Thursday, July 25, 2013

Sometimes I Wish I Was Bisexual....


   For a while I've been struggling with the feelings of whether or not I was bisexual. This isn't to say I wish I was straight because that life seems boring to me and there's something about my current life that I can't shake. I like being gay, I think. I do believe though at the core of my being I am someone who likes comfort and ease and social acceptance. I don't want to enjoy being with a woman. I enjoy gay sex and they freedom of sexuality I can get being openly gay that you just don't get living as a heterosexual. But I also wish life wasn't so damn hard. In a way I am envious of bisexuals. Yes I know openness and honesty is the hallmark to a relationship and all that bullshit. But to be quite honest with you I almost wish I was bisexual sometimes. I think the reason I am intolerant to male bisexuals is because I wish I could have it as good as they do, or as good as I perceive they have it.

A part of me wishes I could have sex with guys and have fun with that but then go right back to being socially accepted. The reason why I don't like bisexual men (I could care less about the women) is because I feel like there's nothing keeping them from 'going straight'. Now I know your sexual orientation doesn't change and all that blah blah blah. But of course they are living a heterosexual lifestyle and I envy that. I don't envy being attracted to women but I envy having social acceptance, having a partner your family, your friends and extended community are more than likely going to accept. I envy knowing that if you have children you don't usually have to go a variety of legal hurdles and have your family and your relationship discounted as not existing. I can see why many men go into the closet and stay there.

 If I were honestly bisexual I would be there myself because, and I apologize in advance, there is nothing in the gay community keeping me back if I could have all the ease of a heterosexual relationship. The Isaiah I am now can't imagine being wholeheartedly attracted to women. The Isaiah I am now can't imagine being attracted to both. But I can say that despite how much I love being with men if I could choose I'd choose the woman every time. Not because I loved her but because I just wanted social acceptance and less legal hassles as far as my personal life went.

You know a part of me envies asexual people as well. Sure there's a whole other slew of issues that comes with that but at least you're not feeling any sexual feelings at all. The problem with being bisexual or even being gay is that you're always going to have sexual desires you are going to want to act on. Being asexual you get to fall in love with the person. If I was a bisexual asexual I might choose the woman but I might choose the man. It would almost be more like fair game. To me I don't understand why a bisexual man would want to be in a relationship with another man. What can he give you? Can he give you social acceptance? No. Can he give you legal acceptance? No. Being with him is actually making you deficit when you could just be with a woman and forgo all of the shit involved with being gay.

They say in a few decades or even the generation being raised today bisexuality and homosexuality will be more open with more people being free to act on it. Maybe I was born too soon. Maybe I was born in the wrong body. Maybe I'm really a straight woman in a gay man's body. I don't know. I wonder if when this generation grows up will the growing population of bisexuals just use they homosexuals for pleasure but then go back to the heterosexuals for ease of lifestyle. It's unfair for me to cast my own desires onto other people. I can't change who I am now and that's as a homosexual male. I am in a relationship with another man and I feel trapped but that's got more to do with me always wanting to see what else is out there. Maybe if I were in a more fulfilling relationship I wouldn't be having these feelings. I don't think I'm bisexual. I wish I were so I could be accepted by the legal and social systems but I'm not. And I guess I just have to live with that.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Femininity Unchained


 

   Let me just straight up I have no issues with feminine gays being a feminine gay myself. Well actually I do have a problem with feminine gays. My problem is that whether it's forced or natural (and I deplore anything forced) is that they never come off strong enough. This is more so my issue with the media and their depictions than ones in real life. First let me give you my definition of strength. Strength and being a strong person is not a physical thing, it can be, but moreso it refers to someone's character and moral integrity and how well they as a person can embrace who they are and handle the world around them.

So getting back to my issue with femmy gays in the media is that they really come off as strong characters. They're 'fierce' which I guess means being bitchy and shallow and vapid and then calling it being 'strong'. No dears you've got it twisted. And despite the above gif I have no issue with gay men who refer to themselves as women or act like women because I believe gender roles are fluid and ever changing for some people. I used to be more masculine (if you can call it that) for a while until I realized I was gay and felt more free to embrace the other more true and natural side of my personality. For a while I thought embracing this meant being some sort of fashonista bitch. Hell I still am a fashionista bitch to a point but I've also realized that another side of my personality is a perfectionist who is empathetic and sees the beauty in everyone's flaws and dents and cracks and wants to make them the best flaws possible. I know that sounds weird and I'll explain it in another post.

But my point is that as I grew up I discovered yes I relate more to a female gender role despite being male but what women do I admire? And am I trying to emulate something I am not? In a way my behavior was forced because I was rebelling against the masculinity that was forced upon me by my father. But after a while I realized there had to be something deeper to me. Am I just one of those people who happens to be gay? Yes and no. First off that phrase bothers me because it implies that being gay is a 'thing'. Like you have to try and separate yourself from the herd because you don't want people thinking 'oh you're one of them'. The phrase 'happens to be gay' to me implies that your sexuality is just a blip or a mistake and in a way you're apologizing for it. Never apologize for you are. If you're a transgender drag king bisexual nudist go go dancer be proud.

But at the same time although my sexuality is very ingrained in who I am I won't lie and say that it's all there is to me. I feel a bit of shame typing that last statement because I feel like I am back peddling a bit and trying to downplay my sexuality. I'm not but think of it like this. My sexuality is like a foundation and then upon that is the studs and support beams like my ethnicity, my religion, my political beliefs, etc. All of those are massively affected by my homosexuality however they exist outside of who I sleep with. There are plenty of political and religious beliefs I hold that have little to nothing to do with the fact I can suck a dick so good it'll make the guy behind him cum. At the same time none of these tenets of my being exist within vacuum. Though not build upon one another they are parallel to one another and are brothers and sisters in the family that is the philosophy of me.

  So getting back to what I was saying earlier about feminine gay men not being strong enough. Look ladies we don't have to be toned athletic gym bunnies who are constantly looking for where we can get our next tattoo and piercing or twinkish fashionistas who are always criticizing people's outfits in public, even people we don't know. I mean we can be that don't think I'm saying don't be that. But I am saying be that and more. Now this applies to everybody: there is never a wrong time to look into yourself and become introspective. I've done it and I've found out a lot about myself. Not all of it related to my sexuality but some of it did. Be a femmy queen but be one of strong moral character who can be someone others can look at and say 'damn that dude is tough'. Don't be afraid to be the person who people don't like sometimes because you always tell the truth. Shy away not from being the moral compass to the world around you. Trudge fearlessly into the abyss that is our current society and do not hold back when it comes to being someone who will not be trounced upon.

Be you, be strong.

