Black History Month [Archive]

DRAYKKO

02-02-2005, 05:36 AM

I'm starting this thread as a forum to post interesting stories about people of color in our histories and herstories within the butch/FTM femme/MTF community.

In light of black history month I'm looking for interesting tidbits and information about people of color who were and are "in the life".

Any stories you care to share would be greatly appreciated...

Dre---

DRAYKKO

02-02-2005, 07:17 AM

Here are some interesting websites and articles I found:

http://www.dredking.com/clippings/VenusAug2002.html

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/juneteenth1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_(India)

http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Bentley/BentleyBio.html

http://www.femmenoir.net/Leaders-Legends/DredGerestant.htm

I'm off to hunt up more info...

Dre---

dirtywhiteboi

02-02-2005, 07:31 AM

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark, Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

IaintblackbutIamhumandirt

Dial

02-02-2005, 01:16 PM

I know I'm not exactly following the rules for the thread, but I hope that's okay in this instance. James Baldwin was not part of the female (sic) butch-femme community, but he was Black and queer...and brilliant. So I wanted to take this space to give him a much deserved Black History Month shout out!

Thanks James B. for being an inspiration and a model of how we, the Black queer people of this nation, can also live a life full of art and beauty.

Rest in Peace, my Brother

Click here for an excerpt from Baldwin's amazing short story (http://cai.ucdavis.edu/uccp/sbpassage.html), "Sonny's Blues" (http://cai.ucdavis.edu/uccp/sbpassage.html)

DRAYKKO

02-02-2005, 07:29 PM

DieKia

02-17-2005, 11:22 AM

I Wanted to Recommend a Most ExceLLenT Video and Documentary of The Lady Days... BiLLy HoLiday's Song STRANGE FRUIT.
It is Playing This Month On Most PBS Stations...
There Is a Link at the Bottom of This Post if You Want to Find Out When It's Playing In your Area...
Most Public Libraries also Carry The FiLm.

Specifically It is The History of the Song, STRANGE FRUIT, It's The Story and EvoLution of One of the Most Influential Protest Songs Ever Written, Regarding The Southern Racist Campaign and Lynchings.

BiLLy HoLiday BattLed Her Demons - But This Black/Afro American Woman Came Forth and Recorded a Song in 1939 That CouLd Have Put Her Own Life in a Most Perilous of Circumstances... She Made a Country Listen and Hear of The Hate, Death and Crimes Being Committed To Black/Afro Americans in This Country... BiLLy HoLiday Made Change Through Her Art... She Sang This Song Until Her Death in 1959.

BiLLy HoLiday
STRANGE FRUIT

Southern trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves
Blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
The scent of magnolia sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
for the rain to gather
for the wind to suck
for the sun to rot
for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop

Link To Site
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/strangefruit/

_________________________________________________

femmetwists

02-18-2005, 05:56 AM

i set my vcr to tape this, but set it on the wrong channel! i wanted to use it with my students. i'm going to try the library...i'll post more later about family.

DRAYKKO

02-01-2007, 06:11 PM

So...
How are y'all celebrating Black His-/Herstory Month THIS year?

I've rented a number of movies from NetFlix, and I'll be watching all this month. This week, I watche Akeelah and The Bee, Cry The Beloved Country, and The Tuskegee Airmen. Great movies all, and I thing Laurence Fishburn is one incredible and brilliant actor!

Of course I think that about James Earl Jones, and Ossie Davis too. I saw Lackawana Blues a few years ago, and I liked it so much I'll probably be renting it again this year....

So what of the rest of you? How will you show your black pride?

