Thursday, December 31, 2015

BILL COSBY CHARGED IN PENNSYLVANIA AND A REPOST: I'M STILL HERE AFTER THEY CAME FOR ME

When I first heard Bill Cosby was charged in Pennsylvania I was somewhere between angrily satisfied and relieved. Finally!" and "Good!" was all I had to say. Then a couple of hours later, when I driving alone in the dark, I found myself exhausted and sad about what was happening to Cliff Huxtable, America's First Black Fictional Father.

Usually, I'm all about facing reality. But this time, I find myself wishing two things:


1) That Cliff Huxtable was based on the real man Bill Cosby, that 14 then 60 women hadn't come forward to accuse him

OR

2) That Bill Cosby had gone to France or Switzerland, or where it was Roman Polanski went, to sit down and shut up forever more once "The Cosby Show" went off.  I keep thinking if he had just shut up about black boys with low hanging pants and black single mothers and stayed out of the news, Hannibal Burress would have forgot about him and so would the rest of us. We wouldn't have to know that jail is exactly where Bill Cosby belongs. 

And if Camille knew what he was doing? Helped him get the drugs etc? That's where she belongs too. As a feminist, I refuse to put women in the "innocent child" category. If she's an accessory, she is. That should be investigated too.

The both of them make me sick. The both of them make my heart hurt.


 REPOST BELOW THE LINE

*********************

Link to Part 1 - I'll be here when they come for me

Can I step into my wide ranging feelings about black female unprotectedness for a minute?



But before I do that. Let me say that I hope Ebony Magazine has some content to go with this cover.
 
More than that, I hope some of that content compares Anita Hill's treatment to Beverly Johnson's and allows that to show just how little black women are valued by a sizable portion black community. 

"If you give a woman -- or a man, for that matter -- without his or her knowledge a drug and then have sex with that person without consent, that's rape," Obama said Wednesday at a White House press conference.

I'm so grateful our black president and a handful of black men on my social media pages stood up to be counted as against drugging-and-raping on behalf of their daughters AND especially on behalf of their sons.


The hope I have for us to be united as a people was dimming until the very, VERY few, proud, and brave black people stood up for the women Cosby admitted to drugging...so as to have sex with them, taking away consent -a.k.a "rape."


I was beginning to think fake unity was going to overtake and engulf any true unity we might attain.



After watching so many black people

stand firmly behind Ray Rice's bullsh**,
while actually using the very same words
to defend the Rice knock out video
that white folks used
to defend the Eric Garner choke out video,
I had to realize that self-serving hypocrisy
is as colorless and gender-less as self-hatred.
  


ON A SIDE NOTE:
JAMES BROWN ON RAY RICE AND HEALTHY, RESPECTFUL MANHOOD
 


How does a black person with any sense of dignity at all ever utter the words, "Cosby wasn't found guilty in a court of law, therefore he's not guilty," AFTER - 

Trayvon Martin 
Rekia Boyd 
Eric Garner 
Mike Brown
 How does that leave the self-respecting black person's mouth, much less a black woman's? How?


Cosby drugging women so as to have sex with them, a.k.a rape, is a bitter pill to swallow. I know it is because I swallowed it myself.  And I knew I had to swallow that bitterness even as I knew I wasn't going to have much company.

In the black community, black women and what happens to them matters much, much less than the material success of a black man. I'd estimate that a very small fraction of black men and less than half of black women stood up for...

Anita Hill
Rhianna
Janay Palmer

or 
Beverly Johnson

 
...after they were attacked.


So few black people said "boo" after Rekia Boyd's murderer was set free that some black folk don't recognize Boyd's name to this day -- much less her murderer's name. And the few that did say "boo" about Rekia on my social media pages? They were nearly all black women.

To add insult to injury, immediately following the damn-near-no-protest for Rekia Boyd there was a protest you could see from outer space for Freddie Gray.  This is one of the many reasons why #SayHerName became so necessary a supplement to the black female created #BlackLivesMatter. 

