A Community Trapped in a Kafkaesque Nightmare: American Violet
Like Milk, it's the kind of film where you leave the theatre wanting to march in the streets.
Labels: cwa, movies, prisons, race and racism
Like Milk, it's the kind of film where you leave the theatre wanting to march in the streets.
Labels: cwa, movies, prisons, race and racism
By the way, the good news about name changes is due to the hard work of the excellent Sylvia Rivera Law Project, in case you're looking for worthy causes for year-end donations.
Labels: cwa, LGBT, race and racism, transgender
I'll have more thoughts on Proposition 8 and all of this divide-and-conquer bullshit later.
In the meantime, Barry has three excellent roundups of links/posts/articles about the awful "blame black folks" meme and the nasty "black people are all homophobes" meme or the ridiculous "there's a black vs. gay war" meme: "If you call me a faggot, I will call you a...", "Two more posts on blaming the brown," and "Prop 8: The Rush To Blame The Brown People."
Labels: cartoons, cwa, elections, LGBT, marriage, media, race and racism
This isn't any particular conservative pundit, just a composite general depiction of the amazing whiplash so many of the nastiest Obama-bashers went through the day after the election. Didn't last long, did it?
Labels: cartoons, cwa, media, obama, race and racism
Labels: cartoonists, cwa, obama, race and racism
Yes, I cried during Obama's speech. I actually also got up and danced around the room at 11 when CNN called the election. I'm sure I'll be jaded and cynical about the whole thing in no time, but I was definitely pinching myself in thrilled disbelief that night, and I even wore a sparkly sequined blue skirt and red sweater the next day (for real).
By the way, this is of course the same couple I drew reacting to Obama's likely nomination back in June. They were pretty psyched at the time about the possibility of marriage equality in California, but that dream is now deferred (hell, STOLEN), thanks to the efforts of some well-funded bigots.
P.S. No, Obama's election does NOT prove that racism is dead. And I'm kinda annoyed with the editorial cartoonists who never draw anyone of color in their cartoons EVER unless the cartoon is about race who are suddenly drawing touchy-feely multicultural cartoons where black parents tell their kids that they too can grow up to be president, etc. Seriously--if you only ever draw white people as the "everyday" Americans reacting to the news, you're just part of the freakin' problem. Also, I just don't want to see a single other editorial cartoon involving the goddamn Lincoln memorial.
Labels: cwa, elections, LGBT, obama, race and racism
The KKK garb is a slight exaggeration, but most of those shouted epithets are of course from actual Palin or McCain rallies.
Labels: cartoons, cwa, elections, mccain, obama, race and racism
Labels: clinton, elections, race and racism
This is a followup to my post about the families of the victims of police brutality killings forming a sad fraternity. The New York Times reported that at Sean Bell's wake, the mother of Patrick Dorismond was heard crying out: “Again? Again? Again?”
There were some protests throughout the city today, but the detectives are still off the hook. And it's hard to believe the story will ever change.
My previous cartoon about the Sean Bell case (with a very similar theme) is here.
Labels: cwa, race and racism, sean bell
Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the “wrong kind of person” for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.
Labels: cwa, LGBT, marriage, race and racism
They say it is SUCH a hard job to be a police officer. It is just so SCARY. They were just SCARED, and DISORGANIZED. The implication is: wouldn't ANYONE be SCARED of an (innocent unarmed) black man?
We always hear this after incidents of police brutality. dNa sums it up at Racialicious ("On Sean Bell: fear is cause for slaughter only when victim is black"):
The Bell verdict will only cement the NYPD’s indifference to wasting black life. They simply aren’t held accountable. All they have to do is say they’re “scared”, and the media sympathizes, because they’re scared of us too.
You know, if being a cop is such a hard job, why not take one of those nice easy jobs?
Like the EASY job of being the mother or father of a (murdered innocent unarmed) black man?
Like the EASY job of being the fiancée or daughter of a (murdered innocent unarmed) black man? (see above photo)
Or the EASY job of being a little black boy who will someday grow up to be an innocent unarmed black man?
