Don Lemon on Being

Gay, Black &

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By Jozen Cummings on May 31st 2011 2:32PM
Filed under: Interviews

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In the two-plus weeks since Don Lemon announced he is gay in tandem with the release of his new memoir, 'Transparent,' the CNN anchor has received both kudos and criticism.

The praise is geared toward the courage it took to openly embrace his homosexuality as a public figure. The criticism lies mainly with the language Lemon used in his announcement. Lemon told the 'New York Times', where the news of his announcement first broke: "It's quite different for an African-American male...It's about the worst thing you can be in black culture. You're taught you have to be a man; you have to be masculine. In the black community they think you can pray the gay away." Lemon also mentioned black women specifically, expressing his concern "that black women will say the same things [about me being gay] as they do about how black men should be dating black women."

We spoke to Lemon recently about those comments and his perspective on homosexuality in the black community, how life has changed since becoming an openly gay public figure and the women who still have a crush on him.

Jozen Cummings: How long did you know you were gay before you came out so publicly?
DL: I say in the book, I've always known I was gay. I think the exact quote in the book is, "Since I was knee high to a duck I've always known I was gay." I had crushes on boys - it wasn't in a sexual way, because kids aren't that way, they don't really know, they just know they have a crush on someone. I don't remember the first person I came out to, but I didn't come out to my mom until I was 30 years old.

JC: Did you ever get a sense others knew before you said anything?
DL: I didn't assume people knew or didn't know, but it's not something I ran around talking about. My colleagues at work who were closest to me or who I happened to have some sort of personal relationship with outside of work - they knew and we discussed it.

JC: How has life changed for you since you came out?
DL: Well, personally, it's been overwhelming. For a second there, it was like, 'Whoa, what's going on with my life?' Professionally, I'm not quite sure because it's only been a week and two days. You'll have to ask me in a year or three years or five years or 10 years, what actually happens. In some odd way [it has] turned out the exact opposite of what I thought. I thought I was doing something people ultimately would think I shouldn't be doing.

JC: In what ways did you think this was going to be a detriment?
DL: Anyone who has been in my position and who's gay and who's thought of coming out and either done it or not done it, has actually thought it was going to be detrimental to their career. That's why they haven't done it. Think about how many people you have out in broadcasting, in professional sports, in acting - people are worried about it. It's how our culture has been sort of groomed. And I have to say this, because I'm talking to you, aren't you a black journalist?

JC: Yes.
DL: So quite honestly, Jozen, there are people who are mad at me and say, "Oh you're throwing black people under the bus." No I'm not, I'm black, I live in the world as a black man, and I know how our culture thinks about homosexuality. You think about those things too as a black man, like, what are black people going to say about me, am I going to have the support from my base, which is black people, and if they turn their backs on me or they get upset with me, then what the heck am I going to do?

JC: Isn't it fair to say it's not just black people who have issues with homosexuality? When you came out, a lot of people read your remarks about the negative reactions anticipated from black women as somewhat of an attack.

DL: Black women are saying the same thing about me as they are saying about black men dating white women, I stand by that. All you have to do is read the blogs or go listen to the radio shows I've been on. When I've been on black radio shows [the subject of black women] inevitably comes up every single time. When I sit on white radio shows or have been interviewed by journalists who are not of color, it never comes up. So I know it's something that we need to talk about. I am a black person! Let's not forget that, and I know what it's like to be a black person, I know what our issues are. I'm not throwing anyone under the bus. I know white people have issues with homosexuality as well, but when you're looking at people who are out in the community and making a difference when it comes to gay issues, it's usually white people and white men - wealthy white men - who are on the forefront of that.

JC: But others have been supportive, have they not?
DL: I've been overwhelmingly surprised by the positive support in the African American community. People have come through and been amazing. I am grateful for that.

JC: Black women?
DL: You know what's funny? Women are like, "I don't care if you're gay, I still want to marry you. I can still fantasize, because I wasn't in a relationship with you before, so I'm going to keep my fantasy going." You should read my feed on Twitter or Facebook. I think women get it. People appreciate honesty and that's what I'm walking in.

B.B. King performs

“Why I Sing The Blues”

at Glastonbury 2011 

June 27, 2011 by Verse    

The legendary blues guitarist and singer-songwriter B.B. King took to the main Pyramid stage at the 2011 Glastonbury festival this weekend.

