Sex 2.0, Tongues Untied, Blasian Love and Still Black

Sorry, no witty title this time

by j. brotherlove

Wow, Sex 2.0! I came; I conquered. Sucks to be you if you didn’t. It was all kinds of awesome (the event’s official descriptor). You can read the highlights on my personal blog. Well, the parts I can blog, anyway.

Tongues Untied Turns 20

Marlon Riggs armed with camera

On Friday April 18th, PinkEye and Film Love combine forces to present a screening of the 20th anniversary of Marlon Riggs’ Tongues Untied, the legendary, semi-documentary chronicling the black gay male experience.

I haven’t seen Tongues Untied in years so it’ll be interesting to see how it holds up. Upon its release, the film garnered international acclaim. However, as Riggs mentioned in his 1991 interview with Current:

“This, of course, did not mean a hill of beans to white arch-conservatives and religious fundamentalists, who pointedly minimized or ignored altogether the abundant evidence affirming Tongues Untied’s artistic and social merit.”

A group of Atlanta-area groups are co-presenting so I expect a full house at Atlanta’s Eyedrum Gallery. Tongues Untied screens with “Behind Every Good Man” and will be followed by a panel discussion.

Blasian Love (Curry Fried Chicken?)

Photo: Gay Black +Gay Asian Guys on MySpace

AsianWeek recently launched Beyond Borders, a new, weekly column focusing on issues not traditionally associated with the Asian Pacific American community: black-Asian relationships, the Asian Pacific American lesbian/bisexual/gay/ transgender community and their families, religion and youth.

Included in their latest article BlAsian Love on the Web, Sam Cacas highlights sites that “reinforce the notion that Asians and blacks want to come together” including Malena Amusa and the MySpace group, Gay Black +Gay Asian Guys, which boasts over 450 members so far.

Stalking still black

Audience viewing excerpts from “still black” (via blac (k) ademic)

In case you missed Kortney Ryan Ziegler screening excerpts from her documentary still black: a portrait of black transmen at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s “reel queer film festival,” you have three more chances this month in Chicago:

• April 25th @ Northwestern University’s Queertopia! An Academic Festival
• April 26th @ Center on Halsted
• April 26th @ Gender Fusions 4

If you get a chance to attend, let me know what you think. I can’t wait to see this film.

This may sound strange, what with all the lesbian feminist activist work that existed before - and at the same time as - Tongues Untied, but it was that film, coupled with the poetry and prose of Essex Hemphill, that made me an activist. I can’t believe it’s been 20 years. *faints*

I agree. I only met Marlon Riggs once. But that one time really inspired me to take whatever elements I could get my hands on and create some type of change.

Essex Hemphill is/was ahead of his time.

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