And if you doubt me dog, you betta out me dog

I'm throw'd off slightly, brah

Oh I see they're still trying to out Queen Latifah. I think I saw this story a while ago but since I'm on a roll with sadness why not. I can't depress myself much more this week--wait.

QUEEN LATIFAH THREATENED THROUGH TABLOIDS

So a make-up artist and a stylist are suing Queen Latifah claiming she owes them $1 million dollars combined. Roxanna Floyd says she’s owed $700,000 on work done between July 2005 and February 2008.

Stylist Susan Moses says she was cheated out of $300,000 during that same period. While the lawsuit has yet to go to court, it’s already spilling over into the gossip pages.

Apparently the two are threatening to go public about Queen Latifah’s private life if they don’t get their cash.

Lawyers for the two told the National Enquirer, “Whether Latifah is gay or straight has absolutely nothing to do with our clients claims,” though they added that “Latifah’s personal life could become an issue in the case as it relates to her treatment of another stylist.”

*rolls eyes backwards until the whites show, trembles, falls backwards and starts clawing at the air*

Bring em out bring em out! Suddenly sounds different.

This is old fucking dumbness but it's still fucking dumbness and that's what we're going for this week.

I really hate it when the gay community tries to force people out. Like, against their will. I mean celebrities, politicians, what have you. Because it's fucking dumb. I used to think it was a good thing but I've realized that being forced to come out is rather scary and hurtful.

"Oh Xands, they're being selfish by staying in the closet!" I beg to differ head voice, for I think you are being fucking selfish by demanding they come out. Especially in this case when we're not even sure that Queen Latifah is...gay.

Do you not get that if it were safe for gays & lesbians and whoever to come out about their differing sexualities that we would all do it? There are hypocrites that stay in the closet because of fear, and then there are people that stay in the closet. It is, frankly, none of our goddamn business. If Latifah wanted to come out, she would have. But threatening to out her and sue her for unpaid fees is some ol bullshit. If you agree with any of that you are also on some ol' bullshit and I really don't care.

As a black person, I don't mind coming out to a few friends every now and then but I am scared to death, really, of coming out to the world. It would not be good. I'd rather run around with an upside down cross and three sixes on my head screaming "GODLESS" than whisper I'm gay. I try to live as openly as I can but it's pretty rare, except in print, that you'll hear me admit to my queerness. It is not good. It would not be good for me to come out to very many people until society changes its fucking dumb views on sexuality.

I look at celebrities that are out, and I do not feel better about coming out. I do not relate to very many of them even in sexuality. They feel safe to come out. I do not. Is Queen Latifah in the same situation? I do not know and I do not give a fuck. Perhaps she feels like Wanda Sykes, who officially came out about last year some time, and said it was just not a big deal or anyone else's business to broadcast. Perhaps Latifah is not gay. Perhaps she is. Perhaps you feel forcing her out of her comfort zone is the way to go. Perhaps you feel those pesky human rights and right to privacy are getting in the way.

Pretty much all of the above just brings me much sadness. And that's the theme of the week!

Light a Candle & Day of Silence

Well I was going to just jump up and surprise you all with the Day of Silence but I will be participating in the DOS on April 17th. What happens will still be a surprise though! No it doesn't involve cake.

Also, there's Light A Candle for Angie Zapata, a transwoman who was murdered in July of last year for, wait for it, being trans. I've expressed interest in getting more involved with trans issues because obviously the silence around this isn't helping AT ALL either. It is a sad world when you can be murdered just for daring to be who you are, whether it's gay, lesbian, trans, or hell just a different color. Them in power seldom care about these bodies but we DO, we MUST.

I'll get into that a little less melodramatically soon, I have to move boxes and take a shower *grimace* but keep these two days in mind and I'll go into them.

Stop Fucking with The Kids

Is the only way I can describe it.

Look, I don't like kids that much. I like babies even less. I can tolerate them now but thanks to some teething incidents I had when I was a kid, I just do not like kids. I have not since I was one myself. I like plants. When my maternal instinct kicks in, I buy a new one.

BUT

That doesn't mean I want to see them suffer. Kids that is.

I seem to be the only one who remembers I was a fucking child once, and the memory of my child hood is still very fresh in my mind.

When I tutor, I treat my kids as equals more or less. I do not speak down to them. I treat them like damn human beings and try to set an example for my peers to do the same. It's been proven that children are no where near as stupid as we, adults, would like to think they are.

They make mistakes. They're young. They need guidance, but they don't need to be screwed over. Let's take it from the top with the educational system.

