Refuse to Hate from Refuse to Hate on Vimeo.
Category Archives: Current Affairs
National Book Award
White Crane is proud to offer our warmest congratulations to White Crane James White Poetry Prize judge and University of Houston professor Mark Doty for his being named as the National Book Award poetry prize-winner for Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins).
Doty has taught in the University of Houston Creative Writing 
Program since 1999, but next spring he begins teaching at Rutgers University. Fire to Fire brings together new poems with selections from his previous seven collections, including My Alexandria (1993), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. There is a wonderful interview with Mark here. And you can see his moving acceptance speech here.
Doty is our judge for the first James White Poetry Prize for White Crane. That winner will be announced in spring 2009.
Jesse’s Journal: A Glass Half Full
The longest presidential election season in history is over. The campaign that gave us Joe the Plumber, Ralph Nader (again), Sarah Palin, Ron Paul and lipstick on a pig also gave us our most inspiring leader since John F. Kennedy. Historians will look back at the election of Barack Obama as a watershed event, similar to the elections of Thomas Jefferson (1800), Andrew Jackson (1828) and Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1932). Obama’s victory may be attributed to a brilliant campaign carried out by him and on his behalf, along with a collapsing economy and a near-total repudiation of George W. Bush and his eight year reign. Though John McCain is not responsible for much of the Bush Administration’s crimes, follies and misfortunes, he linked himself to the president’s policies at a time when they were becoming increasingly unpopular.The Bush Administration, with its “my way or the highway” foreign policy, preemptive wars, disregard for civil liberties and the environment, its use of water boarding and other torture devices and creation of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, has earned the enmity of the entire world. Since this election, for the first time since 2001, Americans are once again liked and respected by others. Though Barack Obama is far from perfect, and is likely to disappoint us the way that Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton did before, his administration will be a welcome change from the Bush regime. Thanks to Obama, black and brown boys and girls will dare to dream high; even to achieve the highest post in the land. And while women were not yet able to break the glass ceiling, the example of Hillary Clinton – and, yes, Sarah Palin – will inspire other women to reach for the stars.
Not everything came out right in the elections of 2008. The biggest disappointment was the passage of constitutional amendments in Arizona, California and Florida that banned same-sex marriage in those states. Combined with passage of an amendment in Arkansas that will prohibit the adoption of children by “unmarried” (mostly Gay) couples, these initiatives gave social conservatives a degree of satisfaction that was denied to them on the presidential level. Though the Arizona and Florida amendments were bad enough, the California initiative (Proposition 8) was especially cruel, for it deprived Lesbian and Gay couples of a right to marry that they had already enjoyed. In approving Proposition 8, Californians also voted against their own self interest, for the Gay marriage industry brought much-needed revenue to the Golden State.
Too much has been written about Black support for the anti-Gay amendments, in California and elsewhere. Some white Gays complained that African-Americans, themselves longtime victims of discrimination, voted to deprive the rights of others on the same day that they helped elect one of their own. But it is unfair (if not racist) to blame the “black vote” for our recent defeats. Proposition 8 would have passed even if every African-American voter had stayed at home on November 4. The majorities of all colors who voted for Proposition 8 and the other anti-GLBT initiatives shared a conservative religious and cultural bent. Catholics, Evangelicals and Mormons of all races joined forces to “protect” the institution of marriage from the specter of same-sex unions. On the other hand, liberal Jews, Unitarians and freethinkers voted against these measures.
That the GLBT community is disappointed, shocked and angry by recent electoral losses is no surprise, and I share those emotions. But we have gone through electoral ups and downs before, and always managed to come through. On a happier note, Connecticut voters failed to call for a constitutional convention that might have repealed that state’s recent legalization of same-sex marriage. And Jared Polis, a Democrat for Colorado, was elected to Congress, joining Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Barney Frank of Massachusetts. So is 2008's electoral glass half empty or half full? The glass is more than half full with the promise of an Obama presidency (and a more progressive Congress), and less than half empty with the passage of homophobic state initiatives. But when you think about it, all things considered, our glass is really half full, even in California. This is not the end, and we will carry on. We must not become despondent by our electoral defeats, nor complacent by Obama’s great victory. Instead, we must continue to work as hard as we can, in good times and bad, in order to make our world a better place to live in.Jesse Monteagudo is a freelance author and gay activist who lives in Florida, “a great state with horrible rulers.” Send him a note at jessemonteagudo@aol.com.
