If black Californians had not turned out in record numbers in November's election Proposition 8, the anti gay marriage bill would not have passed.
First let me say that I refuse to use the term African-Americans. The term is divisive. What am I a Middle Eastern American and a European American. I have never been to the middle east or Europe and most black Americans have never and will never visit the mother land. By modifying what kind of American you are you are saying that you are less than a whole American. Black Americans are are full and complete Americans just like every other race color or creed. And when black people look in the mirror what do they see? They see a black American. There is not a body with the outline of the African continent in place of their head. Black people you are no more or less special than anybody else and how you refer to yourselves should not differ from anybody else. You should hear my hero Whoopi Goldberg go off on this subject.
It is like it is some big secret. Let's be called African-Americans because we are afraid to be called black. Hello, every black person I have ever known KNEW they were black and it was no secret. Correct me if I am wrong but wasn't the civil rights struggle to achieve equality? Separate is never equal. And the names we give ourselves can separate people in our minds. Using the term African-Americans is the same thing as having black only drinking fountains. We are all just plain old Americans.
That being said.....................
The election has become a double edged sword. The black community has had a historically low voter turnout because of the apathy in the community. Blacks tended to feel that their vote would not really count. For the first time because of Barack Obama the community has hope and feels part of the system and not disenfranchised. This is a very good thing. It is a very empowering feeling to feel that your voice counts. Hopefully this will not be a one time thing and the empowerment remains and becomes engrained and hope prevails.
And the bad news. Because of the high percentage of hompphobia in the black community Prop 8 passed. 70% of black Californians are against gay marriage as opposed to only 50% in the white and Latin communities. Black people you are living by the very double standard that the civil rights movement tried so hard to eradicate.
The wife, family and foundation of the Reverand Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has repeatedly said that the struggle for racial equality and gay rights is the same thing. Blacks are in the minority because of the color of their skin. Gays are in the minority because of who we love. Neither one is a choice. This is how we are made by God and God does not make mistakes.
Hompbhobia in the black community is a big problem. Why should one minority have full civil rights and another not? It is a classic case of the double standard. Have black people forgot about the fight for equal rights to the point that they do not even know what it means? Or are they so self absorbed that they think equality only applies to them? Black people have you lost your ever lovin' minds? You are doing to gay people what white people did to you for 400 years.
One disgusting result of homophobia is the concept of transexuals. They would rather chop of their dick than accept that they might be gay. If I am in the wrong body it is not my fault or responsibility.
When I see all the transexual hookers on Hollywood Boulevard why do they all seem to be either black or latin? Well I have the answer. Homosexuality is so forbidden and engraned in those communities as wrong to the point that it is easier to believe that you were placed in the wrong body of the wrong sex instead of just accepting that you are homosexual. Transexuals would rather butcher their sexual organs and have breast implants and live as the other sex than to admit that they might be gay. Once again people, God does not make mistakes.
Now even open minded George has his morality judgements. You are not going to like what I am about to say because it is not politically correct, but I believe it to be true. Transexuals are going against God by changing the very essence of who God created them to be. Changing your sex is not like having liposuction. Gender identity is one of the most basic brain functions in all mamals. My cats know they are male and they are fine with that. We are born either black or white or gay or straight. We are not born into the wrong bodies.
And one more thing. I resent being grouped and identified every June and having to endure Gay Pride Month and the subsequent parades as the Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual and Transgender parade.
Gays, Lesbians and Bi-sexual people know who they are. Transexuals are an abomination.
I know who I am. I have struggled all my life to accept myself the way that God made me. Transexuals are lazy. Rather than understanding and accepting who they are they have a surgery to absolve themselves of the responsibility of being a complete and perfect human. Gender re-assignment is wrong and is a sad and nauseating result of rampant homophobia in the black and latin communities. Every transexual is homophobic. They are afraid to be gay. It is not a medical problem it is a socal problem and it should not be resolved by cutting off your penis.
So black Californians remember your struggle and realize you are and never were alone. At one time black slaves were only counted as 2/3 of a person in the national census. Funny, that is exactly what black people are doing to gay people right now.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The Gay Music Gene
Anybody who knows me knows that I am a dance music historian. I compiled the Billboard Dance Chart book a few years ago so you could say that I wrote the book on dance music.
Recently my 22 year old friend Luke asked me why all gay people like dance/house music. He asked me because his sister asked him and he did not have an answer. His sister lives in Nebraska and even she noticed gay people like house music. When Luke asked me I quickly replied "it's the gay music gene." But it is a good question. Why do 3 generations of gay people over a 40 year period all gravitate towards a certain sound?
