Young Director Award 2007 - Anti Drug - No Such Thing

This ad won the 2007 Young Director Award in the Broadcast Europe category and artfully reminds us that "There's no such thing as an old junkie."

Super cool.

Award: Broadcast Europe
Title: No Such Thing
Director: Arran Bowyn
Production Company: The Bare Film Company
Contact: alex@barefilms.co.uk
Producer: Helen Hadfield
Director of Photography: Chas Bain
Agency: Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO
Art Director: Mike Bond
Creative Director: Paul Brazier
Copywriter: Bernard Hunter
Client/Product: Focus 12/Anti Drugs Campaign

Read and see more.

Post-apartheid racism in South Africa

This is despicable. A group of white students at the University of the Free State in South Africa humiliated black elderly workers at the school by, among other things, feeding them a dog food soup into which the students had urinated. Just despicable.



According to a BBC report, "The video was reportedly recorded in protest at moves to integrate black and white students in the same residences at the University of the Free State."

Read more on the blog of Ray Hartley, editor of The Times, South Africa.

Gay Jamaican policeman Michael Hayden hopes to seek asylum in Canada

I'm getting tired of writing about the homophobia in Jamaica. Something has got to be done. Another gay man, policeman Michael Hayden, is in hiding on the island nation and hopes to seek asylum in Canada.

Real more about Michael Hayden in a Toronto Star article here.

Sunil Menon, Sahodaran, and homosexuality in India

Sunil Menon is a gay zoologist, anthropologist, fashion designer, HIV/AIDS activist, and co-founder of Sahodaran, a sexual health organization for Indian men who have sex with men (MSMs). In an interview with Rediff News, he tells an interesting story of how his life developed as a gay man in India.

An excerpt:

"While I was doing my PhD, I got a call from an anthropologist asking me to do some work on HIV/AIDS for the World Health Organisation. That was in 1992. My research was on a group that was hidden; it was a network of men. I would use the acronym MSM (Men having sex with men). After meeting them and talking to them, I realised that I was not the only person who was like that. Till then, I hadn't come across another gay person. I would say the work changed my life; it was a kind of awakening for me and I got the courage to deal with my own sexuality. I saw these sex workers and MSM fighting against all odds all the time and still smiling even though there was nothing to look forward to for them. I stopped wallowing in self pity after that. I felt I had no right to feel sorry for myself."

Lots of stories from which to learn.

Read more.

We All Walk in Different Shoes - Kenneth Cole’s New Campaign

Check out this excellent post by Wendi Muse over at Racialicious about Kenneth Cole's new advertising campaign that includes the above video.

An excerpt:

"The real-life models for this campaign are of various racial and ethnic backgrounds, levels of physical ability, sexual orientations, and political leanings, but exist as evidence that anyone can look good in Kenneth Cole. Though cynics could easily argue that this is simply an attempt by the Kenneth Cole label team to garner attention for their wares, the campaign takes the fashion industry a few steps ahead, primarily because it not only lends itself to encouraging activism and social progress, but also because it blatantly acknowledges that one can receive attention for a clothing or accessories line without relying solely upon an emaciated and predominately white fleet of models."

Finally, the fashion industry wakes up, a little bit.

Read more.

Janis Ian - At Seventeen, Society's Child

In my profile, I write in the Interests section, "There is always more to learn." And I am admittedly a bit ashamed to have not known much about singer/songwriter Janis Ian until recently. At only fifteen years old, Ian wrote and sang her first hit single, "Society's Child," about a forbidden interracial romance, which was released amidst controversy three times between 1965 and 1967. Her most successful single "At Seventeen," released in 1975, was a commentary on adolescent cruelty and angst.

Ian came out in 1993 and married Patricia Snyder in Toronto in 2003.

Here are two videos showing Janis Ian performing "Society's Child" and "At Seventeen."





There is always more to learn about our histories.

Barack Obama, Yes We Can, by will.i.am

Australian military in Sydney Mardi Gras parade

Pinknews is reporting that members of the Australian Defence Forces will take part in the 2008 Sydney Mardi Gras parade on 1 March, but they will not be permitted to wear their uniforms.

Hmmm. What will they wear?

Read more.

Shlomo Benizri blames gays for earthquakes in Israel

Some chuckles.

Israeli MP Shlomo Benizri, of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish Shas Party, said to the Knesset that recent earthquakes in the region had been caused by lawmaking that supports gay rights in the country.

Last week, Israel's attorney general ruled that same-sex couples could adopt.

Read more.

Integral, not integrated...

I truly believe that a good idea can come from almost any source, and this one is taken from the paper The Politics of Islam(ism): Decolonizing the Postcolonial by Dr. Jeremy Henzell-Thomas for The American Muslim (TAM):

"The real difficulty is in getting people to move from the outer to the inner level - that is to become integral, neither integrated (in the reduced sense of 'assimilated') or segregated. We have to get beyond the integration/segregation dichotomy and help people to understand that to be integral is to have the integrity to retain a deeper transcendent identity and not to corrupt it by setting it against other 'identities' at different levels."

