"Dembow dembow sometimes I use a dildo, oh no, oh no, I even got one that glows."
Celiany Rivera Valazquez introduced me to this amazing video by La Perfomera (Awilda Rodriguez). I love this video and it really nails all the radical feminist queer sex positive potential I see in reggaeton music and culture. Because so much of the discourse about reggaeton focuses on how it oppresses women, we often miss how women are engaging with and transforming the genre into a vehicle to address the complexities of sexuality and desire. The emphasis on reggaeton's hetero-masculinity also obscures how reggaeton, perreo, and la pista, provide spaces for homosocial and homoerotic bonding among women (women dancing perreo with other women is a common sight and practice, although it often gets dismissed as for the benefit of males, which is too simplistic an analysis of whats going on). This video gestures towards the pleasures of reggaeton for women and has fun with it.
Anyway, more thoughts to come, but in the meantime enjoy this fantastic video by La Performera.
Internationally Acclaimed Artists Set to Perform in El Barrio for Freedom CD Release Party
Yomo Toro, Roy Brown, Zon del Barrio, Siete Nueve & The Welfare Poets take a musical stand for the Puerto Rican Political Prisoners
In an effort to raise funds for the remaining Puerto Rican political prisoners, The Puerto Rican Freedom Project celebrates the release of “The Freedom Album,” a musical compilation featuring Boricua artists from the Island to the Diaspora. One of the Island’s foremost political folk singer, Roy Brown will be on hand alongside the Fania music legend, Yomo Toro who will be joining East Harlem’s own Zon del Barrio. Further, the concert will bring old and new school performers together with the strength of the politically conscious Hip Hop artists from P.R., Siete Nueve and New York’s own The Welfare Poets, the socio-political hip hop fusion band spearheading this project.
Scheduled for Thursday, October 1, 2009 at the Julia de Burgos Cultural Center located at 1680 Lexington Avenue (between 105 & 106 Sts), the event takes place at the Taller Boricua’s Multi Arts Space on the first floor. Doors open @ 8 pm with a $20 admission. The Freedom Album will be on sale that evening.
The Puerto Rican Freedom Project is a coalition of artists, activists and organizations that have come together to put out this project. It is co-sponsored by Aurora Communications and Taller Boricua, with additional support from the Prolibertad Freedom Campaign, Cemi Underground and The Zol Lab. To find out more information about the overall project and to purchase advanced tickets log onto www.prfreedomproject.org and www.myspace.com/thewelfarepoets or for advanced tickets, link directly below:
The Freedom Album is a musical CD/compilation dedicated to the welfare of the Puerto Rican political prisoners and their families. The struggle for Puerto Rico's independence stems back to the late15th century when Christopher Columbus under the auspices of the Spanish Crown, first invaded the Caribbean island. The modern struggle for Puerto Rican sovereignty, clutched in the grasp of the United States, has also been waged by Puerto Ricans from the island to the states who yearn freedom. Since July 25th 1898, Puerto Ricans have moved against America's hegemonic wishes to liberate their island. This fight has lead to various generations of Puerto Rican political prisoners.
In September of 1999, then US president, Bill Clinton, granted clemency to twelve Puerto Rican patriots, who had up to that point, been incarcerated for close to twenty years. A few of the Puerto Rican political prisoners who were not granted clemency,Oscar Lopez Rivera, Carlos Alberto Torres and Haydee Beltran Torres, remain confined, in addition to Avelino Gonzalez Claudio, the fourth of the current Puerto Rican Political Prisoners, who was most recently incarcerated in February of 2008. To learn more about the Puerto Rican political prisoners, go to www.myspace.com/freeourpoliticalprisoners and www.prfreedomproject.org
Artists appearing on the album: The Welfare Poets with Alkebulan (Hip Hop - NYC), Roy Brown (Folk – Puerto Rico), Siete Nueve (Hip Hop – Puerto Rico), Aurora & Zon Del Barrio with Yomo Toro y Sammy Ayala (Bomba, Plena and Salsa - NYC), Division X (Hip Hop - NYC), Intifada (Hip Hop – Puerto Rico), Ilu Aye (Orisha/Afro-Caribbean tradition -NYC), X-Vandals (Hip Hop - NYC), Rebel Diaz with Divino of The D.E.Y. (Hip Hop Chicago/NYC), Alma Moyo (Bomba y Plena – NYC), Ricanstruction (Hardcore/Punk/Hip Hop - NYC), Quique Cruz (Hip Hop - California), Foundation Movement (Boston – Hip Hop), Lourdez Perez (Decima – Puerto Rico), Homeboy Sandman (Hip Hop – NYC), Babalu Machete (Hip Hop – Puerto Rico), Segundo Quimbamba (Bomba – NJ), El David (Hip Hop - NJ), Dr. Loco (Hip Hop NYC), Fernando Ferrer (Salsa/Acoustic), Maria-Isa (Hip Hop -Minnesota/Twin Cities), Velcro y Ikol Santiago (Hip Hop – Puerto Rico), Ray Concepcion y Cafe Con Leche (Salsa – the Bronx), M-Team (Hip Hop – Pittsburgh/ Brooklyn), Bryan Vargas Y Ya Esta (Latin, Nu-Jazz and Afro-beat – NYC), La Bruja (Hip Hop/Reggaeton NYC), MC Natra Y Lady M (Hip Hop – Vieques), Carlos Jimenez (Latin Jazz – NYC), Fallen Angelz (Hip Hop – NY and Florida), Nino Blanco (Hip Hop – NYC) and Angel Rodriguez (Guaguanco - NYC).
