Celebrating Self-National Coming Out Day

National Coming Out day is a celebration of self by the LGBT community. It's been going on since 1988 as a day when lesbians and gays, bisexuals and transgenders promote awareness of what it means to live your life openly and honestly without fear, in still homophobic America and the rest of the world.

The event is observed around the world because dangerous homophobes...those who like to kill or maim gay people...are everywhere. Witness the brutal rapes of three men that took place in New York last week.

National Coming Out day is a time to reinforce empathy and humanity, passing on those traits to young people. It is a day to call attention to the inequities in the law, such as the current legality of evicting a gay person or firing a gay person from a job...simply because they are gay...

Reality in America 2010..

For me, a 60 year old Black, female, lesbian professional, it is a day of reflection. In the past couple of weeks, the ugly secrecy around youth suicide has been ripped away. We've lost 6 young people, that we know about, bullied by so called friends and classmates into believing that the only way to stop the pain, was to kill themselves. Childhood should not be painful, ever.

We've got candidates for the United States Senate...some of them incumbents....saying my kind are not fit to teach or to raise or adopt children or get married....Some say we suffer from an identity disorder while at the same time attempting to convince her potential constituents hat she does not deal in witchcraft.

There is a gubernatorial candidate proclaiming that all gays are dysfunctional...not like him...a bestiality loving...serial adulterer...blatantly racist...and father of a secret out of wedlock child that he hid for ten years from his wife. All this while claiming to be a Christian.

I guess his coming out day is an open acknowledgement that he is unable to be faithful to his wife.

We have so called men of god, married to women, yet closeted and hiding....living the life of a gay man or a woman in some cases......while telling people from the pulpit that being gay is a choice and can be changed at the drop of a hat or a prayer to their god.

If changing is so simple and being who you are is so wrong....why haven't you changed yourself? And the last time I read your bible, one of the so called sins that commanded the death penalty was adultery...even in the Ten Commandments...

We have powerful church organizations spending millions to keep civil rights inequality on the books while secretly condoning the illegal and bigamous actions of their parishoners.

We suffer under a government that refuses to recognize that the LGBT community daily pays the ultimate price by dying in illegal wars to protect people who openly hate them and wish nothing but ill will. Didn't we learn this lesson with Black Americans?

We have whole communities of people (Black, Hispanic, Asian) refusing to accept that homosexuality is just another part of the human sexual spectrum...one part...nothing more....

Kind of like being left handed in a right handed world...different...but not wrong....more than likely genetic...

I know that some world class golfers (Phil Mickleson) and at least two world class tennis players (Rafa Nadal to name one) decided they could make more money by playing left handed. But the fact remains that they are still natural right handers...born right handed.... regardless of how they play their game.

The same holds true for gays and lesbians and transgenders. We may act straight...look straight (whatever that may be)...live straight..marry straight...however it does not change the fact that we are natually homosexual.

Homosexuality runs in families like other genetic traits...Brothers and sisters both gay and lesbian..from the same mother and father...happens..

National Coming Out Day, this year coincides with Columbus Day...that great American lie to the world that a white man who went to his grave believing he'd landed in Asia...”discovered” America. Columbus got lost...never made it to America which had been peopled with Native Americans for more than 11,000 years before the white man built his ocean going boats.

As Americans we need to “come out” and admit that we celebrate a fool. Better yet...let's cancel this holiday altogether or replace it with something real...like Americans Honoring Native Americans or National Coming Out Day or Mathew Shepard Day or James Byrd Day...or the day that President Obama canceled Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

However, as bad as things may seem according to the mainstream media, it is getting better and will continue to get better, because like racists, the homophobes are dying out and the teabaggers...while being a nuisance...really are temporary in the national scheme of things.

So my comemoration of National Coming Out Day is to end this ramble by coming out again and standing before you in all my 60 year old nakedness.....

I am a Black Female, Lesbian, Left handed, Liberal, freelance writer who votes...American as apple pie....and proud as hell..

We Really Don't Like You, Now Get Over it!

One of the first conversations I had about race happened when I was 13 and in the 8th grade at Walnut Hills High School. One of my classmates was agonizing about the frizz in her hair to a bunch of us girls. It was a mixed group in Mr. Volz' art class. Her hair was red. You know, orange red. Bright red. She was Jewish, which in my world, back in the day, meant she was white.

I had yet to discover that there is a big, big difference between Jews and white people.

She had the same problems with her hair that we black girls did except she didn't know about straightening combs. Nobody permed in those days either. So being the good friends that we were, and we were friends, we, meaning the Black contingent in the room, decided to teach her how to iron her hair. That's what white girls used to do to get the kink out of their locks. They got an ironing board or placed a towel on a counter and took the iron and literally pretended their hair was a blouse.

They ironed it.

Well, suffice to say the ironing went well. However, it was during the teaching phase that things went off target because as we were bonding around our hair, the topic turned to race.

Girlfriend thought and actually said that we, meaning Black folk, helped white people because we love them so much. We emulate them and want to be like them and that is the reason we get along so famously.

