YALINI.DREAM

via Dark, Lovely and South Asian 

Lankan Tamil blood, Manchester born, Texas bred and Brooklyn steeped, YaliniDream is a queer performance artist, activist, and facilitator. One of the South Asian American community’s most prominent performance poets, YaliniDream has toured throughout the US, Canada, Europe and South Asia, performing in venues ranging from NYC’s Lincoln Center to subway cars to street protests to refugee camps to the hottest clubs in the New York underground. She was the Director of Mango Tribe’s NYC run of “Sisters in the Smoke” and “Creation Myth Project,” and served as the group’s Interim Artistic Director in 2007. As a movement artist, YaliniDream is trained in ballet, modern, jazz, Laban Movement Analysis, hip hop dance, and the aerial technique corde lisse. She holds a BA in Theater with a concentration in Acting & Directing from the University of Texas, Austin. 

Her official website is: http://www.yalinidream.com/

YaliniDream is also a member of The Sugaran Tour, a caravan of multimedia stories performed and presented by artist-activists including Nandini Nessa, Bushra Rehman, and Amita Swadhin. 

For more information, http://thesugarantour.tumblr.com/

Marimacho BK

 

Marimacho is a masculine clothing line for female and transgender bodies. They are the first fashion house to offer a full seasonal line of masculine clothes tailored for women and transmen. At first, I was mad upset cause it's been my dream to start a fashion line just like this for years now. But then I got over it. A gap in the market that I've been dying to see filled is finally being filled. Pretty dope!

Youth Say Race Still Matters—So What Are They Doing About It? [COLORLINES]

COLORLINES

by Juell Stewart 

Earlier this month, our publisher released a report, “Don’t Call Them Post-Racial,” which surveyed attitudes about race in key systems in U.S. society among young adults 18-25. Dom Apollon’s research team conducted focus groups with dozens of young people in the Los Angeles area, and learned that their thoughts on race are far more nuanced than most polling and commentary has suggested. Theirs is the most diverse generation in U.S. history, but that doesn’t make them post-race. Rather, the young people in the focus groups made clear that they believed race still matters today. 

The young people struggled for language to define racism and they differed across racial groups in how they saw race impacting society. But they identified race as a “significant problem” in a few key areas, with all racial groups agreeing that race remained a problem for both criminal justice and employment. Young people of color identified education as a particular trouble spot as well. 

They also differed in what they thought should be done about these problems—while white Millennials, as this generation has been dubbed, largely identified racism as driven by individuals and demanding individual solutions, young people of color were more likely to identify racism as a collective problem that demands political action to resolve. As Apollon wrote, “All of these ideas are crucial to understand because they also shape how this generation will choose to act upon racism and racial injustice.”

So to make these ideas more concrete, we talked to five organizations and campaigns that are working with Millennials to tackle racism as a collective, systemic problem rather than an individualized, personal one. Here’s what they had to say about their work.

FULL ARTICLE

NY Senate Backs Same Sex Marriage [Reuters]

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Waves of gay couples rushed on Saturday to make wedding plans that had been dreams for decades, as euphoria over New York's legalization of same-sex marriage promised to turn a traditional pride parade into an enormous roving engagement party.

In the minutes and hours after the law was passed and signed by Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo late on Friday, sparkling rings were offered and accepted and champagne corks flew to kick off wedding plans likely to add an estimated $284 million to the state's economy, according to a report by the Independent Democratic Conference.

FULL ARTICLE

Pariah

FINALLY!

NYC Public Hospitals to Implement Training Program for Employees on LGBT Patients

[New York] city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs public hospitals, has decided that it needs to reduce the likelihood that such awkward, inconsiderate, questions will be asked. With the help of an advocacy group, the National LGBT Cancer Network, it has put together a training program that will be required of all 38,000 system employees, from physicians to clerks.  -The New York Times

ARTICLE

I'm low-key addicted to this show...

Anyone But Me

Sophia Wallace Photography

Sophia Wallace is a fine art photographer based in New York City. Wallace's art practice addresses social constructs, aesthetics of beauty, family histories and intimate relationships. To this end, she utilizes and often merges various photographic approaches including portraiture, fashion, performance, and personal narrative. Wallace has received critical acclaim for her work including honorable mention in MAGENTA Flash Forward, CENTER Project Competition, 100 Portraits–100 Photographers FotoWeekDC, Flak Photo, American Photography AP-25, AP-24 and ARTslant. Her solo exhibition 'The New Masculine' was shown at Leslie/Lohman Gallery, which is followed by a two person show at the gallery that also features her work. Additional shows in New York include TASCHEN Gallery, Umbrella Arts Gallery, Aperture Gallery and Sasha Wolf Gallery. She has also shown at Kopeikin Gallery, Carnegie Art Museum and internationally at the Assembly Room in London. Editorial clients include The New York Times - Style Section, T-Magazine and The Guardian. Wallace earned a BA in Government with a minor in African American Studies at Smith College in 2000. She went on to attain a MA in Photography from New York University and the International Center of Photography in 2004. Born in Seattle in 1978 she currently resides in Brooklyn. 

