ching-chong
"Probably tens of thousands of Asian people bought Details because this came out," said Erik Nakamura, editor of Giant Robot Magazine. The item itself, Mr. Nakamura said, scarcely seems worth the trouble. "The 'Gay-or-Something' joke is getting old anyway," he noted. Like Shaquille O'Neal spouting ching-chong gibberish at Yao Ming, "they're just guilty of making a crummy joke."
- Tom Scocca, "Off the Record," new york observer april 5, 2004
posted March 31, 2004 in printgaybush
Sure, he likes to play dress-up and hug shut-ins and he seems to have a daddy fixation, but we didn't believe he had actually fucked anyone in the ass—besides, you know, the poor.
- "Bush and Brit, Sittin' in a Tree," wonkette march 29, 2004
posted March 30, 2004 in politicsa muddled exhibit of contemporary art to the city that needs it least
The irony of the Whitney Biennial is that it brings a muddled exhibit of contemporary art to the city that needs it least ... New Yorkers may not need the Biennial to have the opportunity to see strong contemporary art, but people in other cities do. One reason that contemporary art is outside America's common cultural conversation is that the best new art is only broadly and regularly accessible to people in four areas: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and in the Washington-to-New York corridor. So after the newly reconfigured exhibit debuts in New York, take the show on the road to four or five American cities that don't see a lot of contemporary art. Send the show to Boise, Idaho; Phoenix; Jackson, Miss.; and Detroit. Or Salt Lake City; San Antonio; and Omaha, Neb. Give it an eight-week run in each city. Combined with the New York installation, the show would have a yearlong shelf-life.
And don't just send the art on the road. Send the show's curator into those communities to talk about the Biennial and contemporary art. Have the show's curator talk at schools, libraries and other non-museum settings. Allow the passionate to share their passion. All too often, curators build shows and then sit back in their ivory-towers-by-Gehry, conversing only with the already converted. This is not completely illogical: Curators are as careerist as anyone else, so they most often talk about art to people who can advance their careers. Let the traveling Biennial change that. Make a curator's desire and ability to spread the gospel of contemporary art a key part of the job description.
Send some artists out on the road, too. As evidenced by the otherwise inexplicable success of magazines like Us Weekly, Americans want to feel like they have personal relationships with celebrities. Send Emily Jacir to Boise to talk about how the plight of Palestinians provides inspiration for her work. Send Julie Mehretu to Detroit to share the personal history from which her energy-filled paintings come.
- TYLER GREEN, "Hit the Road, Whitney," wall street journal March 30, 2004
posted March 30, 2004 in artwitnesses unfavorable to the prosecution were deported (by accident, the government says)
This administration's reliance on smear tactics is unprecedented in modern U.S. politics—even compared with Nixon's. Even more disturbing is its readiness to abuse power—to use its control of the government to intimidate potential critics.
To be fair, Senator Bill Frist's suggestion that Mr. Clarke might be charged with perjury may have been his own idea. But his move reminded everyone of the White House's reaction to revelations by the former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill: an immediate investigation into whether he had revealed classified information. The alacrity with which this investigation was opened was, of course, in sharp contrast with the administration's evident lack of interest in finding out who leaked the identity of the C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame to Bob Novak.
And there are many other cases of apparent abuse of power by the administration and its Congressional allies. A few examples: according to The Hill, Republican lawmakers threatened to cut off funds for the General Accounting Office unless it dropped its lawsuit against Dick Cheney. The Washington Post says Representative Michael Oxley told lobbyists that "a Congressional probe might ease if it replaced its Democratic lobbyist with a Republican." Tom DeLay used the Homeland Security Department to track down Democrats trying to prevent redistricting in Texas. And Medicare is spending millions of dollars on misleading ads for the new drug benefit—ads that look like news reports and also serve as commercials for the Bush campaign.
On the terrorism front, here's one story that deserves special mention. One of the few successful post-9/11 terror prosecutions—a case in Detroit—seems to be unraveling. The government withheld information from the defense, and witnesses unfavorable to the prosecution were deported (by accident, the government says). After the former lead prosecutor complained about the Justice Department's handling of the case, he suddenly found himself facing an internal investigation—and someone leaked the fact that he was under investigation to the press.
Where will it end? In his new book, "Worse Than Watergate," John Dean, of Watergate fame, says, "I've been watching all the elements fall into place for two possible political catastrophes, one that will take the air out of the Bush-Cheney balloon and the other, far more disquieting, that will take the air out of democracy."
- PAUL KRUGMAN, "This Isn't America," new york times March 30, 2004
posted March 30, 2004 in politics, printnote to self
Hitomi Kanehara, Hebi ni Piasu / Snakes and Earrings
posted March 28, 2004 in deliveryany American tradition that still had a shred of vitality
On the second day of her visit the previous summer, after a cocktail party at a neighbor's five-million-dollar cabin, Laura had unloaded at length. Her diatribe was so acute and curious he'd copied it down in his journal that night, while she talked on the phone with her latest boyfriend. The core of it was that the transplanted rich in the new West were desperate to attach themselves to any American tradition that still had a shred of vitality—in this case, cattle ranching. They didn't want to actually run cattle; they just wanted the feeling of ranching. For unclear reasons, they often built vast log homes—one had recently sold for twelve million dollars—which would have been unthinkable to real pioneers and ranchers, because of the difficulty of heating them. The houses were full of all sorts of non-indigenous flummery—Adirondack furniture, bibelots from the Southwest, native art from anywhere, since natives were largely interchangeable to these people. The men teetered in expensive cowboy boots and talked more loudly than they did back East; the women wore flowing, old-fashioned dresses to social occasions. Shiny S.U.V.s abounded. These people readily assumed the hard-bitten, right-wing opinions of the local ranchers, who, unlike them, had to live with long-term disappointment, owing to ever-declining cattle prices—even rich Americans are tightwads when it comes to meat. To Laura, it was all as ridiculous as the old photographs of Ronald Reagan chopping wood in a cowboy outfit.