This story pissed me off so badly I honestly could not see straight for a few minutes. This child was bullied daily, being taunted with anti-gay slurs even though he was 11 and even though he did not identify as gay. This child hanged himself over daily abuse despite his mother's pleas for the school to do something. If the school did, it proved woefully uneffective.

The thing is, this isn't the first child suicide over bullying we've heard about, is it. There have been FOUR this year according to the GLSEN article, middle school aged children. Fucking middle school when things are at such a critical stage. What are you, about 11-14 now for middle school I think. This child will never see his 12th birthday for being taunted by his peers over a perceived orientation. He was different and that's all the kids needed.

Bullying is a part of the school experience you may say, it builds character, teaches kids about the real world and what not and toughens them up. Alright, tell that to the young lives that have been snuffed out because their voices were ignored. Tough enough for you, now?

Children are cruel, but it's foolish to think that they come out of the womb screaming "fag!" and "dyke!" and "omg fatso!"

No, it's fucking us, man. Directly or indirectly, children learn from us. They learn from the outside. They. LEARN. Intolerance. You can have a personality but kids, I do not believe, are seldom born to be a bully. That's not it. That's passing off blame to shit we don't understand therefore absolving US of any guilt but fuck that, it's US.

I was bullied quite often as a child for being overweight and not the prettiest, and this seems to be commonplace in childhood. And I can only speak from my experience but my teachers seldom did anything about it. You could almost say they had just given up--because bullying occurs so often they figure kids will get over it. Well as we're finding out not all of them do.

And these are the same people who wonder why these kids are killing themselves because life is already too damn hard for them. You want to know why?

Check this out. A while ago, a month or so ago, there was a bill in TN that wanted to remove all teachings of any human sexuality outside of heterosexuality at ANY grade level. This would have effectively erased homosexuality from these kids' lives. I can't say if it actually got anywhere but I wouldn't doubt it since being afraid of TEH GAYNESS is what's in now.

Parents don't want their kids to learn about what is different. They teach the children, even if it's indirect, to mock what is different. So when someone doesn't act like you, look like you, you're bad. We don't want you. See where I'm going here?

I would go into how much I hate the images on TV with hyper-sexualized women, racism and other such bigotry but must I?

There's no guarantee that you'll just mysteriously get over a lifetime or torment, nor is there a guarantee that you'll just leave high school like "oh wow, all that shit I did? So lame. I'll be a good person from now on!" No. It doesn't always work like that. Hell I'd say rarely because I'm a misanthrope.

So, we teach the kids hate, they see hate, they hate, and...well, what DO we do about it, other than just assuming the kids will toughen up.

About that. Do none of these adults, these protectors & educators of our young, remember being kids? Or were their childhoods so idyllic that they can't possibly fathom the sort of abuse that goes on in schools? I digress...

What do we do? Stop fucking with the kids is what we should do. Stop not taking them seriously. Stop not believing them. Stop passing over cries for help. It's not that you're not doing all you can do with limited resources, money, and time, but think about what's at stake here. It's not your spare time & sanity, it's a child's fucking LIFE, man.

Let me get to the bottom real quick with the government and wrap this up--

Oh, about Wednesday night, I caught a special on HBO called Hard Times at Douglass, looking at the effects on the No Child Left Behind act on Frederick Douglass High in Baltimore. Yes, even the government is fucking with the kids for whatever reason (and the teachers let's not forget), because we know how well that improved education *coughitdidn'tcough* *coughitjustfuckedupthecurriculumand* *coughmadeithardercough* But the gubmint has been fucking with the kids for years, in all sorts of countries, what with child labor and insurance and what not. Yeeah, government doesn't seem to care bout the future much, go figure I guess.

No really though, stop fucking with the kids. I'm sure all your intentions are in the right place, and that's great! But you're fucking up and I'd like not to open my browser or look in my newspaper and hear about yet another child in danger or dead over things we should be getting our act together on, alright? Alright.

11 year old commits suicide over gay bullying, a bigger problem

I have a bigger post to make about this but I realized human events don't just wait until it's convenient for you to talk about them.

But this story just kills me. I'm so sick of people fucking around with children and not taking them seriously. Bullying is a fucking problem no matter who it is but you do NOT sit on kids getting bullied and act like they get over it. You DO NOT. You handle it quickly, swiftly, and appropriately and it seems schools aren't interested in doing any of the three.

/fuck

Borrowed from...strangely enough, Perez Hilton. Don't worry we're going to get all up in this shit when I'm feeling a little more coherent.