Doing a search on some of the history of police brutality cases in NYC, I came upon a moving NYTimes piece ("Police Shooting Reunites Circle of Common Loss") about the way that the families of the victims have formed a friendship network based in shared pain, and the Sean Bell funeral was cause for a painful reunion:
“I don’t know what I would have done without them,” Mrs. Dorismond, a Haitian immigrant who came to New York at 18 to study nursing, said of the relatives of Amadou Diallo and others who died in encounters with the police. “Nobody can understand that pain but me, Mrs. Diallo and the others. When it was my turn, everybody came.”They had come and been there for her, rushing to her side to introduce themselves — at her son’s wake, at his funeral, at the protests on the streets. Amadou Diallo’s mother, Malcolm Ferguson’s mother, Nicholas Heyward Jr.’s father, Abner Louima himself.
Save your sympathy for the real victims, please.
Labels: cwa, race and racism
Here's my original cartoon about the case, and a much older cartoon on police brutality.
Labels: cwa, nyc, race and racism
Labels: cartoons, cwa, race and racism
Cartoonists of Color Unite for February 10 comic strip demonstrationThat link seems to be down right now, but I'm sure it'll recover once everyone stops trying to visit. There's also a video about the protest on the CBS website. CBS notes that only 25 percent of newspapers in this country have even one strip by a black creator.On February 10, 2008, about a dozen cartoonists of color (and a few who are not) united to help bring attention to the lack of diversity on newspaper comic pages. In order to show the world that our comics are not all interchangable, we all did our own version of a strip that was originally done by Cory Thomas. Unless you have ever been in our shoes, it may be very difficult to see the uniqueness and frustration of our predicament. And when you see the responses to our "protest" (and you will), I'm sure you'll hear things like "Black cartoonists are given the same shot as everyone else" and " we pick strips based on quality, not race."
To see all the cartoons in one place, please visit:
http://mamasboyz.com/news/protest.html
And you can read a spirited pre-discussion of the protest by many well-known cartoonists in the comments here.
Labels: cwa, race and racism
Do you have one for uninsured drunk illegals crashing and killing innocent Americans?(Bolding added by yours truly).Or how about one of a drophouse packed full of endentured slaves?
Or of an illegal killing a police officer in a sanctuary city?
How about the fragile desert environment full of trash?
BTW: I love Mexican food. Just hope an illegal with a contagious disease that wasn't screened at the border doesn't work at my favorite restaurant. Kinda challenging to draw a cartoon of that.
Seen by searching 'illegal immigrant'.
Oh please. Sounds like you could really use one of these walls yourself, it would protect you from all that "scary" Mexican food and protect us from your racist rants. Lay off the Lou Dobbs and get a life.
Labels: cwa, immigration, mail, race and racism, xenophobia
Labels: cwa, elections, media, race and racism
For more on why this is so ridiculous, see Brownfemipower.:
This is the wonderful and self explanatory logic of racism. MLK didn’t die because a racist white man shot his ass, and the racist white man didn’t shoot MLK’s ass because he was advocating for FUCKING DESEGREGATION–MLK died because he didn’t want white folks to lose their place at the top of the food chain!! He didn’t want black folk to be JUDGING on white folk!And lordy lord, MLK didn’t get thrown in Birmingham jail (or any of the other jails he was thrown into) because his black ass was protesting SEGREGATION (note from MLK: Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States.) he was thrown in jail because he was upset beyond all reason at how black folks were hating on white folks with their reverse racist calls for desegregation. HE WAS PROTESTING BLACK FOLKS!! Didn’t you KNOW???
I stand corrected! I must have been watching Eyes on the Prize backwards.
Labels: cwa, race and racism, scotus, silly conservatives
In an unusual effort to cement his interpretation of Brown, [Roberts] quoted from the transcript of the 1952 argument in the case.Oh yeah? Too bad for Roberts that Carter, now 90, is still alive to call bullshit:“We have one fundamental contention,” a lawyer for the schoolchildren, Robert L. Carter, had told the court more than a half-century ago. “No state has any authority under the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens.”
Chief Justice Roberts added yesterday, “There is no ambiguity in that statement.”
“All that race was used for at that point in time was to deny equal opportunity to black people,” Judge Carter said of the 1950s. “It’s to stand that argument on its head to use race the way they use is now.”Jack Greenberg, who worked on the Brown case for the plaintiffs and is now a law professor at Columbia, called the chief justice’s interpretation “preposterous.”