- JIM HARRISON, "FATHER DAUGHTER," new yorker march 29, 2004
posted March 27, 2004 in printmadeleines are for pussies
In the light of what Proust wrote with so mild a stimulus, it is the world's loss that he did not have a heartier appetite. On a dozen Gardiners Island oysters, a bowl of clam chowder, a peck of steamers, some bay scallops, three sautéed soft-shelled crabs, a few ears of fresh-picked corn, a thin swordfish steak of generous area, a pair of lobsters, and a Long Island duck, he might have written a masterpiece.
- a. j. liebling, quoted in "REPORTING IT ALL: A. J. Liebling at one hundred," by DAVID REMNICK, new yorker march 29, 2004
posted March 27, 2004 in printCondi is leaving her job
for real! i had no idea, either. but then i found this, so.
In the second sentence of its story on the 9/11 hearings, the NYT drops R-bomb: Condi Rice is leaving her job at the end of the year. Talk about being out of the loop!
- "Is There a Doctor in the House?" wonkette
A conservative conserves
Behind the scenes, some moderate Republicans are rooting for the other side. If Bush wins, one aide to a moderate Republican says privately, "that would be the worst possible situation."
That's because some Republicans say that a Bush loss may be their last chance to take their party back. "If Bush were defeated by Kerry, it would certainly call into question the Republican leadership, people like Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert," says [Victor] Fasciani. "That axis of the party may lose its weight and its power. The Powell and Giuliani wing of the party would certainly gain some prominence and may, during the next four years of a Kerry administration, perhaps even gain control of the party and increase the tent." Such hopes have even led some Republicans to found a grass-roots group called Republicans for Kerry.
Moderate Republicans are often fiscal conservatives but social liberals—in many ways, the exact opposite of this administration.
A former McCain intern in Brookfield, Conn. ... [Peter] McLaughlin's problems with Bush are ideological as well as practical. "A conservative conserves," he says. "Blowing out the deficit by having these ill-advised tax cuts while conducting a war is not conservative. I'm a Teddy Roosevelt conservative, which means conserving the environment. Certainly, if you look back in history that was a Republican issue, and the Bush administration is trampling all over it. I think that's terrible for the world and for our country."
- Michelle Goldberg and Paul J. Caffera, "Republicans for Kerry?" salon march 26, 2004
posted March 26, 2004 in politics, printthen you have to push
do work that is american - tired of hearing about the influences from dada/surrealism and europe - find a center. what can be developed
a generous art inclusive not exclusive narrative - tell it all - find those things from autobiography that are universal.
how do you feel - like working - and like having the work seen and understood. i think i've been holding back from that - not really wanting it to happen. more aggression is needed. push it out - like having a baby - the contractions begin on their own and the new life is coming out. but then you have to push - it's not a passive activity.
- ree morton, the mating habits of lines: sketchbooks and notebooks of ree morton
posted March 25, 2004 in arta private view
many in the art world, artists included, feel contemporary art can only be seen properly in a perfect white space. after years of showing art floating in pristine arctic isolation, it's a revelation to break out of the white cube time warp.
if art can't look good outside the antiseptic gallery spaces dictated by museum fashion of the last 25 years, then it condemns itself to a worryingly limited lifespan. what's more, that once cutting edge gallery style is beginning to look like a cliche trendy bar or loft conversion.
it's time for a bit of rethink—about how works are installed in relation to each other, about how one-person shows can be presented in a less formulaic pattern, and even about how paintings can be framed to help the public see them in a broader context.
most important, museums should respect their audience and give up the ropes and cordons they use to surround and effectively destroy so many works of art. and instead of spending millions on creating identical, austere modernist palaces in every world city, they could actually use the money to buy some art.
- charles saatchi, "a private view," time out london: the saatchi gallery september 2003
posted March 25, 2004 in artweepy rain-nymphs
Hyas, in Greek mythology, was a son of the Titan Atlas by Aethra (one of the Oceanides). He was a notable archer who was killed by his intended prey. Some stories have him dying after attempting to rob a lion of its cubs. Some have him killed by a serpent, but most commonly he is said to have been gored by a wild boar. His sisters, the Hyades, mourned his death with so much vehemence and dedication that they died of grief. Zeus, in recognition of their familial love, took pity upon them and changed them into stars—the constellation Hyades—and placed them in the head of Taurus, where their annual rising and setting are accompanied by plentiful rain.
