Porn prejudice - lily white (Part III)

The adult entertainment industry is more years behind than its procurers will ever admit. Its industry thrives on and perpetuates sexism and racism. Click here for Part 1.
Ever notice how you very, very, very, very rarely see a black in porn unless the colour is referenced in the title? Makers of porn find it unfathomable to cast black talent unless it constitutes a bankable niche; in other words, perpetuates a stereotype they have fostered.
Every reason given on the lack of colour in porno stinks of repressed racism. They claim: there are no black models (yeah right! In Iceland!); the females don't want to work with black guys (then ditch the barbies and hire some black girls...for a change); black models can't perform (huh?!); they're unclean or unclean-looking (the Jew, Ron Jeremy, anyone?!); blacks don't contact them for work; or blacks just don't sell.

Every one of these lines of bullshit were once de riguer in Hollywood; And we know the racist history of the silver screen the small screen, the stage, the Vaudeville stage, and Las Vegas spectaculars. In step with show biz fifty years ago, the porno industry maintains racist preferences. So why give them a free pass?
Look closer at the studios. Vivid, Vixen, Falcon, BrazzersNetwork, Sean Cody, Jake Cruise, Cocky Guyz, Perfect Guyz, Future Works, Lucas Entertainment, Corbin Fischer, Sensual Box, Dirk Yates, Adam & Eve, Metro, Jet Set to name a few.

Not eight token blacks between them. Lily white!

Lucas Entertainment works out of NYC. Surely there are black performers in the Big Apple, but, nope, its videos remain lily white...with a Latino butt thrown in for good (brown)measure. As far as Cocky Guyz or Perfect Guyz go, it's left unstated the casting couch only has room for cocky WHITE guys and perfect WHITE guys.
Black performer X could fuck just as well in "Sheepless In Montana" or "Space Balls" as he can in "Black Sheepless In Montana" or "Black Space Balls". If porn really wants to puff its chest about being mainstream and open-minded, then it needs to first take the, apparently, big step into the 21st Century and stop denigrating/relegating people of colour to gang-rape parts.

Porn prejudice - gay-for-pay (Part II)

The adult entertainment industry is more years behind than its procurers will ever admit. Its industry thrives on and perpetuates sexism and racism. Click here for Part 1
The sexism of the industry inclines many performers to do fag porn who otherwise would not ever consider it. In the parlance, this is called gay-for-pay. Just to further clarify, this means straight guys who perform in gay videos for money.

And compared to regular porn, fag porn truly does pay male performers substantially more money...in fact, beaucoup money. Here also, in gay porn, the male talent receives acknowledgement for his labor/contribution in the sense of name recognition, billing, a thank-you and other little niceties the straight side of the industry fails to apply to the 'b' side of the b/g (boy/girl) formula.

If you'd notice, straight porn has the nasty tendency of decapitating the cock of the tango

For all intents and purposes the woman could just as well be fucking a headless and flesh covered robot.
Many - nearly every, really - straight man attributes the inadequate pay of b/g porn or, just as common, lack of work, to his decision to try gay-for-pay.
Gay porn icon Jeff Stryker, in characteristic candor, admitted in a television interview that although he would prefer to do straight porn, "Tsk, tsk. I wouldn't take off my shoes for five hundred [dollars]!"

Remember the pay discrepancy of female to male salary is HUGE! Arguably, yes, there is more than just the financial gain that persuade a heterosexual man to perform gay relations on camera; otherwise many more men would be into, say, arms dealing, drug smuggling, human trafficking, politics or any other career move that places one far from the poor house. Notwithstanding,my point is that the sexism in the adult entertainment encourages -- via low pay, low consistency of work, zero recognition, shitty working conditions -- straight male talent to, well, reconsider gay-for-pay works.


But does he like it, you ask? What does it matter?
Do we question the females' sexualities in regards to their scenes? No, we do not. In response to such a query Jeff Strkyer answered, "Well, does it look like I enjoyed it?...Really that's all that matters" meaning, that his, like any actor's, personal gratification from completing a scene is, largely, irrelevant to the viewer's perception of the credibility, the believability of the scene.
Gay-for-pay will remain a viable option so long as the female sexism (and cronyism) in straight porn prevails.