The Puerto Rican Secretary of Education Carlos Chardón, backed by the Governor Luis Fortuño, has decided to ban books containing "coarse language" from public school classes. Among the books banned are:
Antología personal by José Luis González
Cortijo's Wake: El Entierro de Cortijo by Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá
Mejor Te Lo Cuento: Antologia Personal, 1978-2005 by Juan Antonio Ramos
Reunion de espejos: cuentos puertorriquenos de hoy by José Luis Vega
Aura by Carlos Fuentes
Below is an official press release by Puerto Rico’s PEN Club outlining the events and calling on Gov. Fortuño to lift the ban.As of Monday, Fortuño has been in support of Secretary Chardón’s decision.
PEN CLUB DE PUERTO RICO REPUDIA CENSURA DE LIBROS
San Juan, Puerto Rico, 14 de agosto de 2009, “Efectivo de inmediato, queda terminantemente prohibido el uso de los siguientes textos: Antología personal de José Luis González, El entierro de Cortijo de Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá, Mejor te lo cuento: Antología personal de Juan Antonio Ramos, Reunión de espejos de José Luis Vega, Aura de Carlos Fuentes,”
Así lee el documento que censura obras de nuestra literatura. Hay que hablar claro. Existe el censor y existe la obra censurada. El escritor tiene la pasión por hablar y escribir. El censor vive de amordazar. Impedir que cinco obras fundamentales de la literatura latinoamericana sean leídas por estudiantes de undécimo grado de las escuelas de Puerto Rico, es censura. El “Indice de libros prohibidos”, la lista de obras que desde el 1559 al 1948 fueron recopiladas y prohibidas, y sus autores condenados por heréticos, porque sus obras “corrompían a los fieles”, no es cosa del pasado. El Index sigue vivo y es peligroso.
Hoy en pleno Siglo XXI, en nuestro propio suelo, revive este peligroso movimiento que contradice los propios cimientos de nuestra constitución: la libertad de expresión. Ninguna sociedad puede evadir el que exista la palabra del poder y la palabra del pueblo, el discurso del aparato del estado o “establishment”, y el discurso que emana de las fuentes de la cultura. Recordemos que toda una tradición de dictaduras en América Latina buscó su fundamento en la censura, el analfabetismo, la ignorancia y la pobreza.
Aclaremos: toda censura a un autor es también una censura a sus lectores. Esta desatinada determinación de parte de las autoridades del DE prohibe que nuestros jóvenes tengan la oportunidad de conocer esta importante literatura como ejercicio pleno de su libertad de conocer y de conocerse. Todo libro que despierte conciencia en los ciudadanos de su sentido de identidad, que nos identifique como puertorriqueños y que declare nuestra historia, lucha, y persistencia como pueblo y como parte de una tradición hispana, tiene como riesgo la censura en Puerto Rico. Esto es intolerable y reaccionamos enérgicamente contra todo atentado de censura a nuestros escritores y hermanos latinoamericanos, en este caso Carlos Fuentes, en un acto contradictorio para la democracia y el crecimiento maduro de nuestros jóvenes.
En momentos históricos de apertura, globalización, mega-comunicaciones, un Puerto Rico castrado y enmudecido por la censura constituye triste espectáculo internacional que nos anticipa un retroceso en la historia de las libertades democráticas.
La acción de censura del Secretario de Educación, Sr. Carlos Chardón, es intolerable. Hacemos un llamado a él y al Señor Gobernador de Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuño, a que rectifiquen el acto anticonstitucional y antidemocrático cometido por la oficina de Asuntos Académicos del DE, episodio dramático que atenta contra la libertad y la expresión de las ideas, amenaza la enseñanza adecuada y plural de nuestros jóvenes, y nos entorpece el acceso a las realidades urgentes que deben discutirse en el aula escolar.
Mairym Cruz-Bernal
Presidenta
PEN CLUB DE PUERTO RICO
Suscrito al PEN-INTERNATIONAL con sede en Londres
Declaraciones de escritores:
Ana Lydia Vega
Tradicionalmente, la censura oficial de una alegada "obscenidad" literaria ha sido pretexto fariseo para la supresión de ideas incomodantes. Desde esa perspectiva, mueve a sospecha el proceso de saneamiento moral que ha emprendido el Departamento de Educación de Puerto Rico a fin de excluir libros asignados de escritores reconocidos. ¿Disimulará el argumento de las "malas palabras" alguna torpe maniobra de purificación ideológica? No se puede olvidar el historial de persecución y marginación que, en nuestro país, ha sido la maldición continua del pensamiento disidente.
