Because Queer Isn't a White Identity

I'm finding so many positive things for black queer and trans people on Tumblr, and so many positive things that tell me what I - and all other white queer and trans people - can do to be allies to our black siblings. Here are some great links:

11 Black Queer and Trans Women Discuss Self-Care

#BlackLivesMatter: 5 Ways to Amplify the Voices of Trans and Nonbinary Folks & Cis Women

Also, I unfortunately found this...but I'm going to use it to spread awareness. (TW: t slur, misgendering, nonconsensual outing of trans women, n slur from someone who may or may not be black)


{Image description: a screenshot from a Verizon phone, showing a message on Instagram. Someone calling themselves Prince Javionn is outing the trans women of Chicago. His message reads: These are all tr*nnies of Chicago!!!! ~several emoticons~ & I'm exposing them because they not letting these n*ggas know that they are men ~more emoticons~}

So, yes. Someone's outing the trans women - so far, all of his victims are  black - of Chicago. And most trans people, DMAB trans people and trans people of color especially, know how dangerous that is. If you have an Instagram account, report Prince Javionn and his campaign to out trans women so he is forced to stop. Support our black trans sisters.

And remember to use the #BlackLivesMatter, #TransLivesMatter, and #BlackTransLivesMatter hashtags on social media.

Badass Black Women

These beautiful, badass ladies have kicked some serious butt and took names while fighting oppressive systems of power and changing the world. They deserve recognition. Therefore, I'm reblogging these:

22 Badass Black Women Who are Leading Movements, Changing the World, And Generally Being Awesome

9 Badass Black Feminists and Their Books that Shook the World

100+ LGBTQ Black Women You Should Know

Sojourner Truth

Harriet Tubman

Ella Fitzgerald

Rosa Parks

Can You Learn Your History?

I wrote this when I had to call out an ignorant, overprivileged conservative who decided liberals didn't know history. You know, the history when white Christians saved the world and rescued immoral pagans of color from depravity...yeeaaaah, I can't even type that with a straight face.

Can You Learn Your History?

Can you learn your history? You know, the history in which interracial marriage was banned, LGBT+ and pagans were burned and hung by evangelical Christians, Black people were lynched for...existing or something, slavery was legal and enforced, women couldn't vote, segregation was legal and enforced, Japanese Americans were imprisoned in internment camps, neurodiversity was just "laziness", and everybody except for rich straight cis white Christian able-bodied neurotypical men was (and still are) systematically dehumanized?

Can you learn your history? The history that has continued today, in which a woman's worth is contained in her uterus and her relation to men, five transgender women of color have been murdered in 2015 alone, unarmed unsuspecting Black men are shot by racist police officers and then denied justice, Christian values dominate a government which is supposed to be religiously neutral, Black women are told that their natural hair is unprofessional and ugly, proms can still be segregated, intersex children are operated on without consent, queer couples can be denied service in restaurants, teenagers can be proselytized while on public school property, women are expected to be sexy but punished for being sexual, LGBT+ rights are compared to bestiality, and oppressed minorities are told they are bullying the people of a country which claims they are free but doesn't treat them that way?

Oh, yeah, we have freedom of speech. But if it hadn't been for social justice, for Malcom X, for Rosa Parks, for Harriet Tubman, for Harvey Milk, for Alice Paul, for Lucy Burns, for Sojourner Truth, for Cesar Chavez, for Rosa Parks, for the Brown Berets, for the Black Panthers, for the Underground Railroad, that free speech and equality that you benefit so much from would be denied to anyone who dared to speak out against injustice.

Can you learn your history?

Black History Month Playlist

music from Aretha Franklin

music from Gloria Gaynor

music from Destiny's Child

music from Janet Jackson

music from Ella Fitzgerald

music from Louis Armstrong

music from Jimi Hendrix

music from Bob Marley

music from Rapsody

Martin Luther King Day and Colorist Racism

As my fellow Americans and possibly some Canadians know, it is Martin Luther King Day. And a lot of my posts lately have been in anticipation of that. But I couldn't pick a really concise topic for this particular post until, a few hours ago, I was on Trevorspace (the social networking site for queer youth that is, lo and behold, not Tumblr) and saw a new thread title in the forums: "Being a different color".

Curious, I clicked on it, and read the message of a relatively new user who was calling himself Little who explained that he was one of the only black students at his mostly-white school and that he was thinking of bleaching his skin to fit in.

And that really sucks. Why should light skin be so celebrated in our screwed-up society? Every time a black girl tells me that someone told her she's "pretty for a dark girl", as if dark-skinned black women aren't beautiful as their dark-skinned selves, I just want to punch whoever said that to her.

She's beautiful, with and regardless of her dark skin, and it's absolutely horrible that she has been told otherwise. Her skin is a part of who she is. Little's skin is a part of who he is, and it's an awesome part. The Civil Rights movement really helped strengthen the idea of 'the darker the berry, the sweeter the juice' but we still have a lot of work to do.

That said, I'm white and can't answer for people of color on colorism and racism, because I've never experienced those things. So I'm providing you guys with this poem. Because while I can't, Tova can.

Hopefully, with with the advocacy and honest courage of black writers like Tova Charles, and the celebration of black voices in the media and in real life, Dr. King's dream will indeed come true.

That hasn't happened yet, but happy Martin Luther King Day.

For Michael Brown

One form of discrimination I've never talked about on this blog - or almost never talked about - is racism. And that's not okay, because if we don't talk about it, racism won't end. So this is for Michael Brown.

For Michael Brown

Just another black boy

That's the justification

The defensive statement

For the devaluing of his life

But Darren Wilson didn't mean to...

To murder

That's what it was

And don't you dare say differently

Devalued, dehumanized, demeaned

All the jokes about Ferguson

At the expense of Michael Brown

And every other black boy who has been killed

Don't you realize that their lives matter?

THEY ARE PEOPLE

And they were murdered

The violence needs to end

"Why do you need to make everything about race all the time?"

Because that's the way YOU made it

That's the way WE made it because we are white

It IS about race

Don't you dare say white privilege doesn't exist

Not when we have those boys' blood on our hands

And Michael Brown's death goes unavenged

For Michael Brown

For the sake of every black person I know,

Every person whose voice is silenced

Their blood spilled because of their race

For every person who has ever had the word "n***er"

Screamed at them from a car

For those people

For Michael Brown,

The boy whose life is devalued because he was black

The boy whom white people STILL see as less than human

The violence needs to END