Strange Fruit

As we were going into the studio to record this week's episode, news came down that a court ruling had been announced, possibly shaping the future of same-gender marriage in Kentucky: District Judge John G. Heyburn wrote that refusing to recognize same-sex marriages from outside the state violates the U.S. constitution's equal protection clause. WFPL Political Editor Phillip M. Bailey joined us to talk about what exactly the ruling said, and what it could mean for marriage equality going forward. In our feature interview this week, we spoke to author and professor Ellery Washington, who recently wrote an essay for the New York Times about his experience retracing the steps of James Baldwin in Paris. We spoke with Ellery about why James Baldwin is such an important figure in the literary world and in black history (and why he is particularly important to gay black authors!). On next week's show we'll have more about the ruling from one of the lawyers who worked on the case, who's also involved in the next lega

We're celebrating Black History Month on Strange Fruit, and so is our sister station, Classical 90.5. Their series, African-American Voices, runs throughout the month and highlights the contributions of black performers and composers in the world of classical music. WUOL's program director Daniel Gilliam joined us this week to talk about the series and play us some wonderful music from some of the featured artists. In our Juicy Fruit segment, we talked about trans activist Janet Mock's appearance on Piers Morgan Live, in which the host made several comments about how she "used to be a man" and was "born a boy" (online promotion of the segment was similarly sensationalized, asking, “How would you feel if you found out the woman you are dating was formerly a man?”) We used this incident to talk more about the importance of pronouns and respectful language with trans folks, and the right of everyone to choose what language they use to identify themselves.

The seldom-told story of African Americans in Appalachia has been on our minds since a few weeks ago when we spoke to Kentucky Poet Laureate Frank X Walker, who coined the term 'Affrilachian.' Kentuckians for the Commonwealth has been exploring the issue too, and is hosting an event celebrating the contributions of black folks in Appalachia Tuesday night. This week, we spoke to an innovator in this field of study. Dr. Bill Turner was the first scholar to combine interests in the fields of African-American and Appalachian Studies, having grown up himself in a coal mining town in Harlan County, Kentucky. We spoke with Dr. Turner about the importance of rediscovering this part of our history, and why the image of Appalachia as a white region is so pervasive and lasting. We also had K.A. Owens in our studio to tell us more about the Kentuckians for the Commonwealth event, From Louisville to Appalachia: Celebrating Our Common Heritage. K.A. helped make some connections between environmental preservation and social

This week, we're joined by WFPL's Devin Katayama. Devin covers the education beat for the station, and he sat down with us to talk about his newest project, learning about trans* high school students in Louisville. He also filled us in on his recent trip to Kenya over the holidays, and sat in on our Juicy Fruit segment, where we laid out some historical context for the horrific "black woman chair" photo that's been making the rounds online this week. We also talked about the Arizona fraternity who held an MLK Day party where attendees dressed up as black stereotypes, and we pondered how to call out friends and acquaintances when they say something bigoted.

Turn Me Loose: The Unghosting of Medgar Evars has garnered Kentucky's Poet Laureate, Frank X Walker, a nomination for an NAACP Image Award. He calls this book of 49 poems his finest work to date, and says it has an educational component along with its poetry. "The initial motivation was based on having a conversation with my students and finding out that they had no idea who Medgar Evers was." We spoke to Walker on this week's show about his life, his work, and what it means to be Affrilachian. Our Juicy Fruit segment this week looks at the man who got in trouble for paying too much child support, the chef who wants to ban babies from his restaurant, and CeCe McDonald's release from prison. And our very own Jaison Gardner filled us in on his new column, In Visible Ink, appearing every other week in LEO Weekly!