Porn prejudice (Part I)

The adult entertainment industry is more years behind than its procurers will ever admit. Its industry thrives on and perpetuates sexism and racism.

On porn sets, which nowadays is any place where a perv has a video camera, "equal pay for equal labor" has never been imagined. Pay scale is weighed unfairly toward females and all because of the sexist notion that her sex is more virtuous than his ergo she needs to be compensated more than does he. Bah!

In porn everyone is a slut

In many cases, the stud goes without pay. This makes him a stupid slut. By their own admissions the female talent does not do as much as their male counterparts. The man carries the scene...but the camera (and box covers) focus on the woman. Wag the dog, anyone?

All that is required of female models is that they look hot---not be punctual or cooperative or even believeable on camera. Just hot. And for this paltry qualification the cunt typically earns at least 3x more than the cock.

This is sexism

To be accurate, workers should be reclassified as "female models" and "male performers" since it is the guys who are doing all of the action and the girls who are kind enough to be present.

Still some dickheads happily don't mind this unfairness. They work for nothing or next to nothing, blissfully joining the crop of labor historically associated with apprenticeship, slavery, junkie madness. And like its mindless brethren, the slave and junkie, the dickhead receives his cheap, quick fix and blissfully remains unappreciated.

I've not ceased to wonder why so many men sell themselves so short. Oh, right: Because her sex is more virtuous than his.

Mr Gay Competition...is lame

Forget a male beauty contest this is a gay competition. That's right: a competition of gayness. For sure it's all about the most physically attractive gayness so, no, no fat sissies will be in the running but the absurdity of the contest goes beyond that shallow note.

I am not making this up: The "International Mr Gay Competition" will have "delegates" from over a dozen countries all shamelessly strutting on a Hollywood stage later this month to win the crown of queerest boy with the most issues. Some of the sponsors include Starbucks Coffee and American Airlines.

Now, would Starbucks ever proudly sponsor a Mr Stupid Competition or a Mr Straight Competition or a Mr Small Business Owner Competition?

This international farce is another flaming example of the idiotic gay agenda: Let's make sexual preference the nucleus of everything...so folk will eventually believe gay sex is normal and equal to heterosexual coupling.

Of course, this begs the question of how will the judges prove the man is a gay man? Since it is about homosexualness it is safe to say the event will likely be free of witch-hunting, gossipmongers whose only mission in life, it seems, is to 'out' (good-looking)men who prefer not to tote the rainbow banner.

And the point of Mr Gay is...what exactly?

I'm Barack Hussein Obama...bitch!

They don't call 'em fruit flys for nothing!

Get this: too many sniffs of brandy turn flies into homo flies. University of Penn State scientists have demonstrated that when a fly is drunk it prefers to get it on with members of the same sex (http://www.newsweek.com/id/83086).

See, you can blame it on the drink. And here you were questioning yourself....

The abuse of gay

The gay movement is pathetic. The only relevant thing more pathetic is the celebration thereof.

The very name is grossly misleading because there is little inherently gay about homosexuality. Yes, there are children's rainbows and dancing and prancing, and lots of people playing dress-up but, my, the same goings-on can be found in an asylum. The word gay and its innocent connotations have been co-opted by a sexually promiscuous lot, who proudly identify themselves as a "community", to the point where it is rendered controversial or insulting if not in reference to a homosexual. That is the abuse of the word.

The misleading part comes in that gay is one of the farthest things the homosexual is, a point of fact their celebrations strive to obscure and suppress but which, it appears to me, merely serve to display underlying insecurities. Honestly, do people who are so secure with who they are make grand demonstrations to "prove" the point? No. Playboys or bullies or happily married husbands and wives do not organize themselves into a "community" to showcase their happy existence to society.

