"Writing, the art of communicating thoughts to the mind through the eye, is the great invention of the world."
---Abraham Lincoln, from In Lincoln's Hand: His Original Manuscripts, edited by Harold Holzer and Joshua Wolf Shenk (Bantam Books, hardcover, 2009).
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The Proposal for "Celebrating Ourselves," the Black Gay & Lesbian Supplement
The following letter may be of interest to buffs of gay and lesbian history. I found the faded photocopy of the letter among some other papers. It is a proposal I sent to Patrick Merla, the editor of the New York Native, a weekly gay newspaper, outlining a special black gay and lesbian supplement. The supplement was published in the fall of 1984 as "Celebrating Ourselves," a title that was suggested to me by the poet/novelist Melvin Dixon, who contributed a poem to the supplement's poetry centerfold (the first and only time the Native ever published poetry). Among the other contributors to the supplement were Joe Beam, Dave Frechette, Craig Harris, and Donald Woods (all now deceased). The "Celebrating Ourselves" supplement consisted of essays, poetry, and photos.The letter was dated June 15, 1984.
Dear Patrick:
In August 1983 the Native published a supplement called "Harlem Rising." I contributed two pieces to it. It would be a good idea to bring the supplement back, possibly in August. However, this time I would like to be the guest editor. And instead of calling it "Harlem Rising," it should be called "Hue: Black Gay & Lesbian Supplement." The new name would underscore the fact that blacks range in color from very fair to very dark.
The supplement would contain five or six articles, covering a wide range of areas: politics, the arts, religion, etc. One article that I would try to include in the supplement is an address delivered by James Baldwin two years ago at a BWMT [Black and White Men Together, later renamed Men of All Colors Together] meeting that dealt with being black and gay (BWMT has the tape). There would also be photos and artwork. I would like to discuss this with you either on the phone or in person because I think it is important for the Native to continue to deal with issues and events of concern to the black gay and lesbian community. I appreciate the Native's willingness to publish black-oriented articles. It shows that the paper realizes that not everyone is white and middle class. I am looking forward to a long association with the Native.
I hope the answer will be affirmative. I think this supplement will be better than the last one.
Author's Note: My association with the Native began in 1983 and ended in 1988.
One more thing, I never did get to use the James Baldwin BWMT address.
Dear Patrick:
In August 1983 the Native published a supplement called "Harlem Rising." I contributed two pieces to it. It would be a good idea to bring the supplement back, possibly in August. However, this time I would like to be the guest editor. And instead of calling it "Harlem Rising," it should be called "Hue: Black Gay & Lesbian Supplement." The new name would underscore the fact that blacks range in color from very fair to very dark.
The supplement would contain five or six articles, covering a wide range of areas: politics, the arts, religion, etc. One article that I would try to include in the supplement is an address delivered by James Baldwin two years ago at a BWMT [Black and White Men Together, later renamed Men of All Colors Together] meeting that dealt with being black and gay (BWMT has the tape). There would also be photos and artwork. I would like to discuss this with you either on the phone or in person because I think it is important for the Native to continue to deal with issues and events of concern to the black gay and lesbian community. I appreciate the Native's willingness to publish black-oriented articles. It shows that the paper realizes that not everyone is white and middle class. I am looking forward to a long association with the Native.
I hope the answer will be affirmative. I think this supplement will be better than the last one.
Author's Note: My association with the Native began in 1983 and ended in 1988.
One more thing, I never did get to use the James Baldwin BWMT address.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Don't Feed the Wildlife
One of my favorite pastimes when the weather is nice is walking completely around the Harlem Meer (a man-made lake) at the northern end of New York's Central Park two or three times. I especially enjoy watching the ducks and geese during these leisurely strolls.
One afternoon I brought some bread crumbs to feed them. A Parks Department employee cautioned me not to because it would discourage them from migrating in the winter and that they would die as a result. He also told me that they had food of their own.
I was skeptical, thinking that instinct would kick in. But after learning that the geese have taken up permanent residence in the park (and leaving their poop everywhere), it dawned on me that perhaps the Parks Department employee was right. So fellow park patrons, heed the posted signs: don't feed the birds.
One afternoon I brought some bread crumbs to feed them. A Parks Department employee cautioned me not to because it would discourage them from migrating in the winter and that they would die as a result. He also told me that they had food of their own.
