Wednesday 24 June 2009

Clinton Chan and Teybama:


This recent development with the Obama administration is disappointing. It’s a fucking travesty actually. The most distressing part is that a minority feels like it’s been fucked over by a minority. Now there’s a black man in the White House and all them rap sensations are blinged up, I guess on the front of it all it looks less like a minority. Though that’s only the surface, and you know you’ve got to look at base level to see the truth.

I have to admit the American struggle for gay ‘marriage’ is something I have difficulty with - mostly the word marriage, which the US gay rights movement seems to want to keep a hold of. Way I see it, get the rights whatever way you can. But then I am not hyper-political, and certainly not all LGBT and screamy gay rights political. I forget sometimes, however, that being in Britain right now I can marry, and what that means; that someone fought for that right. What is happening now makes me feel as though maybe I should have done more when I was living in Ireland, where it is still illegal. But of course the quest for rights goes beyond ‘marriage.’ It’s the financial and health stuff that's really the problem, as it factors into marriage. I’ve seen plenty of people blogging that gays don’t seem to standing up for the fight. Maybe I am judging too harshly. Perhaps this is exactly what we need to understand the seriousness of the issue. The younger generation who are coming out of the closest, and in particular probably those who identify as post-gay, who don’t dig the gay pride thing, are the ones who maybe shy away from activism. After all, we are a generation that pretty much came after Stonewall or the HIV crisis. Kids my age or younger, though still suffering, have had a gradual sense of acceptance and recognition in the world and the media alike. In general things are alright, so this is a good kick up the arse.

Obama worship made this a particularly difficult member not to gag on, since the world pretty much had his thick black schlong jammed right down their oesophagus. And of course we should all have been more sensible to view him as a politician, you know, backtracking, shady and out to get what he can. With Hindsight I know some are wondering if Hilary would have done things right. The whole thing is sort of like the final of the last America’s Next Top Model. The judges expected little from Creepy Chan, so when she crawled through the tar in a Rosa Cha fashion show, shaking her little feathered tresses, they were blown away. Teyona was a little cyborg who ‘reverted back to model bootcamp,’ and yet she got the votes (from all, might I mention, except Paulina, now if only we could take a leaf out of her political book). So the black girl won, for sappy, ANTM-centric political reasons. She wanted it more, so she got it. But you sort of know she’s gonna fall flat as a REAL model. A bit like Obama as a real monger of hope for all. Creepy Chan may not have ticked the winners boxes, but you can’t help believe she could have been the right choice, if the competition wasn't based on Tyra's bent, internal politics. Maybe Hillary was the blond, unlikely Cover Girl after all?


Watching the debates is so frustrating, because the opposition is never going to see eye to eye with the fag on the podium. The real fight has to be fought convincing the kids, or those who for whatever reason don’t feel politics affects them, or that their vote matters. When it comes to gay pride, perhaps more time should be spent on, as Tori Amos put it recently "votes instead of floats." Gay Americans need another Milk, they need to be lobbying and getting into the positions of power that makes the decisions. The minority is never approved of, and never right - the majority of America will not agree with gay marriage until years after it has been achieved - when whatever our truly post-gay musicians are in the limelight with their irony-, rather than parody-, heavy bling (o hay Patrick Wolf!). At the end of the day, this isn’t about the best model winning, out of Creepy Chan and Teyona, this is about Kim Stolz getting to the final and stomping out an African american plus sizer. Or better yet, let’s get a lesbian African American plus size model to the final.

It is too easy for people to say “shady negro,” especially if you oppose any kind of stereotyping. It is also unacceptable to allow Obama to rest on his laurels, no matter how much good he is doing. A serious promise is broken - if anything, I hope the developments will somehow push us to push him, because that’s how to get the job done. It might get you fired, like Paulina, but integrity and being in the right are (probably) worth so much more than Pushing the 5” 7 and under cause. When even the likes of Dick Cheney is suddenly to the left of the left, because the left’s moving goal post has suddenly shifted to the right, the Tyra’s and Miss J’s might think that maybe they should have picked a president who could actually work in Europe, and book proper editorials, rather than just satisfy a quick African American fix on the cover of 17 magazine.

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