Discrimination at Giordano's - From Ana Castillo's Blog - & Some Thoughts On Aging & The Ageless
Reposting this for ronnie, who is sometime's here
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Friday, July 07, 2006
(Gay men asked to leave a pizza joint in Chicago...)
Hey again, everyone... Thank you for all your outstanding support so far. We are NOT going to let them get away with this. For the time being, I ask that everyone who reads this, and has anyone in their life who is gay, or who just believes in gay rights in general, please repost this as often as possible... I want the world to know that Giordano's Pizza flat out refused my friends and I service based on the fact we are gay men. Here's the post...
"Hey everyone... So a bunch of us (Jamie *me*, Joe, Adam, Matt, Kyle, Sebastian, Charlie, Cale, and three others) went down to The Taste tonight to see the fireworks display, and had our hearts set on eating at Giordano's pizza at the Prudential building...
We were seated, drink and food orders were placed, and we were waiting for our food, and talking amongst ourselves. Two of the people in our group, who are dating, had their arms around each other, and gave each other one simple kiss. Not but a minute later, the manager, Peter, was at our table telling us we needed to leave, because he did not want to see that in the resturant. He refused to serve our food, and essentially kicked us out for being gay men.
After a while, we realized he was most definately not going to serve our food, so we stood outside Giordano's, all of us with cell phones in hands, calling every media outlet in Chicago. I was only able to get a hold of Kiss FM, and I recorded a sound byte about the situation that I was told they would play it some time tonight. I think some of them got through to FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC, and CLTV, the Tribune, and The Sun Times. We also called two lawyers, and plan on calling the corporate office in mass this morning... I'm asking you as all my friends, please don't let them get away with this. We are in the 21st century, and we are still dealing with discrimination. PLEASE READ THIS BULLETIN, and repost it to get as much support on our side as we can... Thank you all! God bless!
You CAN make a difference! Help us get our word out... Repost this as much as possible, so that everyone can see it. The corporate office was closed this morning, but you can contact them using the following information...
Giordanza Pizza
310 W. RANDOLPH ST.
Chicago, Illinois 60606
Phone: 312-201-1441
Fax: 312-201-9216
Corporate Office:
Questions Regarding Orders - 1-800-982-1756
Consumer Questions and Concerns - giordano@giordanos.com
posted by Ana on 7/07/2006
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And while you're there, don't forget to read the rest, particularly Ana Castillo's account of a conference in Lisbon which she attended along with Amiri and Amina Baraka (beautiful pictures!) She doesn't take comments, but I'd love to see what anyone has to say about this. It's why I didn't go to Germany -- and Spain, several times after McDreary Madrid. It takes a lot of energy to get so derailed by someone else's porquerri'a, ya know? Reminds me of Barbara in NY, and myself, everywhere.
And read about Ana in her "Fabulous Fifties." Gracias, oh Ana de Aire (sorry I missed your birthday), for giving name. Yes, Fabulous Fifties. In this, T's birthday week retreat, I've been wanting to say to him: "Relax. Fifty is the new thirty. So there." Instead, I chime incessantly. "Hahahaha ha! I'm still younger than you! So there."
I relax. I do. I'm on The Cucumber's timeline. So there.
---------------------
Friday, July 07, 2006
(Gay men asked to leave a pizza joint in Chicago...)
Hey again, everyone... Thank you for all your outstanding support so far. We are NOT going to let them get away with this. For the time being, I ask that everyone who reads this, and has anyone in their life who is gay, or who just believes in gay rights in general, please repost this as often as possible... I want the world to know that Giordano's Pizza flat out refused my friends and I service based on the fact we are gay men. Here's the post...
"Hey everyone... So a bunch of us (Jamie *me*, Joe, Adam, Matt, Kyle, Sebastian, Charlie, Cale, and three others) went down to The Taste tonight to see the fireworks display, and had our hearts set on eating at Giordano's pizza at the Prudential building...
We were seated, drink and food orders were placed, and we were waiting for our food, and talking amongst ourselves. Two of the people in our group, who are dating, had their arms around each other, and gave each other one simple kiss. Not but a minute later, the manager, Peter, was at our table telling us we needed to leave, because he did not want to see that in the resturant. He refused to serve our food, and essentially kicked us out for being gay men.
After a while, we realized he was most definately not going to serve our food, so we stood outside Giordano's, all of us with cell phones in hands, calling every media outlet in Chicago. I was only able to get a hold of Kiss FM, and I recorded a sound byte about the situation that I was told they would play it some time tonight. I think some of them got through to FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC, and CLTV, the Tribune, and The Sun Times. We also called two lawyers, and plan on calling the corporate office in mass this morning... I'm asking you as all my friends, please don't let them get away with this. We are in the 21st century, and we are still dealing with discrimination. PLEASE READ THIS BULLETIN, and repost it to get as much support on our side as we can... Thank you all! God bless!
You CAN make a difference! Help us get our word out... Repost this as much as possible, so that everyone can see it. The corporate office was closed this morning, but you can contact them using the following information...
Giordanza Pizza
310 W. RANDOLPH ST.
Chicago, Illinois 60606
Phone: 312-201-1441
Fax: 312-201-9216
Corporate Office:
Questions Regarding Orders - 1-800-982-1756
Consumer Questions and Concerns - giordano@giordanos.com
posted by Ana on 7/07/2006
------------------------
And while you're there, don't forget to read the rest, particularly Ana Castillo's account of a conference in Lisbon which she attended along with Amiri and Amina Baraka (beautiful pictures!) She doesn't take comments, but I'd love to see what anyone has to say about this. It's why I didn't go to Germany -- and Spain, several times after McDreary Madrid. It takes a lot of energy to get so derailed by someone else's porquerri'a, ya know? Reminds me of Barbara in NY, and myself, everywhere.
And read about Ana in her "Fabulous Fifties." Gracias, oh Ana de Aire (sorry I missed your birthday), for giving name. Yes, Fabulous Fifties. In this, T's birthday week retreat, I've been wanting to say to him: "Relax. Fifty is the new thirty. So there." Instead, I chime incessantly. "Hahahaha ha! I'm still younger than you! So there."
I relax. I do. I'm on The Cucumber's timeline. So there.
posted by Lorna Dee Cervantes at 9:14 AM
1 Comments:
Many thanks for writing about Ana Castillo's post and linking to her blog. For me, what particularly stands out is the arrogance of certain U.S. academics and their role as "interlocutors of culture." The writer "of color" is invariably positoned as a non-intellectual figure who can only provide "trivial" experience of American life, one that is always detached from the universal life experience of white America. It takes the detached (white) academic to interpret that "void" -- that is, their articulation of their alienation, their separation from the "rest" of the American canon. It is not the writer ("of color") who is the separatist, but the (white, segregated) interpreter, the one who fails to make literature universal precisely because they cannot fathom versions of "America" that Gayl Jones refers to, invariably, as an "experiment." Quite fortunately, we have cultural producers like yourself and Castillo who can write about and document your existence on the page. Archive it and make it resonate with meaning to those whose readership does matter. Ultimately, one cannot ignore the fact that the problematic person mentioned by Castillo (who also has a Ph.D.) is not anthologized by Norton, unlike the two of you. And that's why we'll continue reading writers like you years from now.
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