Bookin' It in 2022

I finished 20 books in 2022.  The titles in bold were particularly influential, inspiring or intriguing.

1. Cack-Handed: A Memoir by Gina Yashere 
2. Can Black People Grow Hair? by Andrea Krystal 
3.  Call Us What We Carry: Poems by Amanda Gorman
4. Rainbow Warrior: My Life in Color by Gilbert Baker
5. Beyond the Gender Binary by Alok Vaid-Menon
6. High School by Sara Quin & Tegan Quin
7. Femme in Public by ALOK
8. Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving Extremism by Megan Phelps-Roper
9. Unprotected: A Memoir by Billy Porter
10. Your Wound / My Garden by ALOK
11. If You Give a Pig the White House by Faye Kanouse
12. Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity Edited by Micah Rajunov and Scott Duane
13. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts 40x40: Bad Reputation / I Love Rock-n-Roll
14. Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America by Michael Eric Dyson
15. Bearing My Seoul by Taryn Blake
16. The Little Book of Pride: Love Is Love by Joanna Gray
17. Love Lives Here: A Story of Thriving in a Transgender Family by Amanda Jetté Knox
18. Enter the Blue by Dave Chisholm
19. Wolfpack: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game by Abby Wambach
20. Saint Peter and the Goldfinch: Poems by Jack Ridl

Quote of the Day

I have always said, it's easy to be who you are when what you are is what's popular!  I chose myself in the face of nothing.  And after a time, a very long time, the world has begun to lean in with me.  My prayer is that anyone who lives in fear of their truth being maligned by outside validating forces will find, through seeing the manifestation in my life quest, the ultimate peace that comes with living one's personal truth unapologetically.  Always believe in yourself.  Always choose you first, no matter the cost, for in due season the light and the joy of living a glorious life will be revealed -- and I am living proof that when you dare to dream the impossible, impossible dreams do come true.

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 274

Quote of the Day

I have learned a lot about livin' in my time on this earth, and the more I think I know, the less I can comprehend.  But this I know for sure -- when one's intention is shifted from the egoic state of man to the intention of service, all the rest will work itself out.  Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Maya Angelou, and Iyanla Vanzant told me that!  Over twenty years ago, when I heard these ladies speaking on the power of this radical truth, I peered at myself in the mirror and asked, "How can I truly be of service in an industry and, quite frankly, an entire planet that is inherently narcissistic?"  In a moment it hit me like a ton of bricks: Your service is leaning into your truth, your queerness, your authenticity. 

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 274

Quote of the Day

We are the people, we as artists are the people that get to change the molecular structure of the hearts and minds of the people who live on this planet.

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 273

Quote of the Day

Who we are and how we live is still a bit of a mystery to many.  They don't see it, so they fear it ... I don't even have the words to describe how it feels.  What it feels like to be loved.  To have support for your love.  To receive it like never before.  I've never felt it.  I didn't know this is what it's like.  I'm trying not to be mad that "they" got to withhold it from us for so long.  And for what...?  'Cause The Bible told them so.  The Bible gave them permission to hate.  To treat another group as less than.  I hate hate.  I really do.  And it takes everything within me not to hate these people in return.  But LOVE has to win.  We have to be the change we want to see.  We MUST.  And now I get to do that with my soul mate.  The love of my life like no other I've ever experienced.  The Porter-Smiths are getting ready to change the world!

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 249

Quote of the Day

We got our marriage license yesterday.  That was an emotional experience I wasn't anticipating.  It hearkens back to that idea that all this time we've lived with the painful reality that our love didn't matter.  That our love was somehow less than theirs.  That their straightness made their love superior to ours, and I believed them.  I didn't know I was believing them, but my actions in past relationships reflected just that.  Lack of belief in it.  Nothing and no one around to support it.  I tried to be strong and act like this was not the case, but what else could it be?  My heart has been cracked open in a way I've never seen or ever felt.  It's a beautiful feeling and I don't ever want it to go away.  For the first time in my life, I feel safe.