I’m changing my name to Fannie Mae…
Ladies and Gentlemen…the estimable Fannie Mae Paxton…
Spot On about Prop 8
I'm sure (or I sure hope) this clip is making the rounds. When I heard it on Keith Olbermann's show last night I recognized it as perhaps the most direct and clear spoken case made by a heterosexual for the rights of Gay people to be married. Very moving and spot on.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Py1d_zHmUgY
Barack OBollywood!
http://www.youtube.com/v/sA-451XMsuY
Happy Obama
I slept in this morning.
We worked at CNN until the wee hours of the morning last night, watching and waiting for the ripe fruit of the last few states to fall into the big blue basket of the Democratic column and Obama's historic victory.
Even my big yellow dog didn't demand his Democratic victory walk until I was ready to stir this morning.
I walked out the front door of my building feeling the electricity in the air from last night, still. As I got to the corner, the crossing guard that protects the children going to that school I voted in yesterday from the onslaught of traffic at the crossroad of Classon and St. John's Place raised her voice and hand to everyone who passed and greeted them with a "Happy Obama!"
Happy Obama. Indeed.
It was amazing, gratifying. Brilliant.
It was also maddening.
In many ways, the same voters who made history with the triumphant election of Obama, also opted to vote discrimination into the California constitution. And it is hard for me to separate that from my celebration of Obama's well-deserved victory.
We turn one corner, and come to another. We drive a stake into the heart of one fearful discriminatory impulse in this country that, it seems, rarely does the right thing the first time, and raise up another strawman of fear and loathing on which to focus immature and unimaginative minds.
I don't want to take anything away from this beautiful moment. But I think it is as much a sign of how degraded the American ideal has become in the past eight to 20 years as it is a moment to celebrate. And I think one of the things this President is going to require of all of us is honest self-appraisal.
And I am ashamed and dejected in equal parts to my pride and elation this morning.
I know one thing in my bones: expectations are high for this new President. Everyone is hoping that he is, as they say The One. I read an interview with President Elect Obama in which he spoke about "Gay marriage" (a term I'm not entirely comfortable with) in which he said he believed that "marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman" and he wasn't willing to degrade that in any way.
How can such a brilliant man be so abysmally ignorant?
So, I have high expectations of this man, too. But I am also realistic in my belief that we are all bound to be disappointed in him in some way, at some point. But here is my pragmatic expectation: that someone, somewhere, somehow sits down with this brilliant and inspiring man and explain to him in painfully exquisite detail the gulf of difference between "holy matrimony" and "marriage."
Explain to him how the former is "church" and the latter is "state" and that somehow, in the same way that that unholy alliance once justified slavery and the oppression of Black people that we now justly celebrate the death of…is now being employed to hurt loving men and women, who pay taxes and raise children (or not) and are undeserving of having their civil rights, their human rights unjustly curtailed because of the superstitious tyranny of the majority.
Keep your "holy matrimony" President-elect Obama.
Holy Matrimony is a religious ritual. Marriage is a civil right.
Give LGBT people the same, equal, civilly righteous protections every other citizen in this country has under the sacred language of our constitution, no matter how many times the radical religious right wastes our time, money and souls in the pursuit of their fearful discrimination.
And we will have those rights, Mr. President-elect.
Yes…we will.
On the line…
I got up at 5:30 this morning, posted the Gay Wisdom mailing to the internet, put on some pants and a shirt, a jacket and a hat, leashed Brewster and took him out for his morning business. It was still dark out, though the earliest light was visible on the far reaches of the horizon.
The first thing I noticed was the odd number of people out at this normally quiet time in my busy, noisy neighborhood, Prospect Heights, in the shadow of the Brooklyn Museum. Usually I might see a car in the morning, or an early delivery truck. But not people. This morning, I counted a dozen people, coming from different directions, but all heading in the same direction, the Elijah Stroud Middle School on the corner of Sterling and Classon Avenue. I rushed Brewster through his walk, took him back home and left him with my partner and, grabbing a cup of coffee and my paper, I dashed out the door, and out on to the street.