Louisville comedian Keith McGill has been one of our favorite people since he was first on the show last year to talk about his work in a local production of TopDog/Underdog. That play explored themes of black masculinity through the fractured relationship of two brothers struggling with instability and poverty. Now McGill is working on another local production, this time as the director, vastly different in tone.Sex Again is a comedy by Louisville playwright Heidi Saunders that looks at sexuality during middle age. We spoke to Keith this week, in part, because we wondered how a gay black man approaches work about the waning marriages of straight white folks, and what made him want to direct the piece. "I really think it has a lot to say to everyone," he explains. "There's a lot of truth in the play." Sex Again plays through January 18 at The Vault 1031, one of Louisville's newest performance spaces, on South 6th Street in Old Louisville. Reservations can be made at frogpumproductions@gmai

Even under the best of circumstances, the holidays can be stressful. For some LGBTQ people, Christmas also means deciding whether to go home to a family who doesn't fully embrace them.   This week, we're re-posting a conversation we had around this time last year, with Dr. Stephanie Budge from UofL, who teaches workshops on coping with the holidays as an LGBTQ person.  She said while some families do overtly antagonistic things (like using the wrong pronoun for trans folks, yelling, or refusing to let their LGBTQ family member bring a partner to holiday functions), what she hears about the most is simply ignoring. A person might come out as queer to their family, only for the response to be silence, and an unwillingness to acknowledge their identity. Dr. Budge gave us some coping strategies we can all use during moments of holiday stress and family conflict, how to take full advantage of your chosen family's love when your family of origin doesn't support you, and how to tell when things are so unhealthy or u

Documentary filmmaker Michael Wolfe is probably not the image that comes to mind when most people think "Muslim." In fact, he's a middle-aged white guy from Ohio. But he is a convert to Islam and has spent his career telling the stories of Muslims in America—a story that goes back further than you might think (there were Muslims in the USA during George Washington's lifetime, and of course, many enslaved Africans were Muslims). Stereotypes about Islam abound, and often intersect with other forms of bigotry, especially since 35% of American Muslims are African American. Wolfe was in Louisville recently, courtesy of the Pakistani-American Alliance for Compassion & Education, to speak about major Christian figures like Jesus, Moses and Mary and the role they play in Islamic theology. He stopped by our studios to tell us more about his work, including his film Prince Among Slaves: The Cultural Legacy of Enslaved Africans, which was screened at the Frazier History Museum. In our Juicy Fruit segment t

The idea that working hard leads to success is a popular narrative in the United States, but a new report shows it's not that simple - especially for LGBTQ people of color. A Broken Bargain for LGBTQ Workers of Color shows folks in this demographic are some of the most disadvantaged workers in the country, facing high rates of unemployment and poverty. This week we spoke to Preston Mitchum from the Center for American Progress, a co-author of the report. Preston helped us break down some of the main trouble areas - hiring bias, unequal pay, educational barriers, on-the-job discrimination, etc. - and we talked about possible solutions, and what to do if you've faced racism or homophobia on the job. Check out the whole report here. In our Juicy Fruit segment this week, we talked about Minnesota college professor Shannon Gibney, who was reprimanded by Minneapolis Community and Technical College administrators after white student's complained about her lessons on structural racism. Some of her white male students

This week we spoke with David Henry, co-author of Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him, about Pryor's work, and why it was so groundbreaking. "He had this sort of vulnerability about himself that just made him irresistible," David says. "He didn't pull any punches." Throughout their research for the book, David and his co-author (and brother) Joe Henry, learned about how Richard honed his craft, sometimes working the same comedy club every night for a week, each night with an improved version of the previous night's material. We talked about Pryor's surprising comments on his sexual experiences with other men, his openness about his drug use, and why audiences of all races found him so relatable. "When he was on stage by himself with just a microphone, he seemed to understand everything about being a human being," David said. "He seemed to have such a clear-eyed view of life, and seemed to understand how people work—in ways that he couldn't really apply to