Dre---

Artdecogoddess

02-01-2007, 08:33 PM

Hello Folks - got this via email today and I thought I would share. Artdecogoddess

Welcome to the February 1, 2007 newsletter of www.glbtq.com (http://www.glbtq.com/), the world's largest encyclopedia of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture ____________NEW ON glbtqEntertainer Josephine Baker (1906-1975) achieved acclaim as the twentieth century's first international black female sex symbol, but kept carefully hidden her many sexual liaisons with women, which continued from adolescence to the end of her life.

http://www.glbtq.com/arts/baker_josephine.html (http://www.glbtq.com/arts/baker_josephine.html)A compulsive behavior that completely dominates the addict's life, sexual addiction is an intimacy disorder that frequently causes severe stress on the addict and his or her friends and family.

http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/sexual_addiction.html (http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/sexual_addiction.html)An important contemporary photographer, Wolfgang Tillmans (b. 1968) synthesizes classic photographic genres, but has also pioneered in his photographic installations by utilizing innovative methods of presentation. http://www.glbtq.com/arts/tillmans_w.html (http://www.glbtq.com/arts/tillmans_w.html) _____________________________________

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Black History Month Spotlight: African-American and African Diaspora Art Early gay and lesbian African-American and African Diaspora artists did not openly declare their homosexuality, but in the late twentieth century, many artists began to explore issues of gender and sexuality.

http://www.glbtq.com/sfeatures/afamdiasporaart.html (http://www.glbtq.com/sfeatures/afamdiasporaart.html) Spotlight: African-American Literature: Gay Male The African-American gay male tradition in literature consists of a substantial body of texts, spans a period of nearly seven decades, and includes some of the most gifted writers of the twentieth century.

http://www.glbtq.com/sfeatures/afamlitgay.html (http://www.glbtq.com/sfeatures/afamlitgay.html) Spotlight: African-American Literature: Lesbian Most African-American Lesbian Literature is as concerned with racism as it is with sexuality, causing many writers to construct Afrocentric sexual identities that affirm the power of black women.http://www.glbtq.com/sfeatures/afamlitlesbian.html (http://www.glbtq.com/sfeatures/afamlitlesbian.html) _______________

RELATED ENTRIESGlbtq African Americans frequently experience racism in predominantly white glbtq communities and homophobia in heterosexual black society, but the multiple oppressions faced by black glbtq people are now being recognized.http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/african_americans.html (http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/african_americans.html)

Activist and author Keith Boykin (b. 1965) has committed his life to advancing the rights of the African-American and glbtq communities and to enhancing communication between them.://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/boykin_k.html (http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/boykin_k.html)

One of the key African-American civil rights activists of the twentieth century, Bayard Rustin (1910-1987) and his legacy have long been obscured because of embarrassment over his homosexuality and early involvement in the Communist Party. _________________________________________________NOTABLE

GemmeFemme

02-01-2007, 09:23 PM

I didn't explore the links thoroughly, but there seems to be some really interesting information and history here:

http://members.aol.com/gendervariant/aainfo.htm

theeladyscorpian

02-01-2007, 09:50 PM

First off let me say for me everyday is Black Herstory and yes History too....I see the doors of the past hopefully holding more doors open for the present so that you and I can then open even more doors in the future....As a Black Lesbian Womyn it's an everyday part of my lyfe.....:) I have some info on an organization that delves into Our Her/Historical past for those in the lyfe....As well as present day info,books,movies,etc.

T H E S H A N G O P R O J E C T:
National Archives for Black Lesbians and Gay Men
P.O. Box 2341 Bloomington, Indiana 47402-2341
_____________________________________________________

The Shango Project is a newly conceived effort to collect,
preserve and maintain materials of historical interest
which document aspects of African-American Lesbian and
Gay existence in contemporary and historical society. The
project entails the acquisition, collection and preservation
of newspapers, articles, books, magazines, journals,
memorabilia, diaries, and other artifacts (records, field
recordings and interviews, compact discs, film, video, song
texts, art pieces, folklore, commentary, fiction, poetry,
etc.) which document the Black Lesbian and Gay male
presence.