The 85 year old blues legend took to the stage with his trusty guitar Lucille and full band to deliver a performance that would put most of the younger artists to shame. Watch his performance of his classic “Why I sing The Blues” below.

This was definitely one of the highlights of the festival for me.

U.K readers can watch the rest of his performance here courtesy of the BBC.

 

    *Palooka Prize*

 $200 IN PRIZES

 $100 WINNER

  $25 TO 4 FINALISTS

 

DEADLINE: October 1st, 2011

HOW IT WORKS

As always, we take great pride in reading every word and giving each piece its due attention and thorough consideration. Five submissions will be chosen by the editor of Palooka and their pieces submitted to an outside judge who will pick the winner. The winner will receive $100, have a bio and photo featured on our website with an author interview about the winning story, and have their story published in issue #3 of Palooka. Four finalists will be given $25 each, will be announced on our website, and recognized in issue #3. All entries will also be considered for publication.

 JUDGING

All submissions will be read "blind" to ensure pure contest ethics. Palooka also prohibits submissions from any current or recent students, friends, or family members of the outside judge. 

 

 

 

The outside judge this year is Todd Mitchell, short story writer and author of two well-reviewed novels,    The Secret to Lying and The Traitor King.

 

 

 

GUIDELINES

*Amount: Multiple submissions are permitted, but each submission must be accompanied by the proper entry fee and submitted to the proper Submishmash category.

*Word count: Up to 15,000 words per story.

*Formatting: NO AUTHOR INFORMATION ANYWHERE ON THE MANUSCRIPT. Please put author information only in the Cover Letter/Biography section when submitting. 12-point font, one-inch margins, double-spaced. 

*Entry fee: $6 for one submission, $10 for two submissions, $14 for three submissions.

*Cover Letter/Biography section should include: story title, approximate word count, author's name, phone number, and e-mail address.

*Simultaneous submissions are encouraged as long as you withdraw your piece if accepted elsewhere (or e-mail us if you've chosen to submit multiple stories). As always, we will offer you a sturdy *e-handshake for your accomplishment.

SUBMIT 

Palooka Submission Manager

CONTACT

For questions, please e-mail us at palooka@palookajournal.com

*There must be enough entrants in order to keep the contest competitive. If this is not the case, each submitter will receive a full refund.

Call for Papers

43rd Annual Convention
Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)

March 15-18, 2012

Rochester, New York

The 43rd Annual Convention will feature approximately 350 sessions, as well as dynamic speakers and cultural events. Interested participants may submit abstracts to more than one NeMLA session; however, panelists can only present one paper (panel or seminar). Convention participants may present a paper at a panel and also present at a creative session or participate in a roundtable.

Abstract Deadline: September 30, 2011

Please include with your abstract:

• Name and Affiliation
• Email address
• A/V requirements ($10 handling fee with registration per person; two person per panel minimum for Media Projector)

Search the CFP:

Areas

Choose one of the following areas to see all associated sessions:

• American
• British and Anglophone
• Canadian
• Comparative Languages
• Composition
• Creative Writing
• Cultural Studies and Film
• French and Francophone
• German
• Italian
• LGBTQ
• Pedagogy
• Professional
• Russian/Eastern European
• Spanish/Portuguese
• Theory and Literary Criticism
• Transnational Literatures
• Women’s and Gender Studies
• World Literatures (non-European)

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The Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) is a scholarly organization for professionals in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and other modern languages. Use the site to learn more about us. For more information about NeMLA and its activities, contact nemlasupport@gmail.com; to report problems or ask questions about the web site, contact nemlaweb@gmail.com.

Call for Submissions:

Poetry Anthology in Honour of

President Goodluck Jonathan (Nigeria)

 

Deadline: 31 July 2011

In view of an anthology of poems to be published soon in honour of President Goodluck Jonathan, writers are hereby requested to submit at least five poems each to the following email addresses: thepresidentanthology@hotmail.com

The poems' themes border on the President's personality, his educational policy, Niger Delta, Bayelsa State and Nigeria as a whole. The maximum length of each poem should not be more than forty lines while the minimum length is ten lines.

Contributors whose poems are selected and used for the anthology will be entitled to a copy of the book and given honorarium after its successful publication and launch.

Works submitted should be accompanied by the sender's phone number, contact address and brief biodata.