And yes that does sound like a slogan for a women's deodorant.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Trayvon Martin: In Defense


  I have really been trying to be silent on this issue concerning the court proceedings of Trayvon Martin's murderer George Zimmerman. What really has been pissing me off about a variety of things is not that Zimmerman's (I refuse to call him Mr.) defense saying Trayvon was armed with the sidewalk or opening up with a knock knock joke. They're assholes, I don't expect much from them. But what's pissing me off is how white people are acting like they both understand racism from a personal perspective and also how many are saying it has nothing to do with this.

Let me start off by saying no white person will truly understand what it is like to be a non white person in America, especially a black man. Whenever I see liberals white people trying to explain racism or 'combat racism' (you can combat it but the white way is usually by just rewriting or rebranding it as something else) it's like watching a monkey ride a bike. Sure he's smart and sure he looks cute doing it but you know he has no idea what he's doing. That being said I am guffawing with rage at whites from all walks trying to downplay this as a racial issue and as a gun law issue. Call me an emotionalist but as a black person especially in the south I know this is a racial issue.

To keep this article brief let me break it down for you: We know Zimmerman pursued the boy and was instructed not to. He referred to the boy as a suspect plenty of times in police reports as if he was an officer. This tells us that he already has pegged Trayvon as guilty. He did not know this child from a can of paint but because of his race, forget his hoodie, but his race he pegged the boy as a criminal and acted as if he knew him because of how he looked. This is supported by numerous phone calls to police not only about the boy but several other black people over the span of months. We know Zimmerman confronted the boy at some point. Exactly who threw the first punch is unclear. We know at some point there was a struggle. We know Zimmerman got the advantage by topping Trayvon as several Wittnesses recounted. We know the injuries given to Zimmerman by the victim were not life threatening. We know that this was not a simple matter of peace talks gone wrong. This was a matter of a white or a white identifying person believing they had the right to enact their own form of citizens martial law over black people simply because they believe they have authority over us.

Trayvon's past is irrelevant. If he started the attack then yeah. If he actually committed a crime then yeah go ahead. But what child hasn't had issues in schools and done weed, especially in Florida? If he were white he'd be a hipster. But because he's black he's a thug and he deserved to be shot before being questioned. Hell even the shooter couldn't understand why the child would be afraid. Our blackness is seen as our weapon. Our skin tone is our battle axe. Our melanin is our H-bomb. So our lives are up for play to people like him. His friend Rachel's demeanor and personality and past has nothing to do with her testimony. She isn't on trial. Trayvon isn't on trial. We cannot even be the victims. Our murders are even questioned to be murders. Our deaths are seen as thugs and welfare queens and hoodrats and parasites getting what was coming to them.

This is the great injustice and this is why Trayvon in fact needs defending because his legacy as a victim to a failure of a law and a legal system is being questioned. Zimmerman deserves a trial but if he were a big black man with the same violent criminal history and killed a white child who in this nation would be disputing he is guilty? No one would be questioning that a grown man could handle a child without a weapon but because the victim was black he is seen as possessing enough power to fight back unarmed against a gunsman. Our blackness is seen as giving us extreme strength and physical prowess but this is how they rob of us our humanity and our vulnerability to harm.













Tuesday, May 21, 2013

If There's a Prize for Rotten Judgement.....




   The past week has been trying to put it nicely and fucking shitty to put it not so nicely. I called got in touch with Ben's ex boyfriend Kenny last Friday and I asked him for some of Ben's stuff that he had at his apartment. It turns out that he had gave everything to Ben's baby momma and I've already gone into how I keep my interactions with her severely limited. So Kenny and I get to seriously talking and he tells me some things about my boyfriend I did not know and if I had not called him would of never known. Here's what I learned in order of how much it bothered me at the time:

1) HE STILL LIKES WOMEN!
2) He has schizophrenia 
3) He's abusive but in his defense that's when he's drunk. When he's sober he's alright on meds or off
4) He's on some serious medication
5) He's slept with men for money inculding to bond himself out of jail before
6) He may be partially racist because he's made some not so nice gestures to people of color in the past
7) He and his ex bf were engaged AFTER FOUR FUCKING MONTHS!
8) He may be having another baby but that might just be one of his baby Momma's friends fucking with us again. One of them has done this before but it begs the question of whether or not he's still into women. Apparently he's at least bisexual.
   So after having this eye opening talk with Ken I was swiftly falling out of love and that's a very good thing because otherwise what happened next would of seriously devastated me. So Monday I ride down to the jail and I speak to him and a few minutes in his says he doesn't wanna lead me on anymore and that he doesn't think this is gonna work and that we should just be friends. I was very cool with that because at this point I was just kinda done but we said we'd pick up where we left off when he got out whenever that was. I asked him about everything Kenny told me and Ben said he was lying and that he was probably just trying to get me mad. 
I was inclined to believe Ben because some things didn't add up but it didn't matter as much since at that point we would just be friends with emotional benefits. He had to leave early and so I started going home. Then Ken called me and asked me how it went I told him that it was relatively fine and that Ben and I were going to just be friends. Kenny saw the obvious flaw in this plan and sent me a picture of a letter Ben wrote to one of his friends, Kenny's neighbor. He then read it for me. What comes next is the nightmare of every black person who dates interracially:
" And yeah Sarah so some dumb nigger has been going around town saying that he is with me. Haha everyone knows that's not who I am or what I'm about" --Asshole I Called Myself in Love With
I wanted go vomit. Needless to say I think he should go fuck himself with the rustiest of spoons. So tomorrow I'm going down to the jail to tell him I'm done with his ass forever but not before I give him a chance to make a plea for his nuts. I can't believe I misjudged the fuck outta this one. I'm done with men for a very, very, very, very, long time. 
I may become a lesbian.

Being Black Part Four: Macho Man


  I'm gonna keep this one as short as possible and get straight to the point. Just because I am gay does not make me any less of a man. I know I've gone over this before but I want to take it into a different direction. Black people are so narrow in their vision in what being masculine is there is no way to be anything different. Yet we wonder why so many people feel alienated and then turn their backs on their 'blackness'. I ain't turning my back on blackness I'm turning my back on you niggas. I am black, I am a man and I happen to REALLY like dick. 

Get over it.

That is all.



Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Being Black Part Three: I Swear Before God and Four More White People

 

   This is probably going to be the shortest blog post I've written. With marriage equality seeming to spread across this country like a wildfire it's been making me think a lot about my relationship. My boyfriend on paper is everything I ever wanted. He's a southern country boy, he's blonde, he's cut, he's sweet, he's generally more level headed and down to Earth and he loves me for me. It's only been two months going on three but I'm feeling like he could be the one. I won't lie and say I'm not falling in love with him. There is a catch though: he's in jail. We met in jail. It's a long story but I was in there a while ago for some nonsense and he I met each other there. But regardless of that he's proven to me time and time again he's a genuine loving man who wants nothing but to be there for me. 