Sandra Bland might have been the most public beneficiary of #SayHerName attention.  So there has been some good news on the black woman front this year. But the overwhelming trend in the black news shows that black women and what happens to them matters much less than the material success of a black man. So much less.

Even black children are worth practically nothing compared to keeping an example of shining black,  male, success up on a pedestal. I couldn't believe it when I heard ESPN commentators defending a black football player who was on video talking casually about DAMAGING his bandaged son (who is also in the video) after having a previous child abuse charge laid on him.

 

All of this is why "Bill Cosby was set up" claims should have been expected.   However, I am still trying to figure out how Cosby was "only" cheating on his "Queen," is okay for some folk.

This is the other excuse: The sex was consensual with all of them -- not a few of them, not most of them, all of them. Therefore he's not a rapist. Cosby is just somebody who repeatedly cheated on his "Queen" at Hef's place and any other place he might be able to drop a Quaalude into a drink unobserved. 


Those unaware of black female history think defense of white womanhood would have stopped Cosby from getting away with raping so many white women (as they pretend light-skinned women also accusing Cosby don't exist).
 Well I got news for you. Ida B Wells found out that white womanhood isn't worth THAT much.

Be in awe. Mark this year down in history.
 Large numbers of black men are pretending to
NOT SEE light-skinned women.
They only see white female accusers of Bill Cosby.
Must be a new strain of colorblindness.
At the turn of the 19th century, defense of white womanhood was trotted out as a beard for white greed so that foreign investors wouldn't be put off by the animalistic behavior of the white south. That is, when 300, 400 or 500 hundred black people, mostly black men, were being lynched per year at the turn of the 19th century, only 1/3 of the black men lynched were ever even accused of rape according to Ida B Wells (Author of the First Anti-Lynching campaign)  Also, according to Ida B Wells, half of that 1/3 accused of rape were likely in interracial relationships.


The other 2/3rds that were lynched were killed because they had some property or business a white man wanted. Other times the lynchings took place for the pure, white, male pleasure of extracting a feeling of power over something as trivial as a black man "mouthing off."



In other words, white women weren't valued highly enough in 1800s and 1900s to justify very much lynching on their behalf. They were only valued enough to cover up lynching. 
And white women sure weren't valued enough in the 1960s, 70s, 80s etc. to fuel a rape conspiracy against a black actor (not a black president) that stretches over an entire country, over several decades, over more than one ethnicity -- most of the women no darker than his extra, extra pale wife, Camille. 

Pssst! Am I the only to notice that Tiger and Bill have the same taste in women? 



More important than anything else is the fact that white women weren't valued enough for the white men making millions off  "I-Spy," Bill Cosby Stand-up, "Fat Albert," and "The Cosby Show" to turn his dollar-sign green @$$ over the police. 


Sexism plays a huge role in white men covering for black Bill too.   


Slut-shaming was 100% successful inside and out of the Playboy Mansion heyday of the 1960s and 1970s. Hef and Cosby hung out there regularly.  There existed in the cultural consciousness of the mid-20th century "the girls that do" (have sex outside of marriage) and "the girls that don't" (have sex out of marriage). That were actually multiple sayings based on "the girls that do" versus "the girls that don't."  Virginity was like a prize that a "good girl" was supposed to hold onto for her husband. As for the ~girls that did~ in 1960s and 70s? They were seen as getting what they deserve if they were out late, having the audacity to have a drink--even rape. 
(Watch a 1970s Jaime Lee Curtis slasher movie if you really want to see how expendable "the girls that do" were)


 
In the 1980s, men were still arguing about whether date-rape was even a real thing.  In many men's eyes, if a woman agreed to go on a date with a man and then let herself be alone with him, she was assumed to want sex -- even if he ripped her clothes and knocked her around a bit as rough foreplay while she screamed "No!"

