fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
This is an easy one. On the one hand we have Orson Scott Card, an award-winning science fiction writer, who is also a raging homophobe who lives in his own little world of homophobia-land. On the other hand we have reality. One of Mr. Card’s works, Ender’s Game, has been made into a motion picture….
{Ed. note: Originally published in 2012.} This eight part story is set in a dystopian future where the only justice poor people receive is from rubbing a plastic statue and hoping that the angel is represented would destroy those who wronged them. Lillian never believed in the whole Harkness thing, but she harbors a secret…
Dear Mormon Temple of Oakland, Hi. You don’t know me, but we’re neighbors. As such, I thought I’d give you some neighborly advice in regards to marriage equality – you know, that whole gay marriage thing that you got so exercised about five years ago. You remember, right? Five years ago this month, after the…
I continue to mourn the death of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. But the bigots were told to go home today. The stupid, indefensible, silly, bigoted, and harmful Defense of Marriage Act was struck down by a 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court. This means lots of things. The federal government will have to recognize…
At one point during my writing of this book, someone suggested to me that I title it “Thoughts on Post-Racial America.” I calmly informed this person that the only way the term “post-racial” America was getting into the title of my book is if it was called “Post-Racial America Is Some Bullshit, and Other Thought…
Shirley and Patty were invited to attend a local revival to give a presentation on the intersection of African-Americans, gays, and the black church. They asked me to come, too, and I said yes, though I had my reservations. Unlike Shirley or Patty, or their friend Grace who they also asked to come, I was…
Last year I wrote that I just wanted George Zimmerman to face trial for shooting Trayvon Martin. This was when a trial seemed doubtful because no one seemed willing to file charges against him. Mr. Zimmerman was allowed to remain free and unencumbered from February 26, 2012, the date of the shooting, to April 11, 2012,…
Statues with camera eyes. The Control Room with the teeter-totter cameras mounted at both ends. The large, balled camera with the shutter lens, always revolving, always watching. The Supervisor with his bald head and thick, black glasses and his familiar battle cry: ORANGE ALERT. Rover, the deadly weather ballon. Questions are a burden to others….
{Ed. note: Much of the biographical information in this article is supported by Lush Life: A Biography of Billy Strayhorn by David Hajdu (North Point Press, 1996).} By the time the Duke Ellington Orchestra went on their first State Department-sponsored tour, which yielded The Far East Suite, long-time Ellington co-composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn was already a…
In 1956, during the halcyon days of the Cold War and immediately after the McCarthy era, the US State Department began an interesting experiment. Take some of America’s top jazz talent and put them on tour to spread goodwill and music to the people’s of the world. They selected Dizzy Gillespie, a showman’s showman, to…
