Clarion Content

"Love/Hate, Private/Public, Inside/Outside, Gay/Straight: LGBTQ Art in North Carolina" is open in the Durham Arts Place, Upstairs Gallery, #305 East Chapel Hill Street, inside the downtown loop. This fabulous little gallery is usually by appointment only, call 1.919.491.4625.

This week the gallery will be hosting a free opening reception for the show, Friday August 17th from 5pm---11pm as a part of downtown Durham’s Third Friday gallery tour.

The exhibit brings together artwork made by queer people across the spectrum of North Carolina. It is an examination of the complexities of identity and cultural expression through the work of over forty artists. A diverse range of works will be shown, filling the gallery floor-to-ceiling. The exhibition brings LGBTQ art out of the closet and into the public sphere for a riotous celebration of queer life and culture.

It is co-curated by Jennie Carlisle and Lindsay Gordon.

Works range from the campy to the serious. Images of the body as a locus of identity and desire comprise one major theme of the show. In his painting "Wrestling with it" Chad Hughes, features a man "wrestling" with an inner demon given physical form. EJ Greaves and Shay Adams (now deceased) provide gently humorous self- portraits, and Caroline Vaughn’s photograph of a couple supporting their nursing child shares a tender moment of family intimacy and motherhood.

Another major theme to emerge from the open call is that of a queer engagement with Judeo-Christian narratives and visual traditions. Look for photographer Gray Swartzel provocative contemporary reading of the sacrifice of Isaac, Genesis 22:2; Kelly Cross’s two painted portraits titled "Adam" and "Steve" and Jill Moffett’s mixed media "Mothers and Child" as a holy family, among others.

The featured artists include Steven H. "Shay" Adams, Jeffrey Beam, Justin Branch, Laura Brightwood, Lisa Rose Asher Campbell, Jen Coons, Leslie W. Cothren, Reid Coyner, Kelly Cross, Carolyn Davis, Matt DeBellis, Justin Gayliard, Galia Goodman, Heather Gordon, EJ Greaves, Robin Harviel, Paul Hrusovksky, Chad Hughes, Steve Kalstrup, Benjamin Keaton, Stacey L. Kirby, Jen Kirkpatrick, Lizzie Lange, Robert MacNeill, Eric Martin, Cyndi McKnight, Jill C. Moffett, Leigh Moose, Bob Nocek, Matthias Pressley, Chuck Rose, Rebecca Rousseau, Tim Simkin, Albert Stapleton, Gray Swartzel, Matt Tomko, Sara R. Toothman, Whitney Vaughan, Jason Watson, Angela Yarber, and Susanne Zadeh.

The show runs through September 30th.

Labels: Art, discrimination, Durham, Pop Culture

We said it over on our Twitter feed, but it bears repeating. The NCAA drove another nail into the coffin of its demise with the capricious, arbitrary ruling it issued yesterday on the eligibility of Auburn quarterback Cam Newton.

For those of you not familiar with the story, in brief: Newton's father, a minister, solicited $200,000 from Mississippi State University in an effort to influence his son's decision about where he might play college football. (Oh and theoretically attend classes.) Mississippi State balked. The scam was outed in recent weeks. The NCAA, despite rules explicitly stating the opposite, said yesterday that because it had no evidence that the younger Newton and Auburn knew about the attempted racketeering of father, Cam Newton would be eligible to play.

This is all relevant because Newton's latest (he also attended Univ. of Fl., and a junior college in his illustrious academic career) school, Auburn, is vying for the BCS National Championship of college football. The whole enterprise could hardly be more corrupt. But that is not the issue today, the issue today that has folks up in arms, especially USC and UNC supporters is the utter hypocrisy of the NCAA. The NCAA previously severely punished USC despite the university's lack of knowledge about its star recruit's parents' extortion. UNC withheld football players from participating in games for much smaller offenses, to its own detriment.

The NCAA's ruling on Auburn not only kicks sand in their faces, but costs them money. Lots of money.

Their supporters are livid, as is every college football fan who is not an Auburn undergrad or alum.

The NCAA was already going to be dissolved in the next not so many years because the big football schools did not want to divide the football revenue pie so many ways. The Clarion Content noted this during the college football preseason when conference expansion and realignment was all the talk. Yesterday's ruling on Cam Newton just pushed forward the date this epic realignment and finally a college football playoff arrive.

