too, are made in my God's image. I would never worship a homophobic God.

"But they are sinners," I can hear the preachers and politicians say. "They are choosing a life of sin for which they must be punished." My scientist and medical friends have shared with me a reality that so many gay people have confirmed, I now know it in my heart to be true. No one chooses to be gay. Sexual orientation, like skin color, is another feature of our diversity as a human family. Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people? Does God love his dark- or his light-skinned children less? The brave more than the timid? And does any of us know the mind of God so well that we can decide for him who is included, and who is excluded, from the circle of his love?

The wave of hate must stop. Politicians who profit from exploiting this hate, from fanning it, must not be tempted by this easy way to profit from fear and misunderstanding. And my fellow clerics, of all faiths, must stand up for the principles of universal dignity and fellowship. Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice


The writer is archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

Ghana's Snow Leopard Hopes To Take A Bite Out of The Olympic Competition

I am a big fan of the Olympic games, be it winter or summer variety.

One of the things about the nature of the winter Olympics is that you don't see many athletes of African descent competing in them very often.

In Calgary there were the Jamaican bobsledders in 1988 who were immortalized in the movie Cool Runnings and competed at Albertville in 1992. There was Kenyan cross country skier and three time Olympian Philip Boit competing in the 10K event at Nagano in 1998, in Salt Lake in 2002 and in Turin in 2006. Boit fell just two points short of the ISF qualifying standard of 300 points in order to compete in his fourth winter games.

In Vancouver, say hello to the Snow Leopard, aka Kwame Nkrumah Acheampong of Ghana.

He was born in Glasgow, Scotland, but as a baby moved with his parents to his homeland. He returned to the UK in 2000 to attend college and while working at Milton Keynes he took a run down a 170 meter indoor ski slope that changed his life and got him hooked on the sport.

Since then Aceampong has made the remarkable self-financed leap from that indoor run to the World Cup ski circuit. He's been the only continental African on the World Cup tour since 2005 and barely missed qualifying for the 2006 Turin Games downhill race.

By March 2009 he'd reached his goal of qualifying for the Vancouver Games by getting his International Ski Federation rating down from over 1000 to the ISF qualifying standard of less than 140.

Qualifying was only the beginning. In addition to sticking to his training regimen, he had to do all the paperwork required to be recognized and registered by the Ghana Olympic Committee.

It wasn't easy for the Snow Leopard and there were some trying times along the way. Being self financed on the World Cup circuit meant there were many competitions in which he slept in his freezing cold van overnight.

When the men's giant slalom competition gets underway at Whistler on February 21, he will become the first person ever from Ghana to compete in the Winter Games. It's an even more remarkable feat considering the 34 year old has only been skiing for six years.

Aceampong is not only chasing Olympic gold in the giant slalom and slalom, he has another dream he's working hard to fulfill.

"As well as doing my best at the Olympics, I want to make an impact that leaves a legacy for future generations that will one day see the Ghana ski team as a serious competitor on the international stage."

IAAF-'No Discussion Of Caster Semenya's Case At The IAAF Council Meeting '

Well, well, well. We were expecting some serious drama and fireworks at this session of the International Association of Athletics Federations, the world governing body for what we call track and field in the States.

The IAAF Council is meeting in Monaco as we speak. When the Caster Semenya drama first exploded into the world's consciousness in the wake of her historic 800m victory at the World Championships in Berlin, the IAAF indicated they would wait until November and this Council Meeting to make a decision concerning the South African teen's international athletic status.

Peep this press release from the IAAF dated November 18, 2009

The IAAF, the South African Ministry of Sport and Recreation and Caster Semenya’s representatives have been and still are in discussions with a view to resolving the issues surrounding Caster Semenya’s participation in Athletics.

The IAAF will not comment upon the medical aspects of Caster Semenya’s case. The medical testing of the athlete is still to be completed.

There will be no discussion of Caster Semenya’s case at the forthcoming IAAF Council Meeting to be held in Monaco on 20-21 November 2009. No further comment will be made
on this subject until further notice.

The South African Sports Ministry in a statement posted on its website stated that the International Association of Athletics Federations has agreed to allow the 18-year-old Semenya to keep her prize money.

"Because Caster has been found to be innocent ... she will then retain her gold medal," the ministry said.

"Whatever scientific tests were conducted legally within the IAAF regulations will be treated as a confidential matter between patient and doctor," the sports ministry said. "As such there will be no public announcement of what the panel of scientists has found. We urge all South Africans and other people to respect this professional ethical and moral way of doing things."

White that's good news, it has yet to be confirmed by the IAAF. In addition, no definitive decision has yet been made about whether Semenya remains eligible to compete as a woman.

So stay turned, there will be another chapter it seems to the ongoing spots soap opera.

Ugandan GLBT People 'Let Us Live In Peace"

Press Release by Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG)
Thursday, 16 August 2007

In a landmark case, we, Ugandan lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people assembled at the High Court of Uganda two months ago to reinforce our right to privacy, dignity, and property. There were no charges against us. We had done nothing wrong.

