Shoot Promos on Race, Class, Gender, Etc

"The union of feminine and masculine energies within the individual is the basis of all creation" - Shakti Gawain When I was an undergrad at UC Irvine, I made the subject of my Sociology Majors Seminar paper on "gaydar" and gender stereotypes. For those unfamiliar with the term, gaydar is the intuitive ability to assess a person's sexual orientation as gay, bi, or straight. The premise of my paper was that our gaydar was calibrated by our proximity to the LGBTQ community; do you have any gay friends or know any openly gay people? I surveyed a few dozen of my Bible Study high school students and college peers and many of them didn't know any gay people; their gaydars were solely based on gender cues.  How do you tell if someone is gay? If they cross their legs when they sit. How skinny their jeans are (this was in the mid 2000's so we were transitioning from the baggy jeans to skinny jeans era). If they carry their books in front of their chests instead ...

On March 16, 2021 a domestic terrorist killed 8 people, 6 of whom were Asian women, in Atlanta. Let's not mince words here, this was not a "sexual addiction" or the result of a "bad day". This was a targeted attack on Asian women. But this isn't an isolated incident. Hate crimes against all AAPI people have risen, especially after former President Trump referred COVID-19 as the "China Virus" and "Kung Flu" with many pundits, politicians, and people co-opting those derogatory terms.  From the onset of COVID-19 and we were ordered to wear masks and quarantine, I have seen the micro-aggressions directed toward Asian Americans. The glares from people at AAPI, communicating "this is your fault", "you brought this on us" . The way that people would walk on the other side of the street, profiling AAPI as automatic careers of the disease, the same way Black folk are profiled "walking while Black". Some may not be fam...

I have my opinion, you have yours. Why are you taking this so personal? Can't we agree to disagree? With the 2020 Election less than 50 days away, those might be common phrases we hear in social circles whenever politics is discussed. For many it's a sign of maturity and objectivity to discuss politics and be able to "agree to disagree". I used to believe the same. I was wrong. "Objectivity" is not a sign of maturity or intelligence. No one can actually be objective. To have an opinion and beliefs are by very nature subjective. "Objectivity" is how we try to debate and argue topics, playing "devil's advocate" and distancing ourselves from the stances we may take.  But in reality it's a sign of moral cowardice, it's a sign of privilege. It's white privilege. It's male privilege. It's natural born citizen privilege. It's Protestant privilege. It's heterosexual privilege. Etc, etc. Let me preface this by sayin...

Original piece written by me in 2009 Allow me to introduce the sensitive man.   We are the rare subspecies of man who is expressive, emotional, affectionate, and attentive. The sensitive man's religion is sensualism. Sensualism is the love of the spirit of sex, romance and eroticism. Love is our God. Men like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi are our prophets. And men like Marvin Gaye, Barry White, James Ingram, Luther Vandross, Jeffrey Osborne, Prince & R. Kelly are our ministers. I guess that makes R. Kelly our Catholic priest but that's besides the point. The dominant species of man, the macho brutes, dismisses us as faggots. Though we do not belong to the gay subspecies, we share a kinship with them. I guess that makes us the male mulattos, because we represent a hybrid. In our relationships with women, we bear the burdens of our entire sex. Women carry the baggage of previous hurts at the hands of the macho brutes. Therefore, we endure the presumpti...