I was skeptical, thinking that instinct would kick in. But after learning that the geese have taken up permanent residence in the park (and leaving their poop everywhere), it dawned on me that perhaps the Parks Department employee was right. So fellow park patrons, heed the posted signs: don't feed the birds.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
The Demise of Empanada Joe's
"Eat Beautiful. Feel Beautiful." That was the slogan on the menus at Empanada Joe's, a fast food joint on Broadway and 111th Street, a stone's throw from Columbia University. Apparently not every one believed in that slogan. Empanada Joe's is no more. According to the Daily Spectator( February 18, 2009), the campus paper, "most Columbia students and local residents seem glad to see it go." One student was quoted as saying, "I didn't like it. It was very expensive and the empanadas were small. Afterwards, I felt sick."
The first time I visited the restaurant, I didn't get sick, but I was disappointed in the size and price of the empanadas ( meat-filled patties,that look something like a turnover). I wrote a letter to the manager a short time later. Below is the text of the letter:
"My friend Klaus and I went to your restaurant on the evening of August 14, 2008. We shared an empanada (Argentine beef) and a Tuscan pasta salad. Both were very good but pricey and, to our disappointment, very small. The price would have been justified if the empanada was larger. It was so small, it would take three or four of them to fill me up.
I hope that you will make the empanada and the salads larger or offer more than one size (priced accordingly). Otherwise, customers will not feel they are getting their money's worth."
Klaus (who is 75 years old) would go in there from time to time and try to give them advice on improving their business but they would laugh it off as though he were a slightly demented old man.Every time we passed by, there was hardly any customers. He predicted that they wouldn't last. He was right. As another Columbia student pointed out to the Spectator reporter, "When there is Chipotle next door, who is going to go to Empanada Joe's?" Why, indeed.
The first time I visited the restaurant, I didn't get sick, but I was disappointed in the size and price of the empanadas ( meat-filled patties,that look something like a turnover). I wrote a letter to the manager a short time later. Below is the text of the letter:
"My friend Klaus and I went to your restaurant on the evening of August 14, 2008. We shared an empanada (Argentine beef) and a Tuscan pasta salad. Both were very good but pricey and, to our disappointment, very small. The price would have been justified if the empanada was larger. It was so small, it would take three or four of them to fill me up.
I hope that you will make the empanada and the salads larger or offer more than one size (priced accordingly). Otherwise, customers will not feel they are getting their money's worth."
Klaus (who is 75 years old) would go in there from time to time and try to give them advice on improving their business but they would laugh it off as though he were a slightly demented old man.Every time we passed by, there was hardly any customers. He predicted that they wouldn't last. He was right. As another Columbia student pointed out to the Spectator reporter, "When there is Chipotle next door, who is going to go to Empanada Joe's?" Why, indeed.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Racism Within the Gay Community
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion in New York's Greenwich Village. Below is an unpublished letter I sent to the Village Voice 25 years ago in response to an interview that appeared in its Gay Pride Issue. The letter was dated June 28, 1984. There is still some truth in what I wrote back then.
Dear Editor:
James Baldwin in his interview with Richard Goldstein (Village Voice, June 26), hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that "the gay world as such is no more prepared to accept black people than anywhere else in society."
Racism, as Baldwin knows, is very much a fact of life within the gay community. It is evident in the discriminatory admission policies of gay bars and discos across the country and in the near total exclusion of blacks and other third world gays in gay magazines and newspapers. The "invisibility"of black gays and lesbians is what prompted me to write articles in the gay press pointing up the fact that blacks are a vocal and active part of the gay community.
The white middle class male image being projected in these publications (and subsequently carried by the straight media) helps to foster the homophobic view in the black community that homosexuality, as well as AIDS, is a "white disease."
Until the white gay community is willing and able to accept black gays and lesbians as full and equal partners in the struggle against heterosexist oppression, they have no right to complain about homophobia. They too have become oppressors. That's not my idea of Gay Pride.
Dear Editor:
James Baldwin in his interview with Richard Goldstein (Village Voice, June 26), hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that "the gay world as such is no more prepared to accept black people than anywhere else in society."
