Kenyon Farrow

I have been extremely busy this week, catching up on work and getting some new things together for the upcoming year. I have definitely one new anthology I am co-editing which will be out next year, and working on a second that also will most likely hit the streets in 2008…so be on the lookout!

But if you need something to do this weekend, go see Talk to Me. It’s director Kasi Lemmon’s third film (also directed Caveman’s Valentine and my favorite of all time, Eve’s Bayou.). It brilliant, the performances are brilliant (Don Cheadle, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Taraji Henson, Cedric The Entertainer, Mike Epps) and I am afraid people will miss this one before it leaves the theaters. It is the story of real life D.C. DJ Petey Greene. I think the film asks a very important question of the audience-do people only ever see Black people as caricature (The answer made Dave Chappelle walk away from a $50 million television deal? It asks this question in a very subtle way, and it demands you, the viewer to ask yourself, exactly what is it that I find funny? It does this without being overly-didactic, but being thoroughly engaging.

Also, don’t sleep on Prince’s Planet Earth. The reviews have been mixed, and it’s not a perfect album. But get past it kids, he’s never going to make another Parade, Sign O The Times, or Lovesexy. He’s older, less angsty, and his music may never reflect that kind of bite he once had. So to that end, the standouts to me are Somewhere Here on Earth, The One U Wanna C, Chelsea Rodgers, & Mr. Goodnight (which should have been the first single). Most of the tracks give you a pop/rock feeling, and you can definitely tell he’s working with Lisa & Wendy again, who play on this record, and there influence is felt. Don’t sleep. Check it out.

Other than that, I’ll be back with you next week!

It’s now become a cliche that when white people get into trouble, they just say somebody Black did it. Susan Smith did when she drowned her kids. So did Charles Stuart, when he murdered his wife in Boston. Well, kiddos, it seems that the trend has come back with a vengeance-most recently with Senator Bob Allen and Lindsey Lohan. Amy Winhouse didn’t blame anybody Black for her recent woes, but I am adding her this week too! Here’s another installment in the White Privilege at Work Series.

Meet Bob Allen. Bob is a state senator in the Florida legislature. Bob is a Republican. He was arrested in a sting operation on July 11 for trying to pay an undercover officer for head in a public bathroom in a park. On August 3, the Orlando Sun Sentinel reported that Bob said he was “intimidated” by the undercover detective because he was Black and was “playing along” in order to avoid “becoming a statistic.” Right.

“This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park,” Allen, who is white, told police in a taped statement after his arrest. Allen said he feared he “was about to be a statistic” and would have said anything just to get away.

He would have done anything to get away or get off? Anyhow, I digress. It gets worse.

Then Kavanaugh [the Black undercover] said he told Allen, “I wanna know what I gotta do for 20 bucks before we leave.’ ” He said Allen replied: “I don’t know what you’re into.”

According to Kavanaugh’s statement, the officer said, “do you want just [oral sex]?” and Allen replied, “I was thinking you would want one.”

The officer said he then asked Allen, “but you’ll still give me the 20 bucks for that . . . and that the legislator said, “yeah, I wouldn’t argue with that.”

As Allen turned and motioned for the officer to follow him to his car, Kavanaugh identified himself as a police officer by raising his shirt and exposing his badge.

When Allen was being placed in a marked patrol car, he asked whether “it would help” if he was a state legislator, according to a police report. The officer replied, “No.”

Does that sound like a man who was afriad of becoming a statistic? I think not. But that’s White Privilege at Work.

Meet Lindsey Lohan. Actress? Some say. Singer? I guess. Paparazzi fave! Absolutely. After her recent DUI scenario, she blamed one of her boyfriend’s friends who was a passenger in the car. TMZ.com reported

Dante says the mother panicked at Lindsay’s crazy driving, and backed out of the driveway in fear — not knowing who was behind the wheel. The guys say Lindsay then began to chase her at speeds of up to 80 mph through Santa Monica, blowing multiple red lights.

Dante realized the mother was driving to the police station and warned Lindsay if she didn’t stop she’d get in hot water. He says Lindsay responded, “I’m a celebrity. I’m not going to get in trouble.”

The two cars stopped in a parking lot near the cop shop. When police arrived, Dante says it seemed as if Lindsay told officers, “I wasn’t driving. The black kid was driving.”