Or so the story goes. The mythological use of Hyas is simply to provide a male figure to consort with the archaic rain-nymphs, the Hyades, a chaperone reponsible for their behavior, as all the archaic sisterhoods— even the Muses—needed to be controlled under the Olympian world-picture. And also to give these weepy rain-nymphs something to be weeping about, mourning for a male being an acceptably passive female role in the patriarchal culture of the Hellenes. Hyas has no separate existence, even the alternative accounts of his demise being somewhat conventional and interchangeable— except as progenitor of the Hyantes.
- "Hyas" entry, wikipedia
posted March 23, 2004 in printChalk is white
[olafur eliasson] has erected a fake sun, about 41 yards in diameter, like a billboard, on the skyline in Utrecht, the Netherlands. He designed a waterfall that flowed upward. He dyed various rivers in Europe and America green (eco-friendly dye, naturally). And in Bregenz, Austria, he transformed a museum into a greenhouse of mossy pools, footbridges, fog, dirt, wood, fungus and duckweed. Fascinated by the effects of disorienting optics and eccentric geometry, he also removed the windows of the ironwork skylight in the gallery of his New York dealer, Tanya Bonakdar, a few years ago and installed mirrors to create a dizzy walk-in outdoor-indoor kaleidoscope.
"We have a desire to assume that certain things, like our reactions to the weather, are natural, but they are in fact cultural, and the end result of this can be entrenched ideologies, which we take to be inevitable. This is the path toward totalitarianism."
He rethinks that remark after a moment. "I shouldn't have insisted that everything is cultural and not natural, because that is as dogmatic as the reverse. I should have said that the line separating nature and culture changes through history, and this is what we should be aware of."
Mr. Eliasson cites the ubiquity of white walls in art galleries: "Chalk is white and chalk was used as a disinfectant and so early modernists decided on white walls as symbols of purification, clean spaces. But if chalk had been yellow maybe all our galleries would be yellow today, and we would interpret yellow as a neutral color."
- MICHAEL KIMMELMAN, "The Sun Sets at the Tate Modern," new york times March 21, 2004
posted March 23, 2004 in art, politics, printthere's nothing inside of me but an angry heartbeat
The lyrics are like something out of J. G. Ballard: "I will be your accident if you will be my ambulance," [tv on the radio] sing[s]. "I will be your screech and crash if you will be my crutch and cast" ... In "The Wrong Way," as a distorted bass pumps and saxophones honk, [tunde] Adebimpe comments obliquely on race, first saying a "new Negro politician is stirring inside of me," and then rejecting the notion: "No, there's nothing inside of me but an angry heartbeat. Can you feel this heart beat?"
These are sullen thoughts surrounded by murky and complex music—fresh ideas for a musical world that has largely focused on the angularity, minimalism and clarity of the post-punk period. The scene has been dominated by musical exhibitionism: debauched elegance in the case of the Strokes, the panicked disco of the Rapture, Karen O's wild swagger.
A dark undercurrent has always run through the new New York rock, in groups like Interpol, Elk City, the Walkmen and Calla. Recently it seems to be coming to the surface.
- BEN SISARIO, "New New York Rockers Follow Their Gloom," new york times March 21, 2004
posted March 22, 2004 in music, printpiracy has helped his bottom line
"It's a myth," said Steve Wiley, co-owner of the store. "We see them wanting to buy music."
High prices, rather than file sharing, are what usually stop a kid from buying a CD, Wiley said.
"The file sharing, the Internet—just makes them music junkies," Wiley said.
Paul Epstein, owner of Twist & Shout, a store in Denver, agreed that piracy has helped his bottom line. He said it's like radio, another form of promotion that spurs sales.
"File sharing is a danger, but it really turns a lot of kids on to music," he said.
- katie dean, "Record Stores: We're Fine, Thanks," wired news march 20, 2004
posted March 22, 2004 in musicwords to look up today:
"mise en scene"
"at-large"
"aggro"
pocos minutos away
House Republicans haven't suggested an embargo on olives and paella yet, but it's probably just pocos minutos away. By the time these guys are through, it will be unpatriotic to consume any ethnic food but fish and chips and kielbasa, washed down with a fine Bulgarian wine.
- maureen dowd, "Pride and Prejudice," new york times march 18, 2004
posted March 18, 2004 in politics, printtogether at last
"I was called the greatest con man of my generation," Glass said, quietly. "Or the Western world? The biggest lying con artist in the Western world? Something like that. In the Pennsylvania Gazette. And old college friends wrote stuff in the Daily Pennsylvanian, where I was the editor way back."
"You were editor of your college newspaper? I was editor of my college newspaper ... They really called you the biggest con man in the Western world?" Blair said. "I want to be the biggest con man in the Western world!"
- Christopher Frizzelle, "THE LIARS' CLUB," the stranger march 18, 2004
posted March 18, 2004 in crap, printTearing Down My Boss' Mom?
[jayson] Blair also confides, in the middle of his narrative of the attacks: "... Anger as a byproduct of hurt and fear was not a foreign concept to me."
That authorial solipsism approaches the great recent landmark of the form: Elizabeth Wurtzel's infamous "It was just beautiful" remark on the collapse of the Twin Towers. And it is Ms. Wurtzel, a plagiarist herself, who seems to echo through the pages of Mr. Blair's book. The jabbering cadences, the ceaseless contemplation of one's own misery—this is the voice of the comfortable class, looking inward to find some reason to be uncomfortable. That a black man can sound like a spoiled upper-middle-class white woman is, perhaps, a sign of social progress. But beyond that, Mr. Blair's main achievement is a kind of reverse transcendence: He doesn't stand for anything but himself.
