Things like this GMH
Aw! This is too cute! Love!!
go wells fargo
As happy as I am to see queer people of color visible in advertisements I cannot feel much positivity from a bank (that got bailed out) trying to make money off our communities. Wells Fargo only cares because queer people are a supposedly high spending segment of society and they are taking full advantage.
So unless Wells Fargo is going to start investing in our communities, stop foreclosing homes, and actually prove some solidarity… it’s hard for me to feel much for this other than “that’s a cute picture”.
D’lo, interviewed by Tani Ikeda in Make/Shift. (via blackfeminismlives)
And if you ever get a chance to see D’lo perform… do it.
(via crankyskirt)
Gay Jamaican Cop: VC2 [Current TV]
“I do not believe that I[‘m] supposed to be a gay… and hiding, and living in fear, and this is my country? Come on, man.” - Michael Hayden
My sentiments exactly. I love, and am humbled by, this man’s courage.
People have asked me whether I think that Jamaica is going to change. I hate having that conversation with people who aren’t part of the diaspora, or part of another so-called “third world” diaspora with a similar complex (read: more than occasionally fucked-up) relationship with queer attractions and genders. A pat response isn’t satisfying. Neither is an attempt to place a time limit on the work that needs to be done for those changes to happen.
Sometimes I forget how young Jamaica as an independent nation is. I don’t say that to excuse the violence against queer people that’s occurred there; I say it because when so-called “first world” activists hold up Jamaica as a prime example of institutionalized anti-queer sentiment, I want to ask them about their pasts. I want to ask them where their countries were forty-eight years into their respective independent histories* - the lightning-fast social progress, the burgeoning economies, the seamless falling in step with those nations voted Most Popular on the global stage. I want to ask them exactly what it takes, after being armed with the tools of oppression - religious faith that justifies or turns a blind eye to intensely polarized social stratification, racial and gender hierarchies still bearing the stamp of the mother country, threads of economic dependence that persist even as the occupying power finally cedes control of the state houses to the indigenous people - for a nation to view itself independently of the forces that shaped its birth.
I get frustrated because sometimes it seems as if people have forgotten that colonialism is not some ancient wound forgotten in a generation - it penetrates the national psyche and endures. Oppression is never going to beget enlightened behavior. Yes, Jamaica has a long way to go when it comes to its queer citizens, and yes, individuals and the government both need to be held accountable. But you don’t keep someone in a darkened room for ages and then express shock that they blink away the sun once they emerge. There’s a lot to adjust to.
* If you’re reading this in the United States, here’s a quick take on what was going on - there was a contested election that made the Bush/Gore debacle look like cake, and the Feds were robbing the shit out of a bunch of Indian tribes (here’s one example).
With the encroachment of white settlers into western lands, the Iowa Tribe ceded their lands in 1824 and were given two years in which to vacate. Additional lands were ceded in 1836 and 1838, and the Tribe was removed to an area near the Kansas-Nebraska border. The Iowas, once a proud nation whose native lands encompassed an area of the Missouri and Mississippi River Valleys in what is presently Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, now found themselves with a strip of land ten miles wide and twenty miles long. Subsequent treaties would find this land even further reduced.
That said, the US, compared to other, browner formerly-colonized nations, was doing pretty damn well, all things considered.
Never said better.
Are Hipsters Stealing Gay Style? Or Something Else? / Queerty
Finally articulating what I’ve felt for years…
The movement for gay marriage has had a strong push among very class-privileged people, because they are the people with trusts and with property and with health care. If you’re gay, black, poor and you don’t have any access to insurance, the question of whether your partner can be included on your insurance is not just relevant to the health needs of your life. What would be more relevant is national health care!
bell hooks (via queeraspie)
This is like the most beautiful summation of how I feel on ‘gay marriage’ ever.
I would like to smash the system of marriage so that ALL non traditional families can have rights, thank you, not just get a few rights for a few lucky gay people.
(via badparsiqueer)
werd
(via callmebrandy)
duh.
(via clarissapalooza)
Rod 2.0:Beta: PHOTO: Twitpic of Male Couple Causes Homophobic Backlash
“The image was snapped of two young men apparently on Atlanta’s MARTA and the Twitpic is entitled “No Excuse: I Don’t Give a F-ck How Sleepy You Are.” So far, the image has 12,400+ views and has produced three pages of mostly cruel, homophobic and hateful comments. There are dozens more comments across Twitter and the Twitpic has migrated to gay-baiting black gossip blogs. One perennial gay-baiting blogger has slammed the two young men as“homo-thugs”, ranted about HIV/AIDS and complained that “it’s become nearly impossible to distinguish heterosexual men from down low thugs.” Are “down-low” thugs hugged up on public transit? Probably not …”
All I’m going to add to the situation is that I think this is a cute picture, regardless of if they are queer or not. They could be straight…
fuckmondays:beiber:(via statuette)
“spongebob homosexualfornicatorpants”
(via broberst)
-______-
I am extremely applauded, extremely.
Wow. Um. Wow.