Any persons or groups who made such ruckus would be promptly taken to task for being insecure. Isn't this the proverbial stone fired at every Lothario and loud Christian. Yet, homosexuals are the only lot who live to do this and few voices take them to task.

"Look at me, look at me", they sing, like an attention-deprived child.

Can't think of other behaviours or personalities (or disorders) which merrily band together to flaunt said activity or emotion (or disorder). There are no celebratory farces by, for, or of, say, ADHD sufferers, alcoholics, wife-swappers, the manically-depressed, agoraphobics; or chronic masturbators, the lactose-intolerant, witty banters, smokers, or the intelligentsia; drunkards, tea drinkers, avowed celibates, mistresses or sweetbacks, book readers, voyeurs, drivers, faithful spouses, welfare recipients, illiterate persons, anal retentive people, heterosexuality.

We witness no attention seeking parades for the aforementioned because there is nothing to flaunt. What would be the purpose in parading about town Mensa membership or illiteracy or a mood disorder? None. The demonstration would be void of purpose because it would stand absent of sustenance. What, Look at us we have genius I.Q.s and you do not! Ha-ha! Pathetic.

Queer pride events are as equally purposeless yet escape well warranted criticism. The demonstrations glorify debauchery, pedophilia, unmanliness (save for butch dykes), fetishes and psychoses, hedonistic sex. And insecurities. The gay movement is lambasting society with its über pride because this is, according to first-hand declarations, how its members truly feel: Fairies, Bears, Cubs, Pigs, Ponies, Bitches, Boy lovers, Daddies, Cum sluts, Twinks, Queens. Ladies and gentlemen, this ain't normalcy or open-mindedness;

it's Narnia on crystal meth!

Throw in some Cheshire Cat pimps, Mad Hatter johns, and Huckleberry boy toys and you've got a circus reality that would make Rod Serling gag on his fag.

Just because one fancies hedonistic sex or piddling children is hardly cause for showcasing it. Just because one feels does not mean one should act out those feelings. And just because Reality, unfortunately, stops at the foot of the queer movement does not mean judgment should.

Why should it?

Don't mean a thing if it ain't curing

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HAPPY KWANZAA

Santa Claus go straight to the ghetto

MERRY CHRISTMAS !

It's okay not to be gay

It's okay not to be gay.
Not that one mightn't know that living in or travelling through or passing by New York City (or most big cities or cable television). So ubiquitous is the homosexual campaign of being here-and-queer that it can be argued the ulterior message is: Since you are here, you might as well be queer. Like a chaperon reprimanding students to dance.

The word campaign is not flippantly used. A one-sided race appears to be mounting the aggressive we-are-among-you campaign or, more to the point it seems, YOU-are-among-US. Not since the coming of John Galt has there been such a PR blitz to provoke the minds of readers. My mind has been provoked and, so, I wonder: If goings-on behind closed doors are a private matter, then why are they being championed to be public? If sexuality doesn't matter, then why is it being made to matter? If this is an innocuous reminder of "natural" human behaviour, then why bother? Passing gas, jay-walking, cursing out or ignoring others are just a sampling of natural New Yorker behaviours daily displayed yet we see no advertisements encouraging the actions.

I wonder what warped effect this impresses on young minds? (www.truthatschool.org/news.htm) But ultimately I wonder whether it is still okay not to be gay?

The signs are literally everywhere with messages such as "Gay. Are you?" and "We are among you". The paid-for-be-gay agenda covers several fronts with scant opposition: Bicurious/closeted men (Gay.com), diseased (showing smiling, robust HIV+ gay mountain climbers), racial (Campaign for Black Gay Men's Lives), parental (The Ali Forney Center), athletic (Gay Games), ethnic (with multilingual ads), and cheeky ads featuring two grooms or two brides.

Now if a family center produced a poster starring a beaming housewife, why, the liberal factions would cry foul! (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58034)

Meanwhile the signs for homosexuality are physically everywhere---in the subways, on the sides of buses, train stops, billboards---and some are nearly four stories high. If that is not elevating pro-homosexual "private matters", then what is it doing? Covering up a gigantic hole in the wall?

