Moni’s Ground Rules

Hello Feministe!

I’m Monica Roberts, AKA the TransGriot for those of you who have yet to be introduced to my writing either at my home blog, the Bilerico Project, or various places such as Racialicious, What Tami Said or Womanist Musings.

For the next two weeks I’ll be guest posting here thanks to the gracious invitation extended to me by the Feministe editing team.

So that we have a relatively smooth period of discourse here, I’m going to lay out the basics of my thought processes, my beliefs and my pet peeves.

I am a Texas born, African descended liberal progressive trans woman who grew up in the 70′s. I’m proud of my Texas and African roots and being a Phenomenal Transwoman. The way I look at issues is unapologetically filtered through a chocolate tinted prism.

To borrow the words of the late African-American DJ Jack ‘The Rapper’ Gibson, I’m tellin’ it like it T-I-S is.

Translation- I’m brutally honest and straightforward with my opinions on various issues of the day, so what I put on this electronic page is what I think and believe, and I stand behind every word of it.

I’m not into sugar coating crap to make it palatable for people. Some of what I write about is going to make people uncomfortable.

But to quote the late poet Gwendolyn Brooks, “truth tellers are not always palatable. There’s a preference for candy bars.’

That’s a nice segue into the next rule of mine. I borrowed it from my Canadian homegirl Renee, and if you haven’t heard it, here it is.

If it ain’t about you, don’t make it about you!

When I write about issues, I think in broad terms and rarely use the word ‘some’ unless it’s absolutely necessary.

You’re a bright bunch of people here at Feministe, so I know you can discern for yourselves that whatever critique I write over the next two weeks is aimed solely at the people who exhibit said behaviors.

When I talk about racism, it is with the racism= prejudice plus power formula in mind. Racism is NOT an individual act, it is a systemic one.

I embrace the definition of it as prejudice combined with power (economic, social, military or police) used by the majority group or individuals within the majority group to retard the social. political or economic forward progress of a minority group or persons within that minority group.

As a child of educators I abhor ignorance. If you wish to rationally debate me, bring it on. But note I said RATIONALLY debate me.

Oh yeah, I get to define rational..

And finally, I have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic comments.

If you try Moni on this and think you’re slick enough to slide some racist reference by me, don’t. I will not hesitate to have you banned.

So now that I’ve laid out my ground rules and a sense of the person behind the monitor, hope you’ll enjoy the thought provoking and discussion stimulating posts I have planned for you over the next two weeks.

But my goal here, as it is at TransGriot and anywhere else you’ve seen my writing on the Net, is to get you to think.

Looking forward to an interesting two weeks