“The plaintiffs in Brown were concerned with the marginalization and subjugation of black people,” Professor Greenberg said. “They said you can’t consider race, but that’s how race was being used.”
William T. Coleman Jr., another lawyer who worked on Brown, said, “The majority opinion is 100 percent wrong.”
Labels: cwa, race and racism, scotus
All you closet Klansmen out there, you would-be Bull O'Connors and George Wallaces, listen up: it is officially time to party! Get out your balloons and confetti, and iron your best white robes, because the Bush Supreme Court has officially declared that racial integration and diversity DON'T MATTER AT ALL. The Bush court says that not only is segregation totally cool (as long as it's the "natural" result of segregated housing areas), it's actively RACIST to oppose segregation. Why? Because racial diversity is AGAINST the spirit of Brown vs. Board of Education.
Yes, that's right--it's against the spirit of the decision that made it possible for children of all colors to go to school together to encourage children of all colors to go to school together. The only way to avoid racism is to DENY it and ignore it and NOT DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT. That's what being "colorblind" is all about!
As the NAACP's Theodore Shaw put it on The Newshour With Jim Lehrer tonight, it doesn't get much more Orwellian than this. This is Civil Rights Lite to the extreme. Hence the vigorous dissent:
[Souter] said the chief justice’s invocation of Brown vs. Board of Education was “a cruel irony” when the opinion in fact “rewrites the history of one of this court’s most important decisions” by ignoring the context in which it was issued and the Supreme Court’s subsequent understanding of it to permit voluntary programs of the sort that were now invalidated.
I was particularly horrified by the anti-integration argument that many parents "don't want this" ("this", presumably, being the horror of their children going to school with black kids). For example, here's Roger Clegg, president of the deceptively named "Center for Equal Opportunity" (his group filed an amicus brief in the case) celebrating the anti-integration decision on the NewsHour:
I think that school boards are also going to be sensitive to the fact that most parents don't like it when they are told that where they can send their children to school depends on what color they are.And...
I think the question is whether anyone believes that a politically correct racial and ethnic mix, that kind of diversity, is worth the price of racial discrimination. And I think that most Americans would say that, no, it is not.
Sure, lots of Americans--bigoted and ignorant ones--protested school integration back in the day because they didn't want it, either. That didn't make them RIGHT. That was the whole POINT of Brown vs. Board! As the NAACP's Shaw put it:
This [integration] is not about school districts telling people that they can't go to school on the basis of their skin color. This is about school districts trying to continue to fulfill the promise of Brown and to avoid segregation. In no way is this comparable to the kind of regime of segregation and discrimination that existed under Jim Crow.
Exactly.
Finally, while we're on the topic of Brown vs. Board of Education, this is particularly bad timing, because I just did a dystopian cartoon for Lambda Legal wondering "What would life be like without integrated schools?":
Prepare to find out. And God Bless Our Colorblind America, where the playing field is level, everyone has an equal chance, and white kids can just learn about colored folks on their Tee-Vees!
Next up: in a landmark victory for Americans who don't like sharing water fountains, the Supreme Court rules that allowing black people and white people to drink from the same water fountains violates the Constitution.
P.S. I would have called this cartoon "Separate But Equal: The Sequel", but I already drew a cartoon with that title. Oh well.
P.P.S. Just so it's clear--in the cartoon, the kids of color are locked up in a "Jim Crow Max Security Educational Facility" not because they're troublemakers or deserve to be there, but because they live under racist segregation.
For more on this horrible decision, see BrownFemiPower and Amanda at Pandagon and Samhita at Feministing.
Labels: cwa, judiciary, race and racism, scotus
If you have been sent here, the likelihood is that someone asked you to draw a black woman at one point and you completely screwed it up. I kid! I kid! Seriously though, I'm here to help. Together, you and I will go through some of the most popular hairstyles for black women. Never again will you have leagues of black women giving you the side-eye and bitching you out in blogs. Ready? Let's go!
Hopefully some of the mainstream comic book artists who have been annoying her lately will read her tutorial and wise up.
Labels: cartoonists, cartoons, cwa, race and racism
Taste the new "Justice" Department's Civil Rights Division Lite! Now with 99% less: hate crimes prosecution, voting rights enforcement and police brutality investigations! Super-Action-Packed with Loyal Bushies, Wiretapping and Religious Extremists! It's a Yum-Tastic Justice Department makeover!
