Has Facebook Live changed the game? Yes. In Minnesota, Diamond Reynolds, the girlfriend of the Philando Castile, went live on Facebook and actively reported the developments of what happened after her boyfriend was shot while sitting in his car at a traffic stop. In a way that was impossible before, the world had the chance to tune in to a situation in real time. The suffering of Castile was broadcasted across geographies and personal friend networks. Some persons on my ‘homefeed’ have taken Facebook Live as a chance to “drop wisdom” as they wait on the bus, talking about the economy or poor customer service. I have seen two videos so far of persons holding their phones in selfie mode, just before they head to sleep, looking at the camera in silence with an unbelievable number of persons viewing and commenting. What makes Facebook Live unique in 2016 is the immediate engagement between community and content creator as the content is being broadcasted. No theatre hall, no City Gate hot spot of traffic, no auditorium, Facebook live is a new room for a new audience and of course new personalities.
On Sunday 11th September, the all-white party, “Ciroc the Boat,” hosted by Scorch, had a grand closing of a fight that moved from one location to the next involving some women, at least one man, and a Samsung phone as the weapon of choice. By Monday, the video went rival and received well over 1,000 shares on Facebook. LoopTT headlined the news story as “All-white boat party turns dirty.” The situation later made the evening news. The Facebook noise did not concern itself with the lack of security and police intervention after the fight; instead, the concern was with the “ghetto elements” penetrating this elite party group. The fight became a hot topic for radio hosts for some announcers days after. The bacchanal story brought into focus two major personalities – Rachel Price and Rankin Kia Boss.
PureTT got into the game early and facilitated an interview with Kia Rankin Boss who publicly challenged Rachel Price on a Facebook Live video, and famously described her as a “pommerac with two little foot.” According to Rankin Kia Boss, she was upset when she was informed that the comedian and media personality, Rachel Price, asked “if de man gay, call een and tell meh if he gay.” Rankin Kia Boss says that the man who was the subject of discussion is her brother and she therefore had to respond to Rachel Price. “I come out for she too and de drama start,” she said. Rankin Kia Boss had 34, 856 followers (as at September 18, 2016) and mobilised large sections of support for their social media engagement. Part of it has to do with the high entertainment value of her standard West Indian cuss out for all to see, part of it has to do with the spectacle of a public dialogue led by a transgender person from Trinidad and Tobago which is not common (in the media for public consumption), and part of it has to do with the dramatic chord she strikes in here feud with the widely known and popular Rachel Price.
In a way we have not seen before, not Saucy Pow, not Jowelle De Souza’s highly visible political campaign for MP San Fernando West, the talk of “gay, transgender, lesbian, macomère” has been happening at a national level with intense debate, reason, and a struggle to define terms of equality for sexual identities. Very very interesting, I must say.
On one hand, the positive to the Rankin Boss national dialogue is that an everyday yute’s perspective, voice and articulations are bringing wide audiences closer to issues of gender and sexual diversity. LGBT organisations throughout the Caribbean suffer from a lack of political legitimacy in a complex configuration. There are social class dynamics in the movement (as with others). Mobilising working-class LGBTQI communities, who experience several exclusions, including economic ones, challenge the ‘respectability’ politics of the day.
On the other hand, the unproductive part of today’s buzz is that the dialogue is happening in an oh too familiar context of bacchanal. Think about Pastor Stewart and Sister Agnes in the famous “Pastor Stewart” mini-episode of the Santana series. It is not the hypocrisy and fraudulent character of Pastor Stewart on trial, the comedy is about Sister Agnes’ sexuality under attack. And we all stand as onlookers laughing and crying “oooo goooooood.”
Rankin Kia Boss’s popularity does not correlate with an acceptance of her positionality. To a large extent, it is her “rankin” online that is nurturing her community and trending. Basically, a cuss out is good bacchanal entertainment to the average West Indian who has seen it happen in the market, on Charlotte Street, down Halfway Tree and on the buss stop after school. This bacchanal is rooted deeply in our culture in cultural forms such as the extempo and calypso. Shaming are part of these art forms.
The shaming can start on light matters such as the clothes you wear or how uneven your pancakes come out of a frying pan. It can escalate to heavy blows by attacking your gender performance, putting your sexuality out for public consumption and contempt, and by expressing homophobic, transphobic, and sexist tropes to demean you. The bacchanal for the past week done long time. What we hear is very sexist, transphobic politics that has been “outing” women in the public sphere instead of defending the persons you love.
Just because a viewpoint comes from a subject of an oppressed or marginal group does not mean that their politics is progressive or transgressive. Even when they disavow labels around their identity and claim to speak “facks,” we need to protect others from any harm. The “doh run slack,” “$250,000 vagina” is not merely a joke for Facebook chit chat, it is a discourse that throws up the vagina a site for empowerment but also virulent attacks and shame. Part of the rankin’ discourses is that “my vagina is better than yours” and such lines of argument draw on misogynistic and sexist tropes.
For this reason, in the case of Rankin Kia Boss who self identifies as a woman and explains the process of her sex change, she still articulates homophobic and transphobic tropes in her quarrel with Rachel Price. This has the possibility of producing gross stereotypes and making caricatures out of diverse and complex communities of LGBTQI people in Trinidad and Tobago.
What we do know however is that the heterosexist polity of Trinidad and Tobago creates limited avenues for free expression and being yuhself, if you ‘deviate’ from the norm. Acting wassy, being a wajang, cussin out and rankin are forms of gendered negotiations in a violent and oppressive culture. It’s like we enjoy the spectacle of a cuss out, and for a while, tolerate LGBTQI expressions and assertions in that moment. Is this the only way we will allow ourselves to see a community in public? And, when they are seen, are they also seen as valid people and communities?
What scholar-activists such as Carla Moore , in queering dancehall spaces, and Nikoli Attai, in his discussion “wajang femininity,” show us are the ways of seeing gendered social relations are always complex, contextual, shaped by our culture. The upcoming online Caribbean Review of Gender Studies special issue, edited by Dr. Sue Ann Barratt and Dr. Angelique Nixon, titled “Reading, Writing, Seeing Gender: Caribbean Voices, Identities and Politics in Media,” is timely.
A nation grappling with the difference between sex, gender, performance and self-identification is not something we should run away from, it is something we must confront with teaching, learning and respect for humanity. In my lifetime, I think we have grown more tolerant to the diversity of our peoples, but there is still room for more understanding. Understanding always leads us to steps in the right direction.
…I hear I does look like ah avocado with two foot… :(