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 248

Quote of the Day

I waited for 47 years for somebody to have the courage to speak our collective gay truth to (Kim Burrell's) theoretical power.  Now I realize it is I who must give voice to the voiceless.

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 247

Quote of the Day

This [homophobic] posture is nothing new from the gospel music world.  I'd simply gotten very used to separating the message from the messenger.  The morning of December 30, 2016, was the day all of that ended for me.  No more separating.  I had stood by and stayed silent on this issue for years, hoping that the church would evolve.  But I saw that evolution is not what religious folk were in search of, so it was time to disengage from those who sought to destroy me.  Kim Burrell's lashings felt personal this time.  And disingenuous.  Because, as many folk brought to light in the subsequent overall cancelling of Ms. Burrell that came very swiftly and was very exacting, she was fine with the faggots when it served her bank account -- note her duet with the out musician Frank Ocean.  And while the cancel/consequence culture let that bitch fully have it -- she lost her radio show; Ellen canceled an appearance that was to happen the following week, where she was supposed to sing a duet with Pharrell [Williams] in support of the film Hidden Figures -- her betrayal gutted my soul, because it was us, her mainly Black, LGBTQ+ fan base, who supported her.  We didn't care that she had an obesity issue, which incidentally is directly connected to one of the Seven Deadly Sins.  Gluttony!  And yet, we loved her and supported her unconditionally.  Fuck that!  Many celebrities released statements condemning Ms. Burrell's hate speech.  Pharrell wrote, "I condemn hate speech of any kind.  There is no room in this world for any kind of prejudice.  My greatest hope is for inclusion and love for all humanity in 2017 and beyond."  Good luck wit dat!

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 246-247

Quote of the Day

My art is my calling, my purpose, dare I say my ministry, and I will proudly and unequivocally use my platform to "preach" the gospel of truth and love for as long as I have breath in my body.  Because, truth be told, as we have seen the events of the last five-plus years unfold, there is still half of our country who doesn't get it.  There are still factions of hate all over the world who believe in absolute, male, straight, white supremacy power, in perpetuity, at any cost.  Our job as artists and storytellers is to teach and, when necessary, preach the gospel of true humanity in all its forms.

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 240

Quote of the Day

The horrifying images of Minneapolis white police officer Derek Chauvin pressing his knee on George Floyd's neck for 8:46 has been running on a loop nonstop on my television screen and in my mind for days now.  I'm tired.  I've had enough.  We've all had enough of this.  Four hundred years of the same shit.  Every day of my life I live in fear for it.  EVERY DAY of my life my humanity has been up for legislation.  And we're supposed to just sit down and shut up.  We are at a tipping point, and Orangina 45 and his cronies know exactly what they are doing.  Create dissent.  Create division.  Create chaos and watch it all burn and then blame Black people for having a response.  We are tired.  We are enraged.  I'm so mad I don't know what to say.  I'm so enraged that I have a hard time speaking because all I want to do is scream.  All I want to do is rage.  All I want to do is burn it all down.  Dismantle the entire system and let the chips fall where they may.  I don't know how else to do it.  They pushed us, once again, to the brink of insanity.  Every day of my life I have to make myself smaller so white folks will feel more comfortable.  I'm done doing that.

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 197

Quote of the Day

As for my biological family, my absolute and unequivocal extraction from the dangers of their lack of understanding of me and thereby their inability to love me unconditionally was my only path to survival.  The Bible had become the breaking point, and I was no longer interested in believing in something that didn't believe in me.  Sorrowfully, with much pain and sacrifice, I cut organized religion out of my life.  And when I say I drew a line in the sand, I mean -- fo' real, fo' real.  I stopped going home to Pittsburgh for holidays.  Hell, I stopped going home to visit, period!  I had already had one foot out the door for a decade, but I held on to the hope that my community would choose love over fear.  Most didn't have the tools.  So I bounced.  I have discovered in recent years that there was a lot of collateral damage in the wake of my decision.  At the same time, I have observed how many of my family members and extended members of the community have evolved.