It is the government who had to answer for illegal behaviour of its agents by discriminating against homosexual and transgender people. Government officials raided the home of Victor Juliet Mukasa, an LGBT Human Rights Defender, in 2005, and illegally arresting a guest they found in her home. They forced their way into Victor's home, stole many work documents, dragged her guest to Kireka police post, and forced the guest to strip naked in order to prove that she was a woman. The guest and Victor Juliet Mukasa were treated in a degrading and inhumane way. Many of us, as the Ugandan LGBTI community, have suffered similar injustice. We are here today to proclaim that these human rights violations are completely unacceptable. We have had enough of the abuse, neglect, and violence.

No person should be deprived of their constitutional rights; and homosexuals and transgender people are no exception. All people are equal under the law.

Therefore, we step into the public today to give a face to the many who are discriminated against every day in our country. Some of us have brought our faces before you for you to know us. But many of us come before you today with masks to represent the fact that you see homosexuals and transgender people every day without realising that it is what we are. We do not harm anyone. We are your doctor, your
teacher, your best friend, your sister, maybe even your father or son.

As Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), the umbrella organisation for Ugandan lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex organisations, there are two urgent issues we would like you to consider.

HIV/AIDS is a concern for all of us in this country. And yet many people ignorantly turn a blind eye as we die of HIV/AIDS because we as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people do not have proper access to protection, care, and treatment. We cannot continue to ignore the people in this country who are most at risk because of unfair discrimination and stigma. To successfully stop HIV/AIDS, we must treat every person with the dignity and attention they deserve. No one can justify taking away a person's right to live, when protection and treatment should be readily available to all.

Secondly, as Sexual Minorities Uganda, we would like to publicly acknowledge the police for their leadership in reinforcing justice in this country by speaking out against hate crimes and discrimination of human beings because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Leaders in the police force have recently made great steps toward upholding the law in a just and fair manner, providing equal protection for all people against harm. Likewise, we also urge LDUs to help to end the persecution of minorities, particularly lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and intersex people, by acting in an upright and lawful manner in the course of their duties, respecting and protecting the dignity of all human beings.

Finally, to our communities, our schools, places of work, our families, we would like to end by passing on the wisdom of so many of our parents, who have known us and seen that we are born this way and are still their beloved children. Don't lay a hand on us, we are the homosexual and transgender children of God. God created us as this way as LGBTI, all we ask is Let Us Live In Peace.

My name is Larry. I am an LGBTI Human Rights Defender from Kenya.

Across East Africa, we are many who were born like this. We are lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, and intersex Africans who come from villages that are very far, who come from trading centers, and some who even come from large cities like Kampala, Dar Es Salaam, and Nairobi.

But our traditions of loving each other come from very far back in our African history, before the colonialists ever entered our land. Many of our ancestors in our tribes across East Africa were the way we are. They were born like this. We were accepted in our communities before the colonialists came, and we come before you today to ask you for that same acceptance that was part of our African culture before
we were destroyed by laws from the West. Because of the prejudice brought by the West, we have been threatened, intimidated, and harassed.

I stand today from Kenya in solidarity with the LGBTI people in East Africa to proclaim that these human rights violations are completely unacceptable. We have had way much enough of the abuse, neglect, and violence. In fact, our leaders have recognized this and made our East African countries signatories of international agreements to end such discrimination.

There is need for liberation in East Africa as a whole. Just as if people were starving in Kenya, but had plenty to eat here, we would still fight against poverty in our region.

This can be seen as in the LGBTI court case where Victor's guest who is a Kenyan was treated in a degrading and inhumane way and is standing in solidarity to hold the Ugandan government officials accountable in court for violations of our rights.

It is a very clear case. Government agents violated the rights of Victor Juliet Mukasa and her guest in the following ways:

* First, illegal search of the home of Victor Juliet Mukasa without a search warrant and unauthorized seizure of items from the house amounting to trespass and theft
* Secondly, illegal arrest of the guest found in the home at the time of the raid
* And then, there was also inhuman and degrading treatment of Victor and the guest amounting to sexual harassment and indecent assault

The basic rights enshrined in the Constitution of Uganda protect all persons, regardless of sexual orientation:

These Constitutional Rights include:

* Article 23 is about protection of personal liberty
o (1) No person shall be deprived of personal liberty . . .
* Article 24 talks about respect for human dignity and protection
from inhuman treatment
o It states that no person shall be subjected to any form of torture,
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
* Article 27 talks about the right to privacy of person, home and
other property
o (1) states that No person shall be subjected to-
+ (a) unlawful search of the person, home or other property of that
person;
+ (b) Unlawful entry by others of the premises of that person.
Property.
o (2) No person shall be subjected to interference with the privacy
of that person's home, correspondence, communication or other
property.

There have been two hearings of the case; we are waiting for the next hearing soon, where the government is to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they did not violate these rights. We hope the judgment will be free from any prejudice and that justice will prevail. I am a tax payer, I am your doctor, I am your brother, and I am your mother. Does this make me a lesser being? Why would we choose to go through such pain and suffering if we had a choice? LGBTI rights are not special rights, but are fundamental Human Rights for heavens sake,

CAN'T you Let Us Live in Peace?

It's 'Un-African' For Nigeria To Treat GLBT People This Way

photo-Nigerian president General Osegun Obasanjo and his good friend president George W. Bush

I gripe with my friends sometimes about the way that GLBT/SGL peeps are treated in the United States and how backward we are legislatively compared to enlightened countries like South Africa, Canada, Great Britain and Spain.