He gets out of jail sometime around July hopefully and all I can think about is our future. I have other  things going on of course. School and trying to move out of my mother's house. Some things are out of my control right now but having him in my life is a somewhat stabilizing factor. There's stress of course with him being in jail but its a different kind of stress. It's the kind of stress that stems from knowing your life partner and soul mate is forcibly being kept away from you. With him in jail but still knowing I have his love it makes me feel more confident overall as a person. It strengthens me and helps me push forward. I always knew that when I fell in love not just with anyone but 'the one' he'd be the man who no matter the situation I'd feel this sense of strength and calm because I knew he was with me. He is with me in spirit although not right now in body. 

  I've been thinking a lot about where he and I go from here when he gets out. Even if I'm still at home by that point I'm having him live with me. My family is more or less not freaking out about the idea. He has two kids who I can't wait to meet. I always wanted kids and although this isn't the way I wanted them to come into my life I'm not surprised. I've become aware of the signs in my life in recent times. A friend of mine in a blended family told me that she could see me doing very well in a situation like hers. She has two children from her former marriage and her current one. I personally saw myself marrying my rugged blue collar husband and becoming new parents together. But maybe this is what I need.



I've been thinking about marriage a lot. I guess that happens when you start falling for someone. He's a beautiful soul and I love him. I sound like a broken record but its just that I've been waiting so long to be in love. I've been waiting so long to find someone worthy of me to love. That's an odd concept for me: worthiness. I used to think I wasn't worthy enough for someone to love me. But losing almost a hundred pounds and coming to the end of my education has helped. I'm trying to take everything one day at a time but my future with him is exciting. I can say now that if I was going to marry anyone of the men I've ever been with he's the one. He's not just someone I can see myself living with. He's someone I can't see myself living without.












Sunday, May 12, 2013

Being Gay Part Three: From the Sunnyside up of the Lollipop.




    'Things always getter worse before they get better'. I've heard this phrase so many times its not even funny. It's not funny because its completely and entirely true. Although there is a certain bit of painful irony in this phrase no matter how unintentional. We of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex identities think of equality, full equality as the light on the other side of the harrowed woods. As an openly gay black man (yes we exist even though there's only like fifteen of us) I can say with confidence that the light on the other side is only guaranteed by the people who have worked for it.  The modern African American community is drastically different from how our forefathers and foremothers envisioned it. For better or worse this is because of what we as a community have done and what choices we have made and what trends we have allowed to turn into staples. 

I've been reading a lot of articles opposing gay marriage that are attempting to approach in a secular rational way despite still being structurally flawed. I won't link them or mention the website because if you will probably read them on your own anyway or already have. Sensible bullshit is so much fun to deconstruct because it actually requires me to use some brain power. Sure it's just a toned down secular version of the constant sputtering of 'the gays are devoid of morals and evil! EVIL!' but it is still fun to me. It's like when you get a gift from your grandparents that they thought was the hip and latest thing but you know it's just a knock off of the real thing. So in this post I am going to breakdown the arguments against gay marriage, gay adoption and if I can get fit it in transgender issues as well. Brace yourself ladies, gents and non gender normative folks. It's gonna be a rough one!

1) LGBT Marriage Creates a Genderless Society- Surprisingly enough I've heard this argument more from women than i have men. It baffles me because I think to myself 'has rigid gender roles and identities really helped you ladies all that much?' It's much like a black man during the 1960's arguing that desegregation would result in a raceless society. But getting to my point, yes marriage equality removes gender codified language from marital law. It defines marriage as one consenting adult and another consenting adult. A usual trope of anti-gay marriage promoters is that this will lead to polyamory marriages because we are removing the limits to which marriage can be defined. There is this assumption that when you allow gays be legally married anything goes. This is rooted in the other idea we are the other, the moral less, hedonistic other. We aren't. But there is no factual evidence besides false equivalencies. This argument boils down to mostly 'if we allow X then we can't stop Y!' This is assuming X is something so completely different from the norm. If you can't see the difference between two gays getting married and a woman trying to marry his cat or six year old niece you have more pressing issues than what I do with another consenting adult.

2) LGBT Parenting Destroys the Family- Your first thought is probably how we 'How?'. Well to sum up one talking point gays being able to adopt means straight couples will get passed over in attempts to create politically correct statements. Secondly gay men using surrogates is like human farming and makes children a commodity robbing them of. a link to half of themselves. The same can be said to lesbians using sperm donors. Oh I'm not done yet this talking point then goes on to to say that if a spouse divorces or becomes a widow but then comes out as gay and gets a partner this s forcing the child to accept a face in lieu of their other parent and we are subsidizing divorce. Basically we are such selfish greedy people for wanting children because we aren't thinking about what the child wants and only what we want.

Did you survive the storm of bullshit? Good because I've got a recovery package for you: all of this canbe boiled down to 'straight people already do this'. Sure it's a simplistic often quoted response but that makes if no less true. Divorce and the loss of a spouse are tragic things that already happen to straight couples. Many of these couples remarry. Isn't that also spurning the other divorced parent or replacing the memory of the dead one? If you're going by the logic above yes and no. Yes because in action it's the same exact thing no because gays are gross.

Now onto this matter of surrogates and sperm donors. First it bares reminding that these methods were not created solely for homosexuals nor are we the only ones who do it. I know this is common knowledge to any sane and rational person but if you went by the rhetoric of the opposition you'd think otherwise. Surrogacy and sperm donation are concepts that have literally been around for centuries. If the story of Abraham is to believed as true then to my Christian opponents you need to stuff it. Sperm donation has been around for as long as we have been a nation. It's not a new concept and people have been doing it far longer than homosexuals have. Was it as talked about? No because it was generally no one else's business how a child was conceived.

Single women have been using these methods for many decades as well and nary is a faint word heard. The reason there seems to be an issue with gays and lesbians doing it is because its more apparent. If you see two gay guys with three kids you know by the nature of their biology they didn't have them on their own. Is that a bad thing? No. In my opinion and also in the opinion of the law if a man or woman enters into a consenting contract with another couple to conceive a child the terms of that contract are completely valid and enforceable. You know what you are getting into if you donate sperm, an egg or become a surrogate. Many times these people who offer their services do so not wanting to be involved in the child's rearing. This is a way of making money for them. Is this making children into a commodity and the object of child rearing into a business? No more so than the education system makes money off our children and depends on their constant churning out. But we don't think of that in a cold cynical way. It is a means to an ends.