Mayra Santos Febres El principal deber de un maestro es educar. Educar no es proveer datos y reglas de moral sino despertar en el estudiante la curiosidad por saber. ¿Qué curiosidad por el saber van a desarrollar los estudiantes si se les priva de textos contemporáneos, de textos de probada excelencia literaria, textos controversiales, difíciles, que nos presentan "el bien y el mal" de manera fácil, predigerida?¿Cómo van a aprender a pensar nuestros estudiantes, si no tienen en su currículo libros -es decir, material de reflexión- qué conectar con su vida?
Luce López-Baralt
Deseo por medio de estas líneas mostrar mi más férrea oposición al intento por parte del Departamento de Educación de censurar y de eliminar del currículo obras literarias de primera importancia debido a su alegado contenido sexual impropio. El desconocimiento literario que esta medida implica es lamentable pero evidente: de seguir fielmente estas directrices, tendríamos que retirar del currículo las obras más importantes de nuestras letras, pues, leídas por un lector avisado, todas tienen, de un modo u otro, alusiones sexuales que el Departametno de Educación consideraría "impropias". Me refiero al "Libro de Buen Amor" del Arcipreste de Hita, a "La Celestina", al "Lazarillo de Tormes", y al mismísimo "Quijote", que los censores de antaño, y hablo literalmente, consideraron inaceptable por "lascivo". Un maestro que enseñe con madurez y con conocimiento literario auténtico todas estas obras sabrá dirigir al alumnado en la lectura y estudio de las mismas sin crearle escándalos falsos ni mucho menos fomentarle actitudes represivas y fundamentalistas. De no ser así, ninguna obra literaria válida podría ser enseñada a los alumnos puertorriqueños, que quedarían reducidos a textos "recortados" de cualquier expresión o símbolo amoroso o erótico considerado por los censores como escandaloso. Reitero mi oposición a tales medidas represivas.
Mario R. Cancel
Siempre llaman la atención los resortes que se mueven en el momento en que una autoridad oficial ejecuta un acto de censura. La acción demuestra el poder del censor, pero también manifiesta sus miedos, sus pesadillas y su flaquezas. La impresión que dejan situaciones como esta es que estamos sentados sobro un barril del pólvora a punto de explotar. Confirma, por otro lado, el poder subversivo de la palabra. Las reservas morales manifiestas por las autoridades de educación no les permiten comprender que los problemas que reconocen en las generaciones jóvenes dependen menos de lo que leen -o podrían leer- que de lo que ven cotidianamente en la vida pública. Censurar las presuntas inmoralidades de unos cuantos libros mientras se tolera la inmoralidad en los nichos del poder es injusto.
Marta Aponte Alsina
La censura es un indicio de los miedos de los censores. Paradójicamente logra lo contrario de lo que se propone: despertar el interés en textos que de otro modo se leerían a regañadientes por cumplir con un requisito escolar. Ha sucedido antes, no es nuevo el debate sobre la “pertinencia” y la “moralidad” de los libros que se asignan como lecturas obligatorias. Hay que cuestionar minuciosamente a los burócratas actuales del DE sobre los valores, gustos y criterios que aplican para seleccionar unos libros y censurar otros. Después de todo son empleados gubernamentales, y los libros se compran con fondos públicos. Al mismo tiempo se abre una oportunidad para debatir, con la mayor amplitud, el lugar de los libros y la lectura en los procesos de formación social y personal.
Arturo Echavarría
La iniciativa tomada por el DE tiene consecuencias gravísimas, y, como tal, merece nuestro repudio más enérgico. Se trata no sólo de una intervención indebida que coarta el derecho que tiene el estudiante puertorriqueño a conocer su propia tradición literaria, sino que atenta contra la libertad en que se fundamenta toda expresión artística.
Aurea María Sotomayor
Los burócratas de la educación en Puerto Rico se autorizan primero como ignorantes para ejercer su función. Distinto y peor a aquel juez que reconocía la obscenidad cuando la veía, éstos no tienen que leer para reconocer que todo podría ser obsceno, y por tanto, no apto para "menores". Como no saben, porque no han leído, es imposible argumentar con ellos absolutamente nada. Paradójicamente, el propósito de estos promotores de la educación es regar la ignorancia sistemáticamente y obstaculizar el pensamiento.
Néstor Barreto toda censura es deleznable. en su afán de ocupar todos los espacios de poder posibles este gobierno muestra características protofascistas que ya debían ser obvias para los que en su rol de intelectuales velan por no perder y en todo caso ampliar las modestas conquistas de nuestros productores culturales en el ámbito editorial y educacional.esas características son obvias para mí.por lo que deploro y condeno las acciones del departamento de educación usando como excusa valores y mores puertorriqueños supuestamente comunes y que terminan siendo al final muestras de un auto-odio feroz, inflamado por una idea de mandato que empaña su visión y deforma demasiadas de sus acciones. parecen estar en un momento frenético de desconstrucción que requiere de concertaciones a las que habíamos perdido costumbre.