 Slut-Shaming-On-Steroids having been allowed to pass as "normal" American culture is also one of the reasons why Cosby, and any other man with access to a microphone, could tell rape jokes with impunity not so long ago.

Back in good ole days of "Spanish Fly" a man could get away with rape, call it "let the drinker beware," then laugh it off with his buddies  later.

 


Some black folk have tried to say, "Times were different back then. It wasn't considered 'rape' back then. People just didn't know any better."  


Well guess what?


White people try to say the very same garbage about slavery.


And I say, "Immorality being popular doesn't make that immorality not exist. People who were born two decades, five decades, or twenty decades before you are not simple-minded children to be excused no matter what heinous act they commited because they didn't know any better. Anybody over the age of 5 knows when they are hurting someone else. Those that don't are called 'sociopaths' whether born in 1650, 1750, 1850, or 1950. So I'm not letting white people get away with calling their grown, slave beating ancestors 'children who didn't know any better back in the old days.' And I'm not letting people get away with calling their women-raping-men 'children who didn't know any better back in the old days' either, not even if those men are black."   

Like anybody else though, I truly hope we can separate Cliff Huxtable from Bill Cosby and enjoy the Cosbys again.  I loved the Cosbys like they were real.  I might remember the personalities of the characters better than some co-workers I've left behind at jobs that I had in my teens.  The Cosby Show managed to become a part of Americana. And I think they deserve to stay a part of our cultural history despite the despicable things that have come to light about the lead actor.

I hope, one day, we can all forget Bill Cosby and remember Cliff Huxtable.
 I think I'd feel that way even if The Cosby Show wasn't the First Black Family of television. Maybe not. But I think would. I suppose I'll never be sure of that.


I've felt heartbroken over having to give up the Cosbys. I haven't even tried to watch an episode since this story broke.  But I think I might have IF Cosby's face hadn't become symbolic of misogynoir in my head.

Bill Cosby, the actor, is upsetting me a lot less than the protectors of Bill Cosby at this point. Bill Cosby is what he is.  It's unlikely he's going to trial or to jail. I've come to accept that after all this time. But I have to have more hope going forward for the black community than that.  I can't just the black community is what it is, full of way too much misogynoir, and keep it moving.
 

The defenders of Bill Cosby being so numerous, mean my sisters and I aren't safe, not even from other sisters, because the black male predators among us are now being held as sacred in the black community -- in ways they were not a century ago.

And think about this for a minute or ten:  Cosby is being protected for very much the same reasons that Ben Affleck protected his slave owning ancestor, isn't he? White folk don't want to disrupt the hero worship with the truth and we don't either  

Cosby is an actor.


I keep telling myself that's all Cosby is. He's just an actor. As I recall his pontificating about the inferiority of black teenagers who embarrass the entire race for having low hanging pants, I also recall that he failed 10th grade then joined the Navy, getting an equivalency degree or some such thing, later. He went on to get a solid education, but as Ben Carson has repeatedly proved, even brain surgeons can be idiots about the humanity of other human beings.


And what is a person that rapes women but someone who does not count the humanity of a woman as worth as much as his own?

Cosby had already told us that there are whole classes of black folk he doesn't count as equal to him.  And while I do understand that every respectability politician doesn't have to be a rapist, a respectability politician has already told you that this humanity over here is worth more than that humanity over there. In my mind, it's just a shorter leap from respectability politics to rapist.



I hope that Ebony covers all the rape accusations but pays special attention to how Beverly Johnson and other women of color have been stomped and/or ignored in favor of a man that has been known FOR AGES --by those calling their women "Queens,"  claiming   to be "all about strengthening the black family"-- to be cheating on his wife Camille multiple times a day, who has admitted to drugging women with a drug that can remove consent, which can be used to "rape."



Some people are worried about dragging black business in the street. To this I say, "HAH!!!!"  AND...