But to some of our African cousins, we are the enlightened ones in terms of the hell they are catching all over the African continent, with South Africa, Mali and Burkina Faso being the glaring exceptions.

Nigeria is about to pass a draconian new law in advance of their upcoming national elections next month that is the wet dream of our homophobic Religious Right.

Nigeria already punishes people with 14 year jail sentences for consensual homosexual contact under the provisions of a law dating back to the British colonial period. If you are a Nigerian who is unfortunate enough to live in the 12 northern Nigerian states with Muslim population majorities, they are under Islamic Sharia law and the punishment is death by stoning.

But the proposed law being billed as a same-sex marriage ban has some alarming provisions that would make ANY public or private expression of homosexuality in the Federal Republic of Nigeria a crime.

Under this proposed Nigerian law you could get five years in jail for:

*Being a member of a gay group

*Attending a gay meeting or protest

*Donating money to a gay organization

*Advocating gay equality in any way, shape, or form.

*Hosting or visiting a gay Web site

*Expressing same-sex love in letters or e-mails

*Attending a same-sex marriage or blessing ceremony

*Screening or watching a gay movie

^Taking or possessing photos of a gay couple

*Publishing, selling, or loaning a gay book or video.

The proposed law goes beyond a simple same-sex marriage ban. It punitively targets GLBT/SGL peeps for simply existing. In addition to criminalizing the activities listed mere everyday socializing by two or more gay people would potentially be interpreted as illegal.

Even heterosexual allies would be affected. Nigerians could find themselves being charged with the crime of 'promoting the lifestyle of homosexuals' with broad parameters on what constitutes the 'crime' of 'promoting homosexuality'. For example, simply selling a house to a gay couple could earn you a trip to prison.

The proposed Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act was introduced last year by Nigerian Minister of Justice Bayo Ojo but a firestorm of international criticism temporarily tabled it.

While the proposed law has 100% support from Archbishop Peter Akinola, the homophobic leader of the Nigerian Anglican Church, its passage is still in doubt. Reportedly one third of the Nigerian National Assembly supports it, one third opposes it and one third is still undecided.

While President Obasanjo is term limited, his hand-picked successor is Umaru Yar'Adua, the governor of Katsina state in the Nigerian Islamic north. If he becomes president of Nigeria he is expected to enforce the new law if enacted.

Realizing that this is a watershed moment for GLBT civil rights in Africa, Nigerian GLBT people and other citizens concerned about its anti-civil rights provisions traveled to Nigeria's capital city of Abuja to testify against the bill. They were initially barred from testifying on the pretext that it was an 'invitation-only hearing' but after intense pressure from the European Union and international embassies they were allowed access to the hearing room to speak out against the bill.

Cary Alan Johnson, senior specialist for Africa of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) said in an interview for the Direland Blog that there is still time for United States GLBT people to help kill this bill.

"While Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin have both weighed in against the bill, Americans still need to put pressure on their representatives to condemn the bill. Your readers should call their members of Congress and the State Department and ask them to speak out against the Same-Sex Marriage Act. Full-scale activism is what is needed at this point."

Nigeria is the largest country on the African continent in terms of population. The OPEC oil-producing nation has been making a serious push over the last few years to raise its stature and become an international leader.

But if you want to be an international leader, respect for human rights is a primary prerequisite for that status. It's something that we've unfortunately forgotten over the last six years in the United States. There's another recurring theme in this situation that has proven to be an uncomfortable reality for GLBT peeps all over the world.

Hating on GLBT peeps not only helps lousy leaders hang on to political power, it distracts the population from tackling the serious issues impacting your country.

Tall Sistahs

photo-Sen. Barack Obama and his statuesque 5'11" wife Michelle.


In our society women are considered tall if they are 5'8' or taller. There's much debate as to how elastic that definition of 'tall' is. My personal belief is that if you're 5'7" or above you can consider yourself tall. Some people dispute my belief and state that tall status for women starts at 5'6".

One of my issues when I started transition was my height. I used to believe the hype despite the abundant evidence that there weren't a lot of women my height (6'2") and I would get read like a cheap novel.

A few things happened that changed my outlook. The rise of 5'11" Tyra Banks as a supermodel at the time I was beginning my transition, Dr. Cole drilling it into my head during my gender counseling sessions over time that women come in ALL shapes and sizes, my own observations of the world around me and the startup of the WNBA in 1997. I began to look at it with a renewed sense of pride that I am over 6 feet tall and most of my under 5'7" sisters would love to be walking in my pumps.

My fears turned out to be unfounded. The ironic thing is that most peeps when they see me on the street ask me if I'm a fashion model or a WNBA ballplayer. ;)

To help those who may be going through a similar thing, this is a list that I have compiled of sistahs that are 5'7" or taller. While there are other lists of tall women on the Net, many of them either don't have or list few of our African-American stars or peeps of note.

This post will be one that I'll continually update. There are tall women of all ethnic backgrounds and I'll be putting that together in a separate post.