Here is a little history. If you were gay in New York in the 1960's you would go to an underground gay club where all they had was a jukebox filled with the hits of the day mostly Motown and you would dance to that. There was no such thing as a DJ. If you were dancing in this club you would select a song like Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - Tears Of The Clown or Martha and the Vandellas - Dancing In The Street. To quote the countless American Bandstand rate-a-record contestants "It had a good beat and you could dance to it."
That sound evolved into early disco with songs like 1974 Hughes Corporation - Rock The Boat. Then came hard core disco in the late 1970's. High Energy in the early 1980's, and from the late 1980's until the present there is house and techno.
Here is the cultural history. When you are gay you know you are different. You search out others that are like you. It is human nature. Those clubs where gay people have congregated have always had a dance floor and hence play dance music. This is what we hear so it is what we are familiar with.
I know that I have extra strong dance dna running through my veins. I have always been this way even when I bought my first 45s of KC and the Sunshine Band - Shake Your Booty and the Sylvers - Hot Line. So I know it goes deeper than a cultural soundtrack from bars and clubs. I certainly was not going to gay bars when I was 12 but I had EVERY Donna Summer and Village People albums. This was the biggest clue that I would turn out to be a fag. And to make it worse my mother bought the albums for me! She had no idea!
But she liked the disco music that I blased from my room in high school. Not because it was gay music but because it was up beat happy music with good melodies and of course it had a good beat and you could dance to it.
I think I got my gay music gene from my mother, but I digress....
All I know is that when I hear a song that starts out with a dance beat of about 130 beats per minute with major piano chords and a black girl singing I lose my ever lovin' mind! Nobody can hear CeCe Peniston - Finally and not smile and tap their foot.
This leads to that other strange connection between gay white men and straight black women. What's that all about? Gay white men and straight black women always get along. And every gay boy has his black girl attitude speak when emphasizing something. Girl, I know I do. And when I lose my temper I turn into Shaniquia on her period!
Well most early disco and later house music is sung by straight black women. Are we drawn to it for that reason too? Many, including Martin Luther King, Jr.'s wife and foundation have said that the struggle for equal rights for gays and blacks has many parallels. A black woman is gonna tell you what she really feels and will keep it and you real. When you struggle for equality you have to do a lot of introspective searching. Most straight people who do the standard high school, college, marriage, children, house thing never have to think about who they are and why they are doing it. This is more true for the 1960's than today, but we minorities have to figure out who we are and how we fit in and why. We ask ourselves the hard questions to make sense of ourselves.
So when a black girl tells it like it is there is power in that attitude. It says that I know me, and I know you are fooling yourself so get over it! Gay people have that same attitude. We have to know who we are because there is no historical life template that we can fit into. So when we hear the power of that black girl singing we are emotionally moved and drawn to it.
But this does not explain how Luke's sister in Nebraska with no gay culture at all knows the gay - house music connection. It must be something deeper.
My best logical answer to Luke's question was this. As gay people we struggle. Certainly less now than 20 or 40 years ago but the coming out process is never easy. We as gay people always have that weight on our back that eats away at your soul with thoughts like "why am I different" and "am I a bad person" it takes a life time to come to terms with accepting who you are.
Maybe, just maybe, dance/house music makes us feel good and forget our troubles for a few minutes. I know it does when I am on the dance floor. Maybe gay people are drawn to House instead of death metal because we have enough to worry about and we just want to feel happy.
I do have one gay friend who lacks the gay music gene. Michael does not own or get dance music and certainly not remixes. He thinks the regular radio version is just fine. I guess nothing is 100%.
With the exception of my best boogie friend Lauren and a gaggle of fag hags, straight people really are not moved by dance music the way gay people are. Sure they may know or like a dance song here or there but they do not blast dance music in their car when there is not a dance floor in sight.
Which brings us back to my original answer. There must be a gay music gene or something in the way gay people's brains are wired that makes us gravitate toward positive up beat music.
Of course this does not include Lesbians with their depressing, introspective folk of the likes of the Indigo Girls. But those Lesbians are in a class of their own. Maybe there is a Lesbian music gene that makes you like political folk rock and acoustic guitars?
In the end it all comes down to this quote form the late, great and immortal dance diva Sylvester: "Your ear has to be in your foot to not hear these girls can sing yall."
Recently my 22 year old friend Luke asked me why all gay people like dance/house music. He asked me because his sister asked him and he did not have an answer. His sister lives in Nebraska and even she noticed gay people like house music. When Luke asked me I quickly replied "it's the gay music gene." But it is a good question. Why do 3 generations of gay people over a 40 year period all gravitate towards a certain sound?
Here is a little history. If you were gay in New York in the 1960's you would go to an underground gay club where all they had was a jukebox filled with the hits of the day mostly Motown and you would dance to that. There was no such thing as a DJ. If you were dancing in this club you would select a song like Smokey Robinson and the Miracles - Tears Of The Clown or Martha and the Vandellas - Dancing In The Street. To quote the countless American Bandstand rate-a-record contestants "It had a good beat and you could dance to it."