In conjunction with other groups, organizations and
individuals, The Shango Project will act as a support
organization to aid in project design, research aims, film
festivals and other activities whose function is to educate,
enlighten or promote change, such as initiating an annual Black
Lesbian and Gay History Day during the month of February,
Black History Month. The Shango Project is dedicated to
increasing the visibility of Lesbian and Gay Blacks and the
exploration of issues central to our lives.

Through its newsletter, Purple Drum, The Shango Project
allows writers, filmmakers, scholars, researchers, students,
activists and others an avenue of communication on a variety
of events, new works and activities through the announcement
and critical, informed review of books, film, video, music,
commentary and television.

A long-range goal of the project is to develop a resource
center serving not only as archive but maintaining a database
of all research and historical materials pertaining to Black
Lesbian and Gay men in the African Diaspora. Such a central
database will allow the use of a much-needed resource tool in
exploring aspects of Lesbian and Gay male life and to further
much-needed work on the multidimensional issues and
problems faced by Lesbians and Gay men of African descent in
society across the world.

If you would like to contribute to this effort please contact
the director by writing to the address listed or phoning:
812.334.8860. Donations which bear on some aspect of the
Black Lesbian and Gay experience are always welcome and will
be maintained and preserved in the donor's name. Scholars,
reviewers and writers are always welcome to submit short
commentary, letters, articles, fiction and nonfiction for
publication in Purple Drum, or may deposit such items to the
archive if they wish them to become a part of the permanent
collection.

Each year, The Shango Project announces awards for research
and creative activities (film, video, poetry, novels) which
contribute significantly to our understanding of the history
and culture of Black Lesbians and Gay men.

P U R P L E D R U M
The Newsletter of The Shango Project
______________________________________________

Purple Drum is published twice yearly. Commentary,
short articles, fiction, poetry, reviews, letters, course
syllabi, projects, festivals, conferences, announce-
ments, and contributions are most welcome and
may be addressed to the editor. To receive a copy, write
to:

Editor, Purple Drum
The Shango Project
P.O. Box 2341
Bloomington, Indiana 47402-2341

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Artdecogoddess

02-02-2007, 09:35 AM

I am sooo not a sport person - but I thought this was fascinating and relevant.

Artdecogoddess

http://www.alternet.org/images/site/logo.gif
What Place Does Race Have in Sports?

By Derek Jennings, AlterNet
Posted on February 2, 2007, Printed on February 2, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/47522/

By the time the Indianapolis Colts meet the Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl on Sunday -- that unofficial yet quintessential American holiday -- I'm sure that most of us surface-dwellers will have been apprised of the added significance of this one. Never before has any African American head coach taken a football team to the Super Bowl, yet this year, we will have two black coaches facing each other with the NFL championship on the line.

Some will cheer the prospect, some will sigh and say "its about time," some will deny that the event holds any relevance or significance, while others will be actively pissed off about the whole thing, wondering why the media has to make a big deal about 'minority' coaches when the league is almost 70 percent black. That latter group intrigues me.

As a black man and former collegiate football player, I've always been absolutely fascinated at the intersection of race and sport. Having heard the fanfare, and experienced on the one hand the almost childlike idealism we attach to these games and, on the other, observed the double standards and encroachment of our pervasive societal psychoses onto even this, our seemingly most sacred of public spaces, I can't help but take notice.

Sports, as fully evidenced by the 'event' the Super Bowl has become, are entertainment: a respite from the real world; an 'escape goat' (to appropriate a charming NBA misnomer), to be laden with our hopes, dreams, desires and sublimated aggression. What else explains the puritan zeal with which anti-doping officials guard the line between mere humanity and homo sapiens augmentis? Or that our anti-intellectual culture ascribes a higher esteem to its sports nerds, flush with batting averages, records and other statistical trivia, than the computer geeks who power its modern economy?