GLSEN Calls on Schools, Nation to Embrace Solutions to Bullying Problem

NEW YORK, April 9, 2009 - An 11-year-old Massachusetts boy, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, hung himself Monday after enduring bullying at school, including daily taunts of being gay, despite his mother’s weekly pleas to the school to address the problem. This is at least the fourth suicide of a middle-school aged child linked to bullying this year.

Carl, a junior at New Leadership Charter School in Springfield who did not identify as gay, would have turned 12 on April 17, the same day hundreds of thousands of students will participate in the 13th annual National Day of Silence by taking some form of a vow of silence to bring attention to anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) bullying and harassment at school. The other three known cases of suicide among middle-school students took place in Chatham, Evanston and Chicago, Ill., in the month of February.

"Our hearts go out to Carl’s mother, Sirdeaner L. Walker, and other members of Carl's family, as well as to the community suffering from this loss," GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard said. "As we mourn yet another tragedy involving bullying at school, we must heed Ms. Walker’s urgent call for real, systemic, effective responses to the endemic problem of bullying and harassment. Especially in this time of societal crisis, adults in schools must be alert to the heightened pressure children face, and take action to create safe learning environments for the students in their care. In order to do that effectively, as this case so tragically illustrates, schools must deal head-on with anti-gay language and behavior."

Two of the top three reasons students said their peers were most often bullied at school were actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender expression, according to From Teasing to Torment: School Climate in America, a 2005 report by GLSEN and Harris Interactive. The top reason was physical appearance.

"As was the case with Carl, you do not have to identify as gay to be attacked with anti-LGBT language," Byard said. "From their earliest years on the school playground, students learn to use anti-LGBT language as the ultimate weapon to degrade their peers. In many cases, schools and teachers either ignore the behavior or don’t know how to intervene."

Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT youth (86.2%) reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation, nearly half (44.1%) reported being physically harassed and about a quarter (22.1%) reported being physically assaulted, according to GLSEN’s 2007 National School Climate Survey of more than 6,000 LGBT students.

In most cases, the harassment is unreported. Nearly two-thirds of LGBT students (60.8%) who experience harassment or assault never reported the incident to the school. The most common reason given was that they didn’t believe anything would be done to address the situation. Of those who did report the incident, nearly a third (31.1%) said the school staff did nothing in response. While LGBT youth face extreme victimization, bullying in general is also a widespread problem. More than a third of middle and high school students (37%) said that bullying, name-calling or harassment is a somewhat or very serious problem at their school, according to From Teasing to Torment. Bullying is even more severe in middle school. Two-thirds of middle school students (65%) reported being assaulted or harassed in the previous year and only 41% said they felt very safe at school.

Carl's suicide comes about a year after eighth-grader Lawrence King was shot and killed by a fellow student in a California classroom, allegedly because he was gay.

GLSEN recommends four simple approaches schools can take to begin addressing bullying now.

Said Walker in the Springfield Republican: "If anything can come of this, it's that another child doesn't have to suffer like this and there can be some justice for some other child. I don't want any other parent to go through this."

Black Arts Movement poetry

So, this April has been especially educational for me, in more than a few ways that I'll get to before the month is up, even if it's on the 29th. On the poetic branch, which is always the easiest to talk about, I've learned about the Black Arts Movement, described by Wiki as an artistic branch of the black power movement.

I discovered this while I was looking up Sonia Sanchez, whose work I was introduced to via our lovely Heath Anthology some time ago. That shit is my bible. But I don't think the biography blurb mentions the black arts movement...or maybe it does.

Well, through that I learned of another familiar poet I was introduced to by my Librarian Bosslady a year or two ago now, Amiri Baraka. So let's be a good class and look at any similarities in their poetry. I wanted to show you Sanchez's more famous poem, or at least well known, "to blk/record/buyers" but for the life of me I can't find an online version, which makes me think I will be beaten up if I typed it up myself plus the format is difficult so I'm going to risk an ass beating to type up "Masks" (1984) instead.