There seems to be this myth that genderless marriage will lead to biological parents having no access at all to their children. This conjures up images of children being taken away from their straight parents and tossed into homes with Bob and Brenden. This is misleading and these people from the opposition are knowingly misleading. If two heterosexuals get married and stay married the kids produced from that union are theirs legally and they can legally do what they want with them. The same is and should be true for homosexual married people because the third person required to bring forth life usually understands the terms of the contract they are entering. Also many surrogates and donors still stay in their child's life by request of the same gender parents. I have a friend who has repeatedly offered up her womb if I ever met a guy I wanted to have a family with. Although they wouldn't call her mommy she would be in their life because the more family a child has the better. It's understood me and my husband are the parents but extra support isn't discouraged. For some same gender couples they prefer to avoid this and ask for the surrogate or donor not to have contact. That is up to them. I can't judge that.

3) Marriage is About the Production of Children- No it is not. Historically marriage was a way of men making sure they knew that they would produce heirs with their exact lineage and continue the family name. Whether or not said couple produced any children was up to them. But just in case they did the man wanted to make sure they were his for inheritance purposes. Humans being the emotional creatures we are attached emotions to this and marriage was seen as a symbol of love and fidelity. Monogamy as a marital concept didn't occur until way later around the tail end of the Middle Ages and even then in many cultures multiple wives was seen as a thing people did. It didn't become illegal in America until the mid 1800's. Our government then began to give benefits to married couples of opposite genders of the same race. Black people were forbidden to marry white people because weren't even seen as fully human. That has relevance. I will explain that later. All throughout this long stretch children were and continue to be produced outside of marriage.

Our organs do not turn on as soon as we say 'I Do'. The opposition often uses 'how natural' marriage between men and women is by referring to how in nature even the primary family structure is composed of a man and a woman coming together to make children. Sure that's neat and all but being up how many animals also practice homosexuality and live in same gender pairings and then nature gets dismissed as an argument. Marriage is in my opinion what you make it. I want to get married because I love my partner and want to spend my life with him AND if we are doling out benefits to couples I don't see why we should be left out of the loop just because of our genders.

Now the argument then becomes shouldn't the state be concerned about who gets married and making sure it produces citizens? They point to gay marriage as a reason as to some cockamamie excuse why society will break down. Because apparently everyone who gets married has to have children. When we point out many straights do not have children but are married we are told this is irrelevant. No I think it's very relevant. Because if marriage is about children then shouldn't all married couples be cranking out kids by the barrelfuls? According to the opposition's logic yes but of course they won't admit that. We get told this is a non sequitur. It's like they keep coming up with reasons as to why we shouldn't have it and when we debunk it they don't want us to talk about that anymore.

In the black community 70% percent of children are born out of wedlock or raised in non wedlock situations. The amount of these kids being raised by two unmarried parents is not known. I made this point to say that biological life will continue whether or not men and women get married. We don't have to worry about where future citizens will come from. Straight people have been doing what they wanted long before we all came out en masse. Then they try and pin us for their fuck ups. I remember one politician stating how in the Netherlands more children were born out of wedlock as gays were allowed to get married so that's why gays shouldn't allowed to get married. So because some Dutch people couldn't use birth control I can't get married? The actions of one group should never be conflated with the actions of another group unless there is a serious overlap.

During the 60's interracial marriage was the marriage equality fight for that time. It was almost even worse because as I mentioned we weren't even seen as humans by many people. So interracial marriage to many was considered beastiality. When it was finally legalized people protested, there was violence, there were many murders and hate crimes but eventually most people moved on. By the 80's it wasn't as big of an issue anymore. With gay marriage equality the hardest part will be legalization. As for how people react to us things are moving swifter in our favor. We have a long fight ahead us for other things besides marriage rights but we are fighting the good fight. And we are winning in many cases. But we shouldn't be delusional to think its gonna be rainbows and sunshine from here on out. Our perfect world is dependent on whether we work towards maintaining it after our primary goals are won. We can't change everyone and how they think. But we shouldn't let how they think cloud how we move forward.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Being Atheist Part Two: Life Beyond These Walls, Life Away From You



 

   I often get criticized by people for how much I bag on religion. I get comments like 'how can you ask for tolerance and you're so intolerant of religious people?' Of course this is in reference to my homosexuality. Because I guess I'm supposed to be devoid of flaws or opinions of my own. I usually ignore those kind of comments but today I want to address them. First off someone's religious beliefs are more of a choice than someone's sexuality. This includes my own religious beliefs or lack thereof.  Secondly, very few people can say that someone else's sexuality and how they expressed said sexuality left them mentally and emotionally scarred. I can say that about religion. As I mentioned before my father was a preacher, a man of God. Well a man of a Bronze Age created fairy tale translated by misogynists in the Middle Ages. You wanna know why I have hostility for religion? You wanna know why I don't just dislike devout Christians but am disgusted by them? I will tell you and at the same time explain the title of this blog.

   From as early as I can remember to up until the day he died my father wasted no opportunity to beat my ashy black ass. He had MS so as that progressed he began to rely on me more. The mental abuse got kicked up a notch. But let's focus on the visible--well the physical scars I have for now. My father had anger issues. He had issues with feminine attributes in men. He had issues with cognitive dissonance. He has problems with himself. His own father physically abused my father and his seven siblings. It was called discipline. It was called being a good father. I call it bullshit. My father would regale me and my brother of tales of his father viciously beating himself and siblings until they snitched on another with a misty look in his eye. He'd entertain us by telling about how his sisters would have puddles of blood to clean up afterwards like he was remembering a fond memory. My father romanticized his my grandfather's abusive tendencies. When I was younger I listened with youthful reverence of my 'holy heritage'. I had no idea I was being nostalgia about violence. 

One of my earliest 'whoopings' was when I was six years old. I was in the first grade and we taken class portraits. I had ADHD my parents refused to medicate me for so I had a tough time focusing during the solo shots. I managed to press through that but the group photo was going to be a trial. I got bored five seconds in and turned to talk to another girl about something I don't remember now. Everyone else was reacting to me fucking up the picture. Personally I love that picture. It reminds me of the last supper where the center of action is in the middle and all of these various characters are reacting so vividly to what the main character was doing. Despite this I knew my father would never see it this way. In the days coming until we got the prints I put it in the back of my mind. I tried hard to forget they even existed. 

When the prints finally came out I knew I was doomed. A child should never have to cry on the way home because they know they are going to get their body bloodied and bruised. When he finally saw the prints he was furious. He told me that I was never going to make that mistake again. He dragged me into his room, got on top of me and with his belt he etched into my back scars that would stay with me forever. To this day I never smile in pictures.He was always relentless when he whooped me. I could never please him. If I cried too much he told me to shut up or he would give me something to cry about. If I tried to soldier it out he said I was acting like it didn't hurt and he gave me more.