I'm a participant in all that, no doubt. But what brings me a particularly Duboisian joy about athletics are those moments in which the reality of sport belies the myth of the meritocracy that most Americans, in their naiveté, cling to so strongly.
I grew up watching sports on TV and couldn't help but note the differences in descriptions that announcers would use when discussing players. One guard in a basketball game makes a pass and it's 'instinctive.' Another guard, of a different hue, makes the same play, and it's 'heady.' One guy is a 'fiery competitor,' while another player exhibiting the same behavior is a 'team cancer'. 'Showboat'/ 'Individualist.'

The dichotomies amuse me to this day. It's almost as fun as looking up the various connotations of black and white in the dictionary. When legendary player (and coach) Bill Russell served as an NBA analyst and pointed out some of these contradictions in terms, he caught heat from those who thought that he was politicizing the announcer's booth. As if the status quo wasn't just a different and unchallenged form of politics. By and large, we don't want to think, at least not overtly, about any colors beyond those belonging to our team. Much as we'd like to believe in some innate purity of sport, any human undertaking is inherently flawed.

Doug Williams, the first black starting quarterback to participate in and win a Super Bowl accomplished that feat in 1988. And yet, almost 20 years later, on the official message board of an NFL team, I can read folks wondering whether a black person, in general, has what it takes, intellectually, to be an NFL quarterback, while, in the reader response section of a major daily newspaper's Web site, there are numerous comments calling African American players monkeys and thugs, interchangeably.

That's not surprising to me. I'm under no delusion that we'll ever be rid of those kinds of folks who probably proudly get their information from the Klan Kable Knetwork (or some Fox News affiliate). What is, however, frustrating is the number of people who, in the midst of all of that, question the significance of a black coach in the Super Bowl, or why the NFL, in response to years of criticism for its dearth of African American coaches, enacted the so-called Rooney rule, in which the team owners must bring in at least one 'minority' candidate for an interview when trying to fill a head coaching vacancy.
It's these people who fail to see the connection between the unabashed racist and the more dangerous person who claims no racial animus, yet just happens, time and again, to make decisions that are unfavorable to nonwhites and, especially, African Americans. To the person who innocently posted (gotta love the honesty that internet anonymity engenders) that he thought whites were just naturally better quarterbacks than blacks, I posed the following question:

"What do you think happens when significant numbers of whites hold the position that "whites naturally have better credit than blacks," or "are better suited for management positions" regardless of facts? What if they, like you, define racism only as burning a cross, or calling someone the n-word? Surely their little personal preferences or private beliefs don't have any adverse impact, right?"_

This is precisely why testing agencies can go into any metropolitan area in the U.S. and conduct tests with black and white applicants, with the black applicant having better qualifications and both of them sharing characteristics so similar as to make them indistinguishable beyond race. And even today, those tests consistently demonstrate significant bias in housing (rental or purchase), employment, financial services, etc. Nothing major. Just little stuff like that which affects our quality of life, directly.
This mindset is so pervasive that I suspect the lot of them must have learned about slavery, segregation and discrimination by reading Lemony Snicket's authoritative tome on the history of American racism entitled "A Series of Unfortunate Coincidences."

But what's this have to do with football? It's simple, really. Black advancements are indexed to a series of psychological defeats for white supremacy in this country. Sure, we look back to Jackie Robinson, reverently, as part of the era that broke down the prohibitions against black participation in American professional sports. What followed integration of the baseball diamond, basketball court, and football field, however, was more of a tactical retreat than a complete capitulation of the white superiority complex.

You see, 'Cism (it's been around so long, we may as well have a friendly nickname for it) necessitates the dehumanization or, at least, devaluation of the 'Other' in order to justify one's relationship to them. Centuries ago, the ostensibly moral and Christian European settlers, the proto-Americans, simply had to tell themselves that Africans were subhuman, or admit their grievous sins and have their heads explode from the cognitive dissonance. As time marched on, they grudgingly gave ground, inch by inch, conceding creativity, athleticism and other forms of, er, physical prowess, while maintaining a shrinking list of prized attributes as the basis of their justified hegemony. Preservation of these underlying fictions absolutely required that the standards be moved. "Oh. A negro du jour[/I]] can play but they'll never make a good [insert positions noted for intelligence, decision-making and leadership]."

