Raw gay black thugs
I also work with a program called Writers in Baltimore Schools that provides literary enrichment for low-income middle-schoolers. Five months ago, after Ferguson, we hosted a write-in event for young people to investigate race through poetry, called Black Words Matter. I couldn’t have guessed we’d be having one about our hometown so soon.
Last Sunday, in a former church run by the radical bookstore Red Emma’s, we started with poems from Audre Lorde and Ross Gay. I used the same prompt from the Ferguson event to get us started: How safe do we undergo in our community? The last time we gathered together for this benign of event, we were writing in response to something that, although we identified with it, was very far away. Now, we were seeing it up close. In 15 minutes of writing, children produced poetic masterpieces. They condemned the word thug and the media for its use of the word to classify a group of people that nobody has ever listened to. They made it clear that they were listening to the reporters who had descended upon their city — and even this write-in. “You want someone to blame?” asked a young poet. “If they fixed the streets the children wouldn’t have rocks to toss in
Out On The Couch
I am Black, male lover, and a social worker. I function in a recovery center where I help individuals attain and maintain their sobriety. I contain had experience on both sides of the “social service” table, and my personal and professional experience has given me access to the elusive people of crystal meth users.
A friend of mine who experienced addiction once asked me to accompany him to a Crystal Meth Anonymous (CMA) meeting. Upon our arrival, the room buzzing with conversation, I noticed that my acquaintance and I were two of only three people of color in the space of about 25 people. When the meeting opened up the floor to share, the only other person of color show shared about a tough time he was going through and broke into tears. He was raw in the moment, and as much as I wanted to saunter over and console him, I froze. No one approached him.
I didn’t recognize what to undertake at that moment. So I waited until after the meeting and then I pulled him aside. He distributed that this wasn’t the first period he had a breakdown or breakthrough in a CMA meeting, and that he didn’t anticipate comfort because no one had ever comforted him before. He went on to say that even in a room
CNN's ex-cop defends not calling white bikers 'thugs': 'This thing started with the black community'
CNN law enforcement analyst Harry Houck asserted this week that the black community was to blame after pundits had referred to black rioters as "thugs" but had usually refused to use the same terminology for white criminals.
Following a shootout between rival biker gangs in Waco, Texas over the weekend, many noted that the media did not stereotype the suspects the same way that it had during coverage of the Baltimore riots, which were far less deadly.
"This is about a culture that looks at blackness and says that it sounds like a certain thing, it looks like a certain thing," New York Times columnist Charles Blow explained to a CNN panel on Tuesday.
"I don't know how you can build a comparison between Waco and Baltimore," Houck complained. "Are these guys thugs? Yeah, they're thugs... I use the word thug and I mean 'bad guy' when I use the word."
"I think the word was owned by rappers," he continued. "They started coming out with songs and calling themselves thugs,
Young Soul Rebels:
Negro/Queer Experimental Filmmakers
Ernest Hardy
Printed in MFJ No. 41 (Fall 2003) Female homosexual and Gay Experimental Cinema/Stan Brakhage Remembrances
As someone who (barely) makes a living writing about famous culture, I detect myself drawn more and more these days to those artists (filmmakers, musicians, writers) who voluntarily/or not, happily/or not, find themselves creating from the fringes of mainstream awareness and comprehension. The admiration that I once freely gave to almost anyone who identified her or himself as an artist is now an item that I’m miserly with; it’s increasingly reserved for those who eschew famous person (or at least don’t have it as their first goal), who try to question as passionately as they declare, and who challenge or subvert rather than giddily position themselves to be co-opted by the sprawling machine of corporate customs. It’s for those who grapple honestly with the issues of race, sexuality, class, culture, and politics while trying to produce art.
The relationship(s) between the black body, dark psyche, and cinematic representation is/are fascinating. It only becomes more so as 21st ce