   I used to be terrified whenever I spoke to him. I was a smart and funny kid but I couldn't be that way around him. I was afraid he'd hit me because he would mistake something I would say. I guess that was the point, for me to fear him as we feared The Lord. But we were supposed to love God, I was supposed to love my daddy. How does fear have any place in love? Apparently you made room. At school I was a different person than I was at home. At home I really tried not to speak. I always kept at least a foot between and me and if he got too irritated I made sure I was near the door. He would yell all the time for even the simplest shit. When yelling wasn't enough he got violent. But this wasn't because he was mad or hated me. Oh no it was because he loved me. So this explains why I love assholes who abuse my ass to this day. 

He wouldn't always use a belt. He utilized a multitude of household items such as brushes, broomsticks, shoes and anything he could grab. I wish I could get more into detail but I've blocked out most of this shit and I'm barely making it through this blog post as is. Sometimes when he felt like going green he'd make me go out and get my own switch from a bush or willow tree. If I got a weak switch he'd beat me with that and then send me out to get a stronger one and beat me again. I'd have welts on my legs with blood and puss pouring out in a volume that matched the tears that flowed from my swollen eyes. This was how he showed he loved me. 

I remember one time I was sitting down letting him cut my hair and I was afraid of the buzzing of the clippers near my ears. It reminded me of the bees and bugs I as terrified of as a child. My father used to torment me by putting them in my face or jars and force me touch them. He said he was helping me but he was just being an asshole. I'm still traumatized by that. Anyway I was sitting there in the chair terrified and he got sick of my fidgeting and was going to 'whoop' me. I had already hade enough of this. I took a stand. I took off my own belt and I said I was going to beat him now. He laughed, grabbed the belt and murdered my ass with both. 

Another time when I was ten the teacher called in my parents to complain about my behavior in class. Mostly my lack of participation and focus was because they wouldn't medical my ass. I want to say I remember the teacher saying 'drug this child!' or something similar. My father had his own medicine. When we got home he told me to get a switch. I got the switch, stripped naked and hid under my bed.  A normal parent would of just let the kid hid. I was crying and scared. I had done nothing wrong. He pulled the bed apart and then dragged me over to him. On another situation similar when I got a bad report card I came home automatically and gave him a choice of which belt he wanted to beat me with. He chose both.

   Along with this physical abuse was the constant batterings to my self esteem disguised as religious teachings. I was taught I was nothing without God. I was formed and shaped iniquity. I was born a sinner and was wicked. Nothing good that flowed from me was really from me. It was from God because goodness did not naturally exist in me. However I was also taught God didn't make mistakes. I was wonderfully and beautifully made. My body was God's temple but also the devil's playground. I always thought the devil was misunderstood. I could relate to everyone thinking I was evil for no damn reason. I wanted to marry him. That's another blog post. 

Three Moons Past Jupiter: Being Gay Part Two: Lovers Forever Face to Face

Three Moons Past Jupiter: Being Gay Part Two: Lovers Forever Face to Face:      So today around 4 pm Minnesota state house legislators passed a bill that would grant marriage to same sex couples. I watched most t...

Being Gay Part Two: Lovers Forever Face to Face

 
   So today around 4 pm Minnesota state house legislators passed a bill that would grant marriage to same sex couples. I watched most the live stream from the state house. The above picture is of the roll call for who was going to vote for the bill. This entire post is going to be dedicated to what I saw this evening and why America needs more of it. The session started a noon and went on until about 4 roughly. I had tuned in when Karen Clark, author and main sponsor of the bill, was detailing just how       the bill would provide protections and exemptions for religious groups that disagreed with the passage of the bill. One of the anti-gay camp's main battle cries is that once same sex marriage becomes law churches will be forced to marry same sex couples against their wishes or risk getting the papal collar sued off them. Congresswoman Clark extensively broke it down to explain why in technical terms a load of bullshit. 

Then one congressman made a proposed amendment to the bill that would make all marriage gays or straight into civil unions and then reserve marriage for churches only. Yeah that didn't fly over so well. That got voted down with such a fierceness you could feel the legislative bitch slap to the congressman who proposed it through the computer screen. Hell even my cheek was a little sore. Then arguments pertaining to the non fucked up bill started and them games begun. 

  Local politics are always fun to watch because the elected officials give a little insight into the kind of people who actually live there. The people who came before us today were an assortment of subtly quirky Minnesota folk who all could fit every stereotype about people from the Midwest. From the perky beauty queen who you could tell was struggling to sound educated to the genteel rural farm owner who had of bite left in him. You saw the stay at home moms who recently got into politics, the   agitated suburban bible thumper who was making an effort not scream 'them gosh darn faggots are in the building' to the cute and sexy frat boy who's dad probably bought him the election. It was like watching an episode of Parks and Recreation minus the actual vitriol and apparent lack of sanity. 

There were the typical standard tropes of political debate speeches: out of context quotations from some ancient political figure bent to unrecognition. There was the restrained attempts to appeal to people's desire for traditionalism. Everyone seemed to be ducking and dodging religious arguments on the Republican side to not seem like the same old fashioned brand of stupid. Whereas on the Democratic side every single person was going for the holy jugular because Karen Clark don't fuck around. It was like they all met the night before and decided to snatch the GOP's wig regardless of whether or not they chose to wear one. We all know what the Republicans meant when they decreed 'what about the children?' or 'the welfare of the family'. They were going for religious arguments without exactly saying them. Hell Tim Kelly tried to spin giving everyone civil unions into 'an act of removing discrimination from our statues!' His words, not mine. 

  I watched intently as one by one each and everybody who had an opinion offered one. There was something I picked up on that most of the legislators there picked up on as well. There was such a level of respect in the room for everyone on both sides of the issue. While at the same time you could feel the heat in the room. It was a quiet debate hall where one could faintly here the sounds of those in the gallery bellow from on high. This mix of polite political piloting reminded me almost of a calm Sunday brunch where all those involved were sitting on the patio of someone's backyard enjoying pickled herring and lemonade while discussing what to do about this matter of 'the gays'. There was this silent tension that I feel was almost more nerve wrecking than the boisterous verbal knivings one may hear on the congressional floors in Washington. There is something that the national congressmen and congresswomen could learn from these simple Minnesota folk.

I've watched many a congressional hearing in my day and let me say it was nothing like what I saw today. How so? Let's just say Nancy Pelosi comes with an AK. Those collectives sons and daughters of bitches don't bullshit around. The debates often turn personal, petty and headache inducing. It's like watching a middle school debate team trying to discuss how to handle a sequester. It's pathetic. There is not as much of an exchange of ideas on policy as there is bickering about party related stances. In the hearing I heard today the phrase 'vote with your conscience, vote for you constituents' was said so often I was expecting them to hand out t-shirts with it written on the front. But you know what? The House and Senate in Washington should start going by this more. Let's take the recent bitchfest over gun rights. If half of the people who voted down the proposed gun bill followed the same methodology as those simple Minnesota statesmen and stateswomen I bet you everything it would of passed. Partisan politics is tearing Washington and our country apart. 