So for those staying in the City or elsewhere in the world let me be the first, if not the only, soul to affirm, yes, it is still okay not to be gay.

ScholarSpartan

No freegan way, man!

Eco me this, eco me that, Freegans are as effed up as a wombat.

In case you haven't the word, the Freegan group (www.Freegan.info) consists of tony cheapskates and overly anti-consumerists who dig through dumpsters for food. No, freegan is not a politically correct neologism or euphemism for vagabond. A freegan is well educated and as well off as the next chap whose earnings fall between Mayor Bloomberg's and those boys who peddle candy bars on NYC subways to dissuade themselves "from selling drugs" (as if that were the natural alternative).

I would never have imagined civilized peoples rummaging through garbage in a non-Apocalyptic setting just to placate consumption of resources. Absurd. With barely two hundred dollars to my name and the worry of how to cover next month's rent I shall be damned if I take to eating from the garbage because it's cheaper. No freegan way, man! Hell, five-finger-discounts can't be beat either but, unfortunately, they are also wrong.

Yes, Americans, like many other peoples, are a lot of undisciplined shoppers and wasteful consumers, but there is a more sensible way of cutting out the pork than snorting through rubbish: live simpler lives---for yourself. Something tells me the for-yourself-part is more difficult for most people than the living-simply-part. But it can be done. It is done. Mind you, it ain't big city chic or---gasp!---trendy. Living simply is due in large part to a disinterest in indulging the inclination or vanity to buy more. Living simply is also attainable when one is not enslaved by disposable income.

To look to a healthier extreme than dumpster diving we have only to recall the Amish people (or Quaker or Mennonites, for that matter). Looking every bit two centuries ago Amish families remain disconnected from reckless consumerism by buying less and producing more. Production. They make the lot of their clothes, produce their own foods, build their own homes which are largely furnished with furniture made of their own labor and skill, and walk, bike, or drive carriages.

Crafting one's own furniture or daily wardrobe might be too daunting a step to initiate but we can each advance one step closer towards buying less through resourcefulness and thrift. For instances, brewing one's own cup of tea, eating in (a.k.a. cooking) and using leftovers, swapping books or using the public library, choosing smaller portions over larger ones (12 oz can versus 20 oz bottle), tipping wisely. Really, a $3 tip for a $5 soup is frivolous---and stupid.

Freegan way is extreme and hellaridiculous. Don't be so cheap that you live off of other's "perfectly good" rubbish.

Hopefully this is one trend that heads to the dumps---and stays there.

ScholarSpartan

Monkeys and madmen make bad leaders

When a man, a business corporation or an entire society is approaching bankruptcy, there are two courses that those involved can follow: they can evade the reality of their situation and act on a frantic, blind, rage-of-the-moment expediency---not daring to look ahead, wishing no one would name the truth, yet desperately hoping that something will save them somehow---or they can identify the situation, check their premises, discover their hidden assets and start rebuilding.

America, at present, is following the first course. The grayness, the stale cynicism, the noncommittal cautiousness, the guilty evasiveness of our public voices suggest the attitude of the courtiers in the story The Emperor's New Clothes...Let me be the child in the story and declare that the Emperor is naked---or that America is culturally bankrupt.

Believe it or not the above is not recent commentary. Call it prophetic or acute clear-eyedness but this cultural forecast was announced over forty years ago by Ayn Rand in The New Intellectual.

"America at present" is America at present. Scary, isn't it?

Societal mores are vacuous, fleeting, star struck, short sighted, profit-minded. When 9/11 struck, our leaders did not wait long in urging us to, not simplify hurried lifestyles, seek spiritual counseling, re-evaluate one's resources but, rather, to spend more on material goods. The possible bankruptcy of the economy was---is---more prescient than the inevitable moral hemorrhaging---hopelessness, desperation, revived xenophobia, racism, paranoia, distrust in government and neighbors. In no uncertain terms we were encouraged to compensate our fears and pain with shopping.