Now understand that was back in the day when white people thought all darkies really missed being slaves and spent our lives trying to recreate the Gone With the Wind saga as if it really used to be like that.

She was serious. She actually believed the utopian bullshit coming out of her mouth. She and all other white/Jewish kids/non-Negro kids had been raised to believe the white superiority-happy slave myth.

She really said it while one of us was holding a hot iron near her silly head. Typical white girl...walking stupidly into the dark while the nut from Psycho was waiting around the corner with a butcher knife dressed like his dead mother.

Now, us being Walnut Hills students, and considered the most civilized in the Cincinnati Public School District, after making silent tribal eye contact, decided to patiently educate our classmate, rather than whup her ass. After all Black history was not a part of the curriculum, especially coming from our point of view.

After patiently explaining and the rest of them patiently listening, Carrot top sitting there with her newly transformed kinks to silky straight looks, said and I quote,

“But you mean you people, don't like white people? You hate us?” she said with a horrified look on her face.

Since it was back in the day, the phrase “Bitch what was your first clue?” was not uttered. I politely said instead..

“We don't hate you. But we don't like you as a people.” At which point the bell rang signaling time to go to class.

For awhile following the revelation, we weren't friends. She was scared. We didn't give a damn having lived with the truth all of our lives. But things finally got back to normal, just with a bit more clarity. They, meaning the white girls, came back to us, as if the conversation never happened.

Nearly 50 years later, we're still friends.

Long story trying to figure out what the hell is going on in Arizona. Now Governor Jan has signed a bill that makes it illegal to teach any class that promotes “ethnic solidarity.” You can read it here. This comes after all the negative reaction to her big anti immigration bill from two weeks ago.

The right wing nuts have found out that the rest of the world doesn't like them or their actions. So now they have decided to retaliate instead of seek reconciliation. In other words, they're not ready to come back yet.

Happy Coexistence is not part of the plan, apparently. But then it never is when white folks realize that we don't really like them. But usually, they are the ones acting out and Arizona is a classic example. White flight is off the table, because we, meaning brown/black people are everywhere. They've got nowhere to run, anymore. Lynching is not illegal in America, but it is severely frowned upon, so now they pass laws to keep us in our place...in this case....out of Arizona altogether...they've made it illegal to cross the border...any of the borders if you're not legally in America. Co exist equally? Hell No!

You can't even drive through Arizona now with that bill on the books without your drivers license or papers in your pocket.

This new bill outlaws Hispanic history, Civil rights history, African American studies and how about German studies? How about Irish clog dancing classes?

Is it okay to learn to speak Japanese in Arizona, now? What are they going to do....go on the Res and drive out the Native Americans or ban Pow-wows? Can't think of any stronger ethnic solidarity than a Native American reservation. Re-enacting Wounded Knee might prove problematic this time around.

They could get out of this mess, by outlawing all gerrymandered Texas history books and mandating that all history be taught in the same class at the same time, as it really happened. But somehow I don't think that's going to occur.

Time is on our side, however. Arizona will come back, eventually. Just like my girlfriends from long ago. No apologies necessary.

We will wait for you to come to your senses.....

For Want of a Statesman

Is there not one principled man or woman within the Republican Party willing to step forward and take responsibility for the rabid and violent masses running roughshod over our country? Is there not one person in the GOP who found the uncivil actions of the mob this past weekend, reprehensible and worthy of condemnation?

Or is this what politics and public discourse have become, foul name calling, spit hurled amid threats of violence against those who harbor differing opinions?

Is America just one violent incident away from an attempt to tip over the melting pot that we sorta celebrate as the foundation of the American Dream? Is the dream dead? Or perhaps I should say, are the dreams dead, the American one and Martin's vision of America? Has it died, too?

No one of a certain age in this country is surprised at hearing the words nigger and faggot thrown at us, just because. The only thing missing this past weekend, were the angry police, attacking dogs and fire hoses. Maybe that's progress, ya think? This kind of behavior was at one time codified in law, and continues to be taught as gospel in huge segments of the population. This behavior, if you can get close enough to talk to some of them view it as their god given first amendment right to exercise against us or our ideas. They have a right to say anything and in any way they choose because they were born to this right.

But this is not first amendment. This behavior is not written into the Constitution. This is not protected speech under the law. What happened this past weekend was the exercise of white privilege and the inherent belief that Black and Native Americans are inferior and are therefore subject to the whims of the perceived majority.

The perceived majority, (and I use that term only to reflect that white people are disappearing as quickly as real Black people), has never apologized for anything. The perceived majority has never acknowledged the actions of the past. It refuses to recognize that what this country is today is built on a foundation created from the blood, sweat, tears and determination to survive of people of color. Oh yes, the majority apologized to the Japanese, even paid them to be quiet-reparations for unjust internment that lasted what, five or six years at the most?

