Fiction that Matters

qbits:

hagereseb:

NYPD Profiling and Targeting LGBTQ People of Color

Here is a vignette from March 2013: A 24-year-old gay man named Yhatzine Lafontain is leaving a restaurant late at night with a friend on Roosevelt Avenue and 95th Street in Queens. Both are dressed as women, Mr. Lafontain in a jacket, short dress and heels. Exchanging goodbyes outside, they are approached by a man who tells them they look good.

In Mr. Lafontain’s account, they chatted briefly to avoid seeming rude and the man departed. Within a few minutes, an undercover police officer approached Mr. Lafontain and his friend and arrested them, suspecting them of prostitution. “We were surprised,” Mr. Lafontain told me, “because we had never talked to anyone about sex or money.”

I met Mr. Lafontain last week in Jackson Heights, not far from where his arrest had taken place, at the offices of Make the Road New York, a community-organizing group that works primarily with Latino immigrants. It has tried, along with various anti-violence projects in the city, to call attention to the perverse specifics of stop-and-frisk policing — a practice currently on trial in federal court in Lower Manhattan — as it applies to gay, lesbian and transgender New Yorkers who are Black and Latino. Last fall, the group issued a report on policing in Jackson Heights, a neighborhood with a vibrant gay and transgender community and attendant club scene (and also a prostitution problem), and found in its survey of more than 300 residents that while 28 percent of straight respondents reported having been stopped by the police, 54 percent of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender respondents reported this kind of treatment.

(Read More)

By the way, I changed the title of the article because I felt that the original title (“Arrests by The Fashion Police”) created by the people at the New York Times was mocking the severity of the issues being discussed in the article.

“Both are dressed as women, Mr. Lafontain in a jacket, short dress and heels.” There are so many things wrong with this article, this line being but one example. Glad you changed the title and provided the original.

penamerican:

South African visual artist Zanele Muholi wins Index Award for free expression for work presenting positive images of lesbians and transgendered persons.

Image credit: Mail & Guardian

apio:

TAMMY BALDWIN, the Senator-Elect from Wisconsin, will become the first openly gay person ever elected to Senate.

MAZIE HIRONO, the Senator-Elect from Hawaii, will become the first Asian-American woman in Senate.

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, the Representative-Elect for Illinois, will become the first disabled female veteran elected to the House of Reps. (she lost both her legs in the Iraq War).

Tonight is one for the history books.

readingwritingteaching:

Recently in my methods class, we have talked a good bit about culture in the classroom. I am from Alabama, and I go to school in Alabama, so I do not expect everyone that I am in a class with to have respectful views of other cultures (even though they should).

We talked last Friday about LGBTQ literature and how we might incorporate that in the classroom. A good one-third of the class practically openly stated that they would not teach it because they do not agree with it and it conflicts with their personal values. Another third of the class said that they wouldn’t teach it because of the trouble it might cause with parents or the school board. The final third (which included myself) wants to teach literature written by people who might be LGBTQ or with LGBTQ characters assuming we had a good reason to teach the book for its literary merit. Basically, I see no problem with teaching a book relating to LGBTQ issues as long as I am not saying, “We are reading this book because of the LGBTQ issues contained within and because some of the people in our school have to deal with these issues.” I do not think it’s the best choice to shy away from The Color Purple just because Celie is not attracted to men, especially when TCP relates to whatever unit I may be teaching.

Today we talked about racial culture and how we might address it in the classroom. I was astounded at the number of people who said they would not accept Ebonics as a language or a dialect. I understand not accepting papers written in Ebonics, especially in higher level classes, but what I noticed most was that many of my classmates tend to see students of color, particularly those who don’t conform directly to white culture, as distinctly “other.” There wasn’t much discussion of good African American or Latino or Asian literature to teach so much as there was angry shouting of, “I’m not going to teach a book by an African American author just because there are black kids in my class.” I was not under the impression that anyone had asked them to do that.

It’s my strong opinion that we should be teaching literature by POC whether our classroom is culturally diverse or not. We should teach this literature because it shows another perspective, because it challenges our ideas, because it makes us think, and because it forces our students to realize that perhaps the views they’ve held about the world for so long are maybe not as black-and-white as they think.

I understand that there could be problems with the administration, parents, or school board depending on the type of literature that I choose to teach. But that is not the most important thing to me, and I wish my classmates would take on an attitude that focuses on doing what makes the most sense for the class and crossing the bridge of opposition if or when we ever come to it.

nparts:

Green Lantern revealed as DC Comics’ new gay character

Green Lantern, one of DC Comics’ oldest and enduring heroes no matter what parallel earth he’s on, is serving as a beacon for the publisher again, this time as a proud, mighty and openly gay hero.

The change is revealed in the pages of the second issue of Earth 2 out next week, and comes on the heels of what has been an expansive year for gay and lesbian characters in the pages of comic books from Archie to Marvel and others.

(via nationalpost)

nparts:

Northstar, Marvel’s first openly gay character, to marry beau in upcoming comic

Wedding bells will ring this summer for Marvel Comics’ first openly gay hero, super speedster Northstar.

The New York-based publisher said Tuesday that Canadian character Jean-Paul Beaubier will marry his beau, Kyle Jinadu, in the pages of Astonishing X-Men No. 51, due out June 20.

(via nationalpost)