Integral, not integrated. Fascinating. Read more.

Gay Africans and Arabs on the Internet

From Reuters, a great report on how gay Africans and Arabs are using the Internet to validate their sexual identities.

An excerpt from Gug, the writer behind the blog GayUganda:

"Oh yes, I do love the Internet, and I guess it is a tool that has made us gay Ugandans and Africans get out of our villages and realize that the parish priest's homophobia is not universal opinion. Surprise, surprise!"

Read more.

Some People Are Different. Get Over It!

This is my gay person of color twist on the Stonewall campaign in the UK.

Some People Are Gay. Get Over It!

Currently across the UK 600 billboards display the above message developed by 150 British secondary school pupils and teachers for the gay equality organization Stonewall.

Fabulous.

Read more.

Jamaican Gareth Henry seeks refugee status in Canada

From the CBC, Gareth Henry, a leading Jamaican gay activist, has come to Canada claiming refugee status. Henry, who has witnessed friends killed as a result of homophobia, was also himself attacked by an angry homophobic mob last year.

Read more.

Bahrain MPs calling to deport gay foreigners

From Pinknews.

MPs in Bahrain are calling for measures to be taken against gay people in the country, including deporting foreigners suspected of being gay.

Read more.

Antony and the Johnsons -You Are My Sister

Antony and the Johnsons with Boy George.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Asian gays and lesbians in the UK marry to conform

The BBC is reporting on how some gay and lesbian Asians in the United Kingdom marry members of the opposite sex to avoid being outcast, beaten, or abused.

Read more.

2007 Canadian Blog Awards Results - We Won!

Wow!

We, meaning I and everyone who reads and voted for this blog, won the Best GLBT Blog prize at the 2007 Canadian Blog Awards as presented by the lovely Nina Arsenault!

Congrats to the other fine nominees Slap Upside the Head, Screw Bronze!, Queer-Liberal, and Montreal Simon, and thanks to the organizers of the Awards, who spent hours of their valuable time on the production.

Here's to all gay persons of color - intricate, constant, and necessary threads in the fabric of contemporary society!

With much gratitude,
James

Is Egypt Criminalizing HIV Positive Men?

Pinknews is reporting that Egyptian authorities are holding two apparently HIV positive men in a Cairo hospital, handcuffed to their beds for 23 hours a day. While Egyptian law does not explicitly forbid homosexuality, the men had been prosecuted for the "habitual practice of debauchery" and subjected to HIV tests without their consent.

Prison terms for HIV positive men?

Read more about this as well as the sketchy details of the arrests, HIV tests, and subsequent detentions of other men in Egypt.

Safe Sex Is Hot Sex - Chi Chi LaRue on Bareback Porn

Well, it's about time someone does something about this.

Porn director Chi Chi LaRue has taken a stand against the frightening new trend of barebacking that has been developing in the gay adult video industry.

A new website called "Safe Sex is Hot Sex" features a four minute public service announcement in which La Rue and some of the men in the porn business reiterate the message "Safe Sex Is Hot Sex."

Boys, if you pay attention to anything on my blog, watch and listen to the video here.

Life is much more challenging, not the same, with HIV, so wrap it up!

Read more.

Gay Persons of Color on LGBT History Month site

LGBT History Month, a site devoted to learning more about the histories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in Britain and Northern Ireland, contains a page that lists significant Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) LGBT people and organisations.

Included on the list is a link to this blog, Gay Persons of Color!

I feel honored.

Thanks LGBT History Month!

James

Celebrity Racism

I love this video on celebrity racism from Spill.com.



Read more.

IN THE LIFE

If you haven't already become intimately familiar with IN THE LIFE, an organization that "produces media that produces change for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities," now is your chance to begin learning about the "full range of the gay experience and the issues that impact our lives and our communities through stories on politics and public policy, personal and community health, religion and spirituality, and more."

The phrase "in the life" is slang, a Harlem-Renaissance euphemism for a prostitute or homosexual.

For February 2008, IN THE LIFE features A Visible History, a documentary which celebrates extraordinary people, places, and events that have defined the history of the gay community.

IN THE LIFE is in itself a wonderful and significant resource for validating our lives as gay boys and girls, men and women.

Read more.

New York recognizes same-sex marriages from elsewhere

Great news for equal rights.

From the New York Times, a New York appellate court ruled last Friday that valid out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples must be legally recognized in New York.

Read more.

More homophobic violence in Jamaica

From Pinknews, an angry mob allegedly attacked three gay men in the town of Mandeville. This is the latest incident in the nation's long history of violence against the gay and lesbian community.

Jamaica is considered by most human rights groups to be one of the most homophobic places in the world.

Read more.