CHECK HER OUT

Where Did You Go Last Night? « Thought Catalog

Where Did You Go Last Night? « Thought Catalog

The Amazingly Queer Race for Economic Justice

A friend is participating in the 5th Annual Amazingly Queer Race for Economic Justice. Low and moderate income queers have always played a central role in the fights for gay rights and economic justice but are too often invisible in both movements. AQREJ is working to help other gay organizations prioritize economic justice in the gay rights agenda and is pushing friends who work on economic justice to remember that LGBT people are deeply impacted by those issues.

Help Team Bridge and Tunnel fundraise!

bbh on Autostraddle

brklyn boihood posted a BOMB article on Autostraddle the other day. Here's a snippet:

It’s just that of all the spectrum riding, genuinely evolving, delicate fixtures of flight in my life, I so love my sexuality being articulated as concrete. And yes, even concrete gets uprooted and reshaped and cracked and stepped inside of (whoa, I’m losing control of this metaphor!)—but that isn’t the point. The point is I love being gay. I came to understand myself, my identity in spaces that did not lend themselves to the latitude of this city at this time in history. ‘Queer’ felt as distant to me as ‘butch’—a term I’ve slowly begun to integrate into my spectrum of personal representation. Being queer meant having a ‘partner’ or ‘lover’ and I wanted a girlfriend. I have been so grateful, over the last several years to be introduced to queer spaces and to understand queerness as a statement of person and not sexual-identity. Like ‘butch’, I’ve tested it in my personal language of late. It feels quite right in so many realms—when talking to groups or conjuring the notion of space where we all can make room for each other. But, despite my greatest efforts to be so—I end up just feeling like a gay-ass in a queer-ass’s clothes. Love me anyway. I love you.

Ok and my favorite part:

ALSO ALSO ALSO the act of existing outside of the realm of gender (whether or not that is even *actually* happening…) does not speak in the language of the human condition. It is a privilege to imagine such a space and doing so, in my mind, leaves people out. The goal of progress should never be exclusion. The concept of removing gender as an identifying factor is exclusive because it is not a concept accessible to MOST of the world…particularly to women. In believing in its non-existence, what are we doing to the people who exist inside of this paradigm everyday?

That last part can also be applied to colorblindness. Now, go and read the whole thing. 

IvyQ Conference 2011

IvyQ 2011 is the second annual Ivy League conference for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer students, and their allies. The conference will be hosted at Columbia University February 17-20, 2011. Registration is full, but you can be put on a waitlist here.

IvyQ builds a vision of equality, where strong LGBTQA students can grow the confidence and skills to lead by example and thrive beyond stereotypes. The goals of the conference are threefold: networking to create a strong and social pan-Ivy LGBTQA community; educating students about the history and different voices of the movement; and empowering tomorrow's world leaders to be proud LGBTQA leaders.

Spike Lee Protege Takes Sundance by Standing Ovation

I've wrote earlier about the short film Pariah that I was (and still am) dying to see. Well, the extended version made it to Sundance 2011, got 4.1/5 stars on the Sundance site and went so far as to receive a standing ovation. 

At the club, the music thumps, go-go dancers twirl, shorties gyrate on the dance floor while studs play it cool, and adorably naive 17-year-old Alike takes in the scene with her jaw dropped in amazement. Meanwhile, her buddy Laura, in between macking the ladies and flexing her butch bravado, is trying to help Alike get her cherry popped. This is Alike’s first world. Her second world is calling on her cell to remind her of her curfew. On the bus ride home to Brooklyn, Alike sheds her baseball cap and polo shirt, puts her earrings back in, and tries to look like the feminine, obedient girl her conservative family expects. 

With a spectacular sense of atmosphere and authenticity, Pariah takes us deep and strong into the world of an intelligent butch teenager trying to find her way into her own. Debut director Dee Rees leads a splendid cast and crafts a pitch-perfect portrait that stands unparalleled in American cinema.

-Sundance

New Lesbian Short Film: Sara [****]

It's premiering today (now) on Autostraddle.

