Knipp as Shirley Liquor Charles Knipp, a white gay man, can perform a blackface minstrel and be rewarded by gay Americans to the tune of $90k annually. Someone has some explaining to do. Journalist, Jasmyne Cannick

Yesterday, in honour of Women's History Month and African-American women, activists launched BanShirleyQLiquor.com in an attempt to call attention to Charles Knipp, a self-described forty-five-year-old, fat, gay white man that performs nationwide as his alter ego character Shirley Q. Liquor.

Knipp describes Liquor as being "an illiterate welfare mother with nineteen kids who guzzles malt liquor and drives a Caddy." The character is favourite among his core audience whom Knipp described in Rolling Stone Magazine as being "gay men, their moms, and rednecks." While in blackface as Liquor, Knipp speaks in Ebonics and makes comments like "axe your mamma how she durrin" and mis-uses words like "ignunt."

Knipp is also known for mocking the black American holiday Kwanzaa and uses black faces to make fun of stereotypical sounding black names in a music video entitled, "Who Is My Baby's Daddy" where his character Shirley Q. Liquor tries to recollect the names of her "chirrun," "---Cheeto, Orangello, Chlamydia, and Kmartina--"

"Imus may have called black women “nappy-headed ho's,” but it's Knipp who routinely tries to bring that image to life onstage as Shirley Q. Liquor," commented journalist Jasmyne Cannick, from Los Angeles. "The hypocrisy is sickening. Isaiah Washington was unable to escape the wrath of gay America, but Charles Knipp, a white gay man, can perform a blackface minstrel and be rewarded by gay Americans to the tune of $90k annually. Someone has some explaining to do. This has gone on for far too long under the radar."

National black talk radio The Bev Smith Show on American Urban Radio Networks (AURN) dedicated its entire Monday, March 3 broadcast to the campaign to ban Shirley Q. Liquor and spread the word about his upcoming performances. The Bev Smith Show can be heard in Sacramento, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Augusta, Chicago, and more. AURN is the only African-American owned network radio company in the United States which reaches an estimated 20 million listeners.

"We believe that if Mr. Knipp is a true talent, he can find plenty of folks who look just like him to present in 3-dimensional caricature," read a statement from Smith's camp. "If he really is funny, then he can find more than enough insulting and stereotypical elements of his own group, their background, and their culture, to mock. He does not need ours.

A recent posting to Knipp’s website allegedly included the headshot of Cannick, edited atop the body of a naked and hefty-breasted woman. The statement continued: “Would Charles Knipp have done this to an AP journalist? Would the head of Mike Wallace or Cokie Roberts or Jorge Ramos be used this way without response from their respective communities? We think not."

Knipp is scheduled to perform in Miami Beach at EXXXOTICA Miami Beach April 17th and 18th, San Jose Gay Pride Week June 14th and 15th, Memphis, Tennessee, at gay nightclub Backstreet Memphis and in New Orleans Labor Day Weekend, just blocks from where displaced African-Americans are still living in trailers.