The Tall Sistahs List

5'7"

Halle Berry
Eve
India Arie
Vivica A. Fox
Sanaa Lathan
Sade
Jackee
Tracee Ellis Ross
Florence Griffith-Joyner
Rosario Dawson
Dawnn Lewis
Beyonce Knowles
Dionne Warwick

5'8"

Aaliyah
Rihanna
Shari Headley
Ananda Lewis
Whitney Houston
Gabrielle Union
Jill Marie Jones
Pam Grier
Chudney Ross (Diana Ross' daughter and Tracee Eillis Ross' baby sis)
Maritza Correia (US women's team swimmer)
Zahra Redwood (2007 Miss Jamaica)
Jennifer Beals 5'8 1/2”

5'9"

Michael Michele
Mariah Carey
Ciara
Iman
Kelis
Kim Coles
Mo’Nique
Beverly Johnson
Toccara Jones
Garcelle Beauvais
Lela Rochon
Valarie Pettiford
Yoanna Henry (2007 Miss St. Lucia)
Renata Christian (2007 Miss US Virgin Islands)
Shakara Ledard 5'9 1/2" (supermodel)
Crystle Stewart (2008 Miss USA)

5'10"

Jayne Kennedy
Naomi Campbell
Serena Williams
Cynthia Cooper
Laila Ali
Queen Latifah
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Robin Roberts
Kenya Moore
Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth
K.D. (Karen Denise) Aubert
Lisa Fischer (Luther Vandross backup singer)
Naomi Sims
Micaela Reis (2007 Miss Angola)
Meleesea Payne (2007 Miss Guyana)
Flaviana Matata (2007 Miss Tanzania)
Gayle King
Veronica Webb 5'10 1/2"


5'11"

Tyra Banks
Grace Jones
Nikki McCray
Alek Wek
Marion Jones
Marsha Warfield
Michelle Obama
Anne Marie Johnson
Rachel Smith (2007 Miss USA)
Rosemary Chileshe (2007 Miss Zambia)
Wendy Williams 5’11 1/2”

6 feet

Phyllis Hyman
Aisha Tyler
Faye Wattleton (former head Planned Parenthood)
Sheryl Swoopes
Nona Gaye
Macy Gray
Kimora Lee Simmons
Maya Angelou
Stagecoach Mary Fields
Jamaica Kincaid
Octavia Butler
Carole Gist (first African-American Miss USA)
Yolanda Adams
Jewel Garner (2007 Miss Barbados)

6'1"

Wendy Fitzwilliam (1998 Miss Universe)
Tamika Catchings (Indiana Fever)
Swin Cash (Seattle Storm)
Jade Johnson (British long-jumper)
Venus Williams 6'11/2"

6'2"

Tamara Dobson (from the Cleopatra Jones movie)
Tina Thompson (Houston Comets)
Rev. Paula McGee (Twin sis of Pamela McGee and USC b-ball great)
Pamela McGee (Twin sis of Paula McGee and retired WNBA baller)
Oluchi Onweagba (Nigerian-born supermodel)
Flo Hyman (former US Olympic volleyballer)
Chamique Holdsclaw (LA Sparks)
Tari Phillips (former Houston Comet)
Tamika Whitmore (Indiana Fever)

6'3"

Cheryl Miller
Mistie Williams (Houston Comets center and daughter of Chubby Checker)
Cheryl Ford (Detroit Shock and daughter of NBA hall of famer Karl Malone)
Astou Ndiaye-Diatta (Indiana Fever)
DeMya Walker (Sacramento Monarchs)

6'4"

Carolyn Peck (former University of Florida women's Head Coach)
Candace Parker (LA Sparks)
Monique Ambers (former head coach of the Sacramento Monarchs)
Tangela Smith (Charlotte Sting)
Tammy Sutton-Brown (Indiana Fever)

6'5"

Lisa Leslie (Olympian and LA Sparks center)
Monica Lamb (former center Houston Comets)
Michelle Snow (Houston Comets center)

6'6"
Sylvia Fowles (Chicago Sky)

Oprah’s Academy Inspires Hope, Memories for Black Attendees of All-Girls’ Institutions

Wednesday, January 03, 2007
By Monica Lewis
From BlackAmericaWeb.com

Educator Jane E. Smith knows firsthand how inspiring an all-female academic environment can be for young women.

A graduate of Spelman College, Smith now heads up the prestigious school’s Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement and has regularly watched how a weekend program spearheaded by Atlanta Mayor Shirley F. Franklin is helping countless young Atlanta females seeking guidance and direction.

“There are people who find that, in the single-sex environment, they perform better. And for me, there was never a question as to whether or not I could do anything,” Smith told BlackAmericaWeb.com Tuesday, the same day talk show host and philanthropist Oprah Winfrey opened a school for disadvantaged girls in South Africa. “I know that (mentality) comes from the fact that I could do everything at Spelman.

“(Single-sex) environments boost you,” Smith said. “They take you from the corner or the back of the room, and they allow you to speak up.”

Smith is confident that the 150 students chosen to attend the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Henley-on-Klip, just south of Johannesburg, are now in a position to excel not simply because of Winfrey’s celebrity or financial backing. The young women will now be able to receive a quality education that could help them overcome the gang violence, drugs and rising rate of teenage pregnancy that plagues many state-funded schools.

According to the Associated Press, Winfrey said that she decided to build her own school because she wanted to feel closer to the people she was trying to help. The $40 million academy aims to give 152 girls from deprived backgrounds a quality education in a country where schools are struggling to overcome the legacy of apartheid.

Winfrey's academy received 3,500 applications from across the country. To qualify, they had to show both academic and leadership potential and have a household income of no more than $787 a month. Eventually, the academy will accommodate 450 girls.