When I played football, during the mid-to late-80s, my college team was replete with black athletes who were former All-City, All-County and All-State Quarterbacks, who, 'coincidentally,' ended up playing anything but quarterback at the collegiate level. We didn't discuss it much, with the exception of a kid who came in after me, determined to stay a QB, who grew frustrated and eventually transferred to another school.

Our head coach for my first two years went and coached another school in the same conference, where he shortly thereafter won a National Championship, coincidentally, with a black quarterback. Our quarterback's coach, and sometimes offensive coordinator, remained behind and was promoted to head coach, and continued the streak of never starting a black QB, until he was fired several losing seasons later.

I don't know that he was a racist, or, if he was, if [I]he knew that he was a racist. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he was likely looking for and not finding some long, amorphous and unevenly applied list of intangibles which his black quarterback prospects just never *quite* seemed to possess in the requisite amounts. Likewise, I imagine that for a number of NFL owners and General Managers, the want of similar intangibles kept the NFL coaches fraternity an exclusively white province for such a long time.

And now we have two black head coaches in the Super Bowl. In February, no less. Not quite the March on Washington or the 14th Amendment, sure, but a pretty big deal, by my reckoning. But even this is just a start. Do I want all the coaches to be black? Nope. Of course not. But this is exceptionalism. For their parts, Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith, the respective coaches of the Colts and Bears are exemplary. Not just good, but great coaches and people, who command respect and exhibit high moral character. They are self-professed Christians who, by all accounts, walk the walk, treating everyone around them with dignity, conducting themselves with grace.

One Bears player noted that in the three years that Smith has been head coach, he has never cursed, nor yelled at the players even once. And Smith himself will mention in a minute that he models himself in style and demeanor after Dungy, for whom he was a longtime assistant. These are not just your run-of-the-mill dudes. Again, they are exceptional.

My theory is that true progress is not measured in superstardom but in mediocrity. In the NBA, we rarely pay attention to the number of black coaches anymore. Like their white counterparts before them and to this day, there are enough of them that we no longer have a mere handful of guys who had to be great just to get a shot and produce quickly before being fired. We've got good ones. And average ones. And scrubs. And it's not a big deal anymore. In college football, and inexorably, the NFL, we're getting to the point that we can have as many mediocre black quarterbacks as white ones. Dr. King, they are fulfilling the dream, one scrub at a time.

[B]© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/47522/

DRAYKKO

02-02-2007, 10:14 AM

DRAYKKO

02-04-2007, 11:50 AM

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou

Artdecogoddess

02-04-2007, 01:03 PM

Still I Rise
Maya Angelou

Draykko - can't rep you cause:'( . But I LOVE this poem.

Artdecogoddess

button2cute

02-05-2007, 12:21 AM

During Black History Month, I'd also like to pose a question:

What's being done to promote black lesbian visibility? It seems to me that within the community Black lesbians tend STILL try to keep their sexual orientation, under wraps; I get the distinct feeling that there is STILL a fair amount of shame in being queer within the POC queer community.

And when openly lesbian black women DO make an appearance, (i.e. - politcal figures) there seems to be this tangible feeling that they're not taken as seriously as their non-black or straight counterparts.

So what's with the black queer community and visibility?

Dre---

Good Evening, Dre

You have ask a question that is difficult to answer by me. I cannot answer for the whole group of Afro-American Lesbians. I know for myself I am not sure if society can handle us coming out of the closet so to speak.

Okay, Dre who are the mentors and role models for the Afro-American Lesbian and Butch or tweener? Everyone is not coming out

I know there are Afro-Americans who are gay, lesbians or whatever hiding in the closet and will never be reveal. I have met one person who kept out in her profession and was fired.

Oh, I know a few now. Heck, Dray some organizations do not want Afro-Amercians in the group for one reason or another.

What is your answer to the question?