The BlackFemLens: The Media Done Responsibly 2021 Virtual Film Festival

By Sikivu Hutchinson

Back in the day, before digital video and the Internet, independent filmmaking was regarded as a “mystical realm” dominated by charmed white boy wunderkinds and the “odd” man of color “maverick”. As independent film has exploded, so has the market for film festivals, such that there is one to fit every niche and predilection. Unfortunately, many of these ventures run on the same old cronyism, Eurocentrism, and hetero-norms that continue to tokenize and ghettoize women of color filmmakers. Case in point is the Philip K. Dick Science Fiction and Supernatural festival, a platform that boasts a standalone category entitled (direct quote), “Best African American, Latino and other Person of Color Science Fiction Movie”. Giving the huddled masses of the “other person of color” community a nice pat on the head, Dick’s programmers swaggeringly note that “we are the first US festival that offers this long-awaited category.”

The film industry is rife with great white savior proclamations like these, which is why Media Done Responsibly’s (MDR) new virtual film fest is a timely antidote. Founded by Shaunelle Curry, MDR’s CEO, the festival kicks off this weekend to mark Women’s History month, focusing on emerging independent BIPOC, immigrant, disabled, and LGBTQIA+ filmmakers. According to Curry, “The goal is to center the voices of diverse storytellers by amplifying their complex humanity from their perspectives, in their words and through their lens”. The event is a signal opportunity to boost the voices and visions of artists who are often “invisibilized” in a film world where Black women still comprise fewer than 1% of major studio film directors. As per the 2019 USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, the dearth of Black women directors is compounded by the underrepresentation of women of color editors, production designers, composers, cinematographers, producers and critics in the multi-billion dollar film industry.

By challenging the gatekeeping white folks’ regime, festivals like MDR’s can play a critical role in advancing Black women as drivers of production and film innovation. The festival slate includes works that examine state violence against Black folks (Man Down, January 14th), adultification/criminalization of Black girls (Pushout), LGBTQIA acceptance in families (Parental Guidance Suggested, Proud Dad), mental health care (Mickey Hardaway), suicide (Baby Steps) and unhoused African American women and girls (Defining Ourselves). I am honored to have two short films that were chosen as Official Selections at the festival — White Nights, Black Paradise, and my sci fi webseries Narcolepsy, Inc, which both feature older women of color actresses as protagonists; a demographic that is all but invisible in mainstream film. I am also a producer on teen filmmaker Zorrie Petrus’ Official Selection student documentary, “Defining Ourselves, For Ourselves”.

The festival will feature panels with filmmakers and community organizations, as well as sessions focusing on the work of acclaimed documentarian Byron Hurt (creator of the landmark social justice film, Hip Hop Beyond Beats and Rhymes), and young entertainment and arts activists. The MDR festival runs from March 4th-11th.

Tickets and info @ https://mdrff21.eventive.org/welcome

Fighting for 15, the Equality Act, and Black Queer Families

 

 

By Sikivu Hutchinson

As the Religious Right doubles down on its fascist grip on Midwestern and Southern state legislatures, the House recently passed the Equality Act, which grants historic protections to LGBTQI+ communities in the workplace, public accommodations, and public education. The Act now moves to the Senate, where it faces stiff opposition from GOP “Christian family values” bigots. The House’s support comes at a critical juncture in the pandemic, coinciding with the Democrats’ efforts to pass the Covid relief bill, increase the federal minimum wage (temporarily derailed by “Senate parliamentarian rules” bureaucracy and Democrats’ gutlessness), and institute a “child allowance”. While passage of the Equality Act would be an economic justice watershed for LGBT communities overall, the Act, along with these pieces of legislation, could significantly boost African American queer families.

Nationwide, Black LGBT families are more likely to be at or below the poverty line than non-LGBT Black families, with poverty rates of 30.8% to 25% respectively. According to the Human Rights Campaign and the National Black Justice Institute, a majority of Black youth have been subjected to homophobic climates in their schools, families, and neighborhoods. Hence, the Equality Act would be a sea change for LGBTQ+ communities long disenfranchised by everyday religious bigotry, normalized transphobia, poverty wages in the workplace, and exclusion in public schools.