The 28-building campus boasts computer and science laboratories, a library and theater, along with a wellness center.

The idea for the school was born in 2000 at a meeting between Winfrey and Mandela. She said she decided to build the academy in South Africa rather than the United States out of love and respect for Mandela and because of her own African roots.

She said she planned a second school for boys and girls in the eastern province of KwaZulu-Natal.

Singers Tina Turner, Mary J. Blige and Mariah Carey, actors Sidney Poitier and Chris Tucker and director Spike Lee attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Each guest was asked to bring a personally inscribed book for the library.

Winfrey rejected suggestions the school was elitist and unnecessarily luxurious.

"If you are surrounded by beautiful things and wonderful teachers who inspire you, that beauty brings out the beauty in you," she said, according to the Associated Press.

Such an endeavor is applauded by Smith and many more because of its far-reaching impact.

“She is doing three things: A pursuit of academic excellence, self-betterment and leadership work or preparation,” Smith said. “It’s great that she’s doing this for them. And of course, something like this is needed here (in the United States).”

Melissa Harris Lacewell, an associate professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University, said it’s hard to be anything other than a supporter of what Winfrey does. However, she hopes that more attention is paid to ensuring that all American children receive an adequate education, as opposed to creating special schools for a limited number of children.

“On the one hand, I applaud any initiative that gives opportunities to children, but I also really worry that we continue to accept the idea that some schools are just better,” Harris Lacewell told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

“My concern is that as important these pockets of opportunities are, there really shouldn’t be vast differences to the education that is available to children in this country,” Harris Lacewell added. “We ought to be trying to figure out all the time how to make public education right for everybody.”

But because there seems to be so little being done to rectify the nation’s public education system, Harris Lacewell said, too many American children are faced with sub-par education simply by virtue of circumstance. If they’re born to parents who can afford to live in communities with top-rated schools, they’re lucky; if they are born into economically-challenged communities, the education too many children receive leaves plenty to be desired.

The scenario hits home for Harris Lacewell, whose daughter attends public school in upper class Princeton while, just minutes away in predominantly-black Trenton, the school system continues to be plagued with problems.

“I really want us to get to a point as a country where we are appalled, shocked and embarrassed by the idea that any five-year-old would necessarily have a better education that another five-year old," she said.

While most ordinary citizens can’t fund a project on the scale of Winfrey’s academy, they can find a way to give something just as important to a child -- time.

“Last year, my New Year’s resolution was to pick one teenager and listen to them, and I encourage others to do that this year,” Harris Lacewell said, stressing that in addition to academic opportunities, children need to know that adults believe in them.

“I know a million goodhearted people who say they want to go to schools and talk to kids, but I rarely hear people say they want to go and listen to the kids,” Harris Lacewell said. “It turns out that these kids have a lot of ideas on how to fix their situations.”

Spelman College’s Smith agreed with Harris Lacewell that education is just as valuable to people in poorer communities as more affluent ones, and she’s hoping that Winfrey’s move to start her academy will spark conversation on what people can do to provide all children with the best opportunities.

“What this is going to do is start a global awareness of the need for different strategies for the education of boys and girls,” Smith said. “This really will allow for a global discussion of what’s going on and how we, as a culture, can value education.”

On Transgender Human Rights Issues in Africa

From Fahamu (Oxford)
Visit their site: http://www.fahamu.org/

December 7, 2006
Posted to the web December 7, 2006

by Juliet Victor Mukasa


In most African states, homosexuality is illegal. Juliet Victor Mukasa writes that in Africa, transgender people are punished and ostracised for being who they are. "While still with my parents, I was always beaten by my father for "behaving" like a boy. In school, the same story. While peeing one day my neighbour's daughter found me peeing while squatting and she screamed like she had seen a monster."

As a transgender person who is attracted physically and emotionally to other women, issues that African women and trangenders face are of particular concern to me. The one thing that all transgender people have in common is that we do not fit into traditional gender categories.


We're taught that that a human being must behave, present themselves, dress and so on in only two ways...male or female. There are rules that govern genders, unfortunately. Such gender rules include:

-How a man should dress in order to appear masculine;

-What types of jobs are fitting for a woman

-That a woman must only be in a relationship with another man, not with a woman

These rules to govern our behaviour are socially constructed, meaning that they are not "natural". They are rules made up by people, sometimes with horrible punishments for not following them.

In Africa, transgender people are seriously punished for being who they are. While still with my parents, I was always beaten by my father for "behaving" like a boy. In school, the same story. While peeing one day my neighbour's daughter found me peeing while squatting and she screamed like she had seen a monster. I became the laughing stock of the village and I expelled myself because of the humiliation. I could speak the whole day about the discomforts I have suffered in life more because I am a transgender person.

All trans-people that I have interacted with mention such, or even worse, moments in their lives. It can be a very deep violation of our being to be forced to perform our gender differently to who we feel it for ourselves.

Some people, like myself, are born with a sense of ourselves as male in some ways, even though we are biologically female.

As a transgender person, it is constantly demanded of me to explain and justify why I do not fit into other people's ideas of what a woman or a man should be.

As a Human Rights defender, I am working to protect a space for people to exist freely without facing harassment, threats, or violence for not fitting into traditional gender categories.