In the book, Mr. Blair does indulge in flights of empathy, explaining how he sees himself in others. Given Mr. Blair's credentials, this is not always flattering to the others. That's especially true in the passage where he sits down to confess his cocaine abuse to then-managing editor Gerald Boyd:
"I was less concerned about my drug problem becoming more public than I was about the background of the man who was sitting across from me," Mr. Blair writes. "Gerald grew up in St. Louis, raised by his grandmother after his mother died following a long struggle with drugs."
When Mr. Boyd wishes him luck, Mr. Blair reflects that the editor was "presumably relying more on personal experience than he was willing to give up."
Or less. Mr. Boyd's mother suffered from anemia, not drug addiction, according to remarks that the editor reportedly made about his life story in a 2000 speech.
- Tom Scocca, "off the record," new york observer march 22, 2004
posted March 17, 2004 in crap, printI'm feeling lucky
-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 11:25 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: (no subject)
>Try this very soon, before someone forces Google to fix its site:
>1) Go to www.Google.com
>2) Type in -- weapons of mass destruction-- (DON'T hit return)
>3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, NOT the "Google search"
>4) Read the "error message" carefully - the WHOLE page.
>
>Someone at Google really has a sense of humor.
crossword-puzzly puzzle
It's not that we don't all love chess, and crossword puzzles, and funny little news quizzes with puns, and discussions of cobbler we had in Alabama in the old days. It's not that there isn't a place for that. But perhaps NPR should just look and see if we can't change the ratio of pieces on antique baseball cards to cobbler ... [fuddy-duddy voice] crossword-puzzly puzzle ... lame humor. How many funny little news quizzes do we need over the week? It's just a little bit of a bowtie nation ... I think we have to take a stand against pompous gasbags.
- sandra tsing loh, "A stand against pompous gasbags," interview by John Gorenfeld salon March 16, 2004
posted March 16, 2004 in printeight overarching trends:
* A growing number of news outlets are chasing relatively static or even shrinking audiences for news. One result of this is that most sectors of the news media are losing audience. That audience decline, in turn, is putting pressures on revenues and profits, which leads to a cascade of other implications. The only sectors seeing general audience growth today are online, ethnic and alternative media.
* Much of the new investment in journalism today - much of the information revolution generally - is in disseminating the news, not in collecting it. Most sectors of the media are cutting back in the newsroom, both in terms of staff and in the time they have to gather and report the news. While there are exceptions, in general journalists face real pressures trying to maintain quality.
* In many parts of the news media, we are increasingly getting the raw elements of news as the end product. This is particularly true in the newer, 24-hour media. In cable and online, there is a tendency toward a jumbled, chaotic, partial quality in some reports, without much synthesis or even the ordering of the information. There is also a great deal of effort, particularly on cable news, that is put into delivering essentially the same news repetitively without any meaningful updating.
* Journalistic standards now vary even inside a single news organization. Companies are trying to reassemble and deliver to advertisers a mass audience for news not in one place, but across different programs, products and platforms. To do so, some are varying their news agenda, their rules on separating advertising from news and even their ethical standards. What will air on an MSNBC talk show on cable might not meet the standards of NBC News on broadcast, and the way that advertising intermingles with news stories on many newspaper Web sites would never be allowed in print. Even the way a television network treats news on a prime time magazine versus a morning show or evening newscast can vary widely. This makes projecting a consistent sense of identity and brand more difficult. It also may reinforce the public perception evident in various polls that the news media lack professionalism and are motivated by financial and self-aggrandizing motives rather than the public interest.
* Without investing in building new audiences, the long-term outlook for many traditional news outlets seems problematic. Many traditional media are maintaining their profitability by focusing on costs, including cutting back in their newsrooms. Our study shows general increases in journalist workload, declines in numbers of reporters, shrinking space in newscasts to make more room for ads and promotions, and in various ways that are measurable, thinning the product. This raises questions about the long term. How long can news organizations keep increasing what they charge advertisers to reach a smaller audience? If they maintain profits by cutting costs, social science research on media suggests they will accelerate their audience loss.
* Convergence seems more inevitable and potentially less threatening to journalists than it may have seemed a few years ago. At least for now, online journalism appears to be leading more to convergence with older media rather than replacement of it. When audience trends are examined closely, one cannot escape the sense that the nation is heading toward a situation, especially at the national level, in which institutions that were once in different media, such as CBS and The Washington Post, will be direct competitors on a single primary field of battle - online. The idea that the medium is the message increasingly will be pass?. This is an exciting possibility that offers the potential of new audiences, new ways of storytelling, more immediacy and more citizen involvement.
* The biggest question may not be technological but economic. While journalistically online appears to represent opportunity for old media rather than simply cannibalization, the bigger issue may be financial. If online proves to be a less useful medium for subscription fees or advertising, will it provide as strong an economic foundation for newsgathering as television and newspapers have? If not, the move to the Web may lead to a general decline in the scope and quality of American journalism, not because the medium isn't suited for news, but because it isn't suited to the kind of profits that underwrite newsgathering.
