Mar

6

Indie Musician Toshi Reagon on SistersTalk Radio

Filed Under Music, Podcast, Politics, Race | Leave a Comment

Indie musician Toshi Reagon joins us on SistersTalk Radio. The New Yorker said ”…her live shows shower retro funk, urban blues, and folk on the audience with evangelical fervor. To hear her is to believe.”

Toshi joined us on SistersTalk Radio to discuss:

*Her musical influences

*Her impressive discography

*The time she spent touring with Lenny Kravitz

*Her legendary mother, Bernice Reagon

*Her feelings about the word “nigger”

*How she feels about President Obama

*Her recent performance at the White House

Feb

5

Interview with Willow from Join the Impact & socialist activist Sherry Wolf – #CC10

Filed Under Audio Update, DADT, LGBT, Politics, Race, Twitter | Leave a Comment

It’s been a particularly moving day for me at Creating Change (#CC10) today. I sat in on two workshops: (1) Telling: Knights Out and (2) Strengthening the Connection: Racial Justice and LGBT Rights (presented by The Applied Research Center). I was mostly pleased with the DADT workshop, until I sat in the Racial Justice workshop that mentioned a key fact about DADT that was ignored (not mentioned? forgotten?) in the DADT workshop.

The President & Executive Director of The Applied Research Center stated that Black female service members are affected by DADT more than any other group of service members. I found it a tad bit annoying that I didn’t hear that statistic in the DADT workshop – especially since 2 of the 3 presenters were women (white women, but women nonetheless).

Anyway . . . after leaving the Racial Justice workshop I felt extremely energized and, quite frankly, extremely sexually turned on. There’s something about passionate people who work diligently to secure equality for all people that’s a major form of pseudo-foreplay.

Enough about that.

I had an opportunity to speak with Willow (from Join the Impact) and socialist LGBTQ activist Sherry Wolf. I planned to remove the background noise but decided against it because I wanted the interviews to maintain their authenticity. Hope you enjoy hearing these two phenomenal activists speak about their passions as much as I did.

Willow’s interview:
http://sisterstalk.net/willow.mp3

Sherry Wolf’s interview:
http://sisterstalk.net/sherrywolf.mp3

More #CC10 commentary coming throughout the weekend. Stay tuned. And, if you’re on Twitter, follow the #CC10 tweeters.

Jan

23

Indie Musician Jasper James on SistersTalk Radio

Filed Under Music, Podcast, Race, Sex and Sexuality | 1 Comment

For the past five years,  Jasper James  has graced the stages of well-known music venues like CBGB’s and Crobar Miami. She’s participated in the prestigious CMJ Music Festival and she recently performed at New York based clubs Vandam and Touch Nightclub and UK based night clubs Heaven and Duckie.

Jasper’s most recent accomplishment:  Her song It’s On is featured in the 2011 Kia Sorento NBA sponsorship ad.

http://sisterstalk.net/JasperJamesInterview.mp3

Jasper joined us on SistersTalk Radio to discuss:

*How she defines her music

*Her musical influences

*Her childhood

*Her song It’s On being featured in the 2011 Kia Sorento NBA sponsorship ad

*Her career and how it’s been affected by her race and sexual orientation (if at all)

*Why she refuses binary gender definitions

Jan

7

Is the Gay Community Hijacking the Civil Rights Movement?

Filed Under LGBT, Race | 4 Comments

Fellow Twitter user @OneMoreLesbian sent me a link to a recent opinion piece authored by Rev. Dr. Clenard H. Childress, Jr., senior pastor of The New Calvary Baptist Church in Montclair, NJ. Her note read: “Thought you may have some opinions about this…”

The perpetual slide down the slippery slope of irrelevancy for the NAACP was never more clearly seen then when Julian Bond testified before the New Jersey State Legislature on the behalf of Same-Sex Marriage rights. If LoJack could be installed on the legacy of the Civil Rights movement, the alarm would have surely sounded December 7th, 2009, and you would have found the engine running at that state’s judicial hearing. It should be quite evident to all that the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community, and its supporters, will go to no end to hijack the legacy of the Civil Rights movement to further their agenda. Such prostitution of those representing this legacy should outrage its members, and the demand for accountability of such, should now be at the forefront of discussion.

Of course I have an opinion about this; but, I don’t think anyone from either side (pro-gay or anti-gay) will like it.

I agree with Dr. Childress: the LGBT community is definitely trying to hijack the Civil Rights Movement. Pro-gay web site The New Civil Rights Movement has made no qualms about it, even going as far as calling the struggle for gay marriage rights the “new” movement – which basically implies (purposefully or not) that the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s is old, outdated and . . . over.

