Tarhearted.

KREAYSHAWN AND BASIC BITCHES.

Should we talk about Kreayshawn? Yes, let's. God knows everybody else is. I've seen this video on Gawker and Jezebel and more, so I'm pretty late to the game. But whatever. This is a personal blog. I write on my own schedule.

Kreayshawn just got a fancy record contract with Columbia, so good on her. Watch this video and come back.

 

First thing's first. Here are the things I like about Kreayshawn:

1. She's from Oakland. If you haven't noticed from my obsession with Hunx & his Punx, Shannon and the Clams and Nobunny, I'm totally enamored of Oakland and its scene.

2. Her mom is in a surf punk band, The Trashwomen. That gives her some music cred, as far as I'm concerned.

3. This is really shallow, but I love her look and overall sense of fashion. And I love her friend with the glasses.

4. The song, for it's simplicity, is pretty fucking catchy.

 

Here are some reservations I have.

1. At first glance I really like the anti materialism, anti conformity messaging.

Gucci Gucci, Louis Louis, Fendi Fendi, Prada
The basic bitches wear that shit, so I don't even bother

But, then, Kreayshawn contradicts herself and spits out the most common sorts of wealth flashing:

Young, rich and flashy I be where the cash be

So which is it, Kreayshawn? As my A.P. English teacher, Mrs. Ferguson, would say: "Stay on thesis."

2. This is a bit more complicated, and as a white man I may not be the best person to be writing about this, but when I see a white hipster surround herself with people of color in a rap music video, it makes me a little uncomfortable. Is she being ironic? Or is this who Kreayshawn genuinely is? Is this where she comes from? I don't know whether this is co-opting or the real deal, and it makes me feel uneasy. Am I alone in this? Maybe I am, since I haven't seen anybody else write about it.

The first time I saw a picture of Ke$ha, I felt similarly. I'd heard the song "Tik Tok" all over the place, and when I saw that the singer was actually a white girl from L.A. it gave me pause. That said, I don't know Kreayshawn or Ke$ha's personal histories and can't know what's in their hearts. I went to predominantly Black and Latino public schools in some of the cities I lived in, so I know first hand that there are white kids growing up amongst people of color exclusively. But I also know from living in Seattle and then Williamsburg that white hipsters will sometimes embrace parts of hip hop in a way that's semi ironic and pretty gross. Are these artists racist for co-opting what could be considered a "black" sound, or am I racist for thinking a sound is "black" or "white"? Are we ALL racists? I honestly don't know.

 

 

YOUNG FOLKS.

I adore Larry Kramer. He scowled at me at MoMA once, and it was like a little gift from baby jesus. He is one of my idols and I know that I'm forever in his debt, but...

This open letter is pretty awesome.

I'm forever defending my generation, both in LGBT rights circles and in the arts as well. I like my generation. I'm proud of my generation.

 

 

Here's a stock photo of some millennials, crackers all.

 

QUOTES.

Oh, Larry! You have my heart. You really, really do. Even when I saw you out and about and you scowled at me, my heart skipped a beat. Here you are again, playing my fucking jam, man.

Via Joe.My.God.

"I am a gay person before I’m anything else. I’m a gay person before I’m a white person, before I’m a Jew, before I’m a writer, before I’m American, anything. That is my most identifying characteristic and I don’t find many people who would say that. The polls say the same thing: People do not identify themselves as gay. And that’s too bad. In fact, it’s tragic. It will prevent us from ever having what we deserve, I believe." - Larry Kramer, in an interview with Salon.

BOOM. Totally. I feel the exact same way.

Now I must begin work on my musical version of Faggots.

EDIT. Also from Joe:

"I'm sure other people in the business have considered reasons why they're doing what they're doing, but I do think that if you're gay you have a responsibility to come out." - Rachel Maddow, in a profile by the UK's Guardian.

Again, yup.

AMERICA OR WHATEVER.

Wisonsin Republicans did some sneaky maneuvering last night and managed to pass their Union Busting Bill. Rest assured this will go to the courts, and labor leaders have vowed to lead a recall against the politicians who voted for this.

Still...

I have to admit, I'm pretty frightened by all of this. The right wing has been selling our government to corporations since Reagan. This is obvious. I don't understand how Americans are swallowing the rhetoric- that teachers are somehow to blame for our econimic problems and tax increases on billionaires is beyond the pale.

Unions are responsible for the five day work week, child labor laws, safe working conditions and so many other things Americans take for granted. This just doesn't make sense.

Bye, America. It was nice knowing you.

HOG FART SCALIA.

It's sickening that we have people like Scalia on the Supreme Court, people who are so bigoted it's barely concealed.