The Bush administration has laid waste to the Justice Department on a large scale, as the scandals over the replacement of high-performing federal prosecutors with "loyal Bushies" and that whole warrantless wiretapping nastiness have shown.
The Bush makeover of the Civil Rights Division is similarly extreme. The pre-Bush Justice Department Civil Rights Division was founded in 1957. The Division protected voting rights and enforced anti-discrimination laws, with a particular focus on discrimination based on race and national origin. From the Division website:
The Division enforces the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, and 1968; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended through 1992; the Equal Credit Opportunity Act; the Americans with Disabilities Act; the National Voter Registration Act; the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act; the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and Handicapped Act; and additional civil rights provisions contained in other laws and regulations. These laws prohibit discrimination in education, employment, credit, housing, public accommodations and facilities, voting, and certain federally funded and conducted programs.
Or do they? Under Bush and Gonzales, Justice has shifting funding, focus and resources to more Dubyafied priorities. As the New York Times reported this week ("Justice Dept. Reshapes Its Civil Rights Mission"):
In recent years, the Bush administration has recast the federal government’s role in civil rights by aggressively pursuing religion-oriented cases while significantly diminishing its involvement in the traditional area of race.
Read the whole article, but here are some particular horrors:
DISCRIMINATION
The old Civil Rights Division (Civil Rights Clasic, if you will) fought discrimination in hiring. The Civil Rights Lite Division defends the right of religious groups like the Salvation Army to discriminate (see "Charity Cites Bush Help in Fight Against Hiring Gays" and "Court OKs Religious Hiring Bias by Federally Backed Charities").
HATE CRIMES
Civil Rights Classic lent federal enforcement weight to the prosecution of hate crimes cases: KKK attacks, lynchings, and more. Civil Rights Lite has diverted that funding to a pet cause of the Christian Right. Again from the NYT, the Civil Rites Lite Division is...
Taking on far fewer hate crimes and cases in which local law enforcement officers may have violated someone’s civil rights. The resources for these traditional cases have instead been used to investigate trafficking cases, typically involving foreign women used in the sex trade, a favored issue of the religious right.
Certainly trafficking cases deserve funding--but not at the expense of victims of racism, hate crimes and police brutality. Trafficking cases used to and should be handled elsewhere.
VOTING RIGHTS
Civil Rights Classic defended the voting rights of people of color. Civil Rites Lite suppresses the voting rights people of color through new voter ID requirements and baseless "voter fraud" case--and has even pursued its first claim of voter intimidation against white people. As John Nichols writes in The Nation ("Curing the Rot at Justice"):
The Brennan Center for Justice and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law have uncovered evidence of what they describe as "a much broader strategy on the part of the Administration to use federal agencies charged with protecting voting rights to promote voter suppression and influence election rules so as to gain partisan advantage in battleground states." There is now a compelling case that the White House used the Justice Department's Civil Rights and Criminal divisions and the Election Assistance Commission to create a false perception of widespread voter fraud to justify initiatives--stringent voter identification laws, crackdowns on voter registration drives and pre-election purges of eligible voters from the rolls--designed to disenfranchise the poor, minorities, students and seniors.
The New York Times reports on this as well. Civil Rights Lite is:
Sharply reducing the complex lawsuits that challenge voting plans that might dilute the strength of black voters. The department initiated only one such case through the early part of this year, compared with eight in a comparable period in the Clinton administration.
Trouble is, only the federal government has the resources to deal with these voting dilution cases. Oh well--it's not like black voters get disenfranchised anymore, right? Too bad, but they've got a new kind of case to focus on:
The civil rights division also brought the first case ever on behalf of white voters, alleging in 2005 that a black political leader in Noxubee County, Miss., was intimidating whites at the polls.
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM TRUMPS ALL OTHER FREEDOMS
But back to the Salvation Army. If you visit the Justice Department website, you'll read very little about racist discrimination and the ongoing disenfranchisement of voters of color. Instead, you read about this exciting "special initiative" from Alberto "Geneva Conventions Are Quaint" Gonzales, "The First Freedom Project":
Religious liberty is often referred to as the "First Freedom" because the Framers placed it first in the Bill of Rights. Yet it is not merely first in order: it is a fundamental freedom on which so many of our other freedoms rest.
