The Art of Cell Knowledge

Caught on Tape: HIV Infecting T-Cells

I’m Having a Pat Parker Moment

I am posting two poems from the work of one of my favourite poets, Pat Parker. These are taken from her anthology Movement in Black. I “met” Pat during my early college days, and then met her all over again when I was involved in a relationship with a woman who thought Pat walked on water.  While she has made significant contributions to African American lgbt community and culture  – at least one community centre is named after her – I have a feeling few people under 30 know of her.  To say Pat’s words lit a fire under me is to state the obvious.   I was reflecting on an email conversation I have been involved in about the importance of building solidarity and creating meaningful alliances etc.,  and her words came to me in the midst of my response to one person.   I reproduce the poems here, entirely without permission, because I think it’s better to read them than not to.  While the referents are undoubtedly U.S.-centred, I do think that she provokes serious thought about the problems of complicity – “going with the flow” – and silence, as well as why having integrity and speaking up for what is right and just really do matter.

I. FOR THE STRAIGHT FOLKS WHO DON’T MIND GAYS BUT WISH THEY WEREN’T SO BLATANT

You know, some people got a lot of nerve.
Sometimes I don’t believe the things I see and hear.

Have you met the woman who’s shocked by two women kissing

and in the same breath, tells you she is pregnant?
BUT gays, shouldn’t be so blatant.

Or this straight couple sits next to you in a movie and you can’t hear the dialogue because of the sound effects.
BUT gays shouldn’t be so blatant.

And the woman in your office spends and entire lunch hour talking about her new bikini drawers and how much
her husband likes them.
BUT gays shouldn’t be so blatant.

Or the “hip” chick in your class rattling like a mile a minute while you’re trying to get stoned in the john,
about the camping trip she took with her musician boyfriend.
BUT gays shouldn’t be so blatant.

You go in a public bathroom and all over the walls there’s John loves Mary, Janice digs Richard, Pepe loves Delores, etc., etc.
BUT gays shouldn’t be so blatant.

Or your go to an amusement park and there’s a tunnel of love and pictures of straights painted on the front and grinning couples are coming in and out.
BUT gays shouldn’t be so blatant.

Fact is, blatant heterosexuals are all over the place.
Supermarkets, movies, on your job, in church, in books, on television every day day and night, every place-even- in gay bars and they want gay
men and woman to go and hide in the closet.

So to you straight folks I say, “Sure, I’ll go if you go too”
BUT I’m polite so, after you.

II.  Where Will You Be?

Boots are being polished
Trumpeters clean their horns
Chains and locks forged
The crusade has begun.

Once again flags of Christ
are unfurled in the dawn
and cries of soul saviors
sing apocalyptic on air waves.

Citizens, good citizens all
parade into voting booths
and in self-righteous sanctity
X away our right to life.

I do not believe as some
that the vote is an end,
I fear even more
It is just a beginning.

So I must make assessment
Look to you and ask:
Where will you be
when they come?

They will not come
in a mob rolling
through the streets,
but quickly and quietly
move into our homes
and remove the evil,
the queerness,
the faggotry,
the perverseness
from their midst.

They will not come
clothed in brown,
and swastikas, or
bearing chest heavy with
gleaming crosses.
The time and need
for ruses are over.

They will come
in business suits
to buy your homes
and bring bodies to
fill your jobs.

They will come in robes
to rehabilitate
and white coats
to subjugate
and where will you be
when they come?

Where will we *all be*
when they come?
And they will come –

they will come
because we are
defined as opposite –
perverse
and we are perverse.

Every time we watched
a queer hassled in the
streets and said nothing –
It was an act of perversion.

Everytime we lied about
the boyfriend or girlfriend
at coffee break –
It was an act of perversion.

Everytime we heard,
“I don’t mind gays
but why must they
be blatant?” and said nothing –
It was an act of perversion.

Everytime we let a lesbian mother
lose her child and did not fill
the courtroom –
It was an act of perversion.

Everytime we let straights
make out in our bars while
we couldn’t touch because
of laws –
It was an act of perversion.

Everytime we put on the proper
clothes to go to a family
wedding and left our lovers
at home –
It was an act of perversion.

Everytime we heard
“Who I go to bed with
is my personal choice –
It’s personal not political”
and said nothing –
It was an act of perversion.

Everytime we let straight relatives
bury our dead and push our
lovers away –
It was an act of perversion.