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 173-174

Quote of the Day

... good people are dying for no reason.  People I know, people who are my friends, people who live by the principles of Christ more than any of y'all up in this sanctuary.  And all y'all holy Christians stood by and did nothing about the shit I endured at the hands and...cock of my stepfather, for five years, and none of y'all did nuthin', none of y'all saw nuthin'?  Nobody sensed that anything was wrong with a twelve-year-old riddled with stomach ulcers?  Nobody thought to pry, to ask me why?  Nobody thought it strange that I had nodules on my vocal cords at thirteen and couldn't sing for six months, couldn't speak for the first three?  Nobody?  'Cause the Holy Ghost is gonna fix it?  And I'm the sinner?  Pastor up here having a Saturday afternoon delight in his back study with my mother's best friend, and when they get caught, Pastor literally with his pants down, she has to apologize in shame in front of the entire congregation while he sits on his pulpit-throne with no accountability or consequences required or applied.  I see y'all.  I see alla y'all.

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 103

Quote of the Day

My past had cured me of my desire to receive validation or care from the so-called saints of my congregation or any man-made religiosity.  I looked around at twelve years old and realized there wasn't an adult in my life who was equipped with the tools to help me, support me, see my pain, see my abused and wounded soul.  No, not one.  So by nineteen, operation "save-a-sissy" was in full swing!

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 102

Quote of the Day

I was on the road to reconciling my gayness with the hate spewed from the bully pulpits of my childhood ... I learned early on that questioning religion garnered two abrupt responses: shaming and/or banishment.  I had already been shamed and banished for asking a question about the reach of God's love in Sunday school class when I was ten, and wearing a green afro wig and singing an Aretha Franklin tune at Kennywood park when I was fifteen, so there you have it -- no love lost.  I actually enjoyed the unspoken exile.  I count myself as one of the lucky ones, one of the ones who broke free from what very often can be a life's worth of debilitating stagnation.  I've seen it.  I felt it happening to me.  The Christian othering, the soul-salvation bullies.  The shame that keeps one bound up in a prison of their own mind for a lifetime.  The hypocrisy of church folks was dangerous and deadly to me, and I could see that fact plain as day.

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 101

Quote of the Day

For eight years we had a Black president.  I still have a hard time believing that actually happened.  And this post-Obama-lyptic blacklash is in direct response to the fact that white folks had to take orders from "the nigger" for eight years.  And yes, I said nigger!  'Cause their actions say it all!

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 96

Quote of the Day

It's been an inexpressible privilege to star in Broadway shows and on a hit TV series.  I feel deeply honored to have won my Tony, Grammy, and Emmy awards.  But every day I remind myself that nothing matters more than extending the legacy of the angels in my life.  It's my devout conviction that if I'm not enabling and encouraging the underprivileged and the vulnerable, then I haven't justified their confidence in me, and I haven't done sufficient justice to their gifts.

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 51

Quote of the Day

Now, after being at Florence Reizenstein School and around white people for the first time, I started to realize how poor my family was and how much I didn't have.  I also realized how rigid and restrictive my church community was.  When you've never experienced an alternative to your own culture or circumstances, you don't always know there's something else outside of your bubble -- that a different way of life is possible.  But now that I'd been immersed in another kind of environment, and the opportunities that came with it, I made the conscious choice to stay in the light.

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 40

Quote of the Day

Though I could not have articulated it back then [as a child], not even to myself, my fixation on fashion went deeper than mere aesthetics.  I sensed that clothing was a potent signifier -- that its import went beyond its visual appeal.  Later I would come to understand that the finery donned by Black churchgoers was a powerful form of resistance.  Many of them were employed during the week as domestic servants, or security guards, or custodians, and were required to wear uniforms meant to reinforce their status as less-than.  To dress impeccably and regally on the Lord's day, then, was to insist on their own dignity and worth in a world that sought to systematically strip them of both.  It was a way to assert that they were God's children too, and in His house, they would adorn themselves in a manner befitting the glory of the Lord!

-- Billy Porter, Unprotected, p. 2