A HOT mess. But that’s White Privilege at Work!

Lastly, British singer Amy Winehouse recently fell out during a show and was rushed to the hospital for what was initially reported as “extreme exhasution.” This weekend, Amy “they tried to make me go to rehab” Winehouse admitted that the reason for her collapse was an overdose-and still refuses to go get some rehab. Now, some of you may know through seeing awful films like Lady Sings The Blues, or reading the fabulous book by Farah Jasmine Griffin’s If You Can’t Be Free Be A Mystery that Billie Holiday suffered from an addiction to heroin for a majority of her adult life. But she was harassed and jailed at every turn, and was even handcuffed to her death bed for heroin posession, a charge which she denied. In fact, Holiday often said that she was only ever arrested when she wasn’t using.

But Amy Winehouse gets to be a hot mess all over the telly, admitting and singing about her substance abuse, and laughing all the way to the bank. But that’s White Privilege at Work!

Over the past year, the Washington Post ran a series on Being Black and Male in America, that Ive heard they are going to turn into a book. Which is fine. I happen to be both, and a gay one, and know that it’s hard and all of that. However these conversations often seem to be presupposed on the notion that Black women have it so easy-that by virtue of their gender (or sex, I should say) they are somehow viewed as less threatening to whites-and alot of straight black people thinks this is true about white attitudes towards Black gay men as well.

Anyhoo, a new study shows that teachers tend to view the behavior of black girls as not “ladylike” and therefore focus disciplinary action on encouraging behaviors like passivity, deference, and bodily control at the expense of curiosity, outspokenness, and assertiveness.

(The following is from press release about it published by a DC-based organization called Gender Public Advocacy Coalition on the study.)

Based on two years’ observation at a Texas middle school, the Ohio University study found that teachers’ class- and race-based assumptions of black femininity made them more likely to discourage behaviors and characteristics that lead to class involvement and educational success. The teachers’ actions appeared to be less the result of conscious racism or sexism than an unwitting tendency to view the behavior of black girls through a different lens than that of their peers.

Among the findings of the study: black girls who actively sought out the positive attention of their teachers in class by asking questions were reprimanded by teachers, while boys and girls of other racial and ethnic groups behaving similarly were rarely disciplined in the same manner for their actions.

“A lot of the females, especially Black females here, try to have some authority over me in class. I say to them ‘Uh-uh—I’m the only adult in here.’ But they think they are adults too…” said Ms. Duncan, a teacher at the observed school.

The study, written by Ohio University Sociology Assistant Professor Edward W. Morris, is called : “Ladies” or “Loudies”? Perceptions and Experiences of Black Girls in Classrooms. And it is published in an academic peer review journal called Youth & Society. The abstract is below:

Although much scholarship has focused on the schooling experiences of African American boys, this article demonstrates that African American girls encounter unique educational perceptions and obstacles. Black girls in a predominately minority school performed well academically, but educators often questioned their manners and behavior. Some tried to mold many of these girls into “ladies,” which entailed curbing behavior perceived as “loud” and assertive. This article advances theories of intersectionality by showing how race and class shape perceptions of femininity for Black girls, and how the encouragement of more traditionally feminine behavior could ultimately limit their academic potential.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Newark over the last several months. In many ways, I feel like it represents a lot of the tensions, beauty, and ugliness that are happening in Black America, and a manifestation of what late-stage globalization means for Black people in America (I say “late-stage” because in my opinion, capitalism from its inception, was a global project-from early European trade with India and China for textiles, spices, and gunpowder to the African Slave trade and colonialization of the “Americas”).

Whatever the case, Newark has been on my mind, and in the press of late. Just this weekend, 4 young Black people were lined up and shot execution style in the Ivy-Hill section of the city in what news reports are calling a robbery attempt. One, a young woman, survived. Several were visiting home from college, or soon to begin this fall (Not that that makes their deaths more important than people who don’t go to college, but there is something tragic to me about young people striving for better, only to be cut down by the same fate they are so desperately fleeing).