* Those who would manipulate the press and public appear to be gaining leverage over the journalists who cover them. Several factors point in this direction. One is simple supply and demand. As more outlets compete for their information, it becomes a seller's market for information. Another is workload. The content analysis of the 24-hour-news outlets suggests that their stories contain fewer sources. The increased leverage enjoyed by news sources has already encouraged a new kind of checkbook journalism, as seen in the television networks efforts to try to get interviews with Michael Jackson and Jessica Lynch, the soldier whose treatment while in captivity in Iraq was exaggerated in many accounts.
- "American journalism: period of transition or period of dislocation?" Project for Excellence in Journalism (excerpted from editors' weblog) March 15, 2004
posted March 15, 2004 in printenjoy jenna jameson
i don't often ask people to buy me things.
posted March 13, 2004 in crap, delivery, sexIs Gay Marriage Anti-Black???
Is Gay Marriage Anti-Black???
By Kenyon Farrow
I was in Atlanta on business when I saw the Sunday, Feb. 29th edition of the Atlanta Journal Constitution that featured as its cover story the issue of gay marriage. Georgia is one of the states prepared to add some additional language to its state constitution that bans same sex marriages (though the state already defines marriage between a man and a woman, so the legislation is completely symbolic as it is political). What struck me about the front page story was the fact that all of the average Atlanta citizens whom were pictured that opposed gay marriages were black people. This is not to single out the Atlanta Journal Constitution, as I have noticed in all of the recent coverage and hubbub over gay marriage that the media has been real crucial in playing up the racial politics of the debate. For example, the people who are in San Francisco getting married are almost exclusively white whereas many of the people who are shown opposing it are black. And it is more black people than typically shown in the evening news (not in handcuffs). This leaves me with several questions: Is gay marriage a black/white issue? Are the Gay Community and the Black Community natural allies or sworn enemies? And where does that leave me, a black gay man, who does not want to get married?
Same-Sex Marriage and Race Politics Homophobia in Black Popular Culture Race and the Gay Community Black Community and Gay Community—Natural Allies or Sworn Enemies? Is Gay Marriage Anti-Black? What does gay marriage mean for all Black people?
Same-Sex Marriage and Race Politics
My sister really believes that this push for gay marriage is actually not being controlled by gays & lesbians. She believes it is actually being tested in various states by the Far Right in disguise, in an effort to cause major fractures in the Democratic Party to distract from all the possible roadblocks to re-election for George W. in November such as an unpopular war and occupation, the continued loss of jobs, and growing revelations of the Bush administration's ties to corporate scandals.
Whatever the case, it is important to remember that gay marriage rights are fraught with racial politics, and that there is no question that the public opposition to same-sex marriages is in large part being financially backed by various right-wing Christian groups like the Christian Coalition and Family Research Council. Both groups have histories and overlapping staff ties to white supremacist groups and solidly oppose affirmative action but play up some sort of Christian allegiance to the black Community when the gay marriage issue is involved. For example, in 1990's the Traditional Values Coalition produced a short documentary called "Gay Rights, Special Rights, which was targeted at black churches to paint non-heterosexual people as only white and upper class, and as sexual pariahs, while painting black people as pure, chaste, and morally superior. The video juxtaposed images of white gay men for the leather/S&M community with the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, leaving conservative black viewers with the fear that the Civil Rights Movement was being taken over by morally debased human beings. And since black people continue to be represented as hyper sexual beings and sexual predators in both pop culture and the mass media (pimps & players, hoochies & hos, rapists of white women & tempters of white men), conservative black people often cling to the other image white America hoists onto black people as well—asexual and morally superior (as seen in the role of the black talk show host and the role of the black sage/savior-of-white people used in so many Hollywood movies, like In America and The Green Mile, which are all traceable to Mammy and Uncle Remus-type caricatures).
Since the Christian Right has money and access to corporate media, they set the racial/sexual paradigm that much of America gets in this debate, which is that homos are rich and white and do not need any such special protections and that black people are black—a homogeneous group who, in this case, are Christian, asexual (or hetero-normative), morally superior, and have the right type of "family values." This, even though black families are consistently painted as dysfunctional and are treated as such in the mass media and in public policy, which has devastating effects on black self-esteem, and urban and rural black communities' ability to be self-supporting, self-sustaining, and self determining. The lack of control over economic resources, high un/underemployment, lack of adequate funding for targeted effective HIV prevention and treatment, and the large numbers of black people in prison (nearly one million of the 2.2 million U.S. prison population) are all ways that black families (which include non-heterosexuals) are undermined by public policies often fueled by right wing "tough on crime" and "war on drugs" rhetoric.
Given all of these social problems that largely plague the black community (and thinking about my sister's theory), one has to wonder why this issue would rise to the surface in an election year, just when the Democratic ticket is unifying. And it is an issue, according to the polls anyway, that could potentially strip the Democratic Party of it solid support from African-American communities. And even though several old-guard civil rights leaders (including Coretta Scott King, John Lewis, Revs. Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson) have long supported equal protection under the law for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community (which usually, but not always means support of same-sex marriage), the right wing continues to pit gay marriage (and by extension, gay civil rights) against black political interests, by relying on conservative black people to publicly speak out against it (and a lot has been written about how several black ministers received monies from right-wing organizations to speak out against same-sex marriages in their pulpits). But many black leaders, including some I've been able to catch on television recently despite the right-wing's spin on the matter, have made the argument that they know too well the dangers that lie in "separate but equal" rhetoric. So, if many of our black leaders vocally support same-sex marriage, how has the Christian Right been able to create such a wedge between the black community and the gay community?