Then-NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani was most vocal in telling people to crank up the consumerism; shop downtown, keep buying, keep buying as usual, he urged New Yorkers and tourists. In effect citizens were told they and their problems were less pressing than the System's which is dependent on them.

John Q. Public is still convinced of this.

The Bush Administration sees the approaching bankruptcy and, as if on cue in a demolition movie, passionately evades reality through concocted truths and blind, headstrong missteps into one costly or stupid or embarrassing mission after another "hoping that something will save them somehow" while the rest of you cozy deeper into debt in trying to buy happiness and a pre-September eleventh reality, when in reality we were more blind then than we are today.

(view independent music clip).

Before, we were content with noncommittal principles and reserving judgment because, hey, everyone else drooled over the primate's Prada man purse but now---uncovered domestic spying, prison torture scandals, governmental leaks, lies against Iraq and Iran, lies for Saudi Arabia and China; soaring gas prices, soaring soldier casualties, dwindling $USD, dwindling global respect, dwindling domestic confidence, a losing war strategy; no WMDs, no capture of Bin Laden, no peace talks in sight, no end to President Bush's incompetence and deceit---now that we see the primate is not only not sporting Prada but is not wearing anything at all we stutter and shuffle.

We are seeing the primate naked and for what he represents: spoiled arrogance, foolishness, destruction, deceit; and we are discontent with Reality---because we are fearful. And we should be.

I Went To the Consulate for Help and All I got was this #@%! Letter

Candide was indifferent, Bartleby, unimpressed, Ishmael, obsessed, moi, distraught -- and they all got screwed in the end. Now you can wear your patriotic frustration on your chest with an original "Tywain" T-shirt for usd$20, s/h included. Sizes: M,XL,XXL (for the typically obese American). Available in Spincity Blue or Turncoat Red! So if you've received a diplomatic "Piss off" from the friendly consulate, then order now.

The old Oriental con (Pt.2)

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But it gets better: Afterwards I ran into those Turkish rats three times! The first one happened the following day, in fact.

Twice I passed that half of the con duo in Old Istanbul and he was as shameless about the matter as nothing, calling it a "job"...and suggesting I get in on it. Ha! What can one do but laugh?

No, I told him, lying and cheating is not a "job", it's a con game with no integrity or class. But one cannot reason with the criminal mind. So I told him that if he shaved his undoubtedly hairy Turkish ass I would be glad to bugger him and let bygones be bygones. He smirked and huffed and made fun of my lips...but he did not say no. Egad! (Then I remembered the word no is not in the new Turkish lexicon.) A few nights following that I was walking through Taksim up the ever bustling Istiklal Street with another young traveller from the hostel when I happened upon the other scoundrel and caught him in the act.
I couldn't believe my luck. I coolly walked up along the other side the potential victim and said, "Don't believe a word he says. This motherfucker is pulling a scam."

I torched his ass red-handed, folks, I torched his ass!

He was piiiiiiiissed and took to screaming all sorts of profanities and whatnots. If only you could have seen the look on his smarmy face. Better yet, you should have seen the delighted look on mine. I had a goooood, hearty laugh. Me and the other guys walked away laughing at that rat. HAAA-ha-ha-ha-hahahaha! I torched his ass red-handed, folks. I torched his ass!
Unlike his partner-in-crime he was not a good sport about getting busted (and I did not ask him to shave his bum. Hehehe)

Click here to read Pt 1

When to leave home without it (Pt. I)

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You're off to work, to school, to workout, to hang out, to chill out, to shop, to travel, to go out, or simply leaving the house and, like clockwork, you never leave home without it. I don't have to tell you what "it" is; you already know. Like indispensable motherly advice -- look both ways before crossing -- common sense hygiene -- wash hands before eating -- and basic arithematic --100 / 2 = 50 -- you, no doubt, are hard pressed to ever leave the house sans a bank card or credit card (or cell phone). Most folks will likely forget to turn off the iron or lock themselves out of the house before exiting without the almighty plastic.