Yesterday, there were protests by local people from the community, many calling for new mayor Cory Booker to resign, because he ran on a ticket of providing for Newark’s public safety. I understand the residents’ frustration, but one should not believe anything a politician runs on in hopes of being elected, no more than one should believe the whispers of a potential paramour after 11pm. No more than one would believe a crackhead in the throes of withdrawal.

Without fixing the education and health systems providing things for youth to do besides joining gangs or selling drugs, and jobs that are in communities where people live and other things that go the long distance towards stemming violence, the mayor cannot do anything but add more police. And the only thing the police can (or anyway, will) do is to threaten force, or to use it. And to call for the mayor to make good on increased policing will mean, perhaps, murder not by robbers or gang members, but by the police. And another protest for protection from the police will naturally follow.

And so goes the vicious cycle.

But I was in Newark on Sunday, apparently the day after the murders. I went to the Liberation in Truth Church (a Unity Fellowship Church), a Black LGBT congregation based in a liberation theology. I had been wanting to visit them for some time as I am now spending a lot of time in New Jersey. Well I finally made it to their 1:30pm service. It is held in the St. Phillip’s Cathedral downtown (they are fundraising for their own space). The attendees were small in number, about 20 folks, mostly women. But it was a beautiful service, led by Assistant Pastor Rose Hardy. The group also welcomed me with open arms, and it reminded me of the best things about what a Black Christian experience can be like—truly at its roots about community and creating the context to transform the daily violence we endure as Black people-if not systemically, then at least on a personal level, and it seems as though they are trying to do both. I’ll be going back.

As I am writing this, I realized there is much more I want to say about Newark, so much more thinking about Newark that I need to do, and much more time I need to spend there. I think this is the beginning of a longer essay—so I can’t give too much away. But I will say that there is something about Newark—40 years after the riots, Sharpe James to Cory Booker , Sakia Gunn to the Newark 4 (or 7) that holds something in it for us as Black people to think through the question we seem to be asking with much more desperation: What the hell has happened to us?

I was initially excited to see that Kimora Lee Simmons was going to have a reality show. I know. It sounds ludicrous. But I was. What black gay man wouldn’t be? As she said last night on the premiere episode of her new show on the Style Channel, Life in the Fab Lane. Simmons noted (something to the effect of) I need my make-up to be more drag queen-ish. Kimora loves the kids, and knows we’re watching, but I had to wonder last night, what are we watching for?

The show seems to be set up to show how the successful fashion model-turned fashion mogul balances the fab lane and her family—the mother of two daughters. The first episode was largely the now-cliché “get to know the characters” kind of episode that reality shows employ. The plot for this episode revolved around a new Kimora Barbie doll being produced, and a new ad campaign that Kimora was launching for Baby Phat, where she would star as the model for the campaign as well.

When Kimora goes to meet with the executives from Barbie about her doll, I do think it was kinda fierce that she read those white women about the reason they wouldn’t give the doll, which bears Simmons’ (Korean-Japanese and African-American) likeness, the name “Barbie” which she clearly knows they only give to the white dolls. The fact that she was comfortable asserting her opinion, and letting them know what she was up to, was fabulous. (I know Barbie is a totally sexist creation and don’t think they’re good for girls’ self-image, etc., but I am making a different point here.)

But while her ability to treat these Barbie company execs badly was totally fine, what I didn’t like (in the same breath) is how she also treated other people in general, which mostly had to do with her staff, of mostly Black and Latino women and gay men. At least she’s hired them (I guess). But when she demanded that her Black (presumably gay) assistant order her another salad with all the fixins in one dish and the lettuce in another (while she was already eating a salad) I began to have questions. Then when she and her Latino (presumably gay) creative director get into a fight about the budget and he, he starts blubbering something to the effect of the only reason I have stayed here is because of you.

OK. Does that relationship sound a little weird?

I don’t know. All this started making me feel a little ill about the “Celebrity” reality shows. Do we watch it just to see A-listers like Kimora be shitty to other people? Do we watch the D-listers like Danny Bonaduce to make fun of how far they’ve fallen so we feel better about ourselves? What are these weird paternalistic relationships that (presumably) straight women and gay men have with each other, from Kimora saying things to her staff like “Mama’s not happy” to Kathy Griffin referring to gay men as “her” gays? It’s all a little to “Truth or Dare” for my taste. What weird misogynist fantasies to gay men play out by their need to be accepted by certain types of hi-femme personalities—and are quick to dis women we view as un-attractive or with bad fashion faster than other women will?