That sound evolved into early disco with songs like 1974 Hughes Corporation - Rock The Boat. Then came hard core disco in the late 1970's. High Energy in the early 1980's, and from the late 1980's until the present there is house and techno.
Here is the cultural history. When you are gay you know you are different. You search out others that are like you. It is human nature. Those clubs where gay people have congregated have always had a dance floor and hence play dance music. This is what we hear so it is what we are familiar with.
I know that I have extra strong dance dna running through my veins. I have always been this way even when I bought my first 45s of KC and the Sunshine Band - Shake Your Booty and the Sylvers - Hot Line. So I know it goes deeper than a cultural soundtrack from bars and clubs. I certainly was not going to gay bars when I was 12 but I had EVERY Donna Summer and Village People albums. This was the biggest clue that I would turn out to be a fag. And to make it worse my mother bought the albums for me! She had no idea!
But she liked the disco music that I blased from my room in high school. Not because it was gay music but because it was up beat happy music with good melodies and of course it had a good beat and you could dance to it.
I think I got my gay music gene from my mother, but I digress....
All I know is that when I hear a song that starts out with a dance beat of about 130 beats per minute with major piano chords and a black girl singing I lose my ever lovin' mind! Nobody can hear CeCe Peniston - Finally and not smile and tap their foot.
This leads to that other strange connection between gay white men and straight black women. What's that all about? Gay white men and straight black women always get along. And every gay boy has his black girl attitude speak when emphasizing something. Girl, I know I do. And when I lose my temper I turn into Shaniquia on her period!
Well most early disco and later house music is sung by straight black women. Are we drawn to it for that reason too? Many, including Martin Luther King, Jr.'s wife and foundation have said that the struggle for equal rights for gays and blacks has many parallels. A black woman is gonna tell you what she really feels and will keep it and you real. When you struggle for equality you have to do a lot of introspective searching. Most straight people who do the standard high school, college, marriage, children, house thing never have to think about who they are and why they are doing it. This is more true for the 1960's than today, but we minorities have to figure out who we are and how we fit in and why. We ask ourselves the hard questions to make sense of ourselves.
So when a black girl tells it like it is there is power in that attitude. It says that I know me, and I know you are fooling yourself so get over it! Gay people have that same attitude. We have to know who we are because there is no historical life template that we can fit into. So when we hear the power of that black girl singing we are emotionally moved and drawn to it.
But this does not explain how Luke's sister in Nebraska with no gay culture at all knows the gay - house music connection. It must be something deeper.
My best logical answer to Luke's question was this. As gay people we struggle. Certainly less now than 20 or 40 years ago but the coming out process is never easy. We as gay people always have that weight on our back that eats away at your soul with thoughts like "why am I different" and "am I a bad person" it takes a life time to come to terms with accepting who you are.
Maybe, just maybe, dance/house music makes us feel good and forget our troubles for a few minutes. I know it does when I am on the dance floor. Maybe gay people are drawn to House instead of death metal because we have enough to worry about and we just want to feel happy.
I do have one gay friend who lacks the gay music gene. Michael does not own or get dance music and certainly not remixes. He thinks the regular radio version is just fine. I guess nothing is 100%.
With the exception of my best boogie friend Lauren and a gaggle of fag hags, straight people really are not moved by dance music the way gay people are. Sure they may know or like a dance song here or there but they do not blast dance music in their car when there is not a dance floor in sight.
Which brings us back to my original answer. There must be a gay music gene or something in the way gay people's brains are wired that makes us gravitate toward positive up beat music.
Of course this does not include Lesbians with their depressing, introspective folk of the likes of the Indigo Girls. But those Lesbians are in a class of their own. Maybe there is a Lesbian music gene that makes you like political folk rock and acoustic guitars?
In the end it all comes down to this quote form the late, great and immortal dance diva Sylvester: "Your ear has to be in your foot to not hear these girls can sing yall."
Monday, December 8, 2008
Another friend's Prop 8 view
I have been friends with Randee since she was 10 and I was 11. Here are some good points made by her in regards to equality under the law and prop 8.
She is another one of my brilliant friends.
Here it is:
She is another one of my brilliant friends.
Here it is:
I work in the HR field. Coming from that perspective, until the federal government gets on board with this, a civil union or domestic partnership will never be equal to hetero marriage.
Another example of the inequality comes in terms of taxes and benefits. A man may place his wife on his medical plan and the premium costs deducted from his check will be done so on a pre-tax basis. A domestic partner or even a gay person who has legally married in CA does not have that luxury. It is done on a post-tax basis. So provided Prop 8 is overturned in CA, we still need to take the fight to the federal level because as others have said on this thread, separate is NOT equal.