Homophobia in Black Popular Culture
Some of the ways that the Christian Right-wing has been so successful in using same-sex marriage as a wedge issue is by both exploiting homophobia in the black community and also racism in the gay community. In regards to homophobia in the black community the focus of conversation has been about the Black Churches' stance on homosexuality. It has been said many times that while many black churches remain somewhat hostile places for non-heterosexual parishioners, it is also where you will in fact find many black gays and lesbians. Many of them are in positions of power and leadership within the church—ushers, choir members/directors, musicians, and even preachers themselves. But let me debunk the myth that the Black Church is the black community. The black community is in no way monolithic, nor are black Christians. The vast majority of black people who identify as "Christian" do not attend any church whatsoever. Many black Americans have been Muslim for over a century and there are larger numbers of black people who are proudly identifying as Yoruba, Santero/a, and atheists as well. The black community in America is also growing more ethnically diverse, with a larger, more visible presence of Africans, West Indians, and Afro-Latinos amongst our ranks. We have always been politically diverse, with conservatives, liberals, radicals and revolutionaries alike (and politics do not necessarily align with what religion you may identify as your own). It is also true that we are and have always been sexually diverse and multi-gendered. Many of our well-known Black History Month favorites were in fact Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian, or Transgender.
Despite our internal diversity, we are at a time (for the last 30 years) when black people are portrayed in the mass media—mostly through hip-hop culture—as being hyper-sexual and hyper-heterosexual to be specific. Nowhere is the performance of black masculinity more prevalent than in hip-hop culture, which is where the most palpable form of homophobia in American culture currently resides. This of course is due largely to the white record industry's notions of who we are, which they also sell to non-black people. Remember pop culture has for the last 150 years been presenting blackness to the world—initially as white performers in blackface, to black performers in black face, and currently to white, black and other racial groups performing blackness as something that connotes sexual potency and a propensity for violent behavior, which are also performed as heterosexuality.
And with the music video, performance is important (if not more) than song content. As black hip-hop artists perform gangsta and Black Nationalist revolutionary forms of masculinity alike, so follows overt homophobia and hostility to queer people, gay men in particular. Recently, DMX's video and song "Where the Hood At?" contained some of the most blatant and hateful homophobic lyrics and images I have seen in about a decade. The song suggests that the "faggot" can and will never be part of the "hood" for he is not a man. The song and video are particularly targeted at black men who are not out of the closet, and considered on the "down low." Although challenged by DMX, the image of the "down low" brother is another form of performance of black masculinity, regardless of actual sexual preference.
But it's not just "commercial" rap artists being homophobic. "Conscious" hip soûhop artists such as Common, Dead Prez and Mos Def have also promoted homophobia through their lyrics, mostly around notions of "strong black families," and since gay black men (in theory) do not have children, we are somehow anti-family and antithetical to what a "strong black man" should be. Lesbians (who are not interested in performing sex acts for the pleasure of men voyeurs) are also seen as anti-family, and not a part of the black community. A woman "not wanting dick" in a nation where black dick is the only tangible power symbol for black men is seen as just plain crazy, which is also expressed in many hip-hop tunes. None of these artists interrogate their representations of masculinity in their music, but merely perform them for street credibility. And for white market consumption.
It cannot be taken lightly that white men are in control of the record industry as a whole (even with a few black entrepreneurs), and control what images get played. Young white suburban males are the largest consumer of hip-hop music. So performance of black masculinity (or black sexuality as a whole) is created by white men for white men. And since white men have always portrayed black men as sexually dangerous and black women as always sexually available (and sexual violence against black women is rarely taken seriously), simplistic representations of black sexuality as hyper-heterosexual are important to maintaining white supremacy and patriarchy, and control of black bodies. Black people are merely the unfortunate middlemen in an exchange between white men. We consume the representations like the rest of America. And the more that black people are willing to accept these representations as fact rather than racist fiction, the more heightened homophobia in our communities tends to be.
While homophobia in the black community is certainly an issue we need to address, blacks of all sexualities experience the reality that many white gays and lesbians think that because they're gay, they "understand" oppression, and therefore could not be racist like their heterosexual counterparts. Bullshit. America is first built on the privilege of whiteness, and as long as you have white skin, you have a level of agency and access above and beyond people of color, period. White women and white non-heteros included. There is a white gay man named Charles Knipp who roams this nation performing drag in blackface to sold-out houses, north and south alike. Just this past Valentine's day weekend, he performed at the Slide Bar in NY's east village to a packed house of white queer folks eager to see him perform "Shirley Q Liquor," a welfare mother with 19 kids. And haven't all of the popular culture gay images on TV shows like Will & Grace, Queer as Folk, etc., been exclusively white? No matter how many black divas wail over club beats in white gay clubs all over America (Mammy goes disco!) with gay men appropriating language and other black cultural norms (specifically from black women), white gay men continue to function as cultural imperialists the same way straight white boys appropriate hip-hop (and let's not ignore that white women have been in on the act, largely a result of Madonna bringing white women into the game.).
