Nemo Siqueiros' "Finding Me" Radio Program
Finding Me was a program I started back in August of 2016 at KPPP-LP Fargo-Moorhead 88.1 FM Radio, which is actually run out of the home I live in. After graduating from Minnesota State University in Moorhead, I wanted to be a voice for queer people of color in the community amongst the majority of queer white voices that drowned everyone else out. However, in this conservative community, queer voices themselves are overpowered by whiteness, as queer discussion doesn't address intersectionality enough. This fits within the mission that the People's Press Project has asserted to give marginalized voices a platform. On this program, I focus on local community voices and new unheard voices on topics that the community won't touch or talk about due to concerns of politeness. This program is for their voices, their art, whether they are musicians or visual artists, their hopes, their fears, and even their questions and my answers from my perspective. People these days are under the assumption that their gender and sexuality are static or that they somehow can't change. But, on Finding Me, you will always be finding me, your host Nemo Siqueiros, to help find you.
On December 6th, 2017 at 5 P.M., I aired a show entitled “Hiding Behind the Rainbow” that addressed the central problem of defining sexual assault with studio guests Cindy and Duke Gomez-Schempp, station managers and operators of the station, and allies. In this show, I specifically discussed Kevin Spacey’s actions of hiding behind the rainbow after his assault of a minor surfaced in the media. Spacey’s “apology” was terrible, especially in the gaslighting exhibited via his “I don’t remember it that way” or “sorry you felt that way” narrative while also revealing his gay identity as a distraction from his actions. I firmly assert that rape, assault, and pedophilia does not belong in the queer community. Many people experience assault and don’t even realize it. Also, rates of sexual assault in the LGBT community, regarding statistics of gay men, bisexual men, lesbian women, and bisexual women are higher in comparison to heterosexual men and women. Even though the body may respond, this doesn’t mean that there was consent. Verbal and clear-headed consent is necessary. Women assaulting women, even if they’re cis, and without a penetration of the cis male sex, are still rapists or assaulters. On “Hiding Behind the Rainbow,” I therefore ended by addressing the important question: what is consent? To briefly answer, body language and words are crucial. If you’re drunk or the other person is inebriated/unconscious, or, in other words, not 100% there or is silent, there is no consent. It stands to reason that if both people are intoxicated, that both people don’t make the right choices or read the correct social cues. Just as drunk drivers are held accountable for injuring or killing another driver.
“Hiding Behind the Rainbow” aired weekly as a rerun at 5 P.M. every subsequent Wednesday until my following program with new content was released on the first Wednesday of the next month. Regarding the illustrated cartoon accompanying Finding Me, as well as the title of the show itself, Chelsea Lyons Kent is a figure running in progressive circles, is a felon in Florida, and was a Bernie delegate in Hawaii when she flipped the bird to the camera. She condoned sleeping with both men and women as well as assaulting them without their consent as being her "right." Whether she's bisexual or pansexual is moot, assault and rape are not okay. I compare this concept with Kevin Spacey and his assault of a minor, who came out as gay in his “apology.” I juxtapose these two as using the LGBT community to hide behind concepts of queerness as being "weird" or "taboo," which is inherently homophobic and transphobic and throws the community under the bus to reignite the false myths that LGBT folks are "perverse" and will "harm children." These are myths we've been trying to run from since the beginning of the first brick thrown by trans women of color at Stonewall.
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