  You may be wondering what any of this has to do with being gay? Well to me it has everything to do with being gay. Unfortunately for now the sexualities me the lesbian couple who lives across from me, the punkish kid who cruises round town on his motorbike with his boyfriend on the back, the teacher at the school down the road who just got engaged, the trash collector who prays his partner doesn't get into an accident, the corrections officer who married the love of his life out of state, the two teenage girls who kiss on the back of the transit bus while they hope no one is looking, the law student who studies hard everyday and night so he can a job where he can provide for his future husband and children, the Marine who just got back from deployment and is greeted by his partner Brian and two children, the interracial lesbian couple who are just bringing their daughter home for the first time, the mailman who picked up extra hours to pay for his son's wedding in New York and the cheerleader who everyone calls Erin but is legally Aaron, all of our sexualities are a political issue. Politicians and religious group leaders discuss openly as if we are some sort of foreign element. They banter over our rights like we all hail from the island of Fag. They condemn us without caution and demonize with us delight. They raise millions upon millions of dollars so state by state they can tell all of us who don't fit into the norm we ain't worth shit now go back to doing my hair for my wedding, something you will never have. Go back to designing the nursery for the child I am having, a joy I voted against you having. Trot back into your closet and close your lips and be the second class citizen you chose to be. Or you can join us normals but don't even think for one second we are going to validate you.  

But you see this is the beauty of this session in St.Paul because for the first time in a long time people who did not agree with us politically did not attack us personally. Did/do I still think they are full of shit? With every fiber in my body yes I do. But I respect that they respected us. This was refreshing. This was beautiful. This made me cry. Shoot there were even a few Republicans who DID admit that we had loving relationships and families and derserved legal protections. Of course they were touting civil unions as the solution to our problems I still respected that. They gave us back a piece of our humanity that for too long had been stolen from us as we were kicked to the ground. We have come so far from where we were in the late 60's and the 70's when we were just asking if we could have a job, have an apartment, have a beer and not get raided, have a kiss and not get arrested. Here we are now on 2013 having a polite discourse over the topic of whether we should be allowed to marry. There are some of us who hate that is an issue at all and wish our rights could just be given to us. We all know that is not the reality we live in. But today we were awakened to our reality. Our reality is a long fought war. Our reality is a bloody knife fight of legal setbacks and referendums and political lobbying and litigation. Our reality is a scrambling for out asses amid the incoming bombs of legalized ignorance. This is our reality. This is our world. This is our war. And today we won.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Being Black Part Two: Just Because You Pour Syrup On It.....





    I don't have a plethora of black friends and this was not a conscious decision. It's just happened to work out that way. I'm not complaining about it but sometimes I think it would be nice to have more black friends. Then again I have a very low tolerance for bullshit and black people tend to bring that in by the bucketfuls. I have about three or four black people I talk to and chill with regularly. They aren't your typical black men and women who have constructed themselves into an image that mirrors what our black media tells them they should be. My friends are more varied and they themselves are also disgusted by how some blackened individuals carry themselves. Again because the idea of what blackness can be is so narrow that leaves a lot of people who don't fit into the lines to draw some of their own.

A huge reason why I don't fit into these lines is because of my homosexuality and my Atheism. I've tried not to let the other topics bleed over into one another on this blog. But for the purpose of this post I will make a rare exception. Me being gay does not gel with most black men and me being an Atheist doesn't gel with damn near any black people. However I've found that when you ask a lot of young black men my age they tend to be on the outs with religion. They are unpronounced Agnostics. Their idea of God is very broad and of course they call themselves Christians it's mostly because that's what they were taught to call themselves. Whether or not they actually follow any that shit is another topic I will get into later. But getting back on point, whenever I met a new black man I am scared. I am wondering how long will it be before he finds out I'm gay and either stops talking to me or tries to attack me. I know in theory it's wrong to think that way but think of where I'm living at. Progressive thinking is not on que here. Most folks here still think 'Birth of a Nation' was a romantic comedy.



For this reason I don't really associate with most other black men. They are way too caught up in maintaining their image of masculinity to ever let someone different expand their worldview. I have met a few who were cool. The recent statement of rappers openly slamming homophobia in Hip Hop is showing me black men are slowly turning the tide on this issue. Black women for the most part either don't give a shit or blame us for taking their men. Luckily most of my black female friends are not that stupid. They'd rather more men come out of the closet because that's less drama they have to deal with. But most of them date interacially anyway. This is another hang up the black community has that I do not.



I date almost exclusively white men. Will I let a black guy fuck me? Fuck yeah. Will I date his ass? Probably not. I'm just not attracted to them enough nor do I have time to sift through the 98% percent of the closeted motherfuckers to find that one open 2% percent. I like masculine men and yes although there are some gay black masculine men most of them are closeted, down low or 'bisexual'. I'm not saying bisexuals don't exist but I'm saying that these sons of bitches ain't bi. Of course I get some black guys mad at me cause they do wanna fuck and cuff me. It ain't happening homeboy. It's a mental thing I can't get over and probably won't. But hey that doesn't mean I'm going to down black men and say how much they ain't shit. I can think it if I want to but I'm not stressing them. I'm focused on my white knight too much to focus on whatever black guys are doing. I wish black men who date white women exclusively would give black women the same courtesy.

That said I don't like the in fighting in the black community at all. It makes no sense. We're all niggas. If push came to shove and they said they are reenslaving our asses we'd all be going down the drain in varying shades of brown. All this dark skin vs. light skin bullshit that's been going on for the past fucking eternity is getting old. There are times when I think 'oh we've turned the corner on this' and then I listen to a Lil Wayne song or look at a centerfold in a black men's magazine and I remember we haven't. The homophobia in our community makes no damn sense. Our men are so caught up in maintaining an image of masculinity that A) doesn't exist anymore and B) didn't do us any good when it did. That said I'd love it if more black men came out of the closet. It might not happen for a while but you never know. I'd love to see more lesbian and gay couples of color tying the knot and starting families because we appear to be the only ones who want to in our community.














Being Atheist Part One: Who Do You Think You Are?




 




  For the purposes of my college induced poverty I live in a small highly religious town in Florida. It's not a Deliverance style bible thumping beer guzzling redneck Utopia. No gang of sweaty horny hillbillies have ever ravaged me and forced me to squeal like a pig despite my many requests for them to do so. But it's not the secular hipster commune that is Portland, Oregon either. I live in a county that despite being bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware put together it feels about as small as Mayberry. Well it's more like Mayberry if Gomer discovered how to make meth and coke and knocked up a whole lotta bitches. So because I live in the cradle of idiocy my religious identity and the journey associated was just as tremulous as coming to the realization I was a gay. Yes I said a gay, deal with it.