Contact Information:

For inquiries: contact 08091087559

For submissions: thepresidentanthology@hotmail.com

 

ALEX THURSTON’S REVIEW

OF ‘FIGHTING FOR DARFUR’

BY REBECCA HAMILTON

June 1, 2011

Fighting Over Darfur

By Alex Thurston

Rebecca Hamilton’s Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide raises important and troubling questions about the relationship between America’s domestic politics and African conflicts.  Hamilton thoughtfully probes the limits of what earnest but inexpert Americans in the Save Darfur movement achieved in their quest to bring justice to Sudan.  She thereby joins a debate about Save Darfur that took on great urgency with the 2009 publication of Dr. Mahmood Mamdani’s Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror.  At stake in this debate are the questions of how much context citizens must understand before they act, the politicization of the word genocide, and silences concerning the violence America inflicts on innocents abroad.

Hamilton does not explicitly address Mamdani’s arguments, but this review reads Fighting for Darfur against Saviors and Survivors in order to advance the debate.  Hamilton, a lawyer who worked with Save Darfur and the International Criminal Court, is an insider who acknowledges Save Darfur’s weaknesses.  Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University with long experience in Sudan, is a fierce critic of the movement.  Despite their different sympathies, these authors sometimes reach complementary conclusions, particularly in their calls for more nuanced responses to atrocities.

The two books start from different places.  Fighting for Darfur is partly a sequel to Samantha Power’s A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide.  Power chronicles “America’s toleration of unspeakable atrocities” such as the Holocaust, and suggests that diplomatic and military intervention is the moral response to genocide.  Fighting for Darfur assesses Power’s argument that “it is in the realm of [U.S.] domestic politics that the battle to stop genocide is lost.”  Hamilton concludes that mass domestic engagement is not enough; concerned citizens must go beyond the familiar and the simple in order to understand the complexity of different crises.  As Sam Bell, a leader in the Save Darfur Coalition whose story helps tie together Hamilton’s book, says in the closing pages, “I think one of the biggest missing pieces for the movement initially was context, understanding the context [of events in Sudan]” (191).

Bell’s words strongly evoke Mamdani’s view that the driving imperative of Save Darfur was “to act before seeking to understand” (3).  Saviors and Survivors sets out to contextualize Save Darfur, and Darfur itself, with regard to local and global politics.  For Mamdani, activists’ ignorance made Save Darfur party to dangerous misunderstandings of the Darfur conflict and turned young Americans into bearers of misguided notions that punitive justice, in the form of military intervention and regime change, would solve Sudan’s problems.  Save Darfur, Mamdani argues, was “the humanitarian face of the War on Terror” (6): it did not enact Power’s vision of a morally engaged public, but rather assuaged activists’ guilt over the Iraq War while reinforcing the militarist logic behind the invasion of Iraq.  Mamdani criticizes Save Darfur more harshly than Hamilton does.  But the authors agree that the organization moved out of step with the realities on the ground in Sudan because it allowed zeal to trump knowledge.

The question of contextual knowledge reaches its greatest intensity with the murky and highly politicized issue of whether genocide occurred in Darfur.  Here, Hamilton and Mamdani disagree, though not entirely.  Hamilton writes that the Sudanese government’s counterinsurgency against Darfur rebels escalated in 2002-2003 into genocide against an entire population.  But Hamilton removes Darfur from a monolithic paradigm of genocide and questions the analogy of Darfur to Rwanda that helped spark the Save Darfur campaign: this analogy “did not end up serving Darfuris well when its lessons were carried over into the policy realm because of the very different contexts…in which these two manmade tragedies unfolded” (191).  Mamdani does not see the Darfur conflict as genocide but rather as civil war.  He pushes the point about Rwanda further: “Rwanda was the site of genocide.  Darfur is not.  It is, rather, the site where the language of genocide has been turned into an instrument” (8).  The authors make different claims about genocide, but they both see dangers in accusations of genocide that de-contextualize distinct conflicts.