I feel dirty all of a sudden. So I’ll stop blogging, and let you ponder this while I take a shower.

Want a different opinion? New York Magazine loved it.

This is the gayest video in the history of humankind.

Really. It is. Wait till you see it.

If you’ve seen it before, maybe when you were a kid, well, look at it now, with fresh Black and gay eyes.

Cameo, that funk band from the 1970’s and 1980’s that had their biggest pop hit with Word Up (though my favorite is the follow-up single, Candy). Larry Blackmon, the frontman, became famous for wearing that bright-red plastic cup-on the outside of his lycra pants. Leather jacket. No shirt. Handle-bar mustache.

I’m just stating the facts, people.

If I were a PhD writing an academic essay on this video, it would be titled Cameo’s Word Up: An Audio/Visual Exlporation Interrogation of Black Gay Club Culture, Policing, and Desire.

Confused? Let me break it down.

So the video opens with actor Lavar Burton as a police detective, flanked by two tall, dark and handsome officers (nightsticks in hand!), telling the Cameo crew to “come out” with their hands up. And they do indeed “come out” and then do a dance sequence and flee the scene on motorbikes.

Verse two. Alone by themselves in some seedy location, they take on hip-hop, and it’s hypermasculine images (in 1986!)with Blackmon singing:

Now all you sucker D.J.’s
Who think you’re fly
There’s got to be a reason
And we know the reason why.

You try to put on your airs
And act real cool
But you got to realize
That you’re acting like fools…

Those of you who know me, know I fully support that sentiment. In 2007. I suported it then, too. I didn’t like “rap” until De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, and Queen Latifah (aka the Native Tongues) would hit a couple years later.

Now, the duo makes their way into the club, where the gayest dance sequence ever choreographed happens-and boy is it long. Look out! in bursts The Village People Lavar Burton (as detective) and his two officers. After cruising getting a good look around, Burton spots Blackmon and the boys doing some obscene crotch thrusting dance, and he says “Get those queens” to his officers. Only one of his officers gets taken in by the music and dancing and red cupped crotch thrusting, and takes of his clothes and fuckin’ queens out right there!!!

So now Burton whips out his handcuffs, and handcuffs himself to Blackmon , and makes his way to the bathroom stall exit, only to be duped, and hadcuffed to a woman. He’s miffed. The last shot is of Blackmon with two band members walking under a bridge somewhere, when Blackmon grabs the dude to his left, and they walk off, arm in arm.

Don’t believe me? See it for yourself…Cameo’s “Word Up” is so Black and so gay!

There is too much for me to say about James Baldwin. No writer means more to me than him. But I cannot write all of that now, because I gotta get some sleep (I am writing this the night before I post it). But I encourage you to watch the following video, and to post your own Happy Birthday wishes to Baldwin, wherever he may be watching us from right now.

If you’re in NYC, please come tonight to celebrate his would be 83rd birthday (and the 20th anniversary of his death.)

Thursday, August 2
Brecht Black August Events Series
7:30 pm
James Baldwin: Life and Legacies
Activist and Writers Roundtable/Open Mic
Bring Your favorite Baldwin passages

Speakers Include:

Kenyon Farrow, co-editor, Letters From Young Activists
Reggie Gossett, Critical Resistance
Anika Lani Haynes, Writer
Ajamu Sankofa, Healthcare Activist
Joan Gibbs, Lawyer, Professor

People are afriad of Grace Jones. In the 1980’s a men’s magazine polled American men about the woman they were most afraid of. Grace topped the list.

The fact that she was tall, dark-skinned black woman who didn’t take any shit was too much for most men to handle. The fact that she also played quite a bit with gender-when waving a wand of mascara was all that was needed to take her from butch masculine to hi-femme.

I loved Grace, and really came to know her work via my older sister, who was also a Grace fan. She pushed boundaries. She was bold, and exciting, and I was a shy skinny black boy from the projects trying to figure out my own body, in a world that said black men were supposed to be brawny. She offered a window into another option-taking the body that you have, and performing people’s worst nightmare-black person who is willing to hold it up to your face, all the images you dispise and are attracted to at the same time.