Where I live as far as the black people are concerned everyone is either Baptist, Church of God in Christ, Apostolic Oneness or some other form of muddled Pentecostalism. I grew up in a somewhat strict Apostolic Oneness church with a father who's own personal doctrine was so rigid that his path to heaven was narrower than Hank Hill's urethra. My father was one of those people who firmly believed that the Earth was made in six days, dinosaurs were the result of angels fucking women which created giants who in turn fucked lizards, any kind of premarital sex or thoughts were taking you to hell and that beating his children to within an inch of their lives was discipline. In short he was an idiotic, an over zealous idiot. This is probably the worst kind of dumbass you would ever want to encounter because people like my father just blindly follow whatever their religion dictates and then when you called them on they get CRUNK!



   My father's feining for faithfulness is really was led me to explore other religions and then subsequently no religion. When I was sixteen I dual enrolled into college and one of my first classes was a world religions class. My parents vehemently rejected this stating that 'enlightenment is really darkness' and that I wasn't strong enough to and I quote 'fight back man's lies with scripture'. They assumed that I wasn't as devout as them and that I would begin to question my faith. They weren't wrong. I believe without a shadow of a doubt if it was one of them taking the class they would be trying to preach and covert everyone else in the class. That's pretty much why they commanded me to do from elementary school up to high school. Apparently despite living in a country which a huge Christian population, various media outlets targeting the faithful and churches on literally every block (I'm not kidding there's at least five near my campus alone) we still needed to guide the blind back onto the right path never minding the over abundant lights.

But which one is the right path? My parents and my church taught only we had the full truth. If you would of gone down to the Baptist church down the road or the COGIC church next to them you would of heard the same thing. Now when these people reached out to you to come to Christ it appears as if just believing in Christ would be enough. No you need to believe in their version of him.  It has to be their version of the doctrine, their interpretation of th scriptures and so on and so forth. This really confused me as a child because my father would teach us how to combat other denominations with scripture and how to bring them to the truth. My thought was if Baptists and Catholics and Jevovah Wittnesses were already Christians why did we need to convert them? If they already worshipped, prayed and loved God wasn't that enough? Apparently not. God is a fickle motherfucker.

   Getting back to my world religions class I remember really enjoying it. It was one of my favorite classes, mostly because he never gave us homework but still. I loved hearing about the history of religions and my own in particular. It was challenging to what I had been taught at times. Many times I remember thinking this teacher was just making shit up. But I loved his class. I started experimenting with the idea of what if there was no God or if I didn't need him. It would be another four years before I actually stepped out on that vision. It was difficult to reconcile what I was learning about my own faith and what my parents erroneously taught me. My father was a preacher, I myself was a young minister. None of this made any sense anymore. I told my father I was beginning to have some questions and so they had an intervention with themselves and the bishop of our church. Because apparently instead of answering a young confused boy's questions berating him until he 'believed' again was more effective. There were many times throughout my walk that I seriously was just going through the motions of my faith. It was like being stuck in a dead end relationship. You knew there was never going to be any growth or any strides made nut you kept it going because you were supposed to be. In a way I had grown so accustomed to living that way living without it although a thrilling notion was a terrifying one. But it was something I would eventually have to do. My relationship with God was an abusive one. I beat myself up, I cut myself, I hated myself and tried to change everything about myself just to make him happier and so he would bless me. I used to pray for success and for money and for things just to get better in my life. I promised I would change in return. I would be on the verge of years as I prayed. It wasn't because I so earnestly wanted him to give these things to me but it was because I knew the only way to get them was without him.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Being Gay Part One: Gay, Taken and Not Opposed to Shaking.....




    I've been out of the closeted for about three years as a non-heterosexual. For the first two years I called myself bisexual knowing good and well I wanted nothing to do with what was going on with the ladies 'down south'. I've been living as an openly gay man for a little over a year and its been the first year I really started living in my gay identity. It's been a rough road getting to where I am now and you know what? I wish someone had given me some sort of pamphlet on how to be gay and what gay can be. For example:



1) Gay Doesn't Equal Slutty- When I came out of the closet as a true gay man up until that point I had been basically been living as a Buddhist monk. I hadn't had sex since 2008 and it was starting to drive me crazy. So around August of 2012 I started working out and losing weight. I was 340 then and I'm about 255 now so I've lost almost a hundred pounds. Back in October when I started trimming down and feeling sexier I started seeing guys I met from Craigslist. I was letting every dick that strolled down by alley pop into my mouth. I've always loved sucking dick. I love the saltiness, the texture, the smell of manly aroma rising up from my man's hair coated family jewels. This barrage of slutty behavior led me to sleeping with married men, closeted daddies and barely legal boys looking for a good time.



But this way of life started to become empty after a while. It didn't help that admist my romping about I was still trying to forget about a boy I was in love or thought I was in love with. In mid January of this year I decided I was going to become celibate for six months. I wanted to be able to learn about who I was as a gay man outside of who I slept with. This is something none of the gays I knew had schooled me on. I had to learn this for myself all the while I was letting sexy redneck married men cum in my mouth and call me their baby.

2) Gay Men are Teenage Girls- Now of course I'm not referring to all gay men. However you can tell that some guys seriously wanted to be Regina George while growing up. Being black, somewhat overweight, non traditionally attractive and dressing nothing like a model from JCrew has not served me well. I've lost a considerable amount of weight and I dress alright. I always said I dressed for myself and I have but now I'm starting to get into the notion of dressing to attract men. Sure I have a boyfriend but I like being oogled. It's an immature approach to our poorly constructed reality but I like being able to transverse the waters of the oceans I dwell in. A disproportionate amount of gay men my age are heaviy consumed with how much body weight someone has, where he bought his clothes from and if he's black or Asian you better hope he's got a fetish.



3) Being Single Makes You Appreciate Gay Rights More- Right now I'm dating a guy who whenever I'm around him makes me want to marry him. He is on paper everything I've wanted and of course as with life some things I did not. He's a sweet impulsive Aries country boy who loves me for who I am and not want I should be. In return I serve the purpose to help him become the man he wants to be and lift him up. I love the real him but I want him to be the ideal him because that is his goal. I stand by him through whatever and I look forward to what could possibly become of our relationship. When I was single this isn't someone I saw myself being. I saw myself being the submissive obedient bottom boy who sucked my man's dick, let him ram my ass and made him a sandwich afterwards. But this was an idealized version of romance and I hadn't yet experienced what really loving someone meant.



