Jeff Johnson Calls Out Black Community Homophobia on TJMS

You TransGriot readers know how much I love the Tom Joyner Morning Show.

The 'Fly Jock' and crew have a listening audience of 11 million predominately African American people that I'm a part of and wake up to during the workweek.

While I sometimes get annoyed with their tendency to be a little too heavy on the comedy at times, TJMS is unabashedly pro-Black. There's also no better friend and supporter to HBCU's than Tom Joyner, being that he grew up in Tuskegee, AL and graduated from Tuskegee University.

TJMS interviews a host of prominent African-Americans across a wide spectrum of our community and other peeps of interest as well.

But I tune in for their chocolate flavored political and social commentary segments from people such as CNN's Roland S. Martin, 'The Revs', Jeff Johnson, Stephanie Robinson and others.

My ears perked up when Jeff's Tuesday commentary touched on the homophobia in the Black community that reared its ugly head once again courtesy of some sellout negro ministers during the final days of Annise Parker's historic mayoral election in H-town.

You can listen to Jeff's commentary here.

In Need of Statesmen (and Stateswomen too!)

By Cornel West
From the Covenant With Black America Blog
April 25, 2007

We are facing a crisis in the quality of leadership in our country. Our people and our country need more statesmen (and stateswomen), as statesmanship is qualitatively different than the garden-variety leadership that we’re experiencing.

Statesmen take seriously the ability to be themselves, as opposed to the many spinsters who are willing to pose and poster, to pander to a particular group, rather than be real. Opportunism is pervasive and has left us with just a few folk who will not allow themselves to be grinded up by a mechanical formulaic structure. There are some who are shaping the climate of opinion; they’re our thermostats and not thermometers. They’re not satisfied with simply recording, but shaping the dialogue. Our brothers and sisters who are engaged in that kind of education elevate the citizenry of this country.

The continuing challenge at hand for statesmen and stateswomen is to operate above the political fray, to preserve their integrity. True statesmanship is rooted in the hopes and aspirations of the people, and is also informed by the voices of the people.

Throughout our history, ordinary people who believed enough in themselves to try to transform the cynicism and the threat to statesmanship have been the crux of social movements. As a people, we are capable of producing great social change. Look within and you will realize that YOU are the leaders you’re looking for.

So, how many statesmen and stateswomen are in the house?

—Cornel West

Christine's Rebuttal to A Reader

Some of you may have heard about longtime LA Times sportswriter and syndicated columnist Mike Penner's April 26 announcement that he was beginning his transition to become Christine Daniels.

Christine is still working at the Times and is now maintaining a blog on her transition called 'Woman In Progress'. She recently had a christobigot write in and here was her response.

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Email from the edge

Now that I've changed my email address, I'd like to address my email.

Or, rather, one email in particular.

Ninety-nine- point-and- then-some percent of the messages I have received in the last week, my first week out as Christine, have been supportive, sympathetic, encouraging, understanding, touching, and moving-- basically, the most overwhelmingly pleasant shock of my life. I would like to individually thank everyone who has written, but if I did, I'd get even less sleep than I did before my concerned psychiatrist wrote me up a prescription for a sleeping aid on Tuesday.

I never expected anything close to this sort of response.

In fact, on the eve of my coming-out column's publication, I feared I would be hit with more of the kind of email Mike from Rancho Santa Margarita lobbed my way a couple days ago.

From Mike:

"I have long considered the Times' sports page to be the best in the state, if not the nation. However, I am appalled and disgusted at your column on Thursday, April 26. To say that humans are 'wired' that way is just denying absolute truth. I know that in today's secular progressive society, we're taught to 'accept' everyone, but this is going beyond acceptance. We are being asked to accept something that is morally repulsive. In no way is this anywhere near normal human behavior.
I have prayed for you, and will continue to do so. I have always admired your writing, but I will no longer read any article written by you. I am by no means advocating your firing. Instead, I felt it necessary to make you aware that your actions are Biblically unacceptable. "

Dear Mike,

I don't know what Bible you're using, but you might want to check the pull-date on that one. My Bible is the same one used by my pastor, who has counseled me throughout the early stages of my transition, helping me to stay on track and continue moving forward, because that is the plan God has s for me.

My transition has rekindled my spirituality, I am happy to say.

Often, too much focus gets placed on the physical changes brought about by a transsexual's transition -- through hormones, electrolysis and surgery. More than anything, my transition has been a spiritual journey, soul-searching and intense introspection accompanying every step of the way.

Why is my soul filled with so much feminine energy?

Why was I given such an agonizing burden to carry?

Did God simply decide it was time to draft a high-profile journalist with communication skills and a powerful platform for the task of spreading the message of transgender tolerance and acceptance_ a message that was long and painfully overdue?

Who can say? I do know this: God loves transgender people. He created transgender people. In some cultures - the world does not begin and end at U.S. borders, despite what our current administration thinks _transgender people are considered closer to God. They are revered as "two spirited" by these cultures, who often turn to transgender people as their spiritual healers and shamen.

I attend church every week. My church and clergy are more than supportive of my transition. In fact, they have encouraged it.