Women Artists Sweep Best of 2010 NYC Arts

Still from Shirin Neshat's Women without Men

 Huffington Post

G. Roger Denson

For at least a decade, arguably two, there's been ample evidence that an avant-garde not only still exists in contemporary art, but that it's comprised almost exclusively of women. If women's art provokes the strongest reactions, pro and con, it's largely because women have made sexuality and gender not just the subject and context of their art, but the medium to be modeled to suit new social realities and identities. Certainly the strongest work exhibited in New York in 2010 was overwhelmingly by women and reflecting feminist perspectives on sex and gender, to the extent that in every contemporary category I could summon to mind, work by women stood out commandingly.

What y'all know about that?  Shirin Neshat's flick Women without Men has a viewing on Jan. 22nd at the High Museum of Art. I need to work at this place...

Precious [*****]

Paula Patton as Ms.Rain

I was late seeing Precious. I know a lot of people who couldn't get through it. It is hard on the emotions. Personally, I'm glad I got through it. Precious was somewhat of a gay movie, and after seeing it the first time, I watched it at least once a week, every week, for the entirety of last summer in my homegirl's basement. It's a favorite; one of those favorites I never think of when someone asks me what my favorite movies are. Last summer was definitely peppered with fantasies about Ms. Rain and Jermaine. Between Paula Patton and Amina Robinson, I had not a damn clue what to do with myself. It's a DVD worth paying for, most definitely.

Amina Robinson played the part of Jermaine

Long Island Lesbian Engineer Wins Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

SheWired.com

by Michelle Garcia

A Long Island Rail Road locomotive engineer was awarded $480,000 Friday after a federal jury decided she was wrongfully accused of and arrested for fondling a coworker's breast, New York's Daily News reports.

Engineer Melissa Stampf tapped Angela Trigg's shoulder as a greeting in July 2006, but Trigg accused her of touching one of her breasts. Stampf, 43, was then arrested, but the Manhattan district attorney declined to prosecute.

Stampf sued the railroad and Trigg in Brooklyn federal court, claiming she was treated differently than white males implicated in similar incidents because of her race (she is believed to be the only Asian female locomotive engineer), gender, and sexual orientation — she is a lesbian.

Chanel Kennebrew

is really cool. She's the creative force behind Junkprints. And when I say creative force... I mean she is Junkprints. Illustrator, art director, designer. Can we say, "friend crush"? Yes, we can. And yes, I have one on her. 

She's collaborated with the likes of MTV, Macy's, Urbanology Magazine and Clutch Magazine. Her work is wonderfully colored (in every sense of the word). And...

Fuzzy Pussy Illustration

LOL!

Laylah Ali

Laylah Ali is not just one of my favorite artists; she's one who has influenced me for years (she single-handedly turned me onto gouache). 


Laylah Ali was born in Buffalo, New York in 1968, and lives and works in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She received a BA from Williams College and an MFA from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. In style, her paintings resemble comic-book serials, but they also contain stylistic references to hieroglyphs and American folk-art traditions. Ali often achieves a high level of emotional tension in her work as a result of juxtaposing brightly colored scenes with dark, often violent subject matter that speaks of political resistance, social relationships, and betrayal. Her most famous and longest-running series of paintings depicts the brown-skinned and gender-neutral Greenheads, while her most recent works include portraits as well as more abstract biomorphic images. Ali endows the characters and scenes in her paintings with everyday attributes like dodge balls, sneakers, and band-aids as well as historically- and culturally-loaded signs such as nooses, hoods, robes, masks, and military-style uniforms.

You can view more of her work here: Miller Block and 303.

Learning a Lezzin'?

So, the New York Post is trying to be cute. Trying. Because being cute is appropriate when someone receives a death threat, right? Founding Principal of the Academy for Social Action, Crystal Simmons, had an affair with Assistant Principal Candy Jones. After having had an affair and it ended, Candy threatened to kill Principal Simmons upon receiving a poor performance evaluation. Simmons, concerned for her safety, reported the threat to the Department of Education and the police. However, the case was closed because police did not witness the harassment, the report said. And of course, both women are getting fired for having a romance--nevermind a school employee is threatening to kill people. All of this stinks of sexism and homophobia because apparently abusive behavior between two women isn't as much of an issue as two women who work together having sex. To top it all off, Crystal Simmons founded the Academy for Social Action "to cultivate, educate, and graduate tomorrow's leaders while inspiring them to shape the many communities in which they reside," and to inspire students to become "college-bound family and community leaders who are concerned for the rights and welfare of others, socially responsible, and confident in their capacity to make a difference." The score? Politics 1, students 0.

More at NY Daily News