It's for this reason that I have more of a personal connection to the marriage equality fight. I am the type of person who unless it directly affects me I don't feel a tie to it. Of course I support the movement but because I was single I didn't really care. This is a selfish and short sighted view and I've grown or am trying to grow out of this. But being with my boyfriend makes me realize how important this issue truly is. I never really try to see myself as different because of my sexuality. Sure I like cock and I act feminine but I always saw it in a normative way. Being with him shows me how although I don't see myself as different legally I am. Our love and the life we want to build together isn't seen as equal in the eyes of the United States Federal Government for the time being. I someday would like to marry my boyfriend and become his husband and start a family with him. I want the same exact thing I thought I had to be straight to have. I now understand the full gravitas of our movement now and being single showed me what I have to fight for now.














Being Black Part One: Yes They Deserved to Die.....

 





   I hate black television. I hate black music. I hate most black magazines and blogs. I hate most media related things having to do with black people. Now when I use the word hate I don't mean I utterly detest them and am repulsed by them. I mean that I have the upmost disdain for anything targeted toward us as far as the media is concerned. I don't hate my blackness. On the contrary as long as y'all haven't done something stupid in the news and Al Sharpton has shut the fuck up for a minute I'm very proud to be black. To me my heritage isn't the BET programmed multi syllabled apostrophe riddled name gangsta rap  Kool-Aid dyed weave foolishness that we seem to be so damn proud of.

My black heritage is our food, our history of overcoming adversity, our music circa 1950 to 1999. Our actual African heritage (to a point) is something I take pride in. I studied the Yoruba religion of our ancestors. I researched traditional hairstyles our mothers and fathers of the post modern era. I tried to digest the literary births of prolific writers such as Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Langston Hughes. I refute what we call a part of the black community these days. First off there isn't much of a damn community to speak of. There are no true black neighborhoods. We've got a bunch of low income housing domiciles situated next to one another and persons of color just so happen to be glad as hell to be there. Oh sure we talk about starting from the bottom and getting somewhere. But it seems as if at every turn the diluted people of the Negro race take delight in their generational poverty. This is the 'blackness' I abhor. This is not the blackness I will pass onto my children. This is not the culture I want to represent in my future creative works. I am not setting out to craft characters that represent this contented lifestyle of the colored bum.



    There seems to be a really big difference between what black people say they want from black owned media and media aimed at us and what we niggas will actually fucking watch. A few days okay on my Facebook account a longtime friend of mine was complaining about the television show 'Scandal'. She was lamenting that such a successful, intelligent and attractive black woman as Olivia Pope was degraded to being the mistress of a white man. Take note of every word I said in that last sentence because it is important. I began to stress to her that race had nothing to do with it. The characters races are rarely ever brought up and Olivia Pope is not seen as the successful sista girl who's keeping it real and doing it for herself. She is just a successful professional woman with a personal life that is a mess. This both transcends race and speaks directly to many African American women.

During the latter portion of the 2000's studies both scientific and bullshit laden seemed to be preoccupied with why so many professional black women were either single mothers or single point blank period. This phenomenon of the so called 'Mad Black Woman' lasted up until 2010 when gay rights started picking up traction and they could give less of a shit as to why black women's pussies stayed dry. The Olivia Pope character to me seems to be a subtle send up of this however they don't throw it in your face. Her race and ethnicity has very little to do with her character and that is hat I believe bothers so many people about her. Now granted a lot of black women I know do not give one solid shit about her race nor President Fitz's race. They care about who the fuck Huck is gonna off next and why Millie is such an evil bitch. Why IS Millie such an evil bitch? That's a topic for another post.

The problem many people seem to have with Olivia Pope and characters like her is attributed to what I like to call 'You Get What You Ask For Syndrome' or You Got It! For decades we asked for characters of color who were not defined by their ethnicity and had their drama stem from some other part of their lives. With Olivia Pope and characters like her we get that. Ms. Pope, played in such an artisan like fashion by the lovely and talented Kerry Washington, is a smart, sexy, clinically focused woman with a tragically flawed personal life. She is madly in love with the one man who can never leave his wife. Girl we've all been there and because we've all been there many of us both of color and of white out complexions can relate. However you have those of nappy distinctions who take umbrage with her character because they A) feel as if her character is a send up of the classic sexualizing of black women and/or B) she isn't black enough. One poster on Facebook bemoaned why can't we get more black shows where the humor and drama stems away from stereotypes and just treats us as people. I ask her: what the fuck do you think they are doing?

   There is a very, very, very narrow common held idea of what being black is in our community. To us a successful black man is a proud brotha who marches into the boardroom with his dreads in tact pumping 2 Chainz's latest hit on his iPad and talking like a character from the Chapelle Show. Well at least that is what we can assume black people want. Because that's the only goddamn depiction of us aside from classic hoodrattery that we seem consistently okay with. Sure we will complain that it is too stereotypical but they got your black ass to watch it didn't they?

 When they do show successful classy black people who are given the same treatment as their white counterparts there are those of us with nostrils enflared and lips a-smacking who can't shut the fuck up. I argued that with Olivia Pope she was getting exactly the same treatment as any other Shonda Rhimes leading female. Her situation is a beefed up political version of the drama between Meredith 'Choose Me Love Me' Grey and Derek 'McDreamy' Shepherd. The same type of drama could be seen Private Practice as well. Shonda Rhimes is a one trick pony but she tricks that pony very well for about three seasons. Olivia's story is no different and if anything her storyline shows true equality in which a black woman's personal struggles are the same as other white female characters and no mention of race is to be found. However some of us are not content with this. Some black people don't seem to want equality. They want want to be sanitized to the point where we are no longer humans but televised Nubian gods. That is until they get bored with this image and wants something that represents us in a more 'real' way. This is why we can't have nice things.

Introduction





  I fucking suck at introductions if we're being completely honest. This isn't my first time to the rodeo blogging wise. I've tried the whole insightful opening dripping with misty wisdom. I've tried the sassy and humorous opening that never matched in tone to how serious I got later on. I always had some ulterior motive for why I wrote then. Now I just need to vent and scribble around. I am semi professionally a writer. I'm hoping things pop off for me soon but it's been a working progress. I don't feel going into it right now. Let me just rattle off a few stats for you about myself right quick so we can get this show on the road:

- I'm black
- I'm gay
- I'm aggressively polite
- I'm a girly gay and I like being girly and I'm not going to not like being girly
- I'm a college student almost done with my A.A. and going for my B.A. (it's taking forever dude)
- I'm single.....devastatingly so
- I write but not for a living. I'd be homeless if I did that and I enjoy AC way too much to let that happen
- I act...kinda. Still getting into it but I do a great deal of local theatre work
- I like making people laugh so if humor is your thing buckle down

I'm not going to be updating this thing all of the time. I'm mainly just using this as an outlet for my various thoughts and musings. Every once in a while I will try to drop some knowledge but its not usually intentional. But either way I hope y'all enjoy yourselves cause its gonna be a bumpy ride.