Forget freedom of speech, forget freedom of the press and freedom of assembly, and most especially freedom from unreasonable search and seizure: the first and most important freedom is the freedom of religious organizations to receive government funding for firing gay people.
Some of the other evidence of Civil Rights Lite cited by the New York Times:
Supporting groups that want to send home religious literature with schoolchildren; in one case, the government helped win the right of a group in Massachusetts to distribute candy canes as part of a religious message that the red stripes represented the blood of Christ.
Conservative religious groups who love the taste of Civil Rights Lite say that the weight of the federal government is no longer needed to combat racism and discrimination--silly stuff like that can be left up to local authorities. Of course, local authorities often lack the resources, will or perspective to fight racism. Historically, local authorities in the South often deliberately turned their backs on racist attacks and civil rights violations, and I'm not so sure those days are totally behind us. And that whole federal ignoring of civil rights and the issues of black people worked out great during Katrina, didn't it?
HIRING LOYAL BUSHIES
Oh, and then there's the hiring thing. We all remember sweet little Monica "I crossed the line" Goodling, trying so hard to make everything harmonious at Justice by hiring only "loyal Bushies". The NYT analyzed department statistics and found that Civil Rights Classic hired lawyers with impressive backgrounds and qualifications. Civil Rights Lite hires lawyers from religious law schools (like Pat Robertson's academically questionable Regent Law) who play up their conservative and religious credentials as much as possible.
Finally, while we're on the topic of Civil Rights, I figured I'd close with Bush channeling his role model Martin Luther King, Jr.:
Cross-posted at Search and Destroy.
P.S. Have you bought Attack of the 50-Foot Mikhaela! Cartoons by Mikhaela B. Reid (with foreword by Ted Rall) yet? Why not?
Labels: alberto gonzales, bush, cartoons, civil rights, cwa, discrimination, justice, LGBT, race and racism
Marriage equality: yet another arena in which the Democrats are missing a spine.
40 years ago yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled in Loving vs. Virginia that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional. The Loving decision invalidated the "Racial Integrity Act" that allowed Virginia cops to bust into the bedroom of Richard and Mildred Loving, arrest them for "illegal cohabitation" and sentence them to a year in jail.
Can you imagine the leading Democratic candidates getting up at a campaign stop today and hemming and hawing out the following nonsense?
I believe in full equality of benefits, nothing left out...From my perspective there is a greater likelihood of us getting to that point in interracial civil unions or domestic partnerships and that is my very considered assessment.or
It's a jump for me to get to interracial marriage. I haven't yet got across that bridge.or how about
I would not support the Defense of Racial Integrity Act today, if there were a vote today. But the part I agree with is the states should not be required to recognize interracial marriages from other states.
Those are all paraphrases of actual statements on gay marriage from Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Obama has similar views. (found via Pam's House Blend, an excellent LGBT issues blog that regularly checks in on all the candidate's positions on marriage equality).
Some folks say the Democrats have no choice but to tone down their support of gay rights to appeal to religious voters or values voters. But is that the kind of visionary progressive leadership we want to promote?
Decades from now, the people who were too afraid to support full equality for gay Americans are going to look like spineless sheep, and rightly so. I can see the history books now "The Democrats bravely passed non-binding resolutions, courageously voted to fund an illicit war they claimed to oppose, did nothing of any note to remove an Attorney General with a serious torture fetish and tentatively supported domestic partnership benefits while opposing real marriage equality." Now that's a legacy we can all be proud of! As Susan Ryan-Vollmar wrote in her Bay Windows editorial last week (regarding a possible constitutional ban on gay marriage in Massachusetts):
Twenty years from now, when their time in office has long since ended, those lawmakers who back the anti-gay amendment June 14 will still be asked about their vote by their grandchildren, their neighbors and even reporters writing anniversary pieces. Trying to explain that they supported marriage equality but believed the civil marriage rights of same-sex couples should be decided by popular vote will sound even more disingenuous several decades from now than it does today.
Labels: elections, LGBT, race and racism, spinelessness
Finally, there's a cool Life Without Fair Courts illustration contest going on that needs your vote! Check out the awesome entries by the five finalists (Greg Fox, Matt Bors, Jennifer Cruté, Ted Rall and Astrid Lydia Johanssen) and cast your vote today!