Grace’s performance not only pushed the visual boundaries of race and gender, she has also been a friend to the Black LGBT community. Not only did she spend alot of her time and energy performing at black gay clubs, including DJ Larry Levan’s legendary Paradise Garage. Her video, Slave to the Rhythm, is the epitome of her will to push the boundaries of race and gender and sexuality. I think this video, and Grace’s work in general has inspired the video work of Missy Elliot.

For her love of her black queer brethren, and her playfulness around race and gender and sex, Grace Jones and her video, Slave To The Rhythm (below), is so Black and So Gay!!!

NOTE: This is one version of the video. There are two. The other, which is the one I wanted to post, is owned by Universal Music Group, who for some unknown reason has blocked people from embedding the video, and you can only watch it on YouTube itself. Why in the hell would they do something like that? I HATE RECORD LABELS!!!!

Tonight, and every Wednesday and Thursday this month Freedom Train Productions will show a new play in development by emerging Black LGBT playwrights.

Mission
Freedom Train Productions promotes new work written by up-and-coming Black playwrights. All of our plays feature Black LGBT hero and shero characters. Our playwrights have had work staged at Fresh Fruit Festival, Blue Heron Theatre, HERE Arts Center, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, WOW Cafe Theatre, and other NYC theaters.

History
Freedom Train Productions was launched in September 2006 with the support of a NYC Social Justice Fellowship from NYU Wagner School of Public Service and the OSI Foundation.

In 2007, we selected five exciting theatre artists: Andrea Davis, Jesse Cameron Alick, Nick Mwaluko, yvonne fly onakeme etaghene & Andre Lancaster to be our first Resident Playwrights in Development. All will be in a play development workshop facilitated by Djola Branner and Zina Camblin starting in April 2007. Their work will be presented as stage reading productions in August 2007.

Opening Night: August 1st!
Hosted by Djola Branner
Professor and Playwright (Mighty Real: Tribute to Sylvester)

And Every Following Wednesday and Thursday in August 2007
8/1, 8/2, 8/8, 8/9, 8/15, 8/16, 8/22, 8/23, 8/29, and 8/30

@ South Oxford Space
138 South Oxford Street in Brooklyn
All Stage Readings are free and begin at 7pm.

Opening Night, August 1st & August 2nd:
Are Women Human?
by Nick Mwaluko
Director: Alicia Dhyana House
What if as a child you were told by a deity that you were meant to be the opposite sex? Could you be courageous for your god or goddess in the face of intolerance? Are Women Human? by Nick Mwaluko (Columbia MFA) is a play about one person’s struggle for acceptance and love.

August 8 - 9th:
Super
by Andre Lancaster
Director: Christopher Burris
Meet Shannon Tubbs Jr: activist, filmmaker, and professional cynic. Dumped by his boyfriend and jumped by a homophobic attacker, in Andre Lancaster’s Super, ancestral forces help Shannon re-discover the superhero and superlover, arguably, within us all.

August 15 - 16th:
Steal Away
by Andrea E. Davis
Director: C. Sala Hewitt
In Steal Away, Romi is a young Black woman who lives in the Underground, a community founded by runaway enslaved peoples. But after she comes out, Romi confronts this society’s sexism, homophobia, and stubborn sense of liberation.

August 22 - 23rd:
LIKE WILDFIRE
by yvonne fly onakeme etaghene
Director: Gloria Bigelow
If compassion became a contagious disease, what would it look like? Poet, performance activist & playwright yvonne fly onakeme etaghene answers this question in a play that is a poetic exploration of humanity in a brutally apathetic world. These characters delve to the depths of love, activism & madness, and must face their fears to survive & thrive: com/passionately.

August 29 - 30th:
Grace
by Jesse Cameron Alick
Director: Andrew K. Russell
Remember that guy who you swore was gay but turned out to be metrosexual? Or what about that best friend you always wanted to date? According to the world of Grace, you were lovers - in a past life! Playwright Jesse Alick calls Grace a remix of Judeo-Christian beliefs with Buddhist tradition weaved into a story about how some things in life are beyond our control. Freedom Train Productions calls Grace genius.

Freedom Train Productions is a member of The Alliance of Resident Theatres of New York.