Another example of the inequality comes in terms of taxes and benefits. A man may place his wife on his medical plan and the premium costs deducted from his check will be done so on a pre-tax basis. A domestic partner or even a gay person who has legally married in CA does not have that luxury. It is done on a post-tax basis. So provided Prop 8 is overturned in CA, we still need to take the fight to the federal level because as others have said on this thread, separate is NOT equal.
One cannot help who they fall in love with and they should not be penalized because it is outside of a church's "norm".
Besides, in my humble opinion, marriage is a legal transaction anyway. You have to go to your local government office to get a marriage license and you have to go to court to get a divorce. Last I checked, the church had nothing to do with either of these.
Besides, in my humble opinion, marriage is a legal transaction anyway. You have to go to your local government office to get a marriage license and you have to go to court to get a divorce. Last I checked, the church had nothing to do with either of these.
My friend's view on Proppsition 8
I have some brilliant friends and when they email me something wonderful I am going to post it here in my blog. I will always give credit where credit is due - good and bad.
My longtime friend Pam emailed me her take on Prop 8 and the "church."
She is one of my brilliant friends. Here it is:
I don't understand why Yes On 8 people think that the traditional definition of marriage has to be protected. When asked to define "traditional", they turn to a religious framework. I say, my church (Unitarian) has been performing union ceremonies for gay couples for decades. Why can't MY church provide the "traditional" definition? Whyzzit gotta be YOUR church? :-)
There's already obviously a difference between civil marriage and marriage sanctified by a church.
I'm a woman who married a man in 1988. (George Nazar was in charge of the champagne at the reception. He made sure my glass NEVER EMPTIED. I nearly got smashed because George did his job so well. But I digress.) A judge officiated the ceremony. We wrote our own vows and included no mention of God. I'd say this was the very model of a civil marriage, and not a religious one.
Now, if I walked into a Mormon temple and asked to visit the secret inner sanctum because I am a married woman, they'd refuse me. I am *legally* married, but as far as the tenets of their religion are concerned, I'm not the right kind of married.
That's their prerogative, of course, and it's irrelevant. The issue is equal rights under the law, not the church - two different things.
My longtime friend Pam emailed me her take on Prop 8 and the "church."
She is one of my brilliant friends. Here it is:
I don't understand why Yes On 8 people think that the traditional definition of marriage has to be protected. When asked to define "traditional", they turn to a religious framework. I say, my church (Unitarian) has been performing union ceremonies for gay couples for decades. Why can't MY church provide the "traditional" definition? Whyzzit gotta be YOUR church? :-)
There's already obviously a difference between civil marriage and marriage sanctified by a church.
I'm a woman who married a man in 1988. (George Nazar was in charge of the champagne at the reception. He made sure my glass NEVER EMPTIED. I nearly got smashed because George did his job so well. But I digress.) A judge officiated the ceremony. We wrote our own vows and included no mention of God. I'd say this was the very model of a civil marriage, and not a religious one.
Now, if I walked into a Mormon temple and asked to visit the secret inner sanctum because I am a married woman, they'd refuse me. I am *legally* married, but as far as the tenets of their religion are concerned, I'm not the right kind of married.
That's their prerogative, of course, and it's irrelevant. The issue is equal rights under the law, not the church - two different things.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
My first blog
I hate everybody. Seriously, every person has something wrong with them, including me. The difference is I am used to my shortcomings and everybody else's grate on my last good nerve.
As we approach this holiday season I am not feeling like I wanna bite my tongue in order to visit with my family. Obama won and unfortunately so did Prop 8. My family are a bunch of ignorant, right wing, small town, small minded bigots. I do not want to be around them. It is as simple as that. I am 45 years old and if I do not want to do something that is expected of me by society or tradition I do not have to do it.
And my friends. Why are they all so old? I guess when you get to a certain point, most people stop learning and growing and changing. Well that has not happened to me but it has to many of my friends and it saddens me. Why can't everybody be like me?
My dead mother, who I loved dearly, when I was a mere 10 years old used to call me an arrogant, egotistical, self-righteous son of a bitch. In honor of her this blog will show the world that she was right. And so am I.
As we approach this holiday season I am not feeling like I wanna bite my tongue in order to visit with my family. Obama won and unfortunately so did Prop 8. My family are a bunch of ignorant, right wing, small town, small minded bigots. I do not want to be around them. It is as simple as that. I am 45 years old and if I do not want to do something that is expected of me by society or tradition I do not have to do it.
And my friends. Why are they all so old? I guess when you get to a certain point, most people stop learning and growing and changing. Well that has not happened to me but it has to many of my friends and it saddens me. Why can't everybody be like me?
My dead mother, who I loved dearly, when I was a mere 10 years old used to call me an arrogant, egotistical, self-righteous son of a bitch. In honor of her this blog will show the world that she was right. And so am I.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)