The Equality Act “would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to explicitly prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” It effectively buttresses the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling extending anti-discrimination protections to lesbian, gay, and transgender Americans. Gender identity and sexual orientation would become federally protected class categories (as race and gender are currently), affording LGBT folks legal rights to employment, schooling, and housing regardless of what state they live in. Federal expansion of civil rights to queer communities is critically important because many states in the Bible Belt and Midwest do not have laws explicitly protecting LGBT workers and families.

 The legislation has elicited the usual backlash from conservative religious groups due to the threat it poses to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act or RFRA. The RFRA essentially gives religious groups carte blanche to discriminate against LGBT folks under the guise of protecting “religious freedom”.  According to NPR, “Under the Equality Act, an entity couldn't use RFRA to challenge the act's provisions, nor could it use RFRA as a defense to a claim made under the act.” By taking away the legal foundation of so-called religious freedom claims, the Equality Act would reinforce church-state separation and curtail religious fundamentalists’ federally sanctioned license to discriminate.

Legal barriers to LGBT equity are undergirded by disproportionate poverty levels among queer families of color. The Williams Institute estimates that Black LGBT couples earn less than non-LGBT couples, while Black female-headed same sex households earn approximately $20,000 less than Black male same sex households. African American lesbians in particular are more likely to be raising children, while being segregated into low wage jobs with few benefits and nominal workplace protections. It is projected that the child allowance would cut child poverty in half, with African American and Indigenous families reaping the greatest benefits. According to the Economic Policy Institute, over thirty percent of Black workers would get a raise if the federal minimum wage increases. LGBT families of color would directly benefit because many Black, Latinx, Asian, and Indigenous queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming rank and file workers are employed in low wage service and food sector jobs.

Nationwide, people of color in general, and Black youth in particular, are more likely to identify as queer, a fact still obscured by cultural representation that privileges white queer lives and childless white gay men. These major demographic shifts away from Black hetero-norms are rarely addressed in Black liberal economic justice discourse. And, truth be told, even the most “progressive” Black pundits assume straight/cis single or two parent households when condemning institutionally racist family policies. The new safety net provisions can help create and preserve multigenerational wealth among Black queer families doubly marginalized by white supremacy on the one hand, and Black heterosexism on the other. But it will only be through forging coalitions which go beyond Pride celebrations, and actively fight for Black queer familyhood, that true Black community self-determination will be achieved.  

 Sikivu Hutchinson is a writer, educator, and director. Her books include Humanists in the Hood: Unapologetically Black, Feminist, and Heretical, White Nights, Black Paradise and the novel Rock ‘n’ Roll Heretic: The Life and Times of Rory Tharpe, due this month. She is the founder of the Women’s Leadership Project, Black Skeptics L.A. and a co-facilitator of the Black LGBTQI+ Parent and Caregiver group

 

 

 

#Standing4BlackGirls Task Force Meeting: February 25th

In the spring of 2020, WLP youth surveyed over 150 youth of color sexual violence and harassment survivors on their experiences with mental health care. The majority of Black girl survivors who responded had never received mental health care intervention or counseling for their trauma. Moreover, according to the Black Women's Blueprint, nearly 60% of African American girls will experience sexual abuse by the age of 18, and African American women are less likely to report sexual violence and abuse than non-black women. In addition, Black queer gender non-conforming and trans youth are more likely to experience sexual violence, harassment, and displacement--while having greater risk of falling into poverty--than straight youth. These youth are triply traumatized by the culture of victim blaming, shaming, and gaslighting inflicted upon them by their own communities.

Why is there no broad community outcry about these atrocities? And what would a Black girl-survivor focused policy agenda and platform look like?

African American girls and young women and community allies are invited to the first #Standing4BlackGirls task force meeting on Thursday, February 25th.