There have always been racial tensions in the gay community as long as there have been racial tensions in America, but in the 1990's, the white gay community went mainstream, further pushing non-hetero people of color from the movement.
The reason for this schism is that in order to be mainstream in America, one has to be seen as white. And since white is normative, one has to interrogate what other labels or institutions are seen as normative in our society: family, marriage, and military service, to name a few. It is then no surprise that a movement that goes for "normality" would then end up in a battle over a dubious institution like marriage (and hetero-normative family structures by extension). And debates over "family values," no matter how broad or narrow you look at them, always have whiteness at the center, and are almost always anti-black. As articulated by Robin D.G. Kelley in his book Yo Mama's Dysfunktional, the infamous Moynihan report is the most egregious of examples of how the black family structure has been portrayed as dysfunctional, an image that still has influence on the way in which black families are discussed in the media and controlled by law enforcement and public policy. Since black families are in fact presented and treated as dysfunctional, this explains the large numbers of black children in the hands of the state through foster care, and increasingly, prisons (so-called "youth detention centers"). In many cases, trans-racial adoptions are the result. Many white same-sex unions take advantage of the state's treatment of black families; after all, white queer couples are known for adopting black children since they are so "readily" available and also not considered as attractive or healthy compared to white, Asian and Latino/a kids. If black families were not labeled as dysfunctional or de-stabilized by prison expansion and welfare "reform," our children would not be removed from their homes at the numbers they are, and there would be no need for adoption or foster care in the first place. So the fact that the white gay community continues to use white images of same-sex families is no accident, since the black family, heterosexual, same sex or otherwise, is always portrayed as dysfunctional.
I also think the white gay community's supposed "understanding" of racism is what has caused them to appropriate language and ideology of the Black Civil Rights Movement, which has led to the bitter divide between the two communities. This is where I as a black gay man, am forced to intervene in a debate that I find problematic on all sides.
Black Community and Gay Community—Natural Allies or Sworn Enemies?
As the gay community moved more to the right in the 1990's, they also began to talk about Gay Rights as Civil Rights. Even today in this gay marriage debate, I have heard countless well-groomed, well-fed white gays and lesbians on TV referring to themselves as "second-class citizens." Jason West, the white mayor of New Paltz, NY, who started marrying gay couples was quoted as saying, "The same people who don't want to see gays and lesbians get married are the same people who would have made Rosa Parks go to the back of the bus." It's these comparisons that piss black people off. While the anger of black heteros is sometimes expressed in ways that are in fact homophobic, the truth of the matter is that black folks are tired of seeing other people hijack their shit for their own gains, and getting nothing in return. Black non-heteros share this anger of having our blackness and black political rhetoric and struggle stolen for other people's gains. The hijacking of Rosa Parks for their campaigns clearly ignores the fact that white gays and lesbians who lived in Montgomery, AL and elsewhere probably gladly made many a black person go to the back of the bus. James Baldwin wrote in his long essay "No Name in the Street" about how he was felt up by a white sheriff in a small southern town when on a visit during the civil rights era.
These comparisons of "Gay Civil Rights" as equal to "Black Civil Rights" really began in the early 1990's, and largely responsible for this was Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and a few other mostly-white gay organizations. This push from HRC, without any visible black leadership or tangible support from black allies (straight and queer), to equate these movements did several things: 1) Piss off the black community for the white gay movement's cultural appropriation, and making the straight black community question non-hetero black people's allegiances, resulting in our further isolation. 2) Giving the (white) Christian Right ammunition to build relationships with black ministers to denounce gay rights from their pulpits based on the HRC's cultural appropriation. 3) Create a scenario in their effort to go mainstream that equates gay and lesbian with upper-class and white. This meant that the only visibility of non-hetero poor people and people of color wound up on Jerry Springer, where non-heteros who are poor and of color are encouraged (and paid) to act out, and are therefore only represented as dishonest, violent, and pathological.
So, given this difficult history and problematic working relationship of the black community and the gay community, how can the gay community now, at its most crucial hour, expect large scale support of same-sex marriage by the black community when there has been no real work done to build strategic allies with us? A new coalition has formed of black people, non-hetero and hetero, to promote same-sex marriage equality to the black community, and I assume to effectively bridge that disconnect, and to in effect, say that gay marriage ain't just a white thing. Or is it?
I, as a black gay man, do not support this push for same-sex marriage. Although I don't claim to represent all black gay people, I do believe that the manner in which this campaign has been handled has put black people in the middle of essentially two white groups of people, who are trying to manipulate us one way or the other. The Christian right, which is in fact anti-black, has tried to create a false alliance between themselves and blacks through religion to push forward their homophobic, fascist agenda.
The white gay civil rights groups are also anti-black, however they want black people to see this struggle for same-sex unions as tantamount to separate but equal Jim Crow laws. Yet any close examination reveals that histories of terror imposed upon generations of all black people in this country do not in any way compare to what appears to be the very last barrier between white gays and lesbians' access to what bell hooks describes as "christian capitalist patriarchy." That system is inherently anti-black, and no amount of civil rights will ever get black people any real liberation from it. For, in what is now a good 40 years of "civil rights," nothing has intrinsically changed or altered in the American power structure, and a few black faces in inherently racist institutions is hardly progress.