Labels: college football, discrimination, Economy, Predictions, sports

One thing that appears to be little noticed by the Republicans or for that matter, the Democrats, debating immigration policy is that they are behind the times. They, led by the fascists governing the state of Arizona, are advocating the deportation of people for traffic offenses, in many cases, for simply not having a valid driver's license. The folks that they want to deport are mostly over thirty. Many have been in America for the better part of a decade.

The little noticed critical fact that they have been ignoring: 92% of Latinos under the age of 18 in America are United States citizens. And it will not be long until they are voting in huge numbers. The political parties ignore them at their own risk.

Ask Pete Wilson about how his support of Proposition 187 played out. Live by the sword and die by the sword. We hold with Florida Governor Charlie Crist. He said, "What Arizona did is wrong. I'm the grandson of a Greek immigrant. The notion that you pull over 'suspect' people and demand their papers is not American. That's strange. That's not what America is supposed to be about."

Damn right, Charlie, that's not how we roll.

Labels: discrimination, Politics

Once we at the Clarion Content saw the Annie Leibovitz photo of Tiger Woods on the cover of the February 2010 Vanity Fair, we could tell you unequivocally, it is about to be seen everywhere. Leibovitz is an amazingly gifted photographer. This shot of Tiger shirtless, in a black toboggan, pumping iron is sure to be iconic. Whether fairly or unfairly is almost unassessable. The story accompanying it is already attracting media buzz. Favorable and unfavorable. But the picture, the photo, it is thing. It is as if Leibovitz saw inside of Tiger before anyone else knew, this photo and six more inside the issue are four years old!

Had they been published four years ago they would have been seen and interpreted in an entirely different light. We were recently musing in our reaction to the movie Avatar that Art and society form a hall of mirrors. When examined in different ways, they reflect slices, pieces, different sections, different angles, different perspectives. It depends both on where one stands, and where things stand generally. Art processes through human consciousnesses. It is a cycle of reflection, refraction and interpretation. A cycle that it is constantly on-going and never static between people and our Art.

Tiger is in flux.

Labels: discrimination, Pop Culture, sports

The Clarion Content ran across this fascinating Robert F. Kennedy quote in the most recent issue of Esquire, "After all the abuse the blacks have taken throughout the centuries, whites are just going to have to let them get some of these feelings out if we are all really going to ever settle down and have a decent relationship." Kennedy's quote was, inevitably, from some time before 1969. Today, forty years worth of context onward this relationship between the races is not hard imagine, but an atmosphere where a white politician could utter that kind of sentiment is difficult to envision indeed.

Labels: discrimination, political quips-n-quotes, Politics

Jim Rice is a bona fide Hall of Famer. His statistics in his era absolutely merit his selection. He was one of the most feared hitters of the 1970's. Over a ten year period, he was in the top ten Major Leaguers in home runs, runs batted in and batting average. He was also an above average leftfielder with a strong arm who played in Fenway Park's unique and difficult leftfield.

He should not be diminished by the juiced numbers in the decades that followed. Don't be fooled by his 1981 production, remember that was a strike year. In part his candidacy has been negatively effected by the racial prejudices of Boston in the 1970's which undervalued his achievements (and overvalued those of his fellow outfielder Fred Lynn.)

Labels: baseball, discrimination, sports

The Clarion Content has been writing on and following opinions about the effect on the presidential race of Senator Barack Obama's race for some time. We have long feared the so called Bradley effect, that claims Obama's considerable lead in the polls could evaporate on election day as covert racism comes out behind the curtain of the polling booth.

Is it an unfounded fear?

Here are links to two wildly divergent opinions, the first from Frank Rich in the New York Times who comes to "white America's" defense. Rich claims that just because McCain and Palin are running a campaign that at times panders to America's baser, coarser, possibly racist instincts does not mean America is what they project it to be. He cites the disappearance of Virginia Senator George Allen from the political scene after a racial slur as proof. He reads polls that say Obama is winning among white males, something no Democratic candidate has done in the last 30 years. He says that the anthropologically tilted stories of the media have created a self-fulfilling cycle of coverage about race's role in the campaign. He cites and then ignores, Obama's fellow Democrat John Murtha's admission that his own Pennsylvania district is a "racist area." When has Frank Rich, once a theater critic, last traveled, not simply off of Manhattan island via jet plane, but to the kind of southern Virgina or western Pennsylvania towns he says are being unfairly maligned as racist? Why are so many of Senator McCain and the Republican National Committee's ads about Obama as "other" or "different?" The implication of race is as strong as ever. Is Rich right that this is a failure to understand America in the 21st century by Senator McCain and the Republican National Committee or is it a failure by a Manhattan media elite liberal, Frank Rich, to understand the rest of America?

