I always understood the general rule to be: one in 10 people is gay.  This ratio, which apparently has been oft-repeated to a point where it still remains lore 10 years after I first heard it (the gay population apparently has not adjusted for inflation), is a nice shorthand for: it could be you.  (One of my favoritest people of all time, Jane Lynch, interviewed with Terry Gross on NPR yesterday, and this was her reaction to her 20something realization that she is gay: “Oh man, really?”).  The threat that you could be the one left holding the rainbow flag is the greatest fear tactic of all: it results in the simultaneous internalization and externalization of one’s homophobia.  This is, in part, what moves certain people to go to the polls, draw the little iron curtain, and, in the comfortably private, if not stuffy, polling station, mark a mark that will seal the fate for all those ones in tens, if not themselves.  And they are, of course, protecting the children.  Remember the children!

Yesterday – one year after Prop. 8 passed here, and one day after a similar referendum passed in Maine – Equality Network organized “Death to Discrimination,” a march-and-mourn protest and rally in Silver Lake.  The LA Times estimates that 60 people were present when the march started, but grew to a bit over 200 as the march marched up Vermont and down Sunset towards its destination in front of Le BarCito at Sunset Junction (overall, a decent turnout, but a far, far cry from the 700+ people who RSVP’d for the event on Facebook — like certain people I’m sometimes frustrated to know, you’ll always have flakes).  As the speakers began their spiels to the converted, the number of people dwindled – slowly at first, then “exponentially faster,” as Narinda Heng, my fellow mourner, observed.  Tip to future organizers: a rally and protest aren’t the Oscars.  Keep the speeches short well before the orchestra starts to hum its boredom.

A handful of pictures from the post-march rally, after the jump.

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Yesterday afternoon there was a shooting in Venice, followed up by another in Santa Monica last night. Both shootings left one victim dead and countless others terrified. The LA Times Blog has lots of details on the actual shootings but makes no mention that these were both gang related shootings, a fact the LAPD confirmed with Yo! Venice. Residents of the area heard shots and began questioning things right away. A source which asked not to be named told me that both the victim in the first shooting in Venice and the shooters who were apprehended in the second shooting in Santa Monica are members of the Venice Shoreline Crips. The LAPD hasn’t confirmed that publicly yet however. If you’ve been following this at all you’ll remember that last year a huge sting brought down 19 members and earlier this year I spotted some of their tags on a wall in the area. Clearly the busts didn’t eradicate the gang as was hoped by many, and clearly something is going down right now. Hopefully it gets under control before more people get shot.

UPDATE: Here’s an eye witness report from Bujinkan Santa Monica.

Sigh.  Maine.  In a scenario all too familiar to those of us in California, gay marriage opponents currently are celebrating their successful drive to prohibit gay marriage via public vote in the Pine Tree State.  For those of you keeping count, that’s the 31st state in our Union to have the issue defeated at the polls.   Meanwhile, one year after the passage of Prop. 8, gay rights proponents will be meeting en masse tonight at the Vermont and Santa Monica Red Line station at 7.  There, Equality Network will host a Death to Discrimination March, led by a New Orleans-style funeral, headed due north to Sunset, then to The Black Cat/Le BarCito in Silver Lake, where a roster of series will rally the troops.  After an appropriate time for mourning and moving through the stages of grief, organizers plan to continue fighting the good fight (i.e., “Don’t mourn.  Organize.”), and hopefully, there will be some talk about education and de-clawing the anti-marriage coalition’s fear tactics.

It’s not over.

Virgina Masen's custom customization.

One of the most awkward things about being part of a minority is that you are at once the local spokesperson for the Minority, and the first person the Majority goes to for comfort.  For example, the day after Prop. 8 passed, I was sitting in my office, my little fit of depression tempered by a little relief that the American electorate actually went out of its way to make sure Mr. Obama won.  Someone walked into my office, and the first thing she said to me was: “No one should sit on the back of the bus!  No one.  Can we talk about this at lunch?  I’m really upset” and walked out.  I felt like I had been hit by a bus. And this is the response I had over a course of several days, from all sorts of people.  Well, better late than never.

The gay rights movement, like many minority groups, learned that in order to get things done, you really have to swallow your pride (that’s pride with a little p) and enlist the help of the majority group who sits in the positions of power and finally – finally – is sympathetic to your cause, is willing to gamble its political currency, and take the credit for it all once the goal is realized.  Enter FAIR (Freedom Action Inclusion Rights), an organization quickly organized after the passage of Prop. 8.  At FAIR’s request, Shepard Fairey created a poster intended to galvanize the movement as well as his Hope poster did for the MoveOn set.  The result is slightly more affecting than American Apparel’s retro, almost whimsically passive “Legalize Gay” tshirts:  his is a gnarled fist with the words “Defend Equality/Love Unites” above and below [insert snarky comment about his source material for the fist here].  You can buy shirts and the poster on FAIR’s website here (the politics of inclusion necessitates the politics of fundraising), but if you want to show all your gay friends that you really care, come out to Andaz in West Hollywood on November 12th.

Read about the Love Unites Shepard Fairey Equality Project after the jump

If you’ve seen the comment thread of my follow-up post Tuesday on the matter of the two swastikas scratched into the concrete roadbed of 4th Street in Hancock Park, you’ll know that Councilman Tom LaBonge responded proactively, wasting little time getting Public Works personnel out to destroy the long-lurking symbols of hate that had been etched there so moronically however many years ago.

