Perhaps one of the best examples of
what alternative media can accomplish is the work of Dr. Kortney Ryan
Ziegler. An award winning filmmaker and the first person to hold the
Ph.D of African American Studies from Northwestern University, Dr.
Ziegler is a writer and a public speaker who devotes his attention
to gay/transgender issues, gender, racialized sexuality, and body
image. Gender plays a huge part in all his work because he is a
transgender man. It was in seeking representation in the media of the
struggles that he faced on a day to day basis that he sought create
that which he wanted to see.
This led him to begin a blog,
“blac(k)ademic”, in 2003. Ziegler focused on writing on the
issues that most interested him. His writing on the blog awarded him
the “Best Topical Blog” in the annual Black Weblog Awards and
despite the shut down of the original blac(k)ademic blog, it still
remains one of the “top ten blogs on race, sexuality and feminism.”
But he didn't stop there. Ziegler went
on to direct a documentary film to further explore the issue race and
its effects on transgender individuals. The documentary film “Still
Black: A Portrait of Black Transmen,” follows six transmen “as he
describes his relationship to himself, as well as others in his
life.” It is a documentary the with its “black images on the
white background play on the fact that issues concerning gender,
race, and sexuality, are not and cannot be discussed in black and
white terms.”
When one looks at the work of
Dr.Ziegler in “blac(k)ademic” one can understand the necessity
for alternative media such as this. Ziegler doesn't merely speak of
his own struggles as a transgender minority, he provides a door to
the issues of race and sexuality that our society is so comfortable
with not addressing. He speaks to those who may feel silenced,
telling they are not alone while also allowing others a different
perspective.
One may ask how his work fits into
women studies? Matter of fact is that there is no way his work could
not fit into women studies! Not only does he address issues of gender
inequality, women representation in media, patriarchy, etc. But he
has that unique vision of someone that has been on both sides of the
argument. Providing both the female perspective (Ziegler was born a
woman) and the male perspective adds insight to both sides of the
spectrum. But most importantly he gives voice to a third gender that
remains silenced in our society.
In one particular post made by Dr.
Ziegler in his new and reinvented version of “blac(k)ademic”
“Finding Strength in Fragility,” Ziegler recounts how he used to
accompany his grandmother to their “routine food stamp interviews.”
Ziegler raises issues of family, specifically to the issues
accompanying the argument of pro-marriage proponents on children
being raised by a single parent (which more often than not is a
single female of a minority group). He saturates his argument with
recollections of bonding with his grandmother during these trips,
this “intimacy” that he was allowed as he waiting where he was
privy to the epiphany that he “might have had to shield myself from
the shameful eyes if my classmates but it was her [his grandmother]
who carried the bigger burden of having ti defend her right to access
welfare as an unmarried black woman to the sneering eyes of the
larger judgmental society.”
:Finding Strength in Fragility” Post:
http://blackademic.com/finding-strength-in-fragility/
It is with observations like this, that
are infused with issues that predominantly affect women, that Ziegler enters the feminist sphere.
Whether this somewhat common issue of
bonding with a grandparent while standing on the food stamp line or
the media attention garnered by Top Model, Isis King, through her ad
that speaks to legalize gay marriage. Dr. Ziegler's voice is
successful not only because its unique but because there aren't many
like it. It is necessary because there simply isn't enough
representation of black transgender men, women or any race
transgender period. His messages are both for men and women, he
reaches out to both sides of the spectrum to bring awareness to
issues that affect all of us in our society.
General Website link:
http://blackademic.com/
Isis King Post:
http://blackademic.com/category/isis-king/
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