Part of the political context of Darfur has been America’s violence overseas, an issue that haunts Hamilton’s story even though she focuses on activism associated with Darfur.  One does not have to accept Mamdani’s argument that Save Darfur saw Sudan through the lens of the War on Terror in order to understand how the Iraq War cast a shadow over Save Darfur’s efforts.  As Hamilton details, the international political fallout from Iraq constrained US policy choices regarding intervention in Sudan.  Some US activists acknowledged the relationship between the two conflicts – bumper stickers reading “Out of Iraq and into Darfur” were common at one time – but “the aftermath of Iraq,” Hamilton concludes, made activists’ assumptions that the US could “lead the call” for a strong UN peacekeeping force in Darfur untenable (176).  Mamdani sees the relationship between Darfur and Iraq differently: he writes that Save Darfur directed the attention of young Americans – a “potentially rebellious constituency” – away from the violence America was inflicting on Iraqis, “thereby marginalizing…those who continued to mobilize around Iraq” (60).  These considerations lead back to the politicization of the word genocide.  The war in Iraq was not, by most accounts, genocide.  But if genocide becomes a political label that Washington applies selectively, then accusations of genocide can help silence discussions about other forms of mass violence in which America is complicit.

Given ongoing American interventions abroad, what is the lesson of Save Darfur?  Hamilton sees Save Darfur as offering a negative result, a grim revelation that America’s global influence was not sufficient to halt atrocities overseas.  As an alternative to citizen campaigns focused on individual conflicts, she suggests reframing US foreign policy away from “national security” and toward “human security” (205).  Emphasizing global human equality, she hopes, would improve America’s moral standing and involve America more equitably in an emerging global interdependence.  Mamdani, meanwhile, believers that outsiders can help resolve conflicts, but only certain kinds of outsiders – he favors the African Union’s promotion of “survivors’ justice” and reform on the model of post-apartheid South Africa, rather than the United Nations’ (and Save Darfur’s) call for “victors’ justice” on the model of Nuremberg (299).

Hamilton, like Mamdani, suggests that the lesson of Save Darfur for Americans today is that we must scrutinize ourselves in the mirror longer, and more critically, before we presume to know what is right to do in other people’s countries.  Fighting for Darfur, with its careful analysis of Save Darfur’s motivations and activities and its inclusion of the reflections of key movement insiders, is a valuable contribution to this effort.  The debate Hamilton has joined, and furthered, should and will continue.

 

Alex Thurston is a PhD student in Religion at Northwestern University, and runs Sahel Blog (http://sahelblog.wordpress.com), which focuses on religion and politics in West and East Africa.

Eisenhower's worst fears

came true. We invent enemies

to buy the bombs

Britain faces no serious threat, yet keeps waging war. While big defence exists, glory-hungry politicians will use it

Joe Magee: Guardian

By Simon Jenkins

The Guardian, Thu 16 Jun 2011 21.00 BST

Why do we still go to war? We seem unable to stop. We find any excuse for this post-imperial fidget and yet we keep getting trapped. Germans do not do it, or Spanish or Swedes. Britain's borders and British people have not been under serious threat for a generation. Yet time and again our leaders crave battle. Why?

Last week we got a glimpse of an answer and it was not nice. The outgoing US defence secretary, Robert Gates, berated Europe's "failure of political will" in not maintaining defence spending. He said Nato had declined into a "two-tier alliance" between those willing to wage war and those "who specialise in 'soft' humanitarian, development, peacekeeping and talking tasks". Peace, he implied, is for wimps. Real men buy bombs, and drop them.

This call was echoed by Nato's chief, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who pointed out how unfair it was that US defence investment represented 75% of the Nato defence expenditure, where once it was only half. Having been forced to extend his war on Libya by another three months, Rasmussen wanted to see Europe's governments come up with more money, and no nonsense about recession. Defence to him is measured not in security but in spending.

The call was repeated back home by the navy chief, Sir Mark Stanhope. He had to be "dressed down" by the prime minister, David Cameron, for warning that an extended war in Libya would mean "challenging decisions about priorities". Sailors never talk straight: he meant more ships. The navy has used so many of its £500,000 Tomahawk missiles trying to hit Colonel Gaddafi (and missing) over the past month that it needs money for more. In a clearly co-ordinated lobby, the head of the RAF also demanded "a significant uplift in spending after 2015, if the service is to meet its commitments". It, of course, defines its commitments itself.

Libya has cost Britain £100m so far, and rising. But Iraq and the Afghan war are costing America $3bn a week, and there is scarcely an industry, or a state, in the country that does not see some of this money. These wars show no signs of being ended, let alone won. But to the defence lobby what matters is the money. It sustains combat by constantly promising success and inducing politicians and journalists to see "more enemy dead", "a glimmer of hope" and "a corner about to be turned".