We have learned never to leave home without it but, y'know, that is one habit worth unlearning at times as a recent experience has reinforced for me. Being the budget traveller that I am my spending habits run the gamut from cheap to cheaper. I make use of my debit card about as freely as I'm called upon to perform CPR. My preference is for real tender and I carry as much as I can stand to spend at any one time. Better to be caught short and return the next day than to have regrettably bought a shitload of souvenir crap or designer jeans or six rounds of €80 drinks.
Eighty euro drinks, what what?!

For the what, where, who, and why do read on what, what. A common scam in these parts is to invite an unsuspecting foreigner to a disco, make a jolly sucker out of him, then drop all pretense and stick him with the bill which amounts in the ridiculous sum of hundreds of euros (odd they don't bill in Turkish liras; odder still I did not hear of this dirty Turkish trick until after the fact).

return my black ass to Nigeria and never come back

Whilst sitting one evening working to convince myself of the pleasure of the water pipe -- I ordered coconut -- a friendly English speaking local (red flag #1) plopped himself down (red flag #2) and initiated conversation. As he was well dressed I assumed he was a student, rich kid, businessman or fellow traveller and, admittedly, was glad to communicate with someone sans elaborate gestures that would make even a professional mime scream aloud. Turns out he was a businessman (red flag #3) and was so full of jam and compliments (red flag #4). It was his last night in Istanbul so was I up for some carousing and sexy, sexy sluts? Was I! My name ain't not Rufus Wainwright for nothing. Who knows, maybe that water pipe was kicking in! At any rate, with his business partner, a short and hairy chested man with a distinctly Roman haircut, in tow (red flag #5) we three jumped in a cab (red flag #6) and left Taksim (red flag #7) for the Hilton Hotel. But, first, we stopped at a club (red flag #8).

I immediately pegged the tacky neon haunt a training ground for gold-digging Russian mail-order brides (red flag #9) and a money drainer, but the short chap assured me it was on them. All right, if I don't have to pay then bring on the Alize! In no time the sexy, sexy sluts joined us at our table (red flag #10) and, as prejudice would have it, they were Russian, no less (red flag #11). Naturally drinks were ordered for them -- by the two "businessman". After chatting and laughing and dancing and toasting, the one fellow leans in to ask if I would be paying with cash or credit card (red flag #12).

"Me neither," I smiled. "This is your treat. I have no money."

It was at this point I smelled a rat and called over the cheap suit who appeared to be the manager and asked him point blank: Did you hire these two to bring me in here? Are you all working together? He, of course, denied it and we four proceeded to the back office to continue the farce; but in short order all masks were abandoned. No more cautionary flags were needed.

I saw clearly the scam into which I fell; but I was cool. They lied and screamed foul play, they said it was I who invited them, they threatened and swore; but I was cool. The manager demanded my credit card and said he would kill me; but I was cool. They hurled racist declarations and demanded again my credit card; but I was cool. I even pulled out my mobile and pretended to call my lawyer.

Bottom lines were one, I really had no credit card to fork over and just five liras in my pocket, and two, these men were despicable scam artists. The why? Because they're low-lives -- racist low-lives, at that. After the farcical shakedown around the Mulberry bush made it clear yours truly was a broke sucker I was told to return my black ass to Nigerian.

With pleasure.

coolness is something I never leave home without

And with that I hopped my black ass in a taxi and got as close to Taksim Square as five liras would take me. Now the bigger albeit misleading lesson to take from this is not to trust a nice Turkish man who speaks English and wants to buy you a drink. Or not to get in a car with strangers; But when one is a wanderlust stricken traveller like me, why, everyone is a stranger, including myself.

No, the take home from this is to leave the infinite and tempting credit card in the room with the rest of the valuables when on holiday. If I had had my debit card I would have been robbed of €400---and no sexy, sexy slut is worth that much whisky and cola. That and keep cool.
Now coolness, that is something I never leave home without.

U.S. Consulates count for nothing

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After two days of waiting it out, the U.S. Consulate reopened today and I took my complaint of racial discrimination to them. If they helped me, then my name is Lawrence Welk. And a one, and a two we've a new American to screw. Take it away boys!

(Check out this music video!)

To briefly recapitulate, two nights ago I was removed from a bus at the Edirne border (Turkey) en route to Greece and returned to Istanbul because tea-drinking goat-licking, racist Turkish patrol refused to believe a black man could be an American citizen. This unlawful act apparently is all relative: The American consular simply furrowed his brow, sighed, and explained that the Turkeyhead border control could do as they deemed fit and that the U.S. had no right to intervene. Oh? Giving way to whims and prejudices now, are we? Clearly numbnuts is out of the loop on the whole Iraq and Kurd thing.

...all too pleased if Americans just stayed home and remained as uncultured as our dishonest Monkey-and-chief

By now you've probably wondered a dozen times over, Why doesn't the consulate just send a communique to the border officials that Citizen X is all right to pass? Because, logical ones, consulars don't want to work and don't like to help. Rather, they like to perpetrate the illusion of being there when you need them. It's total bunk. Like the concentration camp motto: Work will make you free. Consulates are as effective as a limp dick. State Dept does not want to help in any way, shape, or form and would be all too pleased if Americans just stayed home and remained as uncultured as our dishonest Monkey-and-chief.
Then the consular tried to massage the incident by persuading me my passport was damaged and, thus, understandably rejected---so I should buy a new one. Oh? So what if, I pursued, I'd fallen in the sea and the passport was soggy wet or I'd escaped from a train accident and the edges of the book were charred or I'd kept the thing in my pocket for so long a natural bend formed in the thin book? Would this legal, authentic, universally recognized document of identification be rendered null and void?!


Uh no, he slowly and lowly uttered with another shrug of the shoulders.

Buying another passport was not an option. Firstly, nothing is wrong with the current one. Secondly, a new passport doesn't address the problem of racism. If those Turkeyheads wouldn't accept real passport #1, which is validated with pages of stamps and stickers, including entry into Shitstanbul, then why would they suddenly reverse stupidity and accept real passport #2? The very fact of the latter's newness would, if anything, work against me. The other problem with buying a new passport is that it ain't cheap ($67). Moreover, the whole matter smacked of an Oriental scam common in these parts:

Come on in and have a good time -- but you have to pay much American money to leave.

No, I don't think the State Dept is in cahoots to extort tourists. I don't think much of the State Dept.

That the consulate was not bothered by a U.S. passport being so arbitrarily refused slightly un-nerved me. What is the point of having the document if its value is relative? I asked. And if Turkey can irrationally decide to not honor passports and visas -- as the consular said they have the right to do -- then what is to disqualify other countries from doing likewise? In which case a European tour would necessitate one carrying spare passports just in case one encountered plundering jackasses at, say, the Italian or German or Serbian or Greek borders. I felt like I was talking to the glass partition rather than through it.In the end I did get a type written note on government stationery to supplement my passport should I incur further obstacles. Seriously. An authentic passport may leave some in doubt but, golly goddammit, who but who I tells ya can doubt the genuine-ness of government stationery! Each time I've gone to a Consulate for help, I was met with impotence. This is the first time I've ever walked out with something tangible.

I don't think much of the State Dept.

I shall keep the letter as comic relief. Perhaps frame it.
It shall be a constant reminder of how much my government cares about me.

Black and back in Shitstanbul

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The average individual for whatever misinformed reasons is under the delusion that blacks and whites are routinely treated equally on a daily basis.

By average individual I mean white person. Any black person who thinks likewise is clearly either a United States Supreme Court Justice or coked and/or %#@! out of his mind. Maybe both. The prevailing conventional wisdom regards racial discrimination a thing of the past; something to be nicely bracketed with two paragraphs in junior high civics textbooks (one paragraph more than the obligatory mention of the "peculiar Institution").