Tina Casanova
Es con gran estupor e indignación que me entero de la censura del DE a las obras literarias de compañeros escritores utilizadas en los currículos de nuestras salas de clase. ¿Qué más esgrimirán contra nosotros los escritores de esta bendita patria? No basta con reducir los espacios literarios en los medios de comunicación. Tampoco con que las pequeñas librerías hayan sido devoradas por Borders y no tengamos dónde vender nuestras obras. Ya han comenzado a desmantelar el programa Lee y Sueña donde nuestras obras infantiles se hacían accesibles a los lectores jóvenes de los pueblos que no tienen librerías. Y ahora esto. Nos acorralan, nos eliminan con superfluos argumentos hipócritas.
Etnairis Rivera Censura es sinónimo de tiranía. Trágicamente, en Puerto Rico impera la ideocracia que tan bien definió y discursó Don Miguel de Unamuno: “de las tiranías todas, la más odiosa, es la persecusión en nombre de unas ideas.” O será que también censurarán al ilustre y preclaro filósofo, humanista Unamuno, censurado ya en su propia época.
Lilliana Ramos Collado
Curiosamente, los libros suprimidos son obras dirigidas a la crítica social del presente histórico, y el uso de “malas palabras” es apenas indicador de ese interés en reflexionar sobre el aquí y el ahora. Sabemos que las “malas palabras” siempre pertenecen a su época. Lo que se censura aquí no es hablar “malo”, sino hablar del presente, como si el presente fuera inmencionable e inhistoriable. Como si el presente no fuera nuestro. Si bien los libros censurados hoy no son de historia, sí interpelan al lector —sobre todo al joven lector— a pensar en su situación vital en el presente. Los jóvenes no son tontos, y en una isla familiarizada con la vulgaridad mediante la radio y la televisión (local y extranjera), nadie se llama a engaño. Esta censura tardía nada tiene que ver con la moral, sino con el gesto torpe de acallar la reflexión acerca de los que nos rodea.
Marie Ramos Rosado La censura de obras literarias en pleno siglo XXI nos hace retroceder en tiempo y pensar que volvimos a los tiempos de la Inqusición. Además, entre los objetivos primordiales del siglo XXI, en el sistema educativo están el desarrollo de un pensamiento crítico, para poder instaurar una sociedad más liberadora. Por otro lado, escuchamos por radio y televisión a líderes políticos y desarrolladores gubernamentales como el Sr. José "Cheo" Madera tildar al pueblo con palabras como: "crápulas, garrapitas y vividores"; palabras que resultan ofensivas para la autoestima e identidad nacional. Pues estos motes afectan más que nada a la "psiquis" maltrecha de nuestro pueblo. Sin embargo, el Departamento no censura estas acciones de nuestros líderes. Mientras los escritores y artistas de las palabras utilizan esas llamadas "malas palabras" como imágenes poéticas y metáforas que irradian belleza a sus textos literarios. Nos oponemos enérgicamente a esa actitud fundamentalista e inquisitoria del Departamento de Educación Pública de Puerto Rico.
Alberto Martínez-Márquez
La decisión del Secretario de Educación concerniente al retiro de varias obras sobresalientes de la literatura puertorriqueña, debido a su lenguaje burdo y soez, no es sino la puesta en práctica de un nuevo puritanismo que pretende complacer al sector anti-intectual del PNP, a los fundamentalistas cristianos y a los sectores moralistas del país. Las declaraciones del Sub-secretario para asuntos académicos del DE, Juan J. Rodríguez va en detrimento de la pertinencia y excelencia de los libros que han sido censurados. Lo expresado por Rodríguez deja mucho que desear viniendo de una persona que ostenta el grado de académico de la primera institución universitaria del país, demostrando así una crasa ignorancia por la producción e historia literarias de nuestra nación boricua. Con respecto a la censura de libros de autores/as puertorriqueños/as hay que destacar que es parte de una agenda de los gobiernos anexionistas que han gobernado nuestra isla. Es necesario señalar que durante el romerato se censuraron libros de Juan A. Corretjer y de René Marques y que durante el rosellato se censuró una novela de Olga Nolla. El Secretario de Estado, Kenneth McClintock, ha hecho unas declaraciones muy desafortunadas para justificar la acción del DE de censurar los libros de José Luis González, Juan A. Ramos y Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá, entre otros. Denunciamos la errada determinación del DE de privar a nuestro estudiantado de una literatura de gran calidad que forma parte de nuestro acervo cultural.
As promised here are the panel and paper abstracts for a panel I'm participating in with Michael Ralph and Laurence Ralph on Queer Hip Hop at the UCLA Queer Studies Conference (October 9-10). If you're in the LA area the conference is free and open to the public and is a great chance to see some rising young queer scholars.
Anyway, without further ado...
The Queer Vicissitudes of Hip Hop Expressive Culture This panel delves into hip hop lyricism, fashion, and imagery to explore the queer vicissitudes that structure this mode of expressive culture. A vicissitude is a variation, an alternation, a change in fortune, a mutation: a reversal, perhaps. At the very least, it captures the gap between what one is and what one has imagined oneself to be. The aporia signaled here is not the space between the perspectives of two different rappers— i.e. a gay rapper versus a straight one—but the tension between two different views of one’s self. We explore this phenomenon of doubling by discussing the musical and visual production of several hip hop artists that dominate the contemporary landscape, these include: R. Kelly, Kanye West, Lil’ Wayne, T Pain, T.I., Andrew 3000, and Common.
