keith boykin....really? come on.

Keith Boykins newest project, The Daily Voice: Black America's Daily News Source" is a popular forum for news online, much like Adriana Huffinton's Huffington Post but specifically for Black America.

I check the daily voice very often, i like a lot of the contributors.

HOWEVER

I am turned off by the recent ad content.

The ad i noticed today was for the United States Armed Forces, it was a "GO ARMY" recruitment ad.

The U.S Army add featured a black soldier and the text "Your Future Looks Strong with the U.S Army. Take your life further." (BELOW)



If you click it, you go to this Link, where you can find out how you can serve in the army yet still finish college! Featuring many promising images of people of color clad in military garb and helmets. Why wouldn't you join? Now you can afford that U.C tuition, why didn't you think of this before???

Reality Check.

The military is the last resort for many youth, regardless of race. More often you will find recruiting centers where people of color live than in white neighborhoods. It seems the U.S Army targets minorities more than any other demographic. the military recruiters were on my campus like clockwork the months before graduation. Recruiting centers are driven out or banned by legislation in white areas and cities, like San Francisco, however they still remain in poor black and brown neighborhoods throughout this country. i see no difference in placing a military recruitment ad targeting people of color on a site that defines itself as "Black America's Daily News Source."

A couple of years ago, i wrote a letter to now ended Clik Magazine * =( i loved it* in response to the magazine having nearly a dozen pages of Anti Retro Viral's and Alcohol Ads, but not a single HIV prevention or even condom ad. However, i can understand for smaller publications, money is tight-specifically those that target queer men of color. However The Daily Voice, has ads from Vaseline, Verizon, Dodge and Mercedes... things aren't looking too shabby.

Would it of been that hard to turn down an ad placement request from the U.S Army? Would they have lost that much money?

What gives Mr. Boykin?

What makes the Daily Voice any differnent? We criticize schools for having coke on their campuses, Lebron James for condoning China and its actions in Dafur (basically doing anything for money i.e. Vogue) Further, we criticize the mainstream news ad nauseam for its content and their sponsors... Am i missing something?

Maybe I'm just guilty of assuming the Daily Voice would be more responsible with its ad content. It would seem appropriate that the Daily Voice's sponsors somewhat reflected their mission and political agenda. I will let the KFC ads pass, and the Vaseline ads -although more and more studies are showing that petro chemicals are bad for us- but that stuff is cheap and makes me skin feel soft.

Yet, i write this post on Blogger, a subsidiary of Google. And Google is basically taking over the world. HOWEVER, the minute this blog started showing ads for something that contradicted my beliefs, id be out, and i know my friends here would as well.

Jay stated that social justice is not always manifested in a career, but its a way of life. I completely agree. I work for an arts organization, I'm not exactly beating down Babylon, but its a positive, i work with people who love their jobs, and we have events from operas to fashion shows. I have friends that work for various corporations, and the way they live their lives and the way they treat people is far more positive than half the people that i have come into contact with at non profits. I worked at an amazing legal advocacy and aid organization, and my boss was more oppressive than any boss id ever had in any retail store or restaurant.

BACK TO THE POINT!

I will not apologize for or retract this statement: Today, being pro military, is being pro-war. The U.S military is not, and never was created to protect democracy, this war is for power and money for the elites. If you endorse or support the military you are endorsing the status quo. I'm not saying the Daily Voice is endorsing the U.S military, but I was hoping that it could be a little more responsible.

The army spends millions of dollars on recruitment, but fails to take care of its returning veterans who come back with a multitude of emotional and mental disorders and physical injury.

Signing up for the the Army today is a guarantee to be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan (or into myriad of conflicts around the globe)...Regardless, Uncle Sam knows his demographic, and someone got played, was it us? or the Daily Voice?

Gender Fucked

It's always the same shit. it's always different. Everything's always shifting. It always stays about the same. I work out of a building designed to serve the LGBT community. The office (non)policy at my place of work is that "transgender people are welcome to use the restroom of the gender which they present."

*blink*
Yes, Human Resources and the Facilities department really came together on that one. We are free to do what we do everywhere we go--pick a door and hope there's no one behind it who takes issue with our nature's call.

The reasoning's always the same: 1) there are women who use our services who may be victims of assault at the hands of men; it would be difficult, if not frightening for them to have to share a facility with men, and 2) to convert the restrooms we would have to take out the urinals and install toilets with stalls; that's $5,000 per stall!

I can't deny the monetary cost of making the change, nor can I deny the fact that some cisgender women feel unsafe around cisgender men. But shouldn't a center for LGBT individuals prioritize safety for all of the communities it serves? This includes gay and straight men, trans people and cisgender women who are survivors of sexual assualt; this includes gender variant individuals who don't fit or present within a gender binary.

But instead, trans folk just kinda get fucked. Tacked onto the end of an acronym. dragged around. shoved out. dropped off. screwed. Health care benefits don't cover surgery, hormone, or therapy costs. Collegues fumble with pronouns, assume that FTMs are dykes, that MTFs are fairies. It's the same shit.

making things gay

a recent event in my life reminded me of an experience i had last year at work....

on break, we were all talking about amusement parks, Anyway, someone mentioned Great America, and i said "Oh, they have a "gay day" and its kinda fun. My boss immediately responded "whats the point of a gay day, you don't go to great America to make out".....


WTF!

i looked at her, and had to pause, cause i have a tendency put these cookie cutter gender conforming American pie mutha fucka's in their place. and said "gay day is not about making out, its about creating an environment which queer people, specifically young queer people can go where they wont be harassed for simply being."