Via Joe.My.God

“The due process clause has been distorted so it’s no longer a guarantee of process but a guarantee of liberty,” Scalia expounded. “But some of the liberties the Supreme Court has found to be protected by that word - liberty - nobody thought constituted a liberty when the 14th Amendment was adopted. Homosexual sodomy? It was criminal in all the states. Abortion? It was criminal in all the states.” “The way to change the Constitution is through amendments approved by the people, not by judges altering the meaning of its words,” he added.

So gays and women aren't entitled to equal rights? FUCK YOU. I'm so sick of people who beleive that minorities should work through legislature, that they should convince the general population that they deserve equality. Scalia, as somebody on the FUCKING SUPREME COURT should have a better understanding of what the courts do in our system of checks and balances.

There are people who say that gay people lost the prop 8 battle because they didn't work hard enough to convince voters that they deserved marriage equality. If you beleive this, you're a dick. It's your responsibility to not be an asshole, not mine to change you.

 
How much longer will flagrant homophobia be acceptable in public discourse? How much longer will there be "two sides" to common equality for gay people? Kudos to Dan Savage who had this to say on the subject on CNN this week:

"There are no 'two sides' to the issue of LGBT rights. Right now one side is really using dehumanizing rhetoric. The Southern Poverty Law Center labels these groups as hate groups and yet the leaders of these groups, people like Tony Perkins, are welcomed onto networks like CNN to espouse hate directed at gays and lesbians. And similarly hateful people who are targeting Jews or people of color or anyone else would not be welcome to spew their bile on CNN."

WHY I'M SWEDISH NOW.

I'm super depressed about the election results. Republicans won big, which means corporate America, Jesus Inc. and the institution of stupidity won big too. But America lost. I don't have the heart to even think about the implications of this election to gay rights, the separation of church and state, women's rights, income disparity....

Can't I be Scandanavian? I'm trying not to give up hope, but Americans keep proving they are the most violent, stupid, hateful, backwards nation in the West. To quote Diane Lane in one of my favorite films, Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains:

"Suckers! SUCKERS!"

 

JANET PORTER IS ONE CRAZY BITCH.

Seriously. This bitch is certifiable. Please watch as Janet porter prays for Christian control of the government.

 

This. This is why I beleive there can be zero tolerance for religion in the public space.

LOVE THE SINNER, HATE THE SIN. CHRISTIANS AND ANTI GAY BULLYING.

One of the most frustrating things about being in the gay rights movement is religious people that honestly beleive they harbor no ill will towards LGBT people, even while denying them civil rights. You know, the whole "love the sinner, hate the sin" schtick that every gay person knows is absolute bullshit.

I understand that religious folk might not feel like they hate gay people, but when you marginalize people, remove their civil rights, mobilize against their quality of life, you are committing an act of hate. No matter what your intentions are, good or bad, you are committing hate against another person. No matter what your religion says to the contrary.

Dan Savage just knocked it out of the park in response to a Christian who wrote into his column, Savage Love in The Stranger (my hometown paper!)

The Christian writes:

I heard an interview with you about your It Gets Better campaign. I was saddened and frustrated with your comments regarding people of faith and their perpetuation of bullying. As someone who loves the Lord and does not support gay marriage, I can honestly say I was heartbroken to hear about the young man who took his own life.

If your message is that we should not judge people based on their sexual preference, how do you justify judging entire groups of people for any other reason (including their faith)? There is no part of me that took any pleasure in what happened to that young man.

To that end, to imply that I would somehow encourage my children to mock, hurt, or intimidate another person for any reason is completely unfounded and offensive. Being a follower of Christ is, above all things, a recognition that we are all imperfect, fallible, and in desperate need of a savior. We cannot believe that we are better or more worthy than other people.

Please consider your viewpoint, and please be more careful with your words in the future.

L.R.

 

Dan Savage responds:

 

 

I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments.

No, wait. I'm not. Gay kids are dying. So let's try to keep things in perspective: Fuck your feelings.

A question: Do you "support" atheist marriage? Interfaith marriage? Divorce and remarriage? All are legal, all go against Christian and/or traditional ideas about marriage, and yet there's no "Christian" movement to deny marriage rights to atheists or people marrying outside their respective faiths or people divorcing and remarrying. Why the hell not?

Sorry, L.R., but so long as you support the denial of marriage rights to same-sex couples, it's clear that you do believe that some people—straight people—are "better or more worthy" than others.

And—sorry—but you are partly responsible for the bullying and physical violence being visited on vulnerable LGBT children. The kids of people who see gay people as sinful or damaged or disordered and unworthy of full civil equality—even if those people strive to express their bigotry in the politest possible way (at least when they happen to be addressing a gay person)—learn to see gay people as sinful, damaged, disordered, and unworthy. And while there may not be any gay adults or couples where you live, or at your church, or in your workplace, I promise you that there are gay and lesbian children in your schools. And while you can only attack gays and lesbians at the ballot box, nice and impersonally, your children have the option of attacking actual gays and lesbians, in person, in real time.