As a black man I am reminded full well of the persistence of racism.In America and abroad

People like to put all the baggage on America because of its wealth, capitalism, and abundance of self-made men - scientists, engineers, millionaires, world famous entertainers - as if no other country traded slaves or instituted segregation - de facto or otherwise - just because their particular country is probably divided betwixt the mafia, the military, the sheep herder.

I've travelled beyond the continental borders of the U.S.A. and damn if foreign folk aren't color conscious. I'll call it what it is: bigoted. In Puerto Rico it's thick enough to slice with a knife. In Mexico it's as noxious as the instilled corruption. In entrenched in the Argentine psyche while in Turkey racism rears its ugly head with a smile and leering stare.

In Istanbul the Turkish people, without fail, fail to realize that not all black people are Africans. This fact befuddles them. Then again this is a city which lives in the past while fronting as a hip, modern metropolis. Schizophrenia, anyone? 

Up to this point I've made greater use of black than African-American, partly out of preference but more so to drive home this point: Turks regard "African-American" quixotic, a term of contradictions. How can one, their Muslim heads wonder, be black ("African") and American? As everyone in Istanbul knows, all Americans are big, fat white infidels...who leave super generous tips.

News flash sinbads: Black people also come from other continents and countries on the face of the globe, including the United States of America. Hello!

Americans are big, fat white infidels...who leave super generous tips

Ignorance I can stomach from common, everyday folk who've grown to regard things like higher education, toothpaste, deodorant, and condoms as luxuries. However when this same bias is displayed by, say, government officials then I have a big problem; id est their stupidity directly affects me. Case in point: My extended stay in Istanbul. With some two weeks of mosques, döner kebabs, nationalist protests, hammams, and ubiquitous images of Mustafa Ataturk under my belt I was more than ready to leave this Muslim metropolis with good tidings. Then I was barred from doing so. I chose to travel via bus with Metro company. The ride was quite comfortable. At the Edirne (er-DEER-neh) passport inspection, however, my trip was halted. The passport police (plural) took one look at me (black face) and my passport (U.S.A.) and immediately concluded I was illegitimate. 

I was prohibited from re-boarding the bus and, instead, sent back to Shitstanbul

I have been to several countries and each time the officials scan or check on the passport with the computer, and if some doubt lingers they follow through with an advance database search or telephone call. The police at Edirne performed no such protocol. They only trusted their prejudices, insisting  

1. my passport was a fake 
2. I was a fake, i.e., NOT an American citizen 
3. I entered Shitstanbul by plane when in fact I travelled by rail and had the visa and round stamp to prove it 
4. I was up to no good in their country.

I was summarily prohibited from re-boarding the bus to continue my trip and, instead, sent back to Shitstanbul. And I was the only black person and American citizen on the bus. If this does not smack clear of racism, or somehow sounds remotely reasonable to you, then go kindly exfoliate your face with a salt encrusted barbed wire because you're an idiot who deserves to look as grotesquely as he reasons [sic].

Speaking of which, the only explanation the one dismally English speaking official could give was "Problem passport" and "We are professionals". And that is the scary part. Professional assholes, guided by racism and mean spirit, molested my trip and wasted my time and money.

So now I am back in Shitstanbul, holed up in a hostel in Sultanahmet, waiting for the American Consulate to return to "work" from holiday -- and still 100% black as African-American. And feeling blue as the rainy weather.

Daggers in Turkish smiles

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In Act 2, Scene 3 Macbeth famously cautions, "There's daggers in men's smiles." As a global traveller I say it plainly: Turkish smiles are about as reliable as wooden nickels...one should know to distrust them as imitations of the real things.

In this case, the Act ıs long-runnıng and the Scene, around every corner, kebab stand, and mosque. And don't think that because the typical Turk has darker complexion than his Nordic counterpart - and is an all so humble Muslim - that he is above racism. Ha! Nıgga, please.
In tomorrow's entry (Black and back in Shitstanbul) I relate my experiences as black man in Instanbul. If you don't know, then do prepare yourself for an unflattering dosage of reality 'cause I don't mince words.