Indeed, biking by this morning I was relieved and pleased to find both swastikas (located between Las Palmas and Hudson)had been excised:

Sure, the end results might not be as cosmetically appealing as one might have wished for, but the patched pavement is certainly a great improvement over what was there before, thanks to Councilman LaBonge and the Department of Public Works.

A letter by Oscar winning Paul Haggis (Crash) wherein he renounces the  Church of Scientology, of which he’s been a  member for 25 years,  is making the rounds on various websites.

In summary, Haggis’ initial frustration arose from the San Diego branch’s support of Proposition 8, and, in spite of his appeals, the Church’s inaction over condemning the support of the anti-gay legislation.

“I told you I could not, in good conscience, be a member of an organization where gay-bashing was tolerated,” Haggis writes.

Haggis goes on to verify and condemn that the Church used private information gathered during an auditing session to smear a Church defector, a tactic the Church has long denied ever using.

“So, I am now painfully aware that you might see this an attack and just as easily use things I have confessed over the years to smear my name.”

The letter ends, “I hereby resign my membership in the Church of Scientology.”

But one thing he never does is recant any of the core teaching or beliefs of Scientology. His bone lies only with how the Church is run. (more…)

LA Weekly had a cheeky article a few years back titled “The Evidence Room: Five Signs You’re Gentrifying.” At the time, the primary target of gentrification was Los Feliz, Silver Lake, and Echo Park.  I don’t think there’s a gelato parlor downtown yet, but clearly, for better or worse, downtown is being “revitalized” faster than you can say “doggie day care.”  Enter Gary Phillips, a community activist turned mystery and comic book writer who will debut the first three pages of his webcomic, Bicycle Cop Dave, next week on October 28 on Four Story.  Bicycle Cop Dave will follow LAPD officer David Richter as he patrols downtown LA and “encounters interesting characters from a lawyer smoking crack in a port-a-potty to a one-armed prophet in a Skid Row bar with his wooden tablet of odd commandments.”  Phillips also promises upside down bodies below the Sixth Street bridge, an inevitable Big Bad Developer villain, and at least a comment or two about the displacement of the poor as result of old gentrifying politics finding a new battleground downtown.  The story will unfold over the course of several weeks, as new pages will be published every other Wednesday until the entire comic is online.  I’m hoping he’ll stray away from hyper liberal tendencies to simply demonize gentrification without providing a more weighty critique; in any case, the comic is worth a bookmark and hopefully some good discussion.

When Smoking Was Cool, an art exhibit opening at Black Maria Gallery on Saturday, takes on “the American propensity for legislating social behavior,” in this case, using ever-rising tobacco taxes as a jumping-off point.

While the exhibit will take note of the movement to define certain social behaviors as taboo, whether it’s smoking, drinking alcohol or easygoing attitudes about sex, its aim will be to examine the hidden motives and powerful interests behind the politics of social legislation.

Sam Saghatelian, curator of the exhibition and a participating artist, says in the press release, “The point is that government and corporate interests often single out targets for the legislation of social behavior because it’s politically and financially expedient to do so, and not necessarily for the wellbeing of the public as they claim.”

Featured artists include Paul Chatem, The Pizz, Shark Toof, Anthony Ausgang, Sarah Stephens, Stacy Lande, Christine Karas-Gough, Shannon Keller, Brett Manning and Harry Sudman

When Smoking Was Cool opens Saturday, Oct. 17th, artists reception from 7 to 10 PM; exhibit runs through Nov. 14th. Black Maria Gallery, 3137 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90039.

It was a year ago tomorrow that I learned his name: John McGraham. A homeless man who was a fixture in the neighborhood radiating out from 3rd Street and Berendo where he could often be found, McGraham, 55, was attacked and murdered there October 9th, 2008, reportedly doused with a flammable liquid and set on fire with a flare.

I biked by there this morning to find the above poster McGraham’s family mounted to the long-empty dentistry office outside of which he had lived and so brutally died.

Such unfathomable violence galvanized the community and after more than three months of intense investigations detectives from LAPD Robbery/Homicide Division arrested 30-year-old Benjamin Matthew Martin in Ranch Mirage, Riverside County on January 22. Though unemployed at the time of his arrest, Martin had reportedly worked as a barber in and around the area where McGraham was killed.

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Last weekend, we went to see the new exhibit, Race: Are We So Different? at the California Science Center. On FriendFeed, I posted some quick thoughts on what I saw, but wanted to let the exhibit soak in before I wrote on it. I do not know how much of what I saw was colored by being black or that I was raised around people from all over the world or just by the fact that I’ve lived most of my life in Los Angeles.

On my first quick walk-through of the exhibit I was overwhelmed. There is a lot of information; lots to read, several videos and interactive media to play around with. The exhibit is very American-centric and seems to be geared toward black/white or white/Asian experiences.  The information on the Science Center’s website doesn’t quite prepare you for what you will actually see.

RACE explores the science, history and personal experiences of race, helping us understand what race is and what it is not. The exhibit provides guests the opportunity to think and talk about one of our nation’s most challenging issues and encourages us to rethink our assumptions of race and human variation. Through multimedia, interactive exhibits and imagery, RACE gives guests of all ages the opportunity to think and talk about a topic that touches our lives daily.

I don’t know that the exhibit itself, is actually useful or educational. As I mentioned in my FriendFeed post, my husband (he is Eastern European) said “This exhibit should be titled ‘White People are Bad’.” I didn’t understand what he was saying and I still don’t get it. From an historical context, I guess that could be construed. I teased him saying he was getting defensive. He said, “I’m not from here, I don’t have these hang-ups.” But just from our conversation, I decided to watch the handful of white (looking) people at the exhibit. (more…)