If I can be upfront, I am not a fan of any of Tyler Perry’s TV shows or movies. None of them make sense to me. I think they also reinforce some really bad racial stereotypes about black people.
However, with that said, I respect Perry’s hustle!
A couple of weeks ago, he became the first black person to own a major film production studio. That is a big deal! It says a lot about his character that he named one of his soundstages after Spike Lee, who has vocally opposed Perry’s work for years.
Perry has already created a legacy that will outlive him. He did that, and nobody can take that away from him!
I had meant to see this film when it originally came out in July, but time got the best of me. However, with Toni Morrison’s death, I had a renewed interest in learning more about her life. Luckily, a local movie theatre brought back The Pieces I Am for a limited time right after her death.
I learned a lot about her in this movie, especially her life as a single mother and editor who found fame later in life. I don’t think many people realize how resilient and radical it was for a divorced, single black mother of two boys in the 60s to start a new career as a book editor in the New York publishing world. She did this all while maintaining her dignity, whether it be demanding a head-of-household salary from her boss or making sure black writers were giving a voice at Random House.
It was no surprise that other black writers campaigned for her win recognition for her books, which would culminate with Morrison winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993 – the first and so far only black woman to win that top prize.
All of her books are great, but my favorite is Tar Baby, which is a love story with a Caribbean twist.
It was an honor to know Toni Morrison through her books!
Another LGBT Pride Month is about to come to a close, and, of course, we have been bombarded with rainbow flags on social media profiles and “pride” branded merchandise. It is a great thing that society has progressed that Corporate America is open to celebrating the LGBT experience.
However, I have many thoughts and concerns about this.
I think there is a lot of hypocrisy with some of the individuals and organizations sending out pride well-wishes. The most obvious one is Trump sending out a pro-LGBT tweet earlier this month when his administration is actively discriminating against transgender soldiers in the military and forbidding U.S. embassies around the world from flying the rainbow flag. Or the National Security Agency (NSA) putting out a pro-pride tweet when this agency, along with the FBI and CIA, has a long, prolific history of surveillance or blackmail in the LGBT community.
But even companies assumed to be gay-friendly are problematic like YouTube, which got backlash earlier this month for not banning racist and homophobic attacks on a gay YouTuber. And there are dozens of other companies that are also questionable when it comes to their true allegiances.
I think Corporate America has been gravitating to “pride marketing” for several reasons:
It’s trendy, and it helps companies get noticed
LGBT people are everywhere in every race, ethnicity, religion, income, geographic location, and most importantly, they have spending dollars
Homophobia is seen by Corporate America as an easier form of discrimination to fight against, unlike other types of bias that come with heavy, historical baggage like racism, anti-Semitism, or Islamaphobia, xenophobia, etc.
And quickly frankly, it is easy to do; anyone can put a rainbow flag on their logo temporarily and give the false, superficial impression to the world that they are pro-LGBT without having to be accountable for why they are doing it. Also, some of these companies will even conflate other marginalized groups and their issues under the rainbow flag.
No one can’t ever accuse us of being anti-immigrant, sexist, or racist because we have pride written in bright, rainbow colors on our website! – Corporate America
We in the black community has been complaining about this hijacking of Black History Month for similar reasons. Many companies purchase large advertisements in major black publications like Essence, Ebony, or Black Enterprise for the February editions to “celebrate” the achievements and advancements made by African-Americans. And, yet, most of these companies, especially the tech companies, have very few, if any, black employees. And if they do have a black employee, it’s usually their token black “chief of diversity” or someone else who doesn’t have a decision-making, leadership role within the organization. The company trots out this type of person only to sell the idea of workforce diversity, not the actual work behind making real workforce diversity happen. I have written previously about why these chiefs of diversity/inclusion/community relation/etc. positions are a joke.
I hope the LGBT community goes back to all of these companies on July 1 when the rainbow flag and pride logos and merchandise go away and hold them accountable. First, they should ask these companies what are they really doing about LGBT equality. While our society has made strides with making marriage equality a reality, LGBT people can still be fired from a job or denied housing because there are still no federal laws protecting them. Gay and bisexual men still can’t be blood donors. Second, what are these companies doing to safeguard intersectional LGBT folks? How are they protecting LGBT people who may also be immigrants or Muslims? What are they doing to protect LGBT people of color who might have a negative interaction with the police or criminal justice system? What about LGBT veterans or LGBT people with disabilities? If these companies are not doing anything about these issues, then they are not authentic, accountable allies.
Waving a rainbow flag is just not enough anymore!
What’s really sad about this is that most of these companies don’t even know what the Stonewall Uprising was, which is commemorating its 50th anniversary this year. The Stonewall demonstrators in 1969 just wanted the right to exist. I think that is a simple request.
As many of you already know, I am a big fan of Pose, the wonderfully groundbreaking FX show about the 1980s gay ballroom scene in New York. Dominique Jackson, the actress who plays Elektra, a Dominique Deveraux-inspired “ball mother” who makes her sex change official in the show’s first season.
I found this video about her on YouTube. I like her, even more, knowing that she is from Trinidad!
If I can be upfront, I am not a fan of any of Tyler Perry’s TV shows or movies. None of them make sense to me. I think they also reinforce some really bad racial stereotypes about black people.