I can give specific examples of human rights abuses and violations of transgender people in Africa:

- Raped to prove that you are really a woman

- At school and public assembly - humiliation and beatings

- Thrown out of the family home

- Thrown out of subsequent homes by landlords

- Losing jobs because of feeling violated wearing a skirt

- Psychological Effects of Abuse: Depression, Anger, Drinking, Suicide

- Holding a full bladder for 12-18 hours daily

- Being undressed and humiliated

- Being abused by government when trying to get a passport

- In church - I was once stripped naked before a multitude of people. The pastor 'saw' the spirit of a young man inside me and they burnt my clothes and shoes in order to kill the male spirit.

- By Police: humiliation, mocking, mistreatment

However, transgender people have also been successful in overcoming these abuses.

In Uganda there is tremendous energy and anger on the part of activists. Many LGBTs are ready to rise up. For example, some transgender men are dressing up in drag and declaring that they have had enough.

Another victory is the establishment of the first specifically Transgender organization on the continent: Gender DynamiX, located in Cape Town, South Africa.

We are now claiming language and claiming spaces. Sometimes it is even difficult for us to understand ourselves because the world has been constructed to make us completely invisible. But now we are finding words to use for ourselves such as He She Che.

As an illustration of why we need your support, I would like to highlight the work of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG). SMUG is an organization made up of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Human Rights Defenders. Many of us in leadership in this organization are women and several of us are transgender. We face many challenges such as in Uganda, on a weekly basis, gay men are arrested and face detention if they do not pay a bribe to be released. This has become a business from which the police benefit. The basic Human Rights of LGBT people are completely disregarded in this process as the police abuse our rights.

Many of us do not receive protection from the police when we face violations of our rights by the surrounding community. One of SMUG's primary emphases in our workplan for this year is sensitising the police and creating a better working relationship with them.


By having the support, awareness, and protection of international Human Rights bodies, we will be much more effective in this endeavour. Through our work, we aim to help people realise the ways in which we are all connected, whether straight or LGBT, the societal rules governing what a woman has to be like and what a man has to be like hurt us all.

However, we still have many needs. We are an invisible population when it comes to protection. There is almost NO research to understand transgender people's lives in Africa.We have an undocumented history and are still invisible.

The secrecy and covert nature of our work in Africa also makes us invisible to the larger gender and human rights sector, and to each other. There is almost NO action in this area to protect people who do not fit into traditional gender categories. At the same time we are highly visible and therefore highly vulnerable to discrimination.

Transgender people have the potential to radically challenge discriminatory practices in a way that helps to free all people from sexism. People who cross gender boundaries make transformation of society more possible, and make gender transgressions more acceptable and enable societal gender transformation. We - the transgender community - have the right to tell our stories and have them heard, and to have our lives protected.

Mainstream Human Rights organizations, for the most part, are not accepting or protecting us on any level. As people from all over the world who are concerned about human rights and gender injustice, we need to work together to protect our most vulnerable Human Rights Defenders.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

1. Research and understand the complex self-identification of transgender people in Africa.

2. More effectively monitor human rights situations abuses and violations against Transgender People (such as systematic rape, intimidation, forced undressing, and economic exclusion).

3. Educate the UN bodies and its partners about transgender concerns.

4. Provide training, support, and protection to transgender Human Rights Defenders and allies.

5. Put pressure on local governments, donors, economic powers and human rights institutions toprovide protection for those who do not fit into traditional gender categories and to recognize the way in which transgender people add to the freedom of expression and quality of life of all people.

• This paper was presented at the World International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) PANEL AT 2ND UNCHR SESSION. Juliet Victor Mukasa is the Chairperson of Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG). Mukasa is also in the ILGA Board of Representatives

Zimbabwean Drag Queen Reveals All

By Lucy Fleming
BBC News website
Originally posted August 10. 2006

Looming over the audience on high heels and batting enormous eyelashes, voluptuous Zimbabwean drag performer - the Queen of Africa - demands attention.

"I'm gay; I'm a drag queen; I love sleeping with men; I love having fun and I was born gay," says Kudah Samuriwo, cooling himself with a fan after a performance in a hot and sticky London theatre.

During the 1990s, Kudah courted controversy in Zimbabwe, where homosexuality is illegal, when he became the first black drag queen to win the Jacaranda Queen beauty contest - a crown usually worn by coloured (mixed-race) transvestites.

At more than 1.8m (six feet) tall, he models himself on African pop divas such as Brenda Fassie and Yvonne Chaka Chaka, whose name he used as his original stage name.

"To me a drag queen is something outrageous, more than a woman. I'm proud to be a man. I'm a drag queen because I'm different."

Provocative

This in-your-face attitude put him on a collision course with Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, who regards homosexuality as un-African.

Mr Mugabe infamously described gays as "worse than pigs and dogs" at the opening of the Zimbabwe's International Book Fair in 1995.

"That changed the world, just those words," says Kudah, who after subsequent harassment fled into exile to the UK.

Nearly four years on, he is taking a qualification to become a care-worker and is writing his show, Queen of Africa.

It is a work-in-progress - written in collaboration with Nigerian playwright Dipo Agboluaje - and is a funny, provocative and often moving account of his experiences.


"I don't know what Mugabe has against pigs and dogs; he must have had the worst sex ever with them.