Given the current white hetero-normative constructions of family and how the institutions of marriage and nuclear families have been used against black people, I do think that to support same-sex marriage is in fact, anti-black (I also believe the institution of marriage to be historically anti-woman, and don't support it for those reasons as well). At this point I don't know if I am totally opposed to the institution of marriage altogether, but I do know that the campaign would have to happen on very different terms for me to support same-sex marriages. At this point, the white gay community is as much to blame as the Christian right for the way they have constructed the campaign, including who is represented, and their appropriation of black civil rights language.
Along with how the campaign is currently devised, I struggle with same-sex marriage because, given the level of homophobia in our society (specifically in the black community), and racism as well, I think that even if same-sex marriage becomes legal, white people will access that privilege far more than black people. This is especially the case with poor black people, who regardless of sexual preference or gender, are struggling with the most critical of needs (housing, food, gainful employment), which are not at all met by same-sex marriage. Some black people (men in particular) might not try to access same-sex marriage because they do not even identify as "gay" partly because of homophobia in the black community, but also because of the fact that racist white queer people continue to dominate the public discourse of what "gay" is, which does not include black people of the hip-hop generation by and large.
I do fully understand that non-heteros of all races and classes may cheer this effort for they want their love to be recognized, and may want to reap some of the practical benefits that a marriage entitlement would bring: health care (if one of you gets health care from your job in the first place) for your spouse, hospital visits without drama or scrutiny, and control over a deceased partner's estate. But, gay marriage, in and of itself, is not a move towards real, and systemic liberation. It does not address my most critical need as a black gay man to be able to walk down the streets of my community with my lover, spouse or trick, and not be subjected to ridicule, assault or even murder. Gay marriage does not adequately address homophobia or transphobia, for same-sex marriage still implies binary opposite thinking, and transgender folks are not at all addressed in this debate.
What does gay marriage mean for all Black people?
But what does that mean for black people? For black non-heteros, specifically? Am I supposed to get behind this effort, and convince heterosexual black people to do the same, especially when I know the racist manner in which this campaign has been carried out for over ten years? And especially when I know that the vast majority of issues that my community—The Black Community, of all orientations and genders—are not taken nearly this seriously when it comes to crucial life and death issues that we face daily like inadequate housing and health care, HIV/AIDS, police brutality, and the wholesale lockdown of an entire generation in America's grotesquely large prison system. How do those of us who are non-heterosexual and black use this as an opportunity to deal with homophobia, transphobia and misogyny in our communities, and heal those larger wounds of isolation, marginalization and fear that plague us regardless of marital status? It is the undoing of systems of domination and control that will lead to liberation for all of ourselves, and all of us as a whole.
In the end, I am down for black people who oppose gay marriage—other folks "in the life" as well as straight, feminists, Christians, Muslims, and the like. But I want more than just quotes from Leviticus or other religious and moral posturing. I want to engage in a meaningful critical conversation of what this means for all of us, which means that I must not be afraid to be me in our community, and you must not be afraid of me. I will struggle alongside you, but I must know that you will also have my back.
posted March 09, 2004 in delivery, politics, print, sexcalatrava
The zipper on the fly of lower Manhattan.
- greg allen, "cantilever house," greg.org: about making movies, about art march 4, 2004
posted March 04, 2004 in art, printinvasion of the buzz-snatchers/buzzsnatchers
I can never get enough of new terms to describe annoying media people, simply because there are so many annoying media people, and they're annoying in so many disparate ways. Fortunately, an unannoying colleague, Rachel Lehmann-Haupt, just coughed up a new one: buzz-snatcher. (I leave it to copy editors to debate on their blogs whether the term should be fast-tracked for compounding into a single word; we can only hope.) Rachel came up with the term to describe writers who shamelessly glom on to somebody else's buzz, such as the odious Henry Blodget—the Wall Street "analyst" (ha ha ha har ... hum) who hyped all those ludicrous Internet stocks that left your E*trade portfolio in ruins. Blodget, of course, has lately been covering the Martha Stewart trial for e-magazine Slate.com to generate some buzz for himself in his new role as "journalist." Magical, isn't it?
- Simon Dumenco, "INVASION OF THE BUZZ-SNATCHERS," Folio, march 1, 2004
posted March 03, 2004 in crap, printsubtle and violent
it is a transgenic artwork involving the fusion of human genetic material into the cactus genome. the result is a cactus that expresses human hair.
transgenic crops are part of our landscapes, transgenic animals populate farms. it was imperative for me to work in the medium of genetics. all of a sudden myths, reality and borderlines were here. i'm working with a collaborator, howard boland. we are planning a transplantation project, which includes planting a transgenic in the wild, not as a political work, but to highlight issues and processes by being subtle and violent.
- laura cinti, "art, but not as we know it," new scientist february 28, 2004
posted March 01, 2004 in arta sinuous, laughing young woman unaware of her sexual power
i will say that eva green does have important hooters. they're big in proportion to her slender, girlish body, but absolutely real, and just saggy enough remind porn-numbed american audiences that even young girls are naturally subject to gravity. in short, they're marvelous, and will probably soon be all that remains in my memory of the dreamers.
- liz penn, "the dreamers: worst tango in paris," the high sign february 11, 2004
posted March 01, 2004 in film, print, sex