My pastor has told me repeatedly, "Christine, God created you the way you are. He made you a special person. He put you on this journey for a reason. By completing your journey and becoming the person God intended you to be, you are honoring Him."

Secure in my spirituality,
Christine
May 04, 2007

Copyright Los Angeles Times

Say It Loud: I'm Elite And Proud!

Why is the country run by people who celebrate mediocrity and recruit from Pat Robertson's law school? Because the right-wing crusade to demonize elites has succeeded.

By Bill Maher
From Salon.com

Say it loud: I'm elite and proud! The right-wing crusade to demonize elites has paid off. Now the country's run by incompetents who make mediocrity a job requirement and recruit from Pat Robertson's law school. New rule: Now that liberals have taken back the word liberal, they also have to take back the word "elite." By now you've heard the constant right-wing attacks on the "elite," or as it's otherwise known, "hating." They've had it up to their red necks with the "elite media." The "liberal elite." Who may or may not be part of the "Washington elite." A subset of the "East Coast elite." Which is influenced by "the Hollywood elite." So basically, unless you're a shitkicker from Kansas, you're with the terrorists. If you played a drinking game in which you did a shot every time Rush Limbaugh attacked someone for being "elite" you'd almost be as wasted as Rush Limbaugh.

I don't get it: In other fields -- outside of government -- elite is a good thing, like an elite fighting force. Tiger Woods is an elite golfer. If I need brain surgery, I'd like an elite doctor. But in politics, elite is bad -- the elite aren't down-to-earth and accessible like you and me and President Shit-for-Brains. But when the anti-elite crowd demonizes the elite, what they're actually doing is embracing incompetence. Now, I know what you're thinking: That doesn't sound like our president -- ignoring intelligence.

You know how whenever there's a major Bush administration scandal it always traces back to some incompetent political hack appointment and you think to yourself, "Where are they getting these screw-ups from?" Well, now we know: from Pat Robertson. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. Take Monica Goodling, who before she resigned last week because of the U.S. attorneys scandal, was the third most powerful official in the Justice Department of the United States. Thirty-three, and though she had never even worked as a prosecutor, she was tasked with overseeing the job performance of all 95 U.S. attorneys. How do you get to be such a top dog at 33? By acing Harvard, or winning scholarship prizes? No, Goodling did her undergraduate work at Messiah College -- home of the "Fighting Christies," who wait-listed me, the bastards -- and then went on to attend Pat Robertson's law school.

I'm not kidding, Pat Robertson, the man who said gay people at DisneyWorld would cause "earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor," has a law school. It's called Regent. Regent University School of Law, and it shares a campus with Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network studios. It's the first time ever that a TV network spun off a law school. And that's all America needs -- more Christians and more lawyers. You see, years ago Pat became concerned that our legal system was coddling criminals, forgiving them instead of meting out that Old Testament "eye for an eye" justice Jesus Christ never shuts up about. So Pat did what any red-blooded, Hindu-hating, gay-baiting, glue-sniffing Christian would do: He started his own law school. And what kid wouldn't want to attend? It's three years and you only have to read one book. The school says its mission is to create an army of evangelical lawyers, integrating the Bible and public policy, and producing graduates that provide "Christian leadership to change the world." Presumably from round back to flat.

U.S. News and World Report, which does the definitive ranking of colleges, lists Regent as a tier-four school, which is the lowest score it gives. It's not a hard school to get into. You have to renounce Satan and draw a pirate on a matchbook. This is for the people who couldn't get into the University of Phoenix.


But there's more! As there inevitably is with the Bush administration. Turns out she's not the only one. Since 2001, 150 graduates of Regent University have been hired by the Bush administration. And people wonder why things are so screwed up. Hell, we probably invaded Iraq because one of these clowns read the map wrong. Forget religion for a second, we're talking about a top Justice Department official who went to a college founded by a TV host. Would you send your daughter to Maury Povich University? And if you did, would you expect her to get a job at the White House? I'd be surprised if she got a job on the "Maury" show. And then it hit me: This is why Bush scandals never catch on with the public -- they're all evangelicals of course, and nobody is having sex.

So there you have it: It turns out that the Justice Department is entirely staffed with Jesus freaks from a televangelist diploma mill in Virginia Beach. Most of them young women with very little knowledge of the law, but a very strong sense of doing what they're told. Like the Manson family, but with cleaner hair. In 200 years we've gone from "We the people" to "Up with people." From the best and brightest to dumb and dumber. And, come on, America is a big, well-known, first-rate country, and when we're looking for people to help run it, we should aim higher than the girl who answers the phone at the fake abortion clinic. It's not just that this president has surrounded himself with a Texas echo chamber of war criminals and religious fanatics. It's that they're sooooo mediocre. This is America. We should be getting robbed and fucked over by the best.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked at a hearing, "Should we be concerned with the experience level of the people who are making these highly significant decisions?" But in the Bush administration experience doesn't matter. All that matters is loyalty to Bush and Jesus, in that order. And where better to find people dumb enough to believe in George W. Bush than Pat Robertson's law school. The problem here in America isn't that the country is being run by elites. It's that it's being run by a bunch of hayseeds. And by the way, the lawyer Monica Goodling just hired to keep her ass out of jail went to a real law school.

Bill Maher is the host of HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher.