Life is Hot in Cracktown

Were you concerned at all with getting any flack for playing a transsexual character?
I don’t really think my job as an actress is to be liked. I think my job as an actress is to tell stories about human beings; I felt like that is what was important. I went through similar things on “She Hate Me” — people are going to say what they are going to say, but I think my work is about honoring humanity. For me, as an artist, I don’t think it’s fair for me to say, “I’m going to tell honest stories about this segment of society and not this other segment.” I respect other people’s decisions to only tell certain stories and only portray certain characters. It might be different if I had kids, it might be different if I was just at a different point in my life but right now I try not to shy away from things because it might not make people like me — no matter what I do in life people are not going to like me for one reason or another. [Laughs]

There’s a perception that Black people are more homophobic than White people. What’s your reaction to that?
I think generalizations of any sort are dangerous. I’ll say, if that is the case — right now it’s an American issue. We’re dealing with Prop. 8 in California and it’s scary, it’s really scary. People don’t think about that fact that when Barack Obama’s parents had him — it was illegal for them to be married in several states in this country. So if we start making it okay that certain people can marry and other people can’t, it’s a slippery slop of civil rights. Who knows who is going to be allowed to marry or not marry next. I’m not interested in moving backward as a society. So whether it’s more prevalent or not in the Black community, I think as a whole American is dealing with the issue of homophobia. We got to be really honest about whether we believe in civil rights for all people or not. As Black people we need to remember the moment that we say it’s okay to disenfranchise one segment of society, we’re opening the door to move backward on ourselves.

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