Those of us who are Black and gay and still struggling with racism – even within the LGBT community – know better. But, we’ll let the white gay guys have their “new” Civil Rights Movement because they have every right to it. Every tax-paying US citizen has a set of basic civil rights that are owed to them us.

Childress goes on to state that Bond misrepresented Dr. King’s opinion on homosexuality:

Mr. Bond testified erroneously that, Bayard Rustin and Dr. Martin Luther King, philosophically and morally agreed on the issue of homosexual rights and nothing could be further from the truth. Bayard Rustin, a practicing homosexual, was the chief organizer of the March on Washington, DC. When confronting Dr. Martin Luther King with the demand that he include homosexual rights in the platform, Dr. Martin Luther King vehemently refused and it was suggested that Bayard Rustin leave the movement.

Childress carefully avoided stating that Dr. King suggested that Rustin leave the 60s movement; instead, Childress says “it was suggested that Bayard Rustin leave the movement.” Yes, it was suggested – by Rustin himself. Rustin stepped away from the movement because Adam Clayton Powell – in an attempt to derail the movement – threatened to tell the world that Dr. King was having an affair with Bayard Rustin (scroll to minute 2:30 in this YouTube video for clarification). When Rustin suggested he should leave the movement in order to save the movement, King didn’t stop him. Later, King asked Rustin to return to the movement because his skills were necessary to push the movement forward.

Childress neglected to mention that Powell was later removed from office following allegations of corruption. But then again, those good Christian folks only tell ya what they want you to know.

I find it ironic that Childress would quote this part of Dr. King’s speech:

“The urgency of the hour calls for leaders of wise judgment and sound integrity — leaders not in love with money, but in love with justice; leaders not in love with publicity, but in love with humanity; leaders who can subject their particular egos to the greatness of the cause!”

Not once does Dr. King suggest that religious leaders should bulldoze anyone; instead, Dr. King called for justice. It’s my opinion that treating all tax-paying US citizens as equals in the eyes of the law is justice.

Nov

8

Ben Patrick Johnson Discusses New Book, Religion and the Gay Community

Filed Under Lesbian Podcast, Race, Religion | Leave a Comment

Tonight on SistersTalk Radio, we interviewed Ben Patrick Johnson.  Ben is a gay rights activist, model, author and journalist.

He appears on CBS (promoting Survivor, CSI: NY and other shows), Fox (advertising House, Bones, NASCAR and Major League Baseball), the cable channels Starz!, NFL Network, Big Ten Network and others. His voice is used to promote movies and in commercials for Burger King and Kellogg’s.

Hear Ben discuss:

*His career as a voice-over artist

*What happened when Extra found out he was gay

*Why the LGBT community should care about developing a relationship with communities of Christian faith

*His organization the Ben Patrick Johnson Foundation

*His latest novel ‘If the Rains Don’t Cleanse’

*How he’s dealing with some of the negative reviews that claim his book glorifies cultural imperialism

Listen to the podcast now.

Oct

22

Monica Calls Out White Gays Who Criticize Obama

Filed Under LGBT, Politics, President Barack Obama, Race | 1 Comment

I.love.TransGriot. I need to make that a bumper sticker.

Monica over at TransGriot is crackin’ the whip with anti-Obama white gays – mostly those who were convinced by the HRC to support Hillary Clinton (even though good ol’ Hillary pretty much wrote the Defense of Marriage Act and had Barr put his name on it). Monica says:

Buy a fracking vowel and get a rainbow clue. Last time I checked, the gay community was not made up exclusively of white gay people. We’re getting tired and fed up with you vanilla flavored privilege wielding GLBT peeps not only attacking our community and conveniently ignoring the fact that Black GLBT people not only exist, but we chocolate flavored GLBT peeps have a diametrically opposed view of how President Obama is doing.

The Black GLBT community is also concerned that your constant attacks are not only pissing our people off and alienating our African American cis and straight allies, you are making our job much tougher in the African American community to make the case why they should support and fight for these issues.

The reality is that Bush left the Obama Administration a toxic mess to clean up and the man has his hands full. If the rest of us and Stevie Wonder can see that, what’s wrong with y’all?

The anti-Obama queers Monica speaks of know full well that Obama has his hands full. Even a deaf and blind man knows the country is in a recession, the healthcare system is in shambles and the country is still fighting a war the Bush administration started. What’s happening here is a very slick anti-Obama/Pro-Hillary 2016 campaign – compliments of the HRC. By 2016, the HRC hopes to have convinced people that the Black man had his chance and he failed so it’s time to have a woman in the White House. I venture to guess the Clintons still have the HRC on their payroll and the HRC has a lot of favors to pay out.