"Maybe he's had gays as well that's why he makes comparisons. Experts can be so one-sided," he says during a workshop of the play.

Despite his outspoken performance, Kudah says he grew up a shy man "suppressing what I really wanted to do".

As early as seven years old he was aware that he was different, but as the eldest son of a local chief, coming out in such a conservative society was out of the question.

"I had to be an heir, a man who could go and hunt, so it was difficult hiding behind my mother's skirt," he says.

Spies

Kudah lost his virginity at 14 to a distant uncle, the night he returned from the post-independence war against the Ndebele people in the south of the country.

But it was not until he went to live in the capital, Harare, after leaving boarding school that his parents found out that he was gay.

To escape their anger he went to South Africa for several years, only reconciling with his family in his twenties after his father's death.

The play not only charts Kudah's personal story, but the crackdown on the gay community since 1995 when homosexuals have been repeatedly bribed, detained, beaten and sometimes raped by the authorities.

"My experience was very hard, because the policemen were clever. They would take us, arrest us and release us without charge, so we didn't have any proof," he explains.

Events organised by the Association of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (Galz), which he helped form, were often infiltrated by government spies.

"I would end up sleeping with them and teaching them about oral sex."

Roll call of death

For Kudah, it has been HIV and Aids that has had the most devastating effect on the gay scene in Zimbabwe, where many cannot afford anti-retroviral drugs.

"Organising and attending funerals took a fair share of my time as one by one friends and relatives answered the roll call of death," he says in the play.

"We knew it wasn't a divine curse to punish us for what we are. Ignorance was killing more people than HIV."

In the end, it was the constant police intimidation - and petrol shortages that had crippled his minibus business - which prompted his departure.

He says he will not return to Zimbabwe until President Mugabe "has left", but he yearns for his former life.

"I had a nice car; I had money; I had friends to talk to in my language; I had a maid.

"I never used to do any washing, I didn't even know how to iron," he says.

Kudah now sees himself as a gay activist and "freedom fighter" and hopes his play will one day go into production so that he can continue "the struggle" and one day return home.

"A queen must protect her subjects even if the president refuses to do so," he says.

August 2006 TransGriot Column

We ARE Role Models-To The Entire World
Copyright 2006, THE LETTER

While I was in Philly collecting the Trinity I earned I spent some quality time reconnecting with my girls Jordana and Dionne. Thanks to her musical talents she's probably the most well known African-American transwoman on the planet. She’s also lived in London and Thailand and has friends and contacts all over the world.

During our conversations she and Dionne reminded me of something that I’ve observed over the years but didn't connect the dots until they pointed it out.

African-Americans are considered some of the wealthiest people of African descent on the planet because we live in the United States. Many of our brothers and sisters in the Caribbean, Africa and throughout the African Diaspora seek to emulate us. They look to us for guidance and leadership on many issues. In addition, our African cousins admire the Jamaicans and us.

What that means is that whatever we do as African-Americans has reverberations throughout the Diaspora. People in the Motherland take their cues from them and us.

How much, you ask? In addition to culture and style issues, the African colonial independence movement used the American Civil Rights movement as a model. Nelson Mandela borrowed Dr. King’s tactics when South Africans began waging their own successful battle against apartheid. He mentioned in a speech during the 90’s that support from African-Americans was critical to that success and that he and other South Africans listened to Motown, various R&B and rap artists for inspiration at various times during their decades long struggle for freedom.

Our influence even extends to attitudes about various social issues. Jordana pointed out that homophobic rap artists in the States influence much of the
homophobic content of Jamaican reggae. The sellout ministers anti-homophobic stances and US politicians using anti-gay attacks to divert attention from pressing domestic problems or to defuse political dissent has filtered back to the Motherland via Jamaica.

Here are some disturbing examples of it.

Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi has denounced homosexuality as a “scourge".

After hearing reports that a gay wedding had taken place in a Kampala suburb between a hairdresser and his boyfriend, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni spoke out against same sex relationships by saying that the full law should be used against such "abominable acts".

Nigeria was preparing in April to pass a punitive law that would not only prohibit same sex marriages, but would also punish people who witness, celebrate with or support couples involved in same sex relationships with mandatory five year jail sentences.

Our African cousins even have their own code word for their homophobia. Instead of screaming ‘special rights’ they will argue that homosexuality is "un-African." In other words they blame the European colonizers. They declare that homosexuality is foreign to the continent, against its teachings and traditions and even against what the Bible teaches.

In fact some Africans will go further in buttressing this bogus argument by stating that there is no word for homosexuals or homosexuality in their local African languages.

But it’s common knowledge on the continent that an ancient Ugandan king "paid special attention to boys in his court". A former national President and a prominent church leader on the African continent were recently convicted of sodomy and sexual assault.

The most enthusiastic practitioners of anti-GLBT policies are Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and Namibia’s former president Sam Nujoma. Mugabe has been very outspoken since 1995 against gays and has been quoted as saying “homosexuals are lower than pigs and dogs". He has backed up his hate speech by relentlessly persecuting GLBT people in his country.

President Nujoma told University of Namibia students on March 19, 2001 that "The Republic of Namibia does not allow homosexuality or lesbianism here. Police are ordered to arrest you, deport you and imprison you."

Members of Nujoma's cabinet have made similar statements that homosexuals should be "eliminated" from Namibian society. The intolerant climate they created led to the death of a Namibian transwoman last year.