This youth-facilitated task force, co-hosted by the Office of Assemblymember Sydney Kamlager, will address developing mental health, educational, economic and social resources for Black girls across sexual orientation in L.A. County and across the state.  

Join Zoom Meeting
https://caasm.zoom.us/j/91517883069?pwd=S01WdmllSkhXZlJpZ3BuNGZhK1hydz09

Meeting ID: 915 1788 3069
Passcode: 74874

#S4BG issues survey Link: https://bit.ly/38U4RNY

Rock 'n' Roll Heretic: The Life and Times of Rory Tharpe

A novel by Sikivu Hutchinson

COMING MARCH 2021

“Those white boys on the major labels would never give an inch to a Negro woman playing race music.”

It’s the late 1970s, and ex-Pentecostal Black female electric guitarist Rory Tharpe navigates the cutthroat world of corporate rock, dive bars, dusk-to-dawn recording sessions, and shady contracts as she travels the nation in a dilapidated tour bus with her bickering, boozing all-male band.  Much-imitated and little-credited, Rory is in a late career tailspin when she goes on tour with international superstar Jude Justis, a white woman blues-rock singer who has built a turbulent mega-platinum career out of stealing from Black musicians. Broke and frustrated by the racism, sexism, and ageism of the rock boys’ club, Rory warily joins forces with Jude. She then takes a detour through the painful past she shares with childhood nemesis Divinity Mason Mulvaney, a maverick pastor at the helm of the mega church enterprise Revivals, Inc.  

 A homage to pioneering guitarist Rosetta Tharpe, Rock ‘n’ Roll Heretic is a bracing look at the power politics, heartbreak, and hypocrisy confronting a queer Black woman visionary at the intersection of music and commerce, faith and heresy, in a segregated music industry that eats its Black artists.

Praise for Rock ‘n’ Roll Heretic:

If you love fearless, bold, unapologetic strong leads, then Rock ‘n’ Roll Heretic is for you. Paying homage to the great trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, this book is filled with twists and turns that will leave you rethinking rock music as you know it. Sikivu, you have created a masterpiece that will challenge history and entertain readers for years.

—Malina Moye, electric guitarist, international recording artist, and co-founder of the Drive Hope Foundation

Rock 'n' Roll Heretic is a powerful, unflinching, unforgettable, wild ride journey into the struggles a vigorous Black queer woman artist endures to survive in an industry that does not want her there. Every daunting step Rory takes towards her rock ambitions leads her further back to a haunting childhood and Pentecostal past. On the edge of defeat, her trusty guitar is the armor that guards her sanity, allowing her to break through the “isms” that threaten to overshadow her contributions to Rock ‘n’ Roll.

--Samantha “GhettoSongBird”Hollins, Rock ‘n’ Roll singer-songwriter-guitarist 

Transhealthnow: Uplifting Black Trans/Gender Non-conforming and Nonbinary Youth

 

Black parents lead a discussion on affirming, uplifting, and supporting Black trans/gender nonconforming and nonbinary children at the Transhealthnow.com conference. Sponsored by Colors' LGBTQ Counseling Center with members from the Black LGBTQI+ Parent and Caregiver Group.

#Standing4BlackGirls Task Force Survey and Wellness Initiative

By Sikivu Hutchinson

Black LGBTQI+ and Black female identified youth have some of the highest rates of sexual violence abuse in the nation, yet seldom receive culturally responsive mental health intervention, and are routinely victim-blamed/shamed and policed by law enforcement, Black churches, families, and schools. Although psychotherapy has gained more mainstream acceptance in communities of color due to the pandemic, Black women and girls who seek out therapy are still burdened with the stigmatizing cultural stereotype that they should be "strong", self-sufficient, and supportive of others before they take care of themselves.

This summer, Women's Leadership Project youth from King-Drew Magnet conducted a wellness survey with over 150 South L.A. youth and adults, focusing on their experiences with sexual violence and harassment. Nearly 70% of Black female sexual violence survivors reported that they had not received mental health intervention (i.e., counseling or therapy) after their experiences. In anecdotal responses provided to WLP youth, African American girls who sought out therapists also reported that they had difficulty finding or being placed with culturally competent Black women practitioners. When they were able to find these practitioners some could not afford their rates.