“No Homo": Racialized Sexual Surveillance in Hip Hop Hip hop culture is increasingly constructed by scholars and detractors alike as a hypermasculine space of unabashed violence, materialism, misogyny, and homophobia. This concern with sexuality and bodily comportment in hip hop performance tends toward a reified a mode of analysis which places too much emphasis on dubious standards for respectable discourse. In this paper I focus on performances of queer masculinity in hip hop as spaces that contradict dominant depictions of hip hop sexuality as increasingly narrow and formulaic. Hip hop masculinity often straddles the contractions of sexuality, desire, and gender performance, revealing the artifice of its constructions. Performances of queer masculinity in hip hop simultaneously disrupt and reify existing structures of oppression in the process of articulating a complex sexual and gendered personhood that is vibrant, diverse, and complex. By charting the ambivalence of the fad phrase, “no homo,” I explore how hip hop artists speak homophobia as a way of enacting nonnormative intimacies that interrupt racial and sexual surveillance. In this paper, I examine two performances of queer masculinity and intimacy: the first is the phallocentrism of Jim Jones’ “Pop Champagne” music video. The second mode of performance surfaces in a series of advertisements that Lil Wayne did for Strapped Condoms. I demonstrate that these queer performances eschew “respectability,” in favor of a masculine persona that embraces conflicting conceptions of intimacy and desire. These performances do not merely expose the fissures of hip hop masculinity, they exploit them, reveling in their pretenses. By grappling with the complexity of these ambivalent performances, I believe we can establish a scholarly discourse on hip-hop sexuality and gender performance that is, if not quite feminist, undoubtedly queer.
Marisol Lebron Department of Social & Cultural Analysis New York University
“I’m a Flirt” In centering their attention on the “down low” phenomenon, analysts of male same sex intimacy feed social paranoias that frame homosexuality as the principal source of death and disease in African American lived spaces. They also tend to conflate homoeroticism with homosexuality in a way that is both crude and imprecise. Given that male rappers are increasingly marketed as sex symbols for both men and women, and since some of the social contexts rappers draw from (like jails and prisons) are widely known as arenas where male same sex intimacy flourishes, there is sufficient evidence to consider how male homoerotics structure interpersonal relationships in music that draws upon prison culture, like hip hop/r & b. In the song, “I’m a Flirt,” for instance, one man’s claim that he is capable of stealing another man’s girlfriend is precisely what generates a male homoerotic episode—a narrative in which those activities that a man finds titillating become central to a dialogue with other men that evinces more intimacy between them than with any of their purported female objects of desire. Laurence Ralph Department of Anthropology University of Chicago
“Where I come from, gay people were like aliens …” Photos that flooded the Internet while Kanye West and friends were visiting Paris Fashion Week in February 2009, ignited a firestorm of controversy. The sartorial decisions that had everyone buzzing concerned Mr. West and the motley crue of fashionistas that looked, by all concerned, “gay.” Kanye dismissed the rumors, explaining that “the way a man dresses doesn’t have anything with what he likes to do at night.” Still, he was more empathetic than angry. In fact, Kanye indicated that he considered it his duty to “educate” his brethren and attributed the prevailing homophobia to the hypermasculinist ethos that pervades street cultures like the one in which he was reared, “Where I come from,” he said, invoking his native land, the south side of Chicago, “gay people were like aliens.” It was an apt image, and not simply because Kanye has routinely cast himself as a space explorer. For his 2008, “Glow in the Dark” tour, ‘Ye cast himself as a protagonist who crash landed on an unidentified planet. This, after he had already featured the track “Spaceship” on his debut album The College Dropout. This paper explores how rappers who artists who are frequently branded as queer—Kanye West, Lil Wayne, Common, and André 3000—have cast themselves as aliens to explain the way they fit into the broader cultural phenomenon that we call “hip hop.” André is an ATLien, Lil Wayne is a Martian, and Common has deployed futuristic, space age sounds, and accoutrements to craft his own gender-bending persona. These are but a few of the examples this paper will explore toward a theory of queer vicissitudes in hip hop lyricism and performance. Michael Ralph Department of Social & Cultural Analysis New York University
I am at this very moment actually working on a conference paper for the LA Queer Studies Conference about the rise of the "no homo" phenomenon and how the phrase actually worked to subvert and parody racialized sexual surveillance during the panic over the "downlow." This recent Slate piece by Jonah Weiner addresses many of the points I will touch on in my conference paper, particularly the way that "no homo" functions as a pun that actually draws attention to possible queer readings and nonnormative male intimacies. I'll post the panel and paper abstracts in a day or two, but in the mean time enjoy the Slate piece.
Does This Purple Mink Make Me Look Gay?
The rise of no homo and the changing face of hip-hop homophobia.