_"My images try to show a more personal and intimate beauty, pride, dignity, courage, and grace that have been painfully challenged by mainstream society."_Photographer Gerard H. Gaskin has been documenting house ball life for twenty years. His latest book, "Legendary: Inside the House Ball Scene" is a vivid and beautiful look at a subculture we usually only get to see when a mainstream entertainer co-opts it. We spoke with Gerard this week about the book, and about what the house ball scene means to him. In our Juicy Fruit segment, we talked about George Zimmerman's latest arrest, this time for domestic violence. We also talked about the Colorado father who shot his toddler daughter and himself, and how it raises questions about who can seek protection from dating violence. In other Juicy news this week, Jaison and Kaila loved Best Man Holiday, Mayor Bloomberg said you have to be 21 to buy cigarettes in New York City, and Jaison shared his thoughts on the Trans Day of Remembrance.

"These buses came back from the West End with these little kids on them, and they were crying, there were windows knocked out. They had been beaten with baseball bats, they had been called every horrible racial name you can expect, right here in this town." It sounds like a scene we'd expect to see in the deep South, but this happened in Louisville in the middle of the 1970s, when public schools implemented the busing system. That's how performing artist Teresa Willis remembers it, and it makes up part of her one-woman show, Eenie Meanie. Because Louisville itself was so segregated, neighborhood schools were largely either black or white. Busing was designed to achieve greater diversity within school, but was met with resistance. "Racism really came out of the closet in my community," Teresa remembers. "There's crosses burning at the football field. Literally, we're at a football game and a cross gets lit on fire. It was not pretty in 1975, '76 around here at all. Dixie Highway at Val

Around this time last year, we spoke with Dr. Stephanie Budge about the challenges faced by LGTBQ folks during the holidays - specifically college students. Some students who have come out while at school are no longer welcome at home, and for some, going back home means going back in the closet. This week we spoke with Brian Buford about how the LGBTQ Center at UofL tries to make the holidays a better time for the students under its care. Each year, they host a Thanksgiving potluck where all are welcome. To fund this and their other efforts, they have an annual event called Feast on Equality, which is coming up on November 22. In this week's Juicy Fruit, we talked about Kylie Austin, a biracial teenager who changed her name from Keisha after she was bullied by classmates. We also talked about the fascinating Chirlane McCray, wife of NYC's mayor-elect Bill DiBlasio. In the late '70s, she came out as a lesbian woman of color. The different phases of her public life nicely illustrate the fluidity of sexual iden

It's one of the deadliest attacks on LGBTQ people in U.S. history - and even if you're an activist or scholar, there's a good chance you've never heard of it. Louisville filmmaker Sheri L. Wright is bringing a story to light that can be difficult to hear. If you're up on your history, you know that in this country's history, it's often been unsafe for LGBTQ folks to gather and socialize. We all know about the bar raids and wrongful arrests that are part of our story. In her new documentary now in progress, Tracking Fire, Wright tells the story of the Upstairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans. In June of 1973, as the city was concluding its very first Pride celebration, someone set fire to the club, killing over 30 people who were inside. Security bars on the windows made escape difficult - there was one back way out that wasn't widely known about. In the days following the fire, some suspected investigators weren't being as thorough as they should have (in fact, no one was ever convicted of the crime, though

If you've never been to a ball, you don't know what you're missing - but Dr. Marlon Bailey's book, Butch Queens Up in Pumps, is probably the next best thing. He takes us inside the ballroom scene in Detroit with an ethnography that examines how ball culture redefines ideas about gender, performance, and community. We spoke to Dr. Bailey this week about his work and what drew him to it, and he told us about his first time at a ballroom event and how it challenged all his previous assumptions about black gay culture. In our Juicy Fruit segment, it's Halloween week, and that means a lot of white folks will be out and about in blackface. We talk about what causes people to think that's okay, and why it never is (also check out Ohio University's campaign, We're a Culture, Not a Costume, which comments on the wrong-headedness of using stereotypes as costumes). Elsewhere in cultural misappropriation, American Apparel thought a Voudou-themed window display would be perfect for Halloween. And we also talked about our