As a result, the WLP created the #Standing4BlackGirls Wellness Initiative fund. The fund provides free, culturally responsive, humanist and secular individual/group therapy for LGBTQI+ straight/cis&femme Black girls in L.A. County from 16-24 years old. The initiative will begin this month, in partnership with Black women and BIPOC mental health practitioners from Open Paths and My Choice, My Power Counseling. Application info is available here https://bit.ly/3hwrwTi

In addition to this initiative, WLP youth are spearheading a regional Black Girls' task force to address the need for more mental health, social, economic, and educational support resources that are specifically designated for Black girls. As part of this effort, WLP youth launched a survey to collect data and information for the launch of the task force in mid-February (the first meeting will be facilitated in partnership with Assemblymember Sydney Kamlager's office). The survey is for Black and African descent girls between the ages of 12-24. Preliminary results indicate that Black girls are experiencing high rates of trauma, anxiety, and stress related to the pandemic, unemployment, domestic violence, lack of child care and health care, educational disruption, and having to work part-time or full-time to support their families.

To participate in the survey and find out more about the task force, please see this link https://bit.ly/38U4RNY

Amerikkkan Bloodlust

By Sikivu Hutchinson

In 1967, Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael commented, “When you see an individual white boy, you are not afraid of that individual white boy. What you are afraid of is the power that he represents because behind him stands the local police force, the state militia, the Army and the Navy.” Yesterday’s bloodlust at the Capitol bore out Carmichael’s statement, as well as the power of state violence manifested in the protected bodies of individual white people across gender (white women played a key role in the terrorist attack. According to the DC police, eight of the current arrestees are female and the sole individual who was killed during the attack was a white woman). Black Power exposed the fundamental lie of American “democracy” and its basis in white supremacy, white terrorism, and white imperialism. Black Power, like the Black Lives Matter movement that draws from its legacy, identified the heart of terror in a police state that normalizes white violence via the courts, the jails, law enforcement, public policy, public education, and private capital. Hence, it should have been no surprise that there were no riot police, rubber bullets, tear gas or pepper spray deployment on the protected bodies of white terrorists in contrast to the violent backlash against BLM protestors.

A decade ago, after the election of President Barack Obama, white Tea Party terrorists and armed militias stormed state capitols across the nation in resistance to the Affordable Care Act, “illegal” immigration, and delusional threats to the Second Amendment. In townhall after townhall, they ginned up violence and hate against Obama, “criminal” Black communities “on welfare”, and undocumented immigrants while infamously screaming ignorant bullshit like “keep your government hands off my Medicare”. Throughout the rise of both the Tea Party and Trumpism, white pundits across the political spectrum have invoked economic grievance as an explanation for these displays of unadulterated white racism and white supremacy. But the white supremacist terrorism that the entire globe watched on January 6th had nothing to do with white “proletarian” angst or class struggle. It was fueled by the same barbaric anti-Black demonization that fueled the Confederacy, Jim Crow terrorism, and Northern style apartheid. Poor whites, such as those who boarded buses and planes to ransack the Capitol while flying “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, gain capital from white supremacy just as they did in the aftermath of Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676 (which, among other things, codified the right of working class whites to assemble, bear arms, and hold property). To all Black folks watching, the Capitol violence was yet another gut punch reminder that being white confers concrete class privilege and carte blanche to commit mayhem on public institutions with impunity. White pundits and politicians who lamented that the assault desecrated Western democracy were soundly smacked down on social media by Black folks who schooled them that Amerikkkan “law and order” has always been forged through the violent domestic and global suppression of Black and brown bodies. Even though the superficial targets of the January 6th terrorist uprising were the Capitol and the election certification process, the assertion of Black self-determination, human rights, and social justice — as embodied by last summer's racial justice uprisings, Black mobilization around the presidential election and the Georgia Senate race — were the ultimate targets.