lgbt

Heroes Made, Not Exactly Born [on Frank Ocean & Malcolm X]

by Jose Vilson on July 5, 2012

First, let me say how ecstatic I was to see that, out of the thousands of friends and acquaintances I’ve gotten to know via social media and other platforms, I heard absolutely no one insult Frank Ocean (R&B singer affiliated with Odd Future, known for “No Church In The Wild”) for coming out as a bisexual. His letter describes love and humanity in the poetry you’d expect from a crooner like him. More surprising was the deluge of messages coming from fans appreciating him coming out on his own terms, something that his own detractors wouldn’t have the testicular fortitude to do on any meaningful level. Black urban music is in constant need of a reality check with homophobia and sexism within its popular ranks, and Frank Ocean’s outing provided a meaningful step because of the respect he earns among hip-hop elites.

Naturally, my thoughts turned to an earlier discussion I had on Twitter about Manning Marable’s outing of Malcolm Little (X) in Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. It seemed to me off-base to make the publicity surrounding the book focused on Malcolm’s sexual preference when, clearly, the narrative gave us so much more about the man. Many of Marable’s detractors suggested that Marable’s outing slandered a legend, and that everyone, especially Malcolm, is entitled to staying dead without having every sordid detail about their life dug up for the living.

I agree, except … I don’t.

I mean, Malcolm is still alive through his works and his voice. The power his image holds over many of our communities makes me believe that, while he’s passed on him the physical form, he still holds weight with the (often diluted and premature) issues that matter most to Black folk, and therefore, all of humanity. Thus, I think Malcolm the demi-god is certainly worth studying in depth and with a critical lens that didn’t exist 50 years ago.Manning’s thorough study of Malcolm shows how passionate and respectful he was of the subject of Malcolm’s life, not simply relying on his autobiography or the movie retelling.

More importantly, it was a service to those of us who believe Malcolm somehow surpasses human expectation. If Malcolm X can go from the life he led in his teens to one of the most powerful men of the 20th century, why can’t our students? Those thugs and gangbangers who we considered a lost cause are Malcolm. The kids we see in durags and big chains on the subway or the bus are Malcolm. The students who feel disaffected in our classrooms socially or academically are Malcolm.

Those kids desperate for change are Malcolm.

While putting Malcolm’s sexual preference (or his sexual situation, if you will) out there does little to dissuade the sort of courage it took for Malcolm to find it within himself to change for the better. A deeper read of the last few chapters gives a sense that Malcolm couldn’t care less if his past were exposed; his person is but a culmination of his experiences, not just one moment. He lived as the best example of what happens when men get in touch with their inner spirit, specifically for a culture he felt lost touch of their inner fighter through systematic oppression.

His bloodshed is the precursor for young men and women to take courage whenever they speak up about their souls. That includes Frank Ocean. And you.

Jose, who’s reading poems again …

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In Other News, Sit Down Already!

by Jose Vilson on June 4, 2009

Sit Down

Sit Down

The A train usually puts me right to sleep. Literally. I turn on my iPod, let some U2 or The Killers crank in my ear, shut my eyes, and I’m magically transported 15 or so stops. That’s not news since I’m usually comfortable with sleeping on the train. Crowded or not, NYC train riders have become less misanthropic, to the point where giving up seats and waving at children isn’t an event but a novelty of NYC. Yet, I knew something funky was going down when, upon closing my eyes on 175th, my body wouldn’t let me sleep. My body’s asking me to be awake and alert for a reason.

At around 168th, the train gets really crowded. Tons of travellers from the hospitals, the 1 train transfers, and the bus stops in the area make their way into the subway car. Across from me, a few people try to avoid one particular seat that’s got gum on it. A few people pass it by, and an elder Asian lady looks at it, sits down in the seat right next to it, carefully avoiding the seat. Next stop: 145th, where a young, skinny dark-skinned Black man comes in, Rasta hat, hood wear comes in and proceeds to sit down in the seat right next to the Asian lady, the same one with gum on it.