So when we say on TSTB that our images and perceptions in the African-American transgender community need to be more positive, we aren’t kidding.

The ability of people in the Diaspora and on the African continent to live their lives proudly and openly may depend on our ability in the United States to do just that.

The Johannesburg Statement on Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Human Rights

I'm always hunting for information about my transgender bothers and sisters on the African continent. I've been deeply concerned about the increasingly repressive anti-GLBT attitudes that are manifesting themselves there.

Seems like I'm not the only one. On February 13, 2004 fifty-five participants held a meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa. They represented twenty-two groups from sixteen African nations. The following statement was adopted at this meeting.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To African member governments of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and of the United Nations:

We write to you as a coalition of African lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender organizations. If we do not sign the names of our organizations to this document, it is because of the climate of repression and fear that we face every day. We represent sixteen countries across the whole continent of Africa. We speak to you as fellow Africans, concerned that our continent develop and realize its full potential, steady in hope for African democracy, aware that repression and fear are inconsistent with peace and freedom, conscious that democracy and development can only be attained by mobilizing the energies of all Africa’s peoples.

We say to you: We, African lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people, do exist--despite your attempts to deny our existence. We are part of your countries and constituencies. We are watching your deliberations from our home communities, which are also your home communities. We demand that our voices be heard.

We ask you to support a resolution before the Commission on sexual orientation, gender identity, and human rights.

Across Africa, we face human rights abuses which threaten our safety, our livelihoods, and our lives. That we are targets of such abuse proves that we exist—states do not persecute phantoms or ghosts. It also proves the necessity for action to safeguard our real situations and our basic rights.

African lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people confront harassment from police; abuse by our neighbors and our families; and violence and brutality—sometimes punitive rape—on the streets. We are discriminated against in the workplace. Some of our families force us into marriages against our will, in the hope of changing our inmost selves. Some of us, among them the very young, are evicted from our homes because of prejudice and fear.

Our intimate and private lives are made criminal. Laws punishing “unnatural acts” or “sodomy” are enforced against us. Political leaders say these laws defend African “cultural traditions”—even though, without a single exception, these laws are foreign imports, brought by the injustice of colonialism.

We are denied access to health care and basic health information targeted to our lives and needs. We are blamed, unjustly, for the spread of HIV/AIDS (known by experts to be, in Africa, primarily transmitted by heterosexual sex); at the same time, we are omitted from HIV prevention programs. The brave contributions we have made to HIV prevention and treatment—doing outreach to our own communities and educating them in the face of state neglect or persecution—are ignored or actively harassed.

Schools teach intolerance, contributing to a harassment that denies young people whose sexualities or gender identities do not “conform” the basic right to an education. We are targets of media propaganda campaigns that call us “foreign,” “diseased,” “evil,” or “sick.” Political leaders promote hatred against us to solidify their own political situations. We are kept in silence and denied the right of reply.

At the same time, we have and have always had a place in Africa. Despite the pressure of prejudice that politicians and self-styled popular leaders promote, many of our families do not succumb; many of our neighbors, co-workers, and friends continue to love and to support us. Many of our communities continue to affirm that we are an integral part of their web of relationships. Many traditional cultures still are governed by those principles of welcoming and belonging that have always been central to African life; they do not allow themselves to be distorted by the politics of exclusion, and preserve our rightful place in the gathering. Many African religious leaders from many denominations speak to us of love and inclusion, not hatred and revenge. And, on our continent, South Africa, at the end of its long liberation struggle, became the first country in the world to include, in its post-apartheid constitution, “sexual orientation” as a status protected from discrimination.

In supporting the resolution on sexual orientation, gender identity, and human rights, you will be true to the real African tradition—which, in culture after culture, before colonialism cast its stultifying shadow, recognized the interrelationship and interdependency of us all.

We urge you to support this resolution.

Signed by representatives from:

Botswana
Burundi
Ethiopia
Ghana
Kenya
Namibia
Nigeria
Rwanda
Senegal
Sierra Leone
Somalia
South Africa
Swaziland
Tanzania
Uganda
Zimbabwe

What's A Griot?

You may be wondering how I came up with the name TransGriot for my now two year old column and this blog. When I started the column back in January 2004 I wanted to come up with a name that reflects my ethnic heritage, the history that I'm trying to document and my love of writing. Then it hit me.

I come from a long line of historians in my family. I'm also a voracious reader. I recalled something that I'd read about the griots of Western Africa, the storytellers who pass on the oral history and traditions of their people. Some griots can recite up to 500 years of their people's history from memory. It is said that when a Griot dies, a library has burned to the ground. They are mainly present in the Western African countries of Mali, Gambia, Senegal, and Guinea. There are also Griots among the Mande, Tulkuloor, Wolof and Serer peoples and Mauritanian Arabs.

A Griot is not just a human library, storyteller and historian. They are all of these things and more. Griots are a visible and tangible human link to the past. They are someone who not only could be touched, but could touch you with stories and facts that enlighten you and others about who you were and are as a person.

That's what this blog's mission is. I am going to be your guide to a world that many people have not seen or heard about until now. I'm going to introduce you to your African-American transbrothers and transsisters. We've played a much larger role in the history of our people than you've been led to believe. I'll also comment on the general stuff that goes on around me from time to time, too.