I would add that a lot of us in the Black LGBTQ community are fed up with you Black queers who have become talking pieces for the HRC – a group that could care less about your Black ass. You know who you are. The HRC tossed a few pennies your way in the form of blog advertising and you’ve been kissin’ their lilly white rich asses ever since.

Update: Great comments on the HRC:

“The HRC is not a democratic or inclusive institution, especially for the people who they claim to represent. Just like society today, the HRC is run by a few wealthy elites who are in bed with corporate sponsors who proliferate militarism, heteronormativity, and capitalist exploitation. The sweatshops (Nike), war crimes (Lockheed Martin), assaults on working class people (Bank of America, Deloitte, Chase Bank, Citi Group, Wachovia Bank) and patriarchy (American Apparel) caused by their sponsors is a hypocrisy for an organization with “human rights” in their name.

Uh huh. I couldn’t agree more.

Oct

16

What Does This Have to Do With Gay Marriage?

Filed Under Race, iQreport | Leave a Comment

Update (4:55pm CST) November 3, 2009: CNN reports this Louisiana JP just resigned.

Keith Bardwell, a Louisiana Justice of the Peace says, “I don’t do interracial marriages because I don’t want to put children in a situation they didn’t bring on themselves . . . In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer.”

The Louisiana judicial code of conduct states: “A judge shall perform judicial duties without bias or prejudice.” If that’s really the case, then why are gays and lesbians still being denied marriage rights, a denial fueled by religious bias and prejudice?

An interracial couple gave the gay community their full support last weekend at the march. They were an immediate hit. They stood still forever while people snapped pictures of them. They get it. They understand that the battle for gay marriage rights is similar to the same battle interracial couples fought for years. Denying a person marriage rights based on bias or prejudice is wrong – no matter who or what that person is.

I know many in the Black community (both gay and straight) will be angry that the gay community will compare the Louisiana case to the gay community’s battle for marriage rights. I also understand that our allies in the Black community are plentiful and they’ll agree that denying any two consenting adults the right to marry is indeed unethical.

Oct

16

Bayard Rustin: Openly Gay Key Strategist in Civil Rights Movement

Filed Under LGBT, Race, iQreport | Leave a Comment

In honor of LGBT History Month:

Oct

16

Race, Homophobia, Balloon Boy, Facebook Drama – She Said, She Said #18

Filed Under Lesbian Podcast, Lesbians, Parenting, Race | Leave a Comment

She Said, She Said is a podcast featuring lesbian couple Genia and Andrea. Genia is the host of SistersTalk Radio and Andrea is the assistant producer.

In this segment:

*Balloon boy took a cue from his parents
*Using Facebook to air your relationship’s dirty laundry
*Justice of the Peace refuses to issue marriage license to interracial couple
*Lesbian in a tux excluded from her high school yearbook
*Need a Halloween costume idea? Try something from the 80s!

Music at the end of this episode: Get Your Bike by God-des & She

DOWNLOAD THE PODCAST NOW

Oct

15

There Are Rich White Gays and Lesbians, And There’s The Rest of Us

Filed Under LGBT, Race | 2 Comments

Doug Cooper Spencer makes an excellent point in a recent article posted at the Daily Voice:

. . . there’s a distinct class structure even within the gay community that defies equality. It reflects the very constructs of class that exists in the larger society. In the gay community, it’s one that places the concerns of rich white gays and lesbians over others. It even engenders the same imperialistic notions we see in the larger society.

Bingo. And the HRC has learned how to exploit that class structure, encouraging rich white gays and lesbians to ignore the needs of “the other” in favor of an invite to their fancy celebrity galas so they can wine and dine with other rich gays and lesbians.

One of my Twitter followers informed me that the HRC was not the enemy and suggested that I spend my time fighting anti-gay groups instead. One of the goals of this blog is to expose any organization I believe causes the gay community harm. Just because an organization calls itself a gay rights organization doesn’t make it so. I could call myself a car – but that wouldn’t be true either. AFA. NOM. HRC. They’re all the same to me; they all cause harm to the gay community.

Said Twitter follower also informed me that the HRC has done great things; why yes they have – for only certain parts of our community. For 90% of the gay community, the HRC is that rich second cousin who never knows you exist until it’s time to hit you up for wedding presents and baby shower gifts.

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