Even more people out there now. I walked across the street and down the one block to Stroud elementary, and turned the corner to see the line. I have voted in this neighborhood for the past seven years, and the longest line I've ever seen was one snaking out from the gymnasium where the booths are, to the front door, about 20 feet away.
This morning, the line stretched past that point, out through the cast iron gates, turned to the left, and went nearly halfway down the New York City block street to Washington Avenue. It was 6:00 a.m. There were hundreds of people already on line, waiting patiently to cast their vote.
There was definitely excitement in the air. And more African-Americans than I had ever seen on any election day before. And young people. My neighborhood is very Caribbean (the largest Caribbean Day Parade goes right down Eastern Parkway, two blocks from my apartment), and becoming "hip" so there is a huge influx of young people seeking low(er) rents.
You could hear people talking ("wow…look at the line!" "Can you imagine what it's going to be like later?") And everyone I looked at was smiling. Not as much as they were smiling when they came out of the voting booth. Then they were positively beaming…men, women, young, old. Everyone I saw coming out of the booth had this almost beatific grin on their face. Some people actually came out singing. They greeted one another. Joked. They had a spring in their step. It was beautiful…this was the place to be!
The line moved pretty fast. From the time I got on line, until the time I was waiting outside the voting book was precisely one hour. But the line was always moving. My district had two voting booths (like the one pictured…something like 513 moving parts!) but one of them was already broken. So, that slowed things down a bit. But start to finish, one hour, reading Dreams From My Father on my Kindle, listening to Mozart and Stan Getz.
It was the best line I have ever been on.
What is ACORN?
Have you heard about how ACORN is ruining democracy?….Get informed. Watch this:
National Latina/o AIDS Awareness Day
Today the National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC) honors National Latino AIDS Awareness Day (NLAAD). Held annually on October 15, the final day of Hispanic Heritage Month, NLAAD helps raise awareness about the disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS in Latino communities throughout the United States and its territories. “The importance of National Latino AIDS Awareness Day cannot be overstated,” says NMAC Executive Director, Paul Kawata. “Like all minority communities, Latinos have experienced increases in HIV infections related to a myriad of social determinants, including lack of access to health care, education and housing.” Indeed, updated HIV incidence data released by the Centers from Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in August revealed that Hispanics accounted for 17 percent of new infections in 2006, even though they represent only approximately 13% of the U.S. population.
NMAC’s encourages everyone to visit the NLAAD website to find out more about local events honoring the day. NMAC has assisted in raising awareness about HIV/AIDS in Latino communities in several ways. The opening plenary of the agency’s annual United States Conference on AIDS, held this past September 18-21 in Fort Lauderdale, FL, focused on the Latino AIDS crisis. Facilitated by Univision and the Kaiser Family Foundation, with support from the Latino Commission on AIDS, the plenary featured a special screening of the first HIV/AIDS-related Spanish language public service announcement (PSA) targeting Latinos called “Soy” ("I am"). The PSA will debut on Univision and its affiliatestoday. (For more information about Soy, go here.)
“We are dedicated to attaining better data to assess the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Latinos communities, particularly in Puerto Rico,” says Ravinia Hayes-Cozier, Director of NMAC’s Government Relations and Public Policy Division. “The revised CDC numbers are a great place to start in this discussion, but did not include Puerto Rico. This represented a rather major elision, in light of the 11,000 people known to be living with HIV/AIDS on the island. NMAC was further disheartened to learn that the CDC recently announced that it will not be funding Puerto Rico to use the new HIV tracking technology that generated the updated data in the first place.”
To ensure that all Latino communities are included in future HIV incidence and prevalence reports, NMAC and its People of Color AIDS Partnership partners – including Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center, The Balm In Gilead, The Black AIDS Institute, BIENESTAR, National Association of People with AIDS, National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, and National Native American AIDS Prevention Center – are working on a paper about the AIDS epidemic in Puerto Rico for release in 2009.
For more information visit www.nmac.org or click on any of the related links provided above.