Victory will come, but only if politicians spend more money on "a surge". Soldiers are like firefighters, demanding extra to fight fires. They will fight all right, but if you want victory that is overtime.

On Wednesday the Russian ambassador to Nato warned that Britain and France were "being dragged more and more into the eventuality of a land-based operation in Libya". This is what the defence lobby wants institutionally, even if it may appal the generals. In the 1980s Russia watched the same process in Afghanistan, where it took a dictator, Mikhail Gorbachev, to face down the Red Army and demand withdrawal. The west has no Gorbachev in Afghanistan at the moment. Nato's Rasmussen says he "could not envisage" a land war in Libya, since the UN would take over if Gaddafi were toppled. He must know this is nonsense. But then he said Nato would only enforce a no-fly zone in Libya. He achieved that weeks ago, but is still bombing.

It is not democracy that keeps western nations at war, but armies and the interests now massed behind them. The greatest speech about modern defence was made in 1961 by the US president Eisenhower. He was no leftwinger, but a former general and conservative Republican. Looking back over his time in office, his farewell message to America was a simple warning against the "disastrous rise of misplaced power" of a military-industrial complex with "unwarranted influence on government". A burgeoning defence establishment, backed by large corporate interests, would one day employ so many people as to corrupt the political system. (His original draft even referred to a "military-industrial-congressional complex".) This lobby, said Eisenhower, could become so huge as to "endanger our liberties and democratic processes".

I wonder what Eisenhower would make of today's US, with a military grown from 3.5 million people to 5 million. The western nations face less of a threat to their integrity and security than ever in history, yet their defence industries cry for ever more money and ever more things to do. The cold war strategist, George Kennan, wrote prophetically: "Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial complex would have to remain, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented."

The devil makes work for idle hands, especially if they are well financed. Britain's former special envoy to Kabul, Sherard Cowper-Coles, echoed Kennan last week in claiming that the army's keenness to fight in Helmand was self-interested. "It's use them or lose them, Sherard," he was told by the then chief of the general staff, Sir Richard Dannatt. Cowper-Coles has now gone off to work for an arms manufacturer.

There is no strategic defence justification for the US spending 5.5% of its gross domestic product on defence or Britain 2.5%, or for the Nato "target" of 2%.

These figures merely formalise existing commitments and interests. At the end of the cold war soldiers assiduously invented new conflicts for themselves and their suppliers, variously wars on terror, drugs, piracy, internet espionage and man's general inhumanity to man. None yields victory, but all need equipment. The war on terror fulfilled all Eisenhower's fears, as America sank into a swamp of kidnapping, torture and imprisonment without trial.

The belligerent posture of the US and Britain towards the Muslim world has fostered antagonism and moderate threats in response. The bombing of extremist targets in Pakistan is an invitation for terrorists to attack us, and then a need for defence against such attack. Meanwhile, the opportunity cost of appeasing the complex is astronomical. Eisenhower remarked that "every gun that is made is a theft from those who hunger" – a bomber is two power stations and a hospital not built.

Likewise, each Tomahawk Cameron drops on Tripoli destroys not just a Gaddafi bunker (are there any left?), but a hospital ward and a classroom in Britain.

As long as "big defence" exists it will entice glory-hungry politicians to use it. It is a return to the hundred years war, when militaristic barons and knights had a stranglehold on the monarch, and no other purpose in life than to fight. To deliver victory they demanded ever more taxes for weapons, and when they had ever more weapons they promised ever grander victories. This is exactly how Britain's defence ministry ran out of budgetary control under Labour.

There is one piece of good news. Nato has long outlived its purpose, now justifying its existence only by how much it induces its members to spend, and how many wars irrelevant to its purpose it finds to fight. Yet still it does not spend enough for the US defence secretary. In his anger, Gates threatened that "future US leaders … may not consider the return on America's investment in Nato worth the cost". Is that a threat or a promise?

‘So that’s

what people mean

when they talk

about freedom’

June 28, 2011

by Sean Jacobs

The trailer for “Otelo Burning,” a new feature film set in Durban, a coming of age story set against the backdrop of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison about a group of young black teenagers, living in a township, learning to surf. It will open next month’s Durban International Film Festival.

I. want.to.see.this.

H/T: Akin Omotoso.