Racism, as Baldwin knows, is very much a fact of life within the gay community. It is evident in the discriminatory admission policies of gay bars and discos across the country and in the near total exclusion of blacks and other third world gays in gay magazines and newspapers. The "invisibility"of black gays and lesbians is what prompted me to write articles in the gay press pointing up the fact that blacks are a vocal and active part of the gay community.
The white middle class male image being projected in these publications (and subsequently carried by the straight media) helps to foster the homophobic view in the black community that homosexuality, as well as AIDS, is a "white disease."
Until the white gay community is willing and able to accept black gays and lesbians as full and equal partners in the struggle against heterosexist oppression, they have no right to complain about homophobia. They too have become oppressors. That's not my idea of Gay Pride.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
My Six-Word Memoir
Smith Magazine (no relation to me) pioneered this new form. I first heard about the six-word memoir on "The Leonard Lopate Show" on WNYC, a public radio station in New York City. Here goes:
Learning new things makes me happy.
Learning new things makes me happy.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Gay Programming Is Needed on Air America Radio
I began listening to Air America, the liberal radio network, from Day One and I have enjoyed listening to the progressive viewpoints expressed on it. However, there is one type of programming that is missing from its program schedule: a program that is exclusively devoted to the gay/lesbian'bisexual/trasnsgender community.
I was a regular listener each Sunday evening to the gay programming offered by the Pacifica station WBAI, here in New York. But the quality and the scope were limited. When the show was called "The Gay Show," the focus was mainly about white gay men. And when the show was renamed "Out FM," with different hosts, it went the other way, focusing on women and people of color, almost exclusively. I would have preferred gay programming that was much more inclusive and balanced.
Air America has the golden opportunity to develop a program that addresses the interests and the concerns of the GLBT community in an entertaining, informative, and provocative way. GLBT people are visible in all areas of media. Discussions about gays in the military, gay marriage, gay parenting, gays in the workplace are no longer rarities. Air America can help further such discussions and eradicate misconceptions about GLBT people. I don't expect Rush Limbaugh or the other right-wing talk hosts to do justice to these issues or other topics that are relevant to the GLBT community.
Right now, there is room for such programming, especially on the weekend. A weekly one- or two-hour show would reach tens of thousands of GLBT people across the country, creating another venue for them to find out what's going on in similar communities here and abroad. If the network is liberal enough to air a weekly show by atheists, it should have no problem airing a show by and about the GLBT community.
There are so many gay and lesbian writers, historians, artists, actors, political and community leaders, it would be almost impossible to run out of people to invite to come on the air and share their views and experiences.
I hope that this five-year broadcasting venture called Air America will continue to succeed so that such a program that I am proposing will come to fruition. The national GLBT community and radio listeners in general would be the beneficiaries and it would truly make Air America a beacon of liberalism.
I was a regular listener each Sunday evening to the gay programming offered by the Pacifica station WBAI, here in New York. But the quality and the scope were limited. When the show was called "The Gay Show," the focus was mainly about white gay men. And when the show was renamed "Out FM," with different hosts, it went the other way, focusing on women and people of color, almost exclusively. I would have preferred gay programming that was much more inclusive and balanced.
Air America has the golden opportunity to develop a program that addresses the interests and the concerns of the GLBT community in an entertaining, informative, and provocative way. GLBT people are visible in all areas of media. Discussions about gays in the military, gay marriage, gay parenting, gays in the workplace are no longer rarities. Air America can help further such discussions and eradicate misconceptions about GLBT people. I don't expect Rush Limbaugh or the other right-wing talk hosts to do justice to these issues or other topics that are relevant to the GLBT community.
Right now, there is room for such programming, especially on the weekend. A weekly one- or two-hour show would reach tens of thousands of GLBT people across the country, creating another venue for them to find out what's going on in similar communities here and abroad. If the network is liberal enough to air a weekly show by atheists, it should have no problem airing a show by and about the GLBT community.
There are so many gay and lesbian writers, historians, artists, actors, political and community leaders, it would be almost impossible to run out of people to invite to come on the air and share their views and experiences.
I hope that this five-year broadcasting venture called Air America will continue to succeed so that such a program that I am proposing will come to fruition. The national GLBT community and radio listeners in general would be the beneficiaries and it would truly make Air America a beacon of liberalism.
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