Labels: cartoons, judiciary, LGBT, race and racism
Moderator Stephanie Brandford and Cheryl Lynn Eaton; Rashida Lewis "Sand Storm") talks about the cover of her book
In February of this year, comics writer Cheryl Lynn Eaton founded The Ormes Society to celebrate and promote the work of black women comics creators and professionals and to reach out to black women comics readers. The Society is named for pioneer Zelda "Jackie" Ormes, currently considered to be the first syndicated African-American woman cartoonist. The Society started with about 13 members but is now 20 strong and growing. As Cheryl Lynn explained in her blog:
Black women are out there creating, but unlike our peers, we have the tendency to create in a vacuum... . How can I have the nerve to be irritated by how sites devoted to black creators are dominated by men and books with superhero themes (and on occasion, "hot" black model threads) if I never add my own contributions? How can I be irked by the fact that none of the members of the sites devoted to women in comics commented on the dearth of brown-skinned girls as characters in the MINX line if I never registered on those boards to make a post about that topic in the first place?The Ormes Society would be a bit of a stepping stone or gateway. It'd be a place where black female comic creators and fans could (1) find each other (2) share our creations (3) talk about topics that are important to us and (4) gain the courage needed to bring those thoughts and creations to the larger comic reading/creating audience. It would also be a place for editors, fans and fellow creators to find us and share their thoughts about our work and about topics that pertain to black women in comics (both in the pages and behind the scenes).
The above photos are from a May 19 panel at the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention in Philly, "Having Our Say: Black Women Discuss Imagery." The discussion was steered by the fantastic Stephanie Brandford, who also moderates the Dwayne McDuffie VHive comics forum under the name mutate20. (Also note Stephanie's awesome "Invisible Universe" T-shirt). The below are some key quotes from my hand-scribbled notes on the panel:
1. So what's the problem?
Stephanie Brandford began the panel by showing a 8-minute series of video clips she had compiled of depictions of black women characters in speculative fiction movies, including Storm (X-Men), Gail (Sin City), Joy (Children of Men), Niobe (Matrix movies), Akasha (Queen of the Damned) and various others. Most of the characters were in minor or supporting roles, with a few exceptions.
Brandford then prefaced her first question by explaining that as someone with an engineering background, she would take a problem-solving approach in her role as moderator. She then asked the panelists to describe what they saw as the problem (with both the relative lack of substantial roles given to black women in both film and comics.):
2. Solutions?
3. Root Cause?
She added that when a small attempt at adding characters of color failed to have huge success, publishers often used that as an excuse not to try again. ("Oh, we already tried that.") What was really needed was "characters of all races, all backgrounds. They really have to make the effort and the commitment."
4. What would an ideal state look like?
5. Question from the audience: "What can you do as an artist to reverse stereotypes of black women as either video hos or asexual "mama" or "mammy" caricatures?"
5. Question from the audience: "Who is your favorite character and why?"
6. Question from the audience from a white man who wanted to know if there were any special rules or guidelines for a white person depicting characters of color.
7. Question from the audience from a librarian who works with a lot of young black women in the Bronx and wanted to know if there were any particular books she should try to acquire for her library.
That's all, folks. Don't forget to visit The Ormes Society and Digital Femme for more on this topic.
See "East Coast Black Age of Comics, Part 1: The Glyph Awards" and "ECBACC Photo Outtake" and Part 2: The Conventionfor more extensive commentary, photos and notes on ECBACC.
P.S. You know you want to buy Masheka's book. And mine. And see us on tour! Right? Thought so.
Labels: african-american, appearances, black, cartoons, comics, conventions, events, feminism, race and racism, women
Anyway, everything in this cartoon is true. Yes, Falwell is primarily known as a gay-hater and anti-feminist, but he got his start in pro-segregationist racism (see The Southern Poverty Law Center):
Falwell was plain enough about his views; in 1964, he told a local paper that the Civil Rights Act had been misnamed: "It should be considered civil wrongs rather than civil rights."
Falwell was later forced to change his stance on segregation, but if anything, he became more virulently anti-gay as time went on. One of his main goals was to completely replace the U.S. public school system with private Christian schools. And he did indeed blame 9/11 on feminists, gays, "secularists", and the ACLU (for which he technically apologized, but it hardly seemed sincere).