She responds "i didn't think people would be bothered at Great America"

Its not her ignorance to the harrassment that queer people face in mainstream American environments that is so offensive, but her inability to understand why a certain group of people - who in reality have few if any venues to express themselves, or places where they can just BE- would want or even patronize an event which catered to them. But more importantly, her assumption that anything "gay" would be related to sex. It alludes to this conception that being gay is a physical condition that humans have, its always sex. Of course, there is going to be people having sex in the bathrooms at gay day, but is that any different from any other day at great America?

The point is, Great America -as enterprising as an inception of "Gay Day" is - creates an environment where queer people, and in the bay area, queer people of color can be a part of without hearing faggot or dyke yelled at to them (negatively). Of course it would be great to live in a Bay Area which we didn't need socio or ethnic specific events like Gay Day or a Muslim Unity Day - both of which Great America has- in order to feel safe and comfortable, but until that time comes, these events are for the most part, positive.

This relates to a recent comment made by Bill O'Reily on his show, which the fabulous blog Rod Online responded to recently...

The San Diego Padres had a "gay pride event" as well a "children's hat giveaway" during the same game. Bill O'Reily described this a "insane." My question is WHY? Gay, as much as the American Family Association would like to assert, is NOT the antithesis to family. Gay pride is much about family and community as it is anything else. And last time i checked, Baseball was pretty fuckin' heterosexual, and the gay people that would attend, wouldn't be there to pick up someone, but to enjoy the sport..... (yawn). However, the sentiment that Bill O'Reily is expressing is one that many Americans, and people in general feel, that things that are gay are related to sex, and that should "be kept behind closed doors"

Beware: Lesbian Gangs Terrorize Men with Pink Pistols

Bill O'Reilly and posse expose national underground networks of lesbians recruiting youth in order to indoctrinate them into homosexuality and commit violent crimes against men.



Oh my! Let's crack down on this immediately because men cannot live under a constant fear of violence—a fear and level of harassment that queer individuals and women face on a daily basis.

I can't wait for O'Reilly to uncover the worldwide underground work of feminist gangs working to eradicate masculinist ideologies and practices from the face of the planet. Too bad the feminist angle wouldn't be as sensational without pink pistols
:(

By the way, I like how O'Reilly immediately connects gang activity with a low-socioeconomic background. Nice use of stereotypes. It's getting harder and harder for me to understand how this can be passed off as legit news.

WTF Moment

On the homepage of SF Gate, the San Francisco Chronicle's Online edition, two stories ran as features:

Paris Hilton's return to jail and the discovery of a five year old Oakland boy, found dead in his home from an apparent gunshot wound.

This is the travesty of our media, and the shameful results of media consolidation.

I'm sorry, but who the fuck cares about Paris Hilton's 45-day jail sentence? What would compel an editor to run it on the front page of a daily newspaper in a fairly high traffic media market? It ain't just about ratings. Our mass media has become more about entertainment than about anything substantial, a way to dumb down the masses during a crucial historical moment of war, domestic displacement and and an all-out attack on our civil liberties by the totaliarian regime we call our government. Forget covering the hard fought victories being won EVERYDAY by working people of color against all the odds.

The ONLY thing this whole Paris Hilton media blitz it useful for is for providing a glaring example of why our criminal justice system is a joke.

Most Blacks in Ivies Not From U.S.

A recent study conducted by researchers at Princeton found that the majority of self-identified Blacks at Ivy League institutions were born outside of the U.S. The report highlighted the gap between Black Americans and immigrant Blacks from other nations, highlighting that 40.6% of the Blacks studying at Ivy League institutions are immgrants.

The study reported that although first and second generation black immigrants make up 13.6% of the total Black population, they make up 23% of the black student population studying at public universities and 40.6% of Black students studying at Ivy League institutions. Articles have appeared in the campus publications for such universities as Harvard's Daily Princetonian and Harvard's
Daily Crimson outlining possible explinations, ranging from Universities selectively preferring Black immigrants to cultural defenciencies in the Black American community.

The center of the debate rests upon weather affirmative action plans implemented by these institutions are fulfilling their purpose of redressing past wrongs. Yet, the question could be posed: what is the purpose of affirmative actions? To redress past wrongs, therby 'favoring' Black Americans? Or to help create a diverse enviornment?

My take on it goes like this...I think a lot of what's being said in this debate is off target. It seems to center around so-called "rights" if immigrant students to study at America's top ranked universities. This sort of logic beckons back to arguments posed against affirmative action in the first place by white males who claimed to have been denied access because women and people of color were taking all their spots. Frankly, it's ridiculous. Any student studying at a University deserves to be there by virtue of having been admitted. There's no cultural deficiency on either part -- that also, in my opinion, is another conquer and divide tactic used to create divisions among Blacks from all nationalities living in the US. There needs to be more discussion and mobilization against the institutional structures that prevent many Black Americans ('American' being another category that needs to be interrogated) from pursuing higher education. Last year UCLA's total Black freshman class was about 100 students, lower than it was in 1967. Even in states whre affirmative action is still used in the admissions process, it's dangerous to think that affirmative action policies at the higher education level alone will help remedy or redress any historical wrongdoings. If this country's focus were ever to be radical enough to work in the interest of the majority of working class people of color, less of an emphasis would be placed on the incarceration of youths of color and more efforts would be generated toward providing the educational, social, emotional and political structues that would lead to systemic, instead of symbolic, change.