By Jonah Weiner Posted Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009, at 9:55 AM ET
In August, 2005, three weeks before his nationally televised declaration that "George Bush doesn't care about black people," Kanye West made a statement he'd later describe as braver and more difficult than his attack on the White House. Hip-hop, he told MTV, was supposed to be about "speaking your mind and about breaking down barriers, but everyone in hip-hop discriminates against gay people … I wanna just come on TV and just tell my rappers, tell my friends, 'Yo, stop it.' " Taking on Bush was a perfectly hip-hop move, but taking on homophobia, West feared, could be career suicide. Undeterred, he revisited the subject in a November 2005 interview, discussing his love for his openly gay cousin, not to mention his conflicted but evolving attitude toward his interior decorator. West's call for tolerance remains the highest-profile rebuke of gay-bashing that hip-hop has seen.
But old habits die hard, and last week, West amended his position somewhat on "Run This Town," a new Jay-Z single on which the Chicago rapper is a featured guest. "It's crazy how you can go from being Joe Blow," West begins his rap, "to everybody on your dick—no homo." No homo, to those unfamiliar with the term, is a phrase added to statements in order to rid them of possible homosexual double-entendre. ("You've got beautiful balls," you tell your friend at the bocce game—"no homo.") No homo began life as East Harlem slang in the early '90s, and in the early aughts it entered the hip-hop lexicon via the Harlem rapper Cam'ron and his Diplomats crew. Lil Wayne brought the term into the mainstream, sprinkling "no homo" caveats acrosscameos, mix tapes, and his Tha Carter III LP, which was 2008's best-selling album. (Jay-Z has used the word pause in a similar way.)
The term's appearance in hip-hop coincided with the rise of the so-called "down-low brother," a closeted black figure often demonized as a disease-spreading boogeyman, invisible by definition and thus potentially, frightfully, everywhere. Saying "no homo" might have started as a way for rappers to acknowledge and distance themselves from the down-low phenomenon. As the phrase has spread, many have decried no homo as depressingly retrograde, a pigheaded "That's what she said" for homophobes. But the term functions in a more complicated way than a simple slur. As society becomes increasingly gay-tolerant, hip-hop is reassessing its relationship to homosexuality and, albeit in a hedged and roundabout way, it's possible that no homo is helping to make hip-hop a gayer place.
I once asked Method Man whether he thought we'd ever see an openly gay gangsta rapper. He grew visibly agitated. "You can't be fuckin' people in the ass and say you're gangsta," he responded. As Kanye West has observed, gay and hip-hop have traditionally functioned as mutually exclusive terms, Venn diagrams that don't touch (and get really testy at the suggestion that they might, you know, want to). In 1989, Big Daddy Kane summed up the reigning attitude: "The Big Daddy law is anti-faggot." When DMX insulted rivals 10 years later by rapping, "Y'all niggas remind me of a strip club/ 'Cause every time you come around it's like I just gotta get my dick sucked," hip-hop was still so aggressively understood as hetero-centric that it was inconceivable to DMX that there might be anything the least bit gay about his fantasy of a roomful of men fellating him.
No homo tweaks this dynamic because it allows, implicitly, that rap is a place where gayness can in fact be expressed by the guy on the mic, not just scorned in others. In the very act of trying to "purify" an utterance of any gayness, after all, the no homo tag must contaminate it first—it's both a denial and a flashing neon arrow. This isn't to suggest that saying no homo is a radical act, but there's an appealing sense in which the phrase refuses to function as tidily as some of its boosters might like. This is especially striking in those cases when rappers add nohomo to statements of sexual pleasure we'd otherwise have no reason to think of as gay. "No homo, I go hard," Chamillionaire rapped on a recent mix tape, implying that an erection is inherently homosexual. Even more absurdly, when Cam'ron named a song "Silky (No Homo)," it was hard to decide what he was disavowing. The emotions of sadness and longing expressed in the lyrics? Or the tactile sensation of silkiness itself?
Often, no homo appears not just as a disclaimer but as a punch line, a See what I did there? that flaunts one's cleverness. "Just shot a video with R. Kelly, but no homo though," Lil Wayne rapped in 2007. In this line—a sly nod to both a music video co-starring Wayne and Kelly and to the R&B singer's alleged sex tape—no homo isn't an afterthought; it's the keystone that holds the whole joke together. A funny side effect here is that the no homo vogue doubtless encourages rappers not only to scrutinize everything they say for trace gayness, but to actively think up gay double-entendres just so that they can cap them off with no homo kickers.
Beyond this, there's a sense in which no homo, rather than limiting self-expression in hip-hop, actually helps to expand it. We see this play out in the rhymes and personas of the term's most famous practitioners. Cam'ron and the Diplomats are, ironically, among the most homoerotic MCs in rap. They wear pink and purple furs and brag regularly about how good they look. In the video for "Pop Champagne," Jim Jones and Juelz Santana giddily douse each other with frothy white geysers of bubbly. On Cam'ron's "Hey Ma," he describes having sex with a female paramour with seven vague words—"She was up in the Range, man"—but when the girl leaves, he immediately calls Santana to narrate the act in detail and, in a sense, to enjoy and consummate it fully. Similarly, Lil Wayne has been photographed kissing his mentor, the rapper Baby, on the lips and cultivates a shirtless, slithering, rock-star-worthy air of libertine sexuality. Kanye West attends runway shows, keeps an entourage of designer-clad dandies, and blogs regularly about design. When these rappers say "no homo," it can seem a bit like a gentleman's agreement, nodding to the status quo while smuggling in a fuller, less hamstrung notion of masculinity. This is still a concession to homophobia, but one that enables a less rigid definition of the hip-hop self than we've seen before. It's far from a coup, but, in a way, it's progress.