Labels: cartoons, falwell, LGBT, race and racism
Photos from "Having Our Say: Black Women Discuss Imagery": Cheryl Lynn Eaton (Digital Femme, The Ormes Society), L.A. Banks (Vampire Huntress) and Rashida Lewis ("Sand Storm")
Joseph Wheeler III ("New Art Order"); Masheka Wood with underground comics pioneer Larry Fuller (Larry had just purchased Masheka's awesome new book, Deep Doodle); the cover of the excellent book "How to Draw Afrakan Superheroes"
On May 19, Masheka and I made our second comics-fun-filled trip to the annual East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention. Above are some more of the photos (click on any one for caption info and a slideshow). I'm embarrassed to say that Keith was the only one of us to remember his Cartoonists With Attitude T-shirt. Oops!
I already name-checked and reminisced about most of the fantastic cartoonists we got to hang out with, but I'd like to take a moment to spotlight one you're probably not familiar with, our table buddy, Brooklyn-based cartoonist Ayo (see top photo), who draws the mini-comic "Little Garden." I could try to describe his beautiful linework and wonderfully drawn characters (who tend to be adorable girls with lizard tails and extra eyes and Medusa snake hair) and excellent use of mood and setting and blah de blah, but instead I'm just going to show you:
Please check out Ayo's awesome art and leave some praise.
See "East Coast Black Age of Comics, Part 1: The Glyph Awards" and "ECBACC Photo Outtake" for more extensive commentary and notes on attendees. Also see: Part 3, photos and commentary from the panel "Having Our Say: Black Women Discuss Imagery."
Labels: appearances, black, cartoonists, cartoons, events, photos, race and racism
Labels: immigration, Lou Dobbs, race and racism
(Click any of the above images or view the whole set for my coverage and commentary).
Photos from the Glyph Comics Award Ceremony on May 18, 2007 at Philadelphia's African-American Museum, the kickoff for the 6th Annual East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention. Check out Glyph Awards founder Rich Watson's blog for a full list of nominees and winners and extensive Glyphs coverage. Keith Knight, Kyle Baker and Larry Fuller accepted their awards in person, but one of the highlights was Stagger Lee writer Derek McCulloch accepting one of several awards via speakerphone cellphone (with the help of Prof. William Foster). McCulloch gave a moving speech and joked that he was speaking to us from a bathroom.
My fiancé Masheka Wood was a nominee for Rising Star, and although he didn't win, it "was an honor to be nominated" (and the award went to the amazing Spike, for her strip Templar, Arizona, so hard to be too bummed about it).
Plus we got to present the award for Best Comic Strip to amazing fellow Cartoonist With Attitude Keith Knight, for his strip The K Chronicles (a second-time winner!). Keith took photos of his own butt on the way up to the podium and remarked that it was nice to be at a convention where no one mistook him for Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder. He also later noted that the food at ECBACC (BBQ, meatballs, rice, jerk chicken, fried chicken, and other delights) was far superior to the usual comics convention concessions (typically suspiciously gray hot dogs and burgers).
Masheka and I also got to meet and/or hang out with:
What do women want from comics?That sums up a large part of ECBACC's mission, as does the work of...The answer isn't important. Here's all you need to know:
No reader wants to be made to feel that he or she is inherently less than a member of another group when he or she picks up a book to enjoy.
Blacks were deliberately left out of comics and American society for many years,” Foster noted. “On those rare occasions when we were included, we were misrepresented as savages, cannibals, simpletons, and worse. My research documents this important history both fair and foul, for all time, while there are still traces of it left.”
For more ECBACC coverage, see The Heroic Times (which has some Larry Fuller images), Eye Trauma, Cheryl Lynn's Publishers Weekly report, Keith Knight's blog and Glyphs. Also, Joseph Wheeler III has some great photos (including one of me & Masheka up at the podium presenting).
Coming up: photos from the convention itself (including one of me asleep with a Keith-Knight-penned "please buy my comics" sign pinned to me), and photos and coverage of the panel "Having Our Say: Black Women Discuss Imagery."
Update: See "Part 2: Convention Photos."
P.S. Buy Masheka's book, Deep Doodle!
Labels: appearances, awards, black, cwa, ecbacc, events, glyph awards, philadelphia, photos, race and racism