Stephen Jimenez went to Laramie, Wyoming in 2000, to write a screenplay about the murder of Matthew Shepard. He expected to be researching fairly open-and-shut case which had almost immediately become the national symbol for anti-gay hate crime. What he found, tucked away among the files, was an anonymous letter that would change the course of his work completely. "I was shocked to hear that Aaron McKinney's attorneys claimed gay panic in their defense," the letter began. "Aaron and Russ were quite familiar with gay guys and had frequented gay bars. They became aware of the fact that they had a valuable asset in their pants, and that gay guys would give them shelter, food, and money in return for a few minutes pleasure." The letter also named some mutual acquaintances of Matthew and Aaron, suggesting the two had known each other before the night of the crime, and casting doubt on the pickup-gone-wrong narrative that had been presented in court. Jimenez spent the next thirteen years researc

Writer and activist Janet Mock was living a successful life, working as a journalist, outside the spotlight, until a friend recommended her for a profile in Marie Claire magazine. The article's publication had consequences that changed the course of her work, and life. "I didn't plan the role model part of it or the advocate part of it," she explains. "I think that all just kind of started. I realized after the piece came out that there was such a hunger to hear more about young trans women of color experiences. I think my writing just kind of went there because I think there was a need to hear more about that and I think there was also a need within myself to share more about parts of myself that I'd kept silent for so long." Janet's still a writer, but now she's also an activist - and one of the most recognizable faces in trans advocacy. In many ways, she's become the role model she herself didn't have while growing up. "People often say that I'm a role model," she says. "

To speak to Gert McMullen about the origins of the AIDS Memorial Quilt is to go back to a scary, sad time in LGBTQ history: San Francisco in the early 1980s. "People were terrified," she explains, "because they didn't know what was happening. People were just dying. They were trying to figure out, why were these gay men dying?" Gert lost many of her friends in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, and thanks to the fear and stigma surrounding the disease, she was often their only visitor. "You would go into the hospitals and there was nobody there and the nurses would put you in a moon suit, basically, to walk in there, because they didn't know what was going to happen," she recalls. No one understood how the disease was transmitted, so many people were afraid to come into close contact with their afflicted loved ones - even during their final days. "I remember a friend of mine who was so lonely and I just kind of touched him, and he just went, 'Oh my god, it's been so long s

Earlier this month, 7-year-old Tiana Parker was told that her locs were considered an unacceptable hairstyle in her African-American charter school. Word quickly spread among black feminist scholars, including friend-to-the-show Dr. Yaba Blay. What followed was a testament to the power of black women to uplift each other and celebrate the beauty of black girlhood. Dr. Blay assembled a care package for Tiana which quickly got attention from thousands and thousands of people online, and has now been crafted into an e-book for black girls. Dr. Blay joined us this week to tell us what moved her about this story, and how the project came to fruition. And in our Juicy Fruit segment, we talk about the South Carolina church whose black pastor requested that only white people be church greeters, and The Talk host Sheryl Underwood's disparaging comments about black children's hair (why did everyone decide this is the month to come for black babies' hair?).

This week, Frankfort became the fifth Kentucky city to pass a fairness ordinance, protecting LGBTQ folks from discrimination! We talk about it in our Juicy Fruit segment, along with the strange case of Tyler Perry laying hands on T.D. Jakes, and what #DonLemonLooksLike with his new haircut. In our feature interview this week, we spoke with sex therapist Dr. Joe Kort, who got our attention with his recent article, Why Some Straight Men Are Romantically or Sexually Attracted to Other Men. In it, he shares a whole list of reasons why this phenomenon might happen. These reasons are by turns predictable (they're in prison with no access to women), poignant (they seek to replace the affection they didn't get from their fathers), hilarious (narcissism!) and taboo (we're pretty sure this is the first time the word cuckholding has been uttered on Strange Fruit). It was a fascinating conversation and Dr. Kort shed some light on a lot of things. Let us know what you think, Fruitcakes. Have you encountered straight men l