Lil Mama, a judge on MTV's America's Best Dance Crew ( I still don't understand how she landed that job), has issued an apology for her disgusting comments directed at Leiomy Maldonado, an openly transgender member of the all queer group Vogue Evolution.
A behind the scenes clip that ran before the group's performance showed Leiomy storming off during rehearsal and acting diva-ish as the other member of the group complained about her attitude. Despite an outstanding performance Lil Mama berated Leiomy for her bad attitude. Lil Mama told Leiomy:
“Leiomy, come on. Your behavior… it’s unacceptable,” Lil Mama said after watching their performance. “I just feel that you always have to remember your truth. You were born a man and you are becoming a woman. If you’re going to become a woman, act like a lady. Don’t be a bird, like ‘Oh my god, I’m not doing this!’ You know what I’m saying? It gets too crazy and it gets confusing. You’re doing this for America. Even though you’re the face for transgenders, you’re the face of America right now with this group and it’s not about anybody else. It’s about y’all. You know what I’m saying? So do it for the team. Do it for the team.”
Lil Mama's comments prompted an uproar among ABDC's LGBT audience, some of whom alerted gay watchdog group GLAAD about the comments. In a statement released by GLAAD Lil Mama apologized saying:
"I would like to clarify anything that was misunderstood from Sunday's show. My remarks were never meant to be disrespectful regarding Leiomy's gender nor offensive to the LGBT community, which has been a community that has supported me in all my endeavors. However, in hindsight, I recognize that my words may have come across as hurtful. I spoke with her privately after the taping to express that it was not my intent to offend her or any member of the transgender community and that I still live for Vogue Evolution."
Between Shane Sparks' barely concealed weekly homophobic panics and Lil Mama's ignorance and insensitivity I doubt that much will change with how ABDC deals with the members of Vogue Evolution, especially Leiomy. Right now the show's producers are probably counting on ABDC's presumed teenaged hetero demographic not to keep voting for Vogue Evolution as the show gets closer to the finale. In essence this move would rid the show of the "problem" that queerness "causes" without having to interrogate ABDC's implicit heterosexist and gender normative standards.
In the end I just wished that the judges (and the audience) shut the fuck up and deal with their discomfort and unease because Vogue Evolution are some fierce ass queers of color and they deserve the title.
Juan Sánchez, RICAN/STRUCTIONS: A MULTI-LAYERED LEGACY Cuerpos vigilados y castigados:
Resistance and Empowerment in the Body Rican
Puerto Rican Studies Association 9th Biennial Meeting Call for Papers, Panels and PresentationsHartford, ConnecticutOctober 21-23, 2010
Please join us at the Puerto Rican Studies Association Conference.
For over three centuries, Puerto Ricans have been subject to—and involved in—various types and levels of surveillance and persecution, and have developed a variety of creative approaches to oppose, resist, engage or live with them. Going against the established juridical-political order; resisting socio-economic conditions; being poor and/or nonwhite; being positioned outside the law when trying individually or collectively to survive; not being an adult male, and/or not identifying as heterosexual; as victims of disease or as persons themselves seen as embodying disease (physiological, mental, or social); speaking the “wrong” language or speaking the “right” language the “wrong” way; having too many children or actively deciding when not to have a child; wanting to live in an unpolluted environment; playing and dancing to the “wrong” music; praying and speaking to the “wrong” God(s); being too loud or refusing to be a spectacle; being in the wrong place at the wrong time; or just simply being. Each of these, severally and apart, have served as provocation, cause or justification for supervision, accusation, and penalty.
In 2010 our conference theme centers on these and other sites of discipline and punishment, as well as on strategies of coping, opposition and resistance. Carried out by foreigners and by our compatriots, by strangers and by our own kin, by others and by ourselves, these varied practices and instances of penalization have occurred both formally and informally, publicly and privately, overtly and covertly; with the use of force and/or by instilling efficient behavior and a lucrative obedience, episodically and in the historical long-term.
This year’s conference will also explore the ways in which Puerto Ricans have created and can continue to create critical, social, cultural, political and economic opportunities for civic action. Hartford offers us a privileged and critical space for reflection. Locale of the first Puerto Rican elected mayor of a capital city on the “mainland,” it is also home to the largest proportional population of Puerto Ricans residing in any city beyond the confines of the island of Puerto Rico itself. Following President Barack Obama’s historic nomination to the Supreme Court of the Hon. Sonia Sotomayor, the first Latina and Puerto Rican to be so appointed, this year’s Conference's exploration of empowerment as a conduit for civic action seems particularly timely and assumes even greater salience. Not only the first Latina to be appointed to the Court, Judge Sotomayor is also the first Puerto Rican ever to serve in one of the highest public offices available within the governing structures of the United States. Aspiring to a critical reflection about disciplinary discourses of punishment and power affecting Puerto Ricans, this year’s conference aims also to engage those narratives and practices of empowerment which facilitate and enable progressive civic action.
