Left to my own devices

I've been walking a lot lately. It is part of my goal for better overall health, and has helped me lose sa quarter of my body weight to date. If the destination is close enough, and weather and time permits, then I'll walk there and back. Sometimes, there doesn't need to be a destination. Sometimes, I'll walk for the pleasure of it, or to shore-up some daily goals. You see, I wear an Apple Watch that monitors how many steps I've taken, calories burned, hours standing, and heart rate. Sometimes, on days where I haven't quite met all my goals, I will head out of the house for a bit, taking a walk around the neighborhood to burn more calories and get some additional steps in. A few months ago, one of the aforementioned days occurred, where I wanted to take a walk toward the end of the day in order to meet some walking goals. Ashley and I headed out around 10:30pm, and began a stroll around the neighborhood. Halloween had been earlier that week, and ho...

A recent ruling by a judge  allows for bar owners (among others, I'd guess) to remove Trump supporters from their establishment because there is not, apparently, protection under the law for political discrimination. Whatever side of the political aisle you fall on, that surely has to be a somewhat eye-opening factoid. More so than the ruling, itself, I've been intrigued by the online chatter about why certain folks have been okay with the decision. Discussions I have read seem to center themselves around why it is okay to allow political exclusion, but not okay to ban someone from someplace because of their ethnicity, or sexuality. The latter two factors are, many argue, not a choice, while someone's politics are most certainly chosen. The aspect of choice, it would seem, is what dictates punishment or praise. It is also, I would argue, not a great way of determining what we accept, or don't accept, about people.

Like many others , I saw the new Jordan Peele movie  Get Out over the weekend. It has (mistakenly, in my opinion) been referred to as a horror/comedy mash up. There is definitely humor in it, but it doesn't really fit into the defined boundaries of what constitutes a modern day horror movie. There isn't much blood, it isn't scary, per se, there is no supernatural or paranormal element. Get Out is predominantly a thriller, and a very good one. Get Out also provides some commentary on race in America, though it does so (for the most part) in a subtle way. There are no grandiose speeches, we aren't hit over the head with preachy sermons. The film makes its points with a palatable smoothness. There is a black protagonist who is dating a white woman. He goes out to the country to visit her (ostensibly liberal) parents, and then an unsettling creepiness ensues. Peele's dialogue and direction manages to convey an awkwardness and uncomfortable truth which we ...

"Is you mixed?" "You know you're black, right?" Those are just a few of the things I heard growing up, from my black peers, as a biracial kid who thought of himself more as Matt, rather than about his racial identity. If anything, the more pressing minority status at the time was being homosexual, as it seemed to create more issues with people than anything else. Regardless, I've always struggled with what it means to be black and, as time has gone on, it has oddly not become any easier to navigate. One thing to understand first is that, aside from the obvious biological aspect, there is a personal component to my desire of having the biracial definition applied. My father was black. My mother is white. With them come the requisite lineage. Whenever someone refers to me as being either "black" or (a lot less common) "white," it engenders a mental and, sometimes, physical pain. I think of the parent that such a label erase...

Once, several years ago, I was talking with a fellow gay man (who happens to be African-American), and remarked that I'm not really attracted to black men. "That's racist," he said, sounding affronted. Back then, perceiving racism as something of a choice, I retorted: "How can it be racist? I did not choose to not like black men, just like you didn't choose to be gay." This seemed to dissuade my friend from any further accusatory remarks. Over the years I've thought back to that occasion, and wondered if my friend might have been on to something? Of course it depends upon one's definition of racism (an oft-overused word these days), and the social/cultural dynamics one has been surrounded by in life. It's true that racist homosexuals do exist (once, when a gay guy found out I was biracial, he promptly told me that I was the product of race traitors, and should be hung from a tree). Still, are our sexual preferences a product of upb...

I was in high school English class, and we were focusing on the prose & poetry of African-American authors. I was somewhat nonplussed. Yes, there was a mild appreciation of how my teachers were putting this into the curriculum, something that isn't done everywhere. It was nice to have a balance of John Steinbeck one week, followed by Lorraine Hansberry the next. A nice parade of black voices were to follow: Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, Langston Hughes and Mark Mathabane, to name a few. One day (I forget whether it was because we were about to focus on him, or if I simply flipped ahead a few pages in our reading), I happened upon a brief bio of James Baldwin. Of this, I took notice. It is said that gay men can tell if another person is gay, just by appearance. The curious notion of "gaydar" is one founded, like most things, in some sliver of truth. I saw the picture of Baldwin, the slim build, the smile, the twinkling eyes and thought, 'This man is gay.'...