German news magazine Die Welt sees race and the presidential race from just the opposite perspective. In a commentary published this week they ask how is it that 75% of Americans disapprove of George Bush the II's policies yet are not supporting Barack Obama in those kind of numbers. Die Welt concludes the answer is racism. Citing Governor Palin's line on Senator Obama, "This is not a man who sees America like you and I see America,” Die Welt sees overt and covert attacks on Obama the human that raise the specter of racial politics. They dissect Fox News's coverage and high ratings to show America's willingness to see white news reporters question dark skinned politicians and members of the media in language reminiscent of Jim Crow. The outline how rather than criticize Obama for his policy proposals Obama is attacked for "otherness" and "arrogance."

Which view of America is right? Probably neither in total.

The Clarion Content believes that America is having to take a long look in the mirror and examine itself. Are we the meritocracy, the shining beacon to the world we think we are?

The Clarion repeats our hope that, "whichever candidate wins on November 4th, America will get a leader who wants to unite people, to raise them up and bring out their best selves, not a leader who uses his election to divide people and bring out their worst, smallest selves."

Let us abandon the myopia of, "I win, therefore, you lose."

Labels: 2008's President, discrimination, Politics, thought

While this is not a scientific sampling of McCain supporters and the video's linked below are taken by a bias observer, these folks are why the Clarion is worried about the Bradley effect in the polls and Obama. The Bradley effect named after former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley said that polls for minority candidates consistently overstated their support because what voters did and said varied based on privacy. Today the Clarion heard former (suspect) Virginia Governor, and current Richmond Mayor, Douglas Wilder reference the same in his experience with the polls and the results. He warned the Obama campaign not to be complacent.

See the McCain rallies that have us worried.

PA video

Ohio video I

Ohio video II

Labels: 2008's President, discrimination, Politics

"The purpose of creation is not division, separation. The purpose of the human race is not a struggle to the death between classes, between nations. Humanity is meant to become a single body; humanity is not meant to be a heap of limbs, each maintaining that it is the entire body. Our purpose is the great upbuilding of unity and peace."---Martin Buber

Labels: discrimination, thought

Discrimination reared its ugly head at Seattle's Safeco Field late last month during a Seattle Mariners baseball game. Apparently it is okay for some couples to innocuously kiss at Safeco Field, but not all.

The story as the Clarion has read it, in brief, is this. Safeco Field like many Major League baseball stadiums has on occasion a "Kissing Cam." This is a brief between innings bit where the camera operators try to catch couples kissing and show them on the big scoreboard screen. All in good fun, right? At Safeco Field, allegedly only if your straight, this is according to a discrimination complaint filed by two young women who recently attended a Mariners game with some friends. The ladies, one Sirbrina Guerrero, and her partner, who has requested anonymity, were attending the game with several friends.

It is an ugly story that raises profound questions about America, and in seemingly liberal, gay friendly Seattle. Why is a kiss between a man and a woman consider "family friendly" and a kiss between two women considered inherently lewd? How wide are the knock-on effects of attacking gay marriage? Whose family values? Whose family is valued?

Guerrero, and her friends were approached by an usher who according to accounts in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer said,

"A woman complained that she and her child saw you two. There's children in the crowd. It's not fair for parents to have to explain to their kids why two women are kissing."

The four women have also filed a complaint with the Seattle Mariners. Guerrero and her friends see a straight forward matter of discrimination, quoting from ABC news reports,

"When asked whether she believes Safeco officials singled her and her partner out solely because they were a same-sex couple, Guerrero said, "Absolutely. Otherwise I wouldn't be so upset about it."

"We were acting the same as any other dates that were out there, except we were a lesbian couple," she said. "When you bring a date to a game, you kiss once in a while. But it's not like we were making out. We were just kissing as regular couples do. I would never make out with anyone at a baseball game.