PRSA Conference Themes This year’s conference thus features two mutually constitutive themes, one with a focus on technologies of the self, one on practical approaches to social, political and economic empowerment. Efforts to study the intersections of power and the body have opened up new spaces for critical thinking and collective action. To critically explore their diverse forms and dimensions, we invite presenters to propose papers, panels, poster sessions, and by other creative means and fora, engaging with any of the following, merely suggestive rather than exhaustive, list of possible areas and topics:
1) Papers, panels, or presentations that focus on the roles of state technologies of power used to discipline the Puerto Rican subject, as well as on modalities of resistance to them. Proposals should include themes in the areas of law, justice, state repression and violence, and other institutional mechanisms of discipline and punishment, as well as proposals that explore critical modes of resistance.2) Papers, panels, or presentations that are especially apt and relevant to this (New England) region, as one of the objectives of this conference is to create a critical space for the exchange of ideas, experiences and reflections on how to empower Puerto Ricans in local, state, national and international forums.3) Papers, panels, or presentations that elucidate the ways in which Puerto Rican studies can inform broader debates across disciplines, thereby encouraging that interdisciplinarity which has traditionally been one of the hallmarks of the PRSA and its conferences.
We encourage submissions from the array of communities that together shape the Puerto Rican experience: university and college professors, independent scholars, community and labor organizers/activists, teachers and intellectual workers, artists, and graduate and undergraduate students.
Send two copies of your proposal form, abstract and membership fee by February 10, 2010 to: Secretariat, Puerto Rican Studies Association: 2009 Conference c/o Latino Studies Program Cornell University 434 Rockefeller Hall Ithaca NY 14853
Please remember that only proposals from paid-up PRSA members will be accepted for inclusion in the 9th Conference. Membership dues must be received by the PRSA Secretariat by February 1, 2010. Membership dues information and a downloadable membership form are available at http://www.puertorican-studies.org.
PRSA Pre-Conference Workshops The PRSA Pre-Conference Workshops are designed to provide junior faculty and advance graduate students with a series of professional workshops which seek to assist in faculty development and career planning for scholars whose research and work projects focus on Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans and their communities, and Puerto Rican Studies. These will include a workshop on tenure and promotion as well as a discussion of the history of PRSA and its contributions to intellectual life and collaborative community work. Pre-Conference Workshops will take place on Thursday, October 21, 2010. More details forthcoming.
The Sponsoring Institutions The Puerto Rican Studies Association was founded to help promote scholarship in the field and offer a place for its scholars to come together. The Association meets every other year (in even-numbered years) in a different location. We maintain a list-serve for the dissemination of news of interest to the membership. For more information on the PRSA please visit our website at: http://www.puertorican-studies.org/. We encourage students, scholars, activists, and others with interests in the island and its people to join and actively participate in the PRSA.
The City of Hartford, a vibrant city with one of the largest proportional populations of Puerto Ricans in the United States, will assist in the hosting of the 2010 conference. Our 9th biennial conference represents the collaborative effort of members of the city’s local Puerto Rican and Latino communities as well as various academic programs and institutions affiliated with the University of Connecticut, Eastern Connecticut State University and Trinity College.
The Conference Sites The PRSA Conference will take place in the Hartford Marriott Downtown in Hartford, Connecticut, which will also serve as the primary lodging site for conference attendees. The Hartford Marriott is located in downtown Hartford, within walking distance of many of the city’s amenities. The city of Hartford is itself conveniently located at the crossroads of New England. Only 30 minutes from Bradley International Airport, it is also within reasonable driving distance from New York City, NY, Boston, MA, and Providence, RI.
The Hartford Marriott was selected because it provided a consolidated space with access to meeting rooms as well as a central location within walking distance of restaurants and other downtown establishments. Conference rates will be available. Most of the conference events will take place in the available conference rooms in the hotel. For more information on the hotel, please visit their website at: http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/bdldt-hartford-marriott-downtown/. Additional information on hotel rates will be forthcoming and available at the PRSA webpage.
For local information please contact, Charles R. Venator-Santiago, IPRLS & Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut, charles.venator@uconn.edu
For information on PRSA please contact: • PRSA Secretariat, Marti Dense, Latinos Studies Program, Cornell University, prsa@cornell.edu • PRSA President, Gladys M. Jiménez-Muñoz, Department of Sociology, Binghamton University-SUNY, gjimenez@binghamton.edu • PRSA Program Committee Chair, Vilma Santiago- Irizarry, Department of Anthropology, Cornell University, vs23@cornell.edu .
Featured in Guanabee's "10 Favorite Latinas on the Web,"MiApogeos "7 GLBT Latino Bloggers to Watch," and the Lesbian and Gay Foundation's "100 Best LGBT Blogs"
Marisol LeBron is Nuyorican queer activist and academic. Marisol is an honors graduate from Oberlin College (Comparative American Studies and Latin American Studies 2007), and is currently a PhD student in the Program in American Studies, Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, New York University. Marisol's research interests include citizenship studies, Latin@ cultural production, pop culture analysis, and queer of color critique. Marisol is a native New Yorker, born and raised in the Bronx.
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