And they will come.
They will come for
the perverts

& it won’t matter
if you’re
homosexual, not a faggot
lesbian, not a dyke
gay, not queer
It won’t matter
if you
own your business
have a good job
or are on S.S.I.
It won’t matter
if you’re
Black
Chicano
Native American
Asian
or White
It won’t matter
if you’re from
New York
or Los Angeles
Galveston
or Sioux Falls
It won’t matter
if you’re
Butch, or Fem
Not into roles
Monogamous
Non Monogamous
It won’t matter
if you’re
Catholic
Baptist
Atheist
Jewish
or M.C.C.

They will come
They will come
to the cities
and to the land
to your front rooms
and in *your* closets.

They will come for
the perverts
and where will
you be
When they come?

BLAKKA’S BOX: WHY IS ‘FUNNY’ SO FUNNY?

Commentary by Owen ‘Blakka’ Ellis.  Originally printed in The Jamaica Star. Republished with permission.

Caribbean people are very funny. We’re funny as in humorous, amusing, comical and witty. We are also funny in another kind of way. And here I mean funny as in odd, weird or peculiar. There’s also a third kind of ‘funny’.

Gay men, especially in Jamaica are often euphemistically referred to as ‘funny’, and I find our attitude to that kind of ‘funny’ to be sometimes funny, on one hand, while being confusing and contradictory on the other hand.  In Jamaica, a man who acts ‘funny’ onstage is a guaranteed commercial hit every time. But a man who’s genuinely gay off-stage lives with the risk of being literally and physically hit at anytime. And that’s not so funny.

But funny also sells.

In Jamaica, there’s an increase in the number of comedy promoters. There were eight major comedy shows in Trinidad & Tobago over the last two weeks. I performed on three and I saw the ads for the other five. As a Jamaican, one of the interesting features of Trinidadian comedy shows for me is the number of acts that employ cross-dressing men or men playing gay characters.  I find especially funny how the audiences find them funny. A man comes on-stage in neon coloured wig, skimpy bikini and bra, and the crowd goes wild. Chairs turn over, people run up and down and ‘buss blanks’ and di place nuh good again.

Two such acts appeared on the same events I did.  One was a man playing a woman giving tips and sharing recipes for women who want to learn to fix foods to keep a man tied. The other was a drag-queen-comic protesting the promoter’s decision to shorten his act when his motto, philosophy and mantra can be summed up in four words, “want it long!”

People loved it.

The thousands of people at Jean Pierre Complex, and Guaracara Park in Trinidad, as well as an unbelievably massive throng at Dwight Yorke Stadium in Tobago threw big cheers, applause and adoration at those performers. I couldn’t help thinking that if they were in Jamaica, the audiences would probably respond with not cheers, but chairs, tables, stones and other missiles.  But that’s not necessarily true.

You see homophobia’s very funny- and selective. Gay men are tolerated if they have the right connections, or they work in stereotypical spheres like cosmetology or choreography, and they are adored and celebrated if they consent implicitly to be perpetually framed as comic relief.  In fact, based on current official logic, it’s OK to be gay and acceptable for gay people to form groups as long as they don’t try screechie into Mr Golding’s cabinet, insert themselves into the police force or own guns.

But I wonder if we realise that technically there is no law in Jamaica that says it is illegal to be a homosexual. What’s illegal is buggery. And buggery means anal sex (whether it’s with man or woman!) Funny eeh?

Funniest part of the scenario for me is Ernest Smith the MP. He righteously condemns buggery in Parliament, but as a lawyer he has to earn his money yu see. So, based on what I read in the papers, here’s how it look to me. A noble lawyer, who’s a Smith, stands before an honourable judge, who’s a Pusey, and makes a plea in mitigation on behalf of a man who pleads guilty to buggery! Funny eeh? Well at least it’s funny to me.

Imagine if the government made JFLAG illegal. They could then become his clients and earn him some real funny money. Trust me, he might not be anywhere near as hilarious as ‘Bashment Granny’, but I think the South West, St Ann Member of Parliament is very, very funny.

What you think? box-mi-back@hotmail.com.

Safety and Negligence

Now, you send your child to school and the next thing you know is that police coming to your yard to tell you that your child is dead? And the child is not dead because of a stray bullet or some odda pickney stab them, but because some unthinking principal allows a big, heavy piece of furniture to be stored in in the schoolyard where young children play. Said principal also decides that it is ok to leave it there, because where else can they put it? There is no consideration of the fact that big pieces of furniture pose a serious risk for small children. Well, they know now, at somebody’s expense.

This was not an “unfortunate accident” and it is unconscionable to treat it as such. The death of this child is a clear example of negligence and the principal and whichever teacher was supposed to be supervising the children should be arrested, charged and fined for negligence!! And they should lose their licenses, too!

