Andre G. Gray: tha Giant [Blog]

Fortune threw this lil project, if you can even call it that, in my lap. Its simple as the name says, Hamburgers 4 the Homeless. I was having a BBQ at the crib, all the folks came thru, we were watching the playoffs, all that, and they left me with hella lbs of ground beef. Seeing as all I do with beef is handle it, never eat it, I figured I’d whip up some burgers and pass em out to the my more nomadic mission neighbors. Threw em some mustard and some buns and then took to the magic school bus to find some hungry folks out in the streets. Funny thing was, I ended up driving around for a koo hr looking for some homeless ppl. As I drove, I realized, they dont really sit in a collective spot that I could locate, esp after the new loitering laws. I decided to swing back by my house and fancy that, a fat group of willing takers. I then ran down to Franklin Park down the st and found some more folks. It was a funny cycle in my head because when I thought to make the burgers in the first place, I had an idea that homeless ppl would be everywhere and so easy to find. The search both reaffirmed and contradicted my hypothesis. On the one hand, they were everywhere, just everywhere on my block. The next step is to pass the baton. Someone needs to take charge to be the next one to pass out burgers and tell a story about it. Hit me @andre.g.gray@gmail.com if you are willing to be the next one. If not, imma track someone down and terry tate officer linebaker them till they get down with the H4H mvmt.

Seldom am I at a loss for words, but I honestly could not put to paper the way this makes me feel. Its like the first time I was called a nigger. The feeling is that no matter what I do, my worth is predetermined and predestined. I have been told in the past that think about things too racially but honestly I feel as if no matter what school I went to, no matter how much money I make or how I dress, I have to prove I am not a piece of shit. everyday. Its always on my mind because its an inherent part of the system I live in. The American ethos sees black people as criminals, as idiots, as sexual deviants. Individuals see things differently but as a whole its the way we act. Its not to say that others dont have a short ended stick as well, but we are the American experiment.

The problem with the billboard is that it does not address the real issue, but rather paints the victim as the perpetrator. Saying that black mothers are murderers isnt addressing the issue, its masking whats really in question. Why? Why is it that black mothers get abortions? Once you ask this question you have put yourself in a completely different context. You must then consider not only the individual circumstances of that abortion or potentially the lack of safe sex practiced by the people who conceived that child in the first place but also the access to birth control, the systematic inequality in education, sex ed and otherwise. You have to consider the deliberate destruction of the black family, starting with the selling of slave children away from their parents, of black couples apart. It also has to do with the incarceration of the black man, the fact that there are now more black men in jail then slaves in 1850. see America’s New Slavery: Black Men in Prison

From the Chicago Sun times
Anti-abortion billboard pulled in New York

“NEW YORK — An outdoor advertising company has taken down an anti-abortion billboard that pictured a black girl along with the tagline, “The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb.”

Some residents had said they found the billboard offensive, and members of the black community were especially outraged by it.

A spokesman for Louisiana-based Lamar Advertising, Hal Kilshaw, said that while the company respects the right to freedom of expression, the decision to take down the billboard Thursday night was for “public safety.” He said waiters and waitresses at a restaurant in the building where the billboard was placed had been harassed.

The Rev. Al Sharpton praised the decision and canceled plans to protest the billboard Friday. The civil rights activist said the billboard “depicted black women in an unfair way.”

The billboard was placed in the busy Soho neighborhood of Manhattan by the group Life Always as part of a national campaign tied to Black History Month. The group said its message highlights Planned Parenthood’s “targeting of minority neighborhoods.”

Planned Parenthood called the ad a “condescending effort to stigmatize and shame African-American women.”

Life Always said in a statement that it “strongly disagrees” with Lamar’s decision to remove the billboard. The organization said “the intent of the board is to call attention to the tragedy and the truth that abortion is outpacing life in the black community.”

Sharpton said he was open to discussing the subject of abortion in the black community and did not dismiss it outright. But he called instead for a “sober analysis” and said he would call a community meeting to address it publicly.

“The way you address that is not by demonizing black women,” he said.

In December, the city’s health department released statistics showing 41 percent of pregnancies in the city were aborted in 2009. The rate was close to 60 percent for blacks.

——— AP”

From Progressillinois.com

Latest In Series Of “Racist” Anti-Abortion Billboards Goes Up In Chicago

“An anti-choice group that prides itself on targeting African-Americans has unveiled a billboard on Chicago’s South Side with the intent of shocking the black community into opposing abortions.

The new ad is expected to debut Tuesday. Next to a picture of President Obama, the billboard reads, “Every 21 minutes, our next possible leader is aborted.” The group Life Always is behind the ad. The group put up an ad in New York depicting a young black girl that read, “The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.” Anger over the ad in New York caused the owner of the billboard space to take it down for “public safety” reasons.