Naturally, her first instinct, like everyone else before her on this trip, was to warn the guy to watch the gum. Of course, he pays her little attention. She taps him on his side to indicate the situation. He turns around and says, “Don’t fuckin’ TOUCH ME! Don’t fuckin’ touch me! I don’t want you touching me so don’t fuckin’ touch me!” And the lady defends herself, saying in broken English, “But there’s gum there …” and he continues, “I know there’s gum there, what the fuck, you think I’m blind or something?” (He didn’t see it there, but he strips it off with his one hand and flings it to the floor.) “If I had touched you, there would have been police all over this shit, cop squad and the whole 9 over here, so don’t fuckin’ touch me!”

She’s damn near sobbing, looks at him with disdain, and just turns to her Sudoku puzzle with a scowl on her face. I close my eyes, sighing, hoping not to mutter a word about how disgusting he is. After a few minutes, and a few more illogical rants, none of which I heard because my iPod had on one of my favorite songs ever (“All These Things That I’ve Done” by the Killers), I open my eyes again. As stops whiz by us, I notice him in deep concentration on a lesbian couple to my right. The first I saw had a short hair-cut, looked like she was going to work, and dressed more “masculine,” while the other pretty, Latina, perky, and stroking a Yorkshire terrier she has in one of those bags. . He’s there, elbow on knee, fingers to face, honing in on the more feminine of the two. He’s either in deep seduction or deep abhorrence.

At first, I only noticed that he was mouthing something to the girl. Trash-talking: par for the course from some of these dudes on the train. I thought it was no big deal. Then, 59th Street stop comes, and I wasn’t able to take off my headphones fast enough, but I heard the following spew from his trap:

” … why go out with her if you know she can’t give you kids? What you need is a fucking dick in your back! For real!”

And just runs off. I couldn’t believe this coward.

I looked towards the couple, particularly the more masculine, and just told her, “It’s fucked up. It’s fucked up.” She wraps her fist in her own hand before the rest of us look towards the two. We notice the more feminine one look at her partner and fall into her shoulder, crying her eyes out, scared. Moments like that will always resonate with me, a moment where those of us who witnessed this abuse rallied around this genuinely peaceful couple.

This is not another one of those pro-peace PSAs. You already know where I stand on LGBT issues, and I hate proselytizing too much. But I also know the value of calling people out for the miscreants they are. I respect religions and the right for people to believe what they will, but today reaffirms what’s wrong with some people.

To the guy who came on the train to harrass people today, I’m not sure what crawled up your sphincter  and ate your intestines this week, but your idiocy needs to stop. No one said anything to you nor did anyone interfere with your ability to live. It’s either you need a long hug or you need to rearrange your life. Nothing’s appropriate about attacking elder ladies who were trying to help you out or a couple that had nothing to do with you. If you think you’re a god, you’ve proven to be far less than that today. If you think what you saw was unnatural today, then maybe you need to tell your clothesmakers to stop exploiting little children to make the threads you have on.

If you think you proved yourself as a man today, you proved that you’re no better than the gum you flung to the floor. I wish that gum was just a little more stickier. Might give you a better reason to sit the hell down.

Jose, who can’t stand people like that …

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Who Do You Love? Are You Sure?

by Jose Vilson on November 20, 2008

Yes, I too am angry as hell about Prop 8.

And I read some disgusting things online.

For instance, the rationale for why some people disagree with gay sex is the following:

OK, so if we let gay people have sex, will we next let people have sex with animals? Under the same argument, if the animal’s consenting, then we can have marriage between them right?

No.

The reason I start with this story is that this is the kind of twisted logic that sets a precedent for my kids to call people gay, or for someone who’s dissatisfied by something that’s going on to call it “gay.” I have a hard time with anyone denying other people their right to love or consecrate their love for each other through a civil union, especially when those type of unions don’t affect you.

Similar to the abortion argument, if you don’t like gay marriage, then don’t get married to someone of your same sex. It’s that simple.

I’m not saying there isn’t a religious side to all of this, as I’m a baptized Catholic. However, I also understand that some of the rules that were made some millennia ago need not apply to the current day and time. I also know the countless fraud marriages that only exist for a certain purpose (comfort, immigration, tax deductibles, etc.). I know the love between any two consenting adults, irrespective of sex / gender, should be respected, in a time when love is truly getting harder to find.