Sonia Sanchez, "Masks"


(blacks don't have the intellectual capacity to succeed.) -WILLIAM COORS

the river runs toward the day
and never stops.
so life receives the lakes
patrolled by one-eyed pimps
who wash their feet in our blue whoredom

the river floods
the days grow short
we wait to change our masks
we wait for warmer days and
fountains without force
we wait for seasons without power.

today
ah today
only the shirll sparrow seeks the sky
our days are edifice
we look toward temples that give birth to sanctioned flesh.

o bring the white mask

full of the chalk sky.

entering the temple
on this day of sundays
i hear the word spoken
by the unhurried speaker
who speaks of unveiled eyes.

o bring the chalk mask

full of altitudes.

straight in this chair
tall in an unrehearsed role
i rejoice
and the spirit sinks in twilight of
distant smells.

o bring the mask
full of drying blood.

fee, fie, fo, fum,
i smell the blood 
of an englishman

o my people
wear the white masks
for they speak without speaking
and hear words of forgetfulness.

o my people.

~~

I find that poem incredibly beautiful and it's usage of the Jack & the Beanstalk chant was so startling...now what I COULD find online was Baraka's "Black Dada Nihilism" and I got it from here.

It's pretty long, much longer than the Sanchez piece if you've never read it before, so I'll give you the first half and you can hit the link for the rest. That would be good to do.

. Against what lightis false what breathsucked, for deadness.                         Murder, the cleansedpurpose, frail, againstGod, if they bring him                         bleeding, I would notforgive, or even call himblack dada nihilismus.The protestant love, wide windows,color blocked to Mondrian, and theugly silent deaths of jews underthe surgeon’s knife. (To awake on69th street with money and a hipnose. Black dada nihilismus, forthe umbrella’d jesus. Trillby intriguemovie house presidents sticky on the floor.B.D.N., for the secret men, Hermes, theblacker art. Thievery (ahh, they returnthose secret gold killers. Inquisitorsof the cocktail hour. Trismegistus, havethem, in their transmutation, from stoneto bleeding pearl, from lead to burninglooting, dead Moctezuma, find the Westa grey hideous space.

Countee Cullen, that other dude I didn't know about

Of course there's a wealth of literature out there that I'll feel I should know about but either never find out about or just find out too late.

Next week in my Am Lit II class we will be covering Countee Cullen. I might as well just get ready to be pissed, shouldn't I?

Cullen was a poet during the earlier years of the Harlem Renaissance with Langston an'nem, heavily influenced by John Keats, whom I'll be talking about before the month's up, because I loves me some Keats.

Two notable things about Cullen, and you'll soon understand my pre-emptive anger knowing my professor's track record with...stuff:

He was married to Yolanda DuBois, daughter of WEB DuBois

and

She ended up divorcing him when he told her he was attracted to men.

Oh yes, he got married again much more happily, but it seems at the very least Cullen was bisexual...like Langston an'nem. And well, yeah, homosexuality of any sort was a big ol' no-no back in the 30s-40s, and he was doubly pressed being black. Black communities tend/ed to downplay an awful lot some of our heroes and their sexual orientation if it's anything but straight. That's actually something interesting I'd like to get into another time. I think this might just be true of people in general but it seems the trend is especially strong with minority groups...

But now the poetry. If you want more try here.

TO JOHN KEATS, POET, AT SPRING TIME

(For Carl Van Vechten)

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats;
There never was a spring like this;
It is an echo, that repeats
My last year's song and next year's bliss.
I know, in spite of all men say
Of Beauty, you have felt her most.
Yea, even in your grave her way
Is laid. Poor, troubled, lyric ghost,
Spring never was so fair and dear
As Beauty makes her seem this year.

I cannot hold my peace, John Keats,
I am as helpless in the toil
Of Spring as any lamb that bleats
To feel the solid earth recoil
Beneath his puny legs. Spring beats
her tocsin call to those who love her,
And lo! the dogwood petals cover
Her breast with drifts of snow, and sleek
White gulls fly screaming to her, and hover
About her shoulders, and kiss her cheek,
While white and purple lilacs muster
A strength that bears them to a cluster
Of color and odor; for her sake
All things that slept are now awake.

And you and I, shall we lie still,
John Keats, while Beauty summons us?
Somehow I feel your sensitive will
Is pulsing up some tremulous
Sap road of a maple tree, whose leaves
Grow music as they grow, since your
Wild voice is in them, a harp that grieves
For life that opens death's dark door.
Though dust, your fingers still can push
The Vision Splendid to a birth,
Though now they work as grass in the hush
Of the night on the broad sweet page of the earth.

"John Keats is dead," they say, but I
Who hear your full insistent cry
In bud and blossom, leaf and tree,
Know John Keats still writes poetry.
And while my head is earthward bowed
To read new life sprung from your shroud,
Folks seeing me must think it strange
That merely spring should so derange
My mind. They do not know that you,
John Keats, keep revel with me, too.