"I wish I would give a damn about people who don't give good gawd damn about  about protecting mothers, sisters, or daughters should that mother, sister, daughter or 'Queen'  have the misfortune to trust the wrong fatherly type of 'brotha' early in the morning, at noon, or late at night when that fatherly brotha offers them something to drink.

 I'm not going to be silent anytime, anywhere for those say "Queen" then routinely go about throwing me and mine under the bus.  I have tire tracks up and down my back and across my forehead. I'm done. 




Dear Rapists Who Don't Consider Themselves Such,



Your days are numbered.


Your raping days are numbered


Your covering for your rapist pals are numbered


The black men that actually deserve to be called  black MEN are slowly standing up to be counted, leaving some of you out in the little boy wanna-be-rapist cold.


The black men that actually deserve to be called black MEN are going to claim "Silence Is Violence" as their mantra too. 
 

* * * * * 

Those who would say "Well Nobody's Perfect!!!" please save that nonsense for the next time a black man is beaten bloody by a white man.



Those who would say, "What about Stephen [white guy actor] who's a pedophile?" I say, "What about him?" Bleach your skin and move into whiteness if you wanna worry about how he is or is not being dragged and how much danger you're in. I'm not thinking about the white pedophile accusations because I already know those living comfortably inside white supremacy are out to get me. 

What I'm worried about now are the black people who will drive a knife into my back, through my body, and out of my chest if I dare to step off the Queen pedestal by having a drink late at night with someone black and male and not related to me then dare to accuse that black man of rape just because that black man raped me.  (It is beyond me how anybody can ask why 2/3rds(?) of these women didn't come forward sooner. They are being cut to pieces at time when Cosby isn't on top anymore.)

On Forgiveness:  I believe anybody can be forgiven anything ...even if I can't do it all the time myself. (Pedophiles and rapists are two examples.) Sometimes I can only pray for the willingness to be forgiving.  So I can say in all seriousness that I hope Bill Cosby finds peace AFTER he comes clean about what he's done (a.k.a. repentance), but not one second before then --same as I feel about certain white folks and white-supremacy-guzzling-wanna-be-s.

* * * * *



One day, black people are going to stand up for black women just like they do for black men. From what I'm reading, we've been a lot closer to this being the case immediately after slavery than now. But I hope the editors at "Ebony" magazine have just taken one little baby step back in the right direction.

.

.
.
.
.
An interview with Ebony Editor on the Controversial Cover


GERMANY AND FRANCE FORCE FACEBOOK AND TWITTER TO ADDRESS HATE SPEECH

Feeling Rebloggy
In October, a German prosecutor launched an investigation into three Facebook managers for allegedly “ignoring racist posts.”

In November, Germany launched yet another, similar investigation...into European head of Facebook Martin Ott, Facebook’s managing director for northern, central and eastern Europe...The prosecution said last month that Ott may be held responsible for his employer’s failure to remove hate speech...

Twitter, for its part, gave up a separate fight to protect racist users in July, agreeing to unmask posters of racist content on its French service when ordered by a Paris court to hand it over.

Maas told reporters on Tuesday that the deal with the [these] companies will ensure that the companies adhere to German law when policing hate speech, rather than their own internal policies.


~Sophos.com


YES, SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES CAN BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR CONTENT. READ MORE: 
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/12/17/facebook-google-and-twitter-agree-to-german-demand-to-delete-hate-speech-within-24-hours/

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

TAMIR RICE: WHITE PEOPLE SEE BLACK CHILDREN AS BIGGER, MORE THREATENING, AND OLDER THAN THEY ARE

"In one experiment, a group of 60 police officers from a large urban police force were asked to assess the age of white, black and Latino children based on photographs. The officers were randomly assigned to be told that the children in the photographs were accused of either a misdemeanor or felony charge. The officers overestimate the age of black felony-suspected children by close to five years, but they actually underestimated the age of white felony-suspected children by nearly a year."