When pressed Mariners representatives were skating very carefully, speaking to ABC news their Director of Public Information said,

"We're trying to figure out the actual behavior that happened; it has nothing to do with the individual. We're taking the claim very seriously, but we're trying to talk to everybody and ascertain exactly what happened, and then we will be able to make a decision on how to proceed."

Fortunately these were some tech savvy, modern young women. They used their phones to take digital photos of other couples in their section kissing in a similar manner. They weren't told to stop. They weren't threatened with ejection. They were heterosexual.

Watch a interview with two of these women here.

While the young women were not ejected from the game, they spent a large portion of their evening at guest services filling out a formal complaint, rather than watching baseball.

Labels: baseball, discrimination, Pop Culture

Comedian extraordinaire, Chris Rock, had the one liner of the political week, as spotted in The Economist, "Notice how nobody had ever heard of a superdelegate until it looked a black man was about to win the nomination."

Labels: 2008's President, discrimination, political quips-n-quotes

Labels: 2008's President, discrimination, Politics, thought

Tracy Morgan got off the political line of the weekend on Saturday Night Live, in a faux parry at Geraldino Ferraro's racial pigeonholing of the Obama candidacy.

"If Hillary's last name wasn't Clinton, she would be just another crazy white lady with too much money and not enuf lovin'...I know women like that, and you do not want them on the phone at three in the morning."

Brilliant comedy.

Labels: 2008's President, discrimination, political quips-n-quotes, Politics, Pop Culture

Geraldine Ferraro, a Clinton supporter, and one of the smartest politicians this side of Dan Quayle, popped off earlier this week with what has been deemed by the media an egregiously politically incorrect statement.

Ferraro, a former Democratic Vice Presidential nominee said to Fox News, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

If she was trying to underline the Clarion's point about the divisiveness of the continuing fight for the Democratic nomination she could not have done a better job. Of course, the remark set off an immediate firestorm.

Hillary Clinton had to disavow association with it, as she disavowed connection last week with one of her lead advisors calling Obama a Kenneth Starr, as she brushed off the week before one of her Latino, Texan supporters saying, "When blacks had the numbers, they didn't do anything to support us. They always used our numbers to fulfill their goals and objectives, but they never really supported us, and there's a lot of hard feelings about that. I don't think we're going to get over it anytime soon." That's a lot of accidental negativity from your camp, Mrs. Clinton.

Ferraro called the response to her remarks reverse racism. And at an undisclosed location Karl Rove smiled.

Was Ferraro simply speaking truth to power? Saying what the rest of the pundits and the country are afraid to admit? After all John Edwards was a young, dynamic, good looking, single term Senator, who was a terrific orator, with a moving personal story. Did the Democratic Party fail to coalesce around him simply because he was white? Ferraro would have us believe it was Obama's novelty that drew people to his campaign.

How tragic and wrong!! It is this kind of callous cluelessness that underlines for the Clarion the difference between the old way, politics as usual of Clinton and the change Obama represents. Obama drew millions of new people into the process not because of his race or appearance, but because of his message. Change. Change the old way of doing business, listen to new voices, think about new possibilities. To imagine just the starting point, the Clarion daydreams of the vast differences between an Obama appointed cabinet of new faces and a Clinton appointed cabinet of recycled hacks.

Edwards was rejected because his campaign preached moving back to the old Al Gore model. Edwards focused on what was wrong with America, its divisions, faults and failures. Obama's message of positive change trumped that, "Yes, we can," blew, "Those people are screwing you," out of the water. Edwards' message had already lost twice, Gore and Kerry. Edwards didn't lose because he was white and Obama black, he lost on the substance of what he stood for.

Contrary to Ferraro's small minded, parochial attack, very few people were enamoured with the idea of a black nominee in the beginning. It was thought unrealistic and a surefire general election loser, look at the "token" candidate attacks and Jesse Jackson comparisons made by Bill. This was meant as a reminder that in the view of the Democratic establishment Obama was not a candidate of substance, but rather a symbol.

But as we now know it backfired horribly as Obama went on to win in states with small black populations like Vermont and Wyoming, like Wisconsin and Utah. To paraphrase a line that the Clinton's used to like, "It's the message, stupid."

The Clinton's continuing attacks on the messenger are handing the White House back to the Republicans despite the fact that they have been in charge for eight years of unmitigated disaster.

Labels: 2008's President, discrimination, political quips-n-quotes, Politics, Pop Culture