And homophobia is becoming like racism, where very few people want to be known as a homophobe, but they’ll act on their phobia if given a chance. They’ll keep questioning whether someone is gay or not until that person’s says no, and even then they’ll have “the tag” on them. They’ll use terms like “no homo” or “that’s so gay.” And don’t even consider saying your favorite artists include Elton John or KD Lang, or that you listen to dance music enough. And apparently, the existence of your manhood depends on whether you’re gay or not, even when some of our favorite men (and women for that matter) may in fact have or have had a relationship with someone of their own sex or gender.

:: sigh::

And those of us who are straight (and it seems especially true for those of us in the Black / Latino communities) who do support the LGBT community often become “othered” as well. Disgusting.

My only regret was that I couldn’t go to the Prop 8 protest in City Hall. But then I’d be so pissed off, I probably wouldn’t even be able to write this post without yelling a few expletives at the Governator.

Jose, who’s excited to see Milk the movie soon …

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Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

by Jose Vilson on January 28, 2008

Time Inc’s “Gay Teens” Cover

“That’s so gay.”“What a fuckin’ homo!”

“No, no, that’s it. You’re gay and that’s it.”

“Que maldito maricon del diablo (What a damn faggot from hell)!”

Snapshots of the realities of working in sexually conservative neighborhoods, where the parents of these 1st generation US citizens learn their sexual intolerance from their parents and neighbors who also grew up hating gays and lesbians, no matter what their experience. The phobias the kids have against even the perception of same sex relationships actually exacerbates the pressures of puberty than it does relieve it. The idea that somehow one person’s sexuality has any negative repercussions on another person’s marriage or life for that matter is simply ridiculous.

But that’s what our kids live with. Nowadays, though, the idea of fluid sexuality has come into the fore, and it’s definitely caught my eye with all the emo and rainbow-colored paraphernalia my kids wear and the songs they listen to, and that’s all understandable. I don’t walk around my school with dark-colored glasses, as much of the classroom culture I cultivate comes from understanding the kids’ interests and lives as people, not just math grade on the state test or OSIS (ID) number. Last Friday brought this position to light even more.

2 of my recent alum came to visit me on Friday for my birthday, and greeted me with hugs. It was cute, really. I was excited to know that they still cared enough about me to make that type of visit. Now, the taller of the two, who I’ll call J, said, “So guess what, Mr. V?” Now, normally, I expect something like “chicken butt“, typical kiddie business. Let’s just say this time, not so much.

“Me, S, and some of your other students are bi. And JD, well, he’s actually bi, too. You remember that time when he came up to you last year and said, ‘I got something to tell you’ and he said that I was gay? Well it’s that he really wanted to say that he was bi, but he didn’t know how you would react so he didn’t say anything.”

I replied that I knew, and it was plainly obvious from some of his body language during that conversation.

“Well, I knew all of that, and I’m happy that you all have enough trust in me that you almost revealed yourselves to me; that takes courage. And when you see him, tell him he can talk to me anytime.”

I couldn’t imagine all the harassment he had gone through when he made that announcement to his most intimate friends. I wish he would have approached me, because of the father-son relationship I believe we fostered over the 2 years I taught him. He was someone who provided lots of leadership through his years, and was a role model for the better part of the 2 years I knew him. Even when he slipped in his grades, he was still a gentleman and a good kid overall. He’s in high school now, so he’s probably found a cluster of people just like him or at least more mature people he can talk to. Same with my other former students who I knew were struggling with or discovering their sexualities.

Yet, there are classrooms where we let students who don’t know any better to speak coarsely about others even when we know they’re speaking more out of insecurity than hatred. They veer off the yellow brick road into territory they don’t know and no one teaches them about. The question then becomes, how do we as educators try our best to recognize each person’s person for lack of a better way of saying it? Middle school, more than any other stage of education, is the most inconstant time in their young lives. The lack of personal stability mixed with the quick awakening to the world’s ways makes finding one’s place in the world hardest, and I along with every other teacher from grades 5-9 can either help develop and nurture or hinder and injure their development as people. By allowing words like gay, faggot, maricon, and for that matter nigger, spic, chink, bitch, slut, we approve of these hindrances.

And the next time JD sees me, he knows who he can count on whenever there’s an issue. Despite his faults, his sexuality is not one of them.

jose, who’s growing rapidly everyday …

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