Not surprisingly, the ploy is met with resistance from local pro-choice groups. The Chicago Abortion Fund (CAF), a group that helps low-income women obtain abortion services, called the billboards and the ongoing campaign aimed at African Americans “despicable,” “deplorable,” and “racist.” Gaylon Alcaraz, CAF’s executive director, said in a statement that “Rather than create fake concern for a community these people have never set foot in, Life Always should spend their energies helping us address the reasons why women decide to choose abortion.” “

If you didnt know, I spent 3 long long years up in marin county in high school. Commuting. 3hrs of sleep. THE WHOLE 9. It was an interesting experience but among many things it taught me how to interact in an all white environment. Its a different world out there and mastery cultural competency is something that everyone should look to improve on. Now this article from the Bay Citizen shows just how deep the rabbit hole goes. Ross, where my high school was is 94% white. 94% is like six sigma #s. thats unreal. thats not even a whole non white person outta ten. “U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s determination that Marin had “failed to comply” with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and two other anti-discrimination statutes.
Source: The Bay Citizen (http://s.tt/129Ff)” thats serious.

In the end im not mad at marin, it just is what it is and I learn tremendous amounts about ppl and about myself. The real take away for me is that we have to support our minority and low income students when they end up in historically great academic environments like this because the surrounding communities my not be so inviting.

Read the full article inThe Bay Citizen and s/o to C+ a fellow temp/marin/import.

I wrote a post on Orgasm Inc back in July. Turns out there is a screening at the Roxie April 1-7. Who wants to rock wit tha Giant to it?

I might have started down a tabooed path with my post on but as I mentioned before, we are all human, we think about these things all the time and we should put them out in the open. The orgasm, the two faced monster that she is, is simultaneously and fact and enigma. Although it might have been a bit of a stretch, I wrote a paper last year linking the gendered views of orgasms to sex trafficking. The gist was that without the widespread acceptance of the male orgasm, the table would not be set for males paying for sex and thusly creating the market for the purchase of other human beings for sexual purposes.

With this being said, lets go back to the orgasm. For a man, its what happens. We have sex, Orgasm. Fellatio, Orgasm. Masturbation, Orgasm. For the women out there, not so maaaaach (Borat voice). On the female side of things we find ourselves in the great void, only thing bigger and less understood then space itself. This lack of knowledge of the vagina runs so deep that pharmaceutical companies are trying to market sexual dysfunction to women, convincing them that the lack of knowledge of the female body is actually a clinical disease. The plague of the vagina. Lets put a thought to this, a man uses viagra to get an erection, makes some sense, though we could just turn this man on naturally, though this is neither here nor there. Now, a woman, she uses a female viagra to….. ??? get an erection? not so maaaaaaaaach. This process has been captured in Orgasm Inc. an interesting documentary on the marketing of female sexual pleasure. “In the shocking and hilarious documentary ORGASM INC., filmmaker Liz Canner takes a job editing erotic videos for a drug trial for a pharmaceutical company. Her employer is developing what they hope will be the first Viagra drug for women that wins FDA approval to treat a new disease: Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD). Liz gains permission to film the company for her own documentary. Initially, she plans to create a movie about science and pleasure but she soon begins to suspect that her employer, along with a cadre of other medical companies, might be trying to take advantage of women (and potentially endanger their health) in pursuit of billion dollar profits. ORGASM INC. is a powerful look inside the medical industry and the marketing campaigns that are literally and figuratively reshaping our everyday lives around health, illness, desire — and that ultimate moment: orgasm.”

Here is Trafficking vs Sexual Pleasure by renown author from Amherst College, Andre G. Gray.
“Getting the evolutionary story [of the female orgasm] straight has potentially very large social and personal consequences for all women,” Dr. Lloyd said. “And indirectly for men, as well. “

It could be said that this issue surfaces primarily in the hearts and minds, an issue of societal equality between the sexes, undermining the ability for male-female equality in relationships. All these might have a causal relationship to the aforementioned problem, but they fail to view some of the real life implications of society accepting and promoting male ejaculation. Let us take a look at the world of commercial sex trafficking…

Read the rest of the essay, Trafficking vs Sexual pleasure

Watch the video, its pretty moving. The problem I have is that the video brings me back to the god’s must be crazy. The influence of the flyby camera shots in two fold. For one, it does do the job of enabling these tribes to receive funding in the bureaucratic, law-based (see you must prove everything with concrete evidence, “its not about what really happened but more about what you can prove) system that we have globalized. But, on the other hand, it cannot do anything but irreparable damage to that tribe, just by being something that they cannot explain and something they have not see before. That then forces them to find a definition for this flying thing in their culture and there is no way that changes what they are. In the end, it speaks to the vast reach of our society, one that not everyone should be forced to be a part of.