Give "Queer" The Boot

When I was on an elevator in an office building here in New York, it was either in the late seventies or early eighties, I rode with three other men. The one standing in front of me kept turning around to look at the two men standing in a corner. As soon as he got off on his floor, one of the men said to the other, "He must be a queer." Needless to say, he didn't use the word "queer" as a term of endearment. From then on the word "queer" has become cringeworthy.

I refrain from using it whenever possible because it's such an ugly word. Even dictionaries still describe it as offensive, as a pejorative. If the gay and lesbian community continue to embrace that word, they should also be willing to embrace "faggot," "bulldagger," "fairy," and "pansy." Like "nigger" and "kike," they are equally ugly, hateful, evil, and disparaging.

There are many highly educated gay men and lesbians. You would think someone within that segment of the gay and lesbian community could come up with terms that are more edifying and life-affirming. Trying to "reclaim" hurtful terms does not erase or sanitize their negative histories.

Note: This blog post originally appeared on my Facebook page on April 19, 2023. I've made a few minor changes.

Harry Belafonte, The King Of Calypso, Dies At 96

Rest in peace and power Harry Belafonte (1927-2023). He was known as a singer, an actor, a civil rights activist, a humanitarian, and a son of Harlem.

Today I dusted off an old paperback biography called Belafonte: A Tough Kid from Harlem Goes to Hollywood by Genia Fogelson (Holloway House Publishing, 1980). The book is probably out of print but has a useful (although obviously incomplete) discography and filmography in the back. (Copies of the book are available on Amazon but not at its original price of $1.95. One copy is priced at $25.00, another is being offered for $28.98.)

Hold That Pose!

There's a scene I absolutely love watching that's in "Mother of the Year," the eighth and last episode of Season One of Pose, the FX television drama series about the black and Hispanic LGBTQ drag ball/voguing world. 

Billy Porter's character Pray Tell, the emcee/DJ, calls out to the participants on the dance floor to "Pose. And pose. And pose. And pose." Each time he says those words, everyone on the floor changes their pose and holds it.

It reminded me of when I attended the 75th Street Elementary School in South Central Los Angeles in the  1950s and 1960s. Every morning in the schoolyard, when the first bell rang, someone, probably the principal, shouted over the public address system, "FREEZE!" Everyone, including the teachers, no matter what they were doing or where they were standing in the schoolyard, became living statues. We would hold that pose until the second bell rang. 

My mother got a kick out of seeing this morning ritual because it was such an unusual sight at a public school.

The Other Side Of Ralph Ellison

I own two review copies of Arnold Rampersad's Ralph Ellison: A Biography (Knopf, 2007). And strange as it may be, I never got around to reading either copy.

Then recently I got the urge to read the book when I learned of the not-so-nice side of Ellison (1913-1994), whose novel Invisible Man won the National Book Award for fiction in 1953. Two black writers--Eddie Glaude, Jr. and Victor LaValle--mentioned their reaction to Rampersad's depiction of Ellison in the New York Times Book Review's Q & A feature, "By the Book."

Glaude, a professor at Princeton, after reading how Ellison treated his own mother and his longtime friend Albert Murray, the African-American writer and social critic, went from admiring him to despising him. Glaude said Ellison was "monstrous." (New York Times Book Review, July 25, 2021.)

The novelist LaValle admits he "love[s] reading about artists and their terrible childish ways." And that "Rampersad's biography of Ralph Ellison, while much less salacious than Kitty Kelley's [biography of Frank Sinatra], scratched that itch, too."  (New York Times Book Review, March 26, 2023.)

So now reading the Ellison biography is a MUST so I can see what all the fuss is about.

AIDS Hysteria In The 1980s

I recently leafed through the June 25, 1988 issue of TV Guide (when it was pocket-size and cost 75 cents). Before tossing it out, I tore out the "Cheers 'N' Jeers" column and put it in a folder marked "LGBTQ." Under "Jeers" was an item about how the openly gay AIDS activist Michael Callen, now deceased, was treated, or more accurately put, mistreated by the staff members at a New York television station where he was scheduled to be interviewed about being a person with AIDS.

According to TV Guide, based on information from the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), "a technician tossed him a microphone and refused to help him adjust it" and "the make-up artists refused to work on Callen."

I wonder if he pointed out this bad behavior to his interviewer when he went on-camera. If he didn't, he should have. There was a lot of misinformation and fearmongering in the media and elsewhere back then about how AIDS was transmitted.

When I met and spoke with Michael Callen at an AIDS forum held at Hunter College here in New York, I gladly and fearlessly shook his hand. This was back in the early nineties. After that handshake, I've lived to tell the story.

What was their problem?

Note: This blog post originally appeared on my Facebook page on March 27, 2023. I've made a few minor changes.

The Five Black Writers Who Got Away

The five black gay writers, now deceased, who I would have loved the "By the Book" Q & A column in the New York Times Book Review to have interviewed are Melvin Dixon, Joseph Beam, Assotto Saint, Essex Hemphill, and last but definitely not least, James Baldwin.

Their comments on literature, black writing, the publishing industry, race relations, favorite books, etc. would have been enlightening, inspiring, insightful, and enthralling. Maybe even irreverent at times.

Unfortunately, their premature deaths occurred long before "By the Book" ever appeared in the pages of the book review.

Spring Is Back! Hooray!

Ah, spring is here, at last. I've survived another New York winter, my 55th winter, to be exact. But it's still March, so I have to temper my joy with some caution. As the old folks would say of a person, without warning, March may decide to show its ass, hitting us with multiple inches of snow.

So for now, on the first day of spring, I can look forward to sunny days, the return of greenery, the buzzing and crawling of insects, and sitting for hours in Central Park with a good book in one hand and a cold, refreshing drink in the other.