Native Americans have never really been absorbed into the fabric while Black people, well we stand out on the fabric like sequins on a party dress, impossible to hide or blend in. Other ethnicities have come to America, and been met with the same vicious discrimination, but with a difference. These other ethnicities, the Irish, and the Italians and the Polish and Slavs, all have white skin, a natural camouflage that eventually allowed them access. So they stepped up and over us, and joined in the “coon-hunt” because we can't blend in, ever.

Anyone who has ever looked at pictures of the 4000 some lynchings that took place in this country and wondered how could so called good people take part, need look at what happened in DC this past weekend at the Tea Party rallies and understand. And for the record, lynching has never been outlawed in America. People simply stepped up to stop it. But who is stepping forward now?

What was different about the past, is that there were people who were willing to come forward, to take the reins and say “enough.” There were people who were willing to lead by both word and example out loud, reminding their mob that we are all children of somebody's god.

There were men who were willing to say “I'm sorry” and know innately that “I'm sorry” would not diminish their character or statesmanship, but would, on the contrary, enhance it. They were not perfect men, by any stretch of the imagination and usually took part in some of the foolishness themselves. However, they were decent men and principled men, tempered in the fires of morality and justice. They knew when they crossed the line and when to step back.

These men didn't stand in the well of the Peoples' House and rant, attempting to substitute lies and profanities for truths and statesmanship. True statesman don't catcall their fellows or verbally attack Presidents, nor condone the cretinous actions of the mob toward the so called opposition.

Real statesmen don't employ a blame the victim mentality, hiding behind hollow words and excuses. At least in sports, the players still shake hands after the game is contested and a winner has been declared. After the game the players and coaches go on television to talk about what went wrong, but not to blames or to castigate the other team. The coach takes responsibility. The players take responsibility for their actions.

Why are there no coaches in politics? Why are there no statesmen or women stepping forward to squelch the ugliness of their followers? Thuggery should not be tolerated in the halls of congress or on the streets of America, especially when directed at other Americans, because in this game, we are all American.

This country is not your country, it is not my country, it is our country. Like or not, we will live and we will die together.

Immigration: A Conversation between the Ruling Class and its Gardeners

If every Black American stood up and decided to take the day off from work or school in order to participate in a protest against the racial politics of this country, would anyone notice? Would corporate America or small business pat us on the back and say "go for it" your job will be here when you get back tomorrow? Would any Congressman, including Black ones, allow themselves to be arrested in support of eradicating the problems that plague Black America on a daily basis?

I think not.

The question of immigration reform is a conversation between the ruling class in America and one of it's favored subclasses. The ruling class in America comes from immigrant stock. Today's conversation is merely about helping one's own. Black people and Native Americans do not have a featured part in this scenario.

Black and Native Americans are the only people who did not immigrate to this country and have long been viewed differently by the ruling class. We have yet to outlive our perceived identity of being loud, vulgar, oversexed, shiftless and lazy. It seems we don't help our own preferring to abandon our people to the mercy of the federal government handout programs.

There is an old saying in the Black community, if you want to hurt a white man...hit him in his wallet...or make him a poor man. Immigrants, both legal and illegal work in the jobs that won't necessarily hurt "the man" financially, but will inconvenience him tremendously. Immigrants do yard work, clean house, take care of the kids, provide the 12 to 14 hour a day labor necessary to keep the ruling class supplied with fruit and vegetables or wash dishes in their upscale casinos and restaurants. Immigrants do all the jobs that are and always have been denied to Blacks since the end of slavery.

The perpetual myth that Blacks won't take that kind of work is ludicrous. When slavery ended, the ruling class, not wanting to rub elbows with it's former property, and forced to pay for labor it previously had for free encouraged Blacks to leave the south, sometimes by shotgun. By laboring for nearly nothing, immigrants provide a constant, nearly free labor pool that fuels corporate America. And as a reward, immigrants are viewed as hardworking, religious, family oriented and willing to sacrifice in order to help their own people.

Most importantly, immigrants tend to vote conservatively and en mass, a privilege fought for and now seemingly abandoned by Blacks.

Here in the 21st century Blacks can't really hurt "the man" in his pocketbook. He long ago abandoned his house and business in the city. He long ago pulled his kids out of the public school system taking his money with him. He's even given up his strangle hold on city governments opting instead to control county governments.

Showing up in his neighborhoods, even when you can afford the house makes him run even further. The first perception being that Blacks are up to no good and that if Blacks do own the house then it will soon be turned into a crack den.
Nearly 50% of Black men are unemployed, considered unemployable and therefore not counted, or are incarcerated.

The school dropout rates of young Blacks, both male and female approaches 60% in some school districts. Blacks are disappearing from college campuses due in part to the attacks to overturn affirmative action programs. Black on Black violence is simply another form of genocide perpetrated by us on us. Unplanned pregnancies feed more bodies into the ongoing cycle of family killing poverty that originated with the federal welfare system, so many years ago.

Black women are 14 times more likely to contract and die from AIDS than white women according to the latest study. Nobody votes. You can find Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton at the immigration protests jumping at photo ops.

The Black ministers are hiding out in their glass cathedrals preaching the doctrine of wealth building. Would anyone noticed if we took the day off to protest?

I think not.