Real gay and lesbian children. Not political abstractions, not "sinners." Gay and lesbian children.

Try to keep up: The dehumanizing bigotries that fall from the lips of "faithful Christians," and the lies about us that vomit out from the pulpits of churches that "faithful Christians" drag their kids to on Sundays, give your children license to verbally abuse, humiliate, and condemn the gay children they encounter at school. And many of your children—having listened to Mom and Dad talk about how gay marriage is a threat to family and how gay sex makes their magic sky friend Jesus cry—feel justified in physically abusing the LGBT children they encounter in their schools. You don't have to explicitly "encourage [your] children to mock, hurt, or intimidate" queer kids. Your encouragement—along with your hatred and fear—is implicit. It's here, it's clear, and we're seeing the fruits of it: dead children.

Oh, and those same dehumanizing bigotries that fill your straight children with hate? They fill your gay children with suicidal despair. And you have the nerve to ask me to be more careful with my words?

Did that hurt to hear? Good. But it couldn't have hurt nearly as much as what was said and done to Asher Brown and Justin Aaberg and Billy Lucas and Cody Barker and Seth Walsh—day in, day out for years—at schools filled with bigoted little monsters created not in the image of a loving God, but in the image of the hateful and false "followers of Christ" they call Mom and Dad.

 

ANTI GAY BULLYING.

I'm devastated by all these LGBT suicides. Really, really devasted. I'm also seeing a phemonenon that Shawn and others talk about but in regards to race- that is, the ability of well meaning outsiders to make an issue about them.

I'm going to ignore the fucking hideous tarhearted people that would blame these suicides on the kids that killed themselves. They're not worth my time. On our side though I've seen so many comments that are along the lines of, "this has nothing to do with being gay, bullying is just plain bad!"

Fuck you. This has everything to do with being gay. Your being bullied because you were over weight or wore glasses is not the same as silently suffering for an entire childhood because you're an outsider from your own community. It is not the same as being cheated out of an education because you're afraid to go to school, not just because of bullies, but also the teachers who purposely ignore them. It is not the same as sometimes never feeling safe in your own home. It is not the same as having entire religions set to destroy you. Most importantly, it is not the same as being a small, innocent chld in a society that thinks it's fine to contantly degrade you, push you out, vote on your civil rights etc.

Gay kids make up 20-40% of all homeless youths. Gay kids are 3-4 times more likely to commit suicide than their straight peers.

It. Is. Not. The. Same.

 

AMERICA OR WHATEVER.

The Republicans laid out their so-called "Pledge to America" today and it's, well, pretty awful. This Huffington Post item lays it out pretty succinctly:

The GOP's Pledge to America:

1. We pledge to serve the rich.

2. We pledge to blame the poor for being poor.

3. We pledge to defend the right of the Religious Right to destroy the separation of church and state.

4. We pledge to expand the world's addiction to oil and help big business destroy the health of our planet.

5. We pledge to destroy health care reform to ensure that big business continues to profit off the sick.

6. We pledge to cut funding for public institutions that do not serve the rich.

7. We pledge to tolerate homophobia, racism, and islamophobia.

8. We pledge to demonize smart people as un-American elitists (unless they are Republican) and to teach pseudoscience.

9. We pledge to define any opposition to our foreign policy ideas as treason.

10. We pledge to pretend to care about America when we really only care about ourselves. And if we fail to win, we pledge to force a sixty-vote supermajority on every bill, making America as ungovernable as possible.

Is it just me, or is America getting more and more conservative all the time? It's very disheartening to see the middle class disappearing. It's disheartening to see the Tea Party, middle class people with anger that is completely earned, by the way- get tricked into campaigning against their own interests by Republicans and Big Business. It's disheartening to still by fighting to have civil rights in the country where I was born. It's disheartening to see Americans turning their backs on science, progress, intellectualism, innovation- all the while chipping away at the separation of church and state. It's disheartening and frightening.

But there are little things that make me think things will be okay sometimes.

Today is the day that health care reform goes into effect. That's no small potato. Democrats have been trying to get health care reform for eleventy-five years. Is it perfect reform? No. But it is something. It will make many, many people's lives measurably better, measurably easier. This is what government should do, and I guess that's the real difference between liberals and conservatives when you come right down to it. Liberals believe in government that does the most good for the most people. Conservatives believe in the idea of "each man for himself."

I don't believe in "each man for himself," because as a gay man who grew up poor, I have experience that tells me the fight is fixed. There's a very good reason that the people always crying out for "smaller government" are mostly white, mostly Christian men. They have all the power and they want to keep it.