The parents of the children at the school need to get together and sue the Ministry of Education for not providing adequate safety guidelines for schools to follow, and sue the principal for endangering the lives of their children. That will teach the Ministry and di principal an teacha dem deh fi pay more attention to these issues!

I am completely enraged by this situation, especially since it is highly unlikely that community leaders in the area will step in and advocate on behalf of the parents who have a right to demand that the schools are safe for their children. Can you imagine how many other safety violations are in these schools and nobody is paying attention??

The Right Hand and the Left Hand

Let’s see:

The latest is that our esteemed PM still insists that “we” (must be the royal ‘we’, because he doesn’t speak for myself or many people that I know) are not going to yield to pressure” from “the most organized lobby in the world” to “liberalize”(what the hell does that mean anyway??) unjust laws which overly scrutinize and punish some men for engaging in consensual sexual practices with each other while allowing other men to fuck whichever women or girls and under whatever conditions they want. BG is still confusing and conflating legislation (ie. the structured framework within which the citizens act that designates “legal” and “illegal” behaviours) with morality (ie. notions of ideal codes of conduct that individuals use to define their actions). Maybe someone should tell him that not every behaviour that is designated as “legal” is necessarily “right”, and that law ought not to be used as a weapon against people you personally dislike. But, I digress…

Mi really starting to wanda a wha mek im fraid a homosexuality so? It does seem like BG is starting to develop some aptitude for nuance, in shying away from overt policing behaviour in private – or he’s leaving that to vigilante groups rather than the police – and bearing down on the side of punishing men who engage in sexual violence against other men. In this case, he wants to make special provisions to punish men who sexually assault other men or boys even further. I bet im nuh mek no special provision fi di “sexual grooming” or “sexual harassment” what deh gwa’an right inna fi’im backyard? Just mek sure seh your judge dem know seh demi fi treat rape against girls/women with the SAME seriousness as rape against men/boys, yuh ear mi, sah? If we need to take it to that level, then raping women should ALSO be a crime against the nation, dammit. Men are not more socially valuable than women, and we should not accept any legislation that enshrines this notion in any way.

At the same time, said BG has authorized much money to be spent on shoring up the bangbelly tourism industry, whose doyennes have identified the next big moneymaker market as – you guessed it – gay and lesbian tourism. No shit. So, either BG does not know that interest in this marketing strategy has been gathering steam for a couple years now in his own backyard independent of what he’s defending as “culture” (another post on that to come), or he simply does not understand that many in his government do not see any problem with taking the “pink dollar” from foreign hands, at the same time that he is saying that the battered, bloodied and dead bodies, which are inevitable as long as he chooses to defend this irresponsible double standard, are his business, not their’s. Frankly, it seems to me that the left hand is trying to force the right hand to soften its grip, and might well be succeeding, finger by finger. If BG continues with this ridiculous tirade and chanting against homosexual sex, he is going to be caught in a tight corner with his pants down, and it’s not going to be pleasant to watch. Somebody also needs to point out that he, like Ernie Smith, is riding this one for popular points, and he is starting to look just as foolish.

By the way, it’s well past time for you well-meaning heterosexuals to speak up and challenge this man. Here you have your Prime Minister using very strong language to suggest that HE is not going to listen to anybody – inside or outside – who disagrees with him on this issue. In fact, he has taken it on himself to decide what is “right” and “wrong” for Jamaicans. Imagine that! I didn’t know that’s what the PM was elected to do, maybe I should go back and do O-Level Civics to remind myself. Apparently, all a wi a gyingi fly whe’ im kyaa just swat whe’ when im ready. Again, a very telling response. Im is blasted out a order! If him can decide seh im n’ aa listen pon dis issue, yuh nuh tink seh a so im a go deal with wi pon every odda issue to? Now, with an attitude and example like this, why should the other legislators have any respect for citizens’ concerns, or feel that they are beholden to the citizens and not just to themselves and whateva fly up inna dem éad? He insists on framing this issue as being about “giving in” to the Enemy. Since when are gays and lesbians “the enemy”? Oh sorry, I forgot about the last 16 years. I just want to know if he really thinks that he is saying anything different from his buddy-ol’ pal Ernie? It’s clear to me that BG really doesn’t get that the best thing he can possibly do on this issue is to position himself as a reasonable man who is willing to listen and engage in a manner that his fellow citizens can learn from, whether or not he decides to change his mind. Somebody should really tell him. In all these ways, he is just like George Bush II. In fact, BG seems to be taking up where GB left off (a palindrome of sorts). Let’s just say BG is not my idea model for a good statesman or progressive national leader, and leave it at that for now.