Read More on "Why prosecutors keep talking about Tamir Rice's Pants Size"


I hope most of us knew this already -- not the exact numbers quoted, but the fact that white people see a big black guy when walking past them even if that man is, in reality, a 130 pound black man that's 5 foot 2 with the complexion no darker than Prince's.

That white officer assuming that Tamir Rice was a grown man despite the baby face Rice had wasn't even close to unique. I've walked past a group of four or five black and latino kids with a white person beside me then later listen to them relate to another white person how we walked past a huge gang, estimating the group's size at ten to twelve.

I believe white people multiply and magnify us due to their belief that we hate them back for racism. I believe that descendants of white slave owners, descendants of slave catchers, and descendants of poor white farmers that turned in runaway slaves are all battling Slave Master Mentality at some point in their lives


That is,
today's white people
 in the United States
are all descended from people who
believed it was right and natural
that out of control, violent black people
be controlled, owned and mastered by
superior white people. 

I think this mental deficiency has been passed down from white generation to white generation.  This combined with the fear of black revenge, for enslaving us, makes the white people crazy violent with fear. And if you are crazy violent with fear while also refusing to admit..
1) your fear of current revenge --that you deep down know your ancestors deserve,   

2) your cowardice,  

...then it stands to reason that, within your own mind,   you're going to make your adversary bigger and stronger than he or she actually is so as not to admit to yourselves that you are fearful cowards --fearful cowards afraid of your own history.  


In this context, the beating of Rodney King, the murders of Miriam Carey, Mike Brown, Natasha McKenna, Quintonio LeGrier, Bettie Jones, and Tamir Rice by scared-to-death white cops all make sense....to white juries, grand and otherwise.

In this context, it makes sense that blacks (enslaved in the past) and Native Americans (genocide-ed in the past) are the ones being killed by scared-to-death white cops at highly disproportional rate of speed even when they don't have weapons.    


Furthermore, it occurs to me that slave owning mentality is the difference between white people here in the U.S. and the white people in Europe -- which is why the same thing does NOT appear to be happening to black people across the pond. There is racism in these countries. Do not mistake me. Black and brown people just aren't being hunted by white cops like they're animals there -- as far as I can tell.  



Darren Wilson made out like Mike Brown --who was a big person in reality-- was a huge, superhuman demon and murdered Brown based on his own racist fears. "Demon" was the actually word this racist mental midget used. And this Officer Loehmann's testimony apparently did the same kind of magnification of Tamir Rice and a Cleveland grand jury has basically responded, 



"It's okay. We would have been afraid 
of the big black man too" 
even though 
he turned out to be 
a 12 year old child


Only when the shooter is white can and the jury is white can you play a horrific video over and over again and convince that jury that the person lying on the ground -- Rodney King or Tamir Rice-- is the one that provoked the violence. The white jury automatically understands without it very being said aloud that it was the black skin itself that was scary and life threatening.




This is the only way I can explain to myself how a white man rolls up on a 12 year old black child and kills him in 2 seconds ON VIDEO and the prosecutor (not some sort of defense attorney) makes it sound like an accidental O.K. Corral shoot out because two grown men with guns surprised each other.



In 2 seconds officer Loehmann didn't have time to THINK anything AT ALL. He just shot at black skin. Period.  He didn't even have time to assess if Rice was reaching for his weapon. He shot Rice too fast to assess ANYTHING. He should have gone to trial for that alone -- even if turned out, in the end, that there wasn't enough evidence to reach the standard of reasonable doubt.

Those two officers shouldn't have rolled up so close to someone they supposedly thought had a gun. Why would Loehmann get out and put himself in that kind of danger if they REALLY thought that boy was a danger to him?  White officers have told us again and again and again how afraid they are of us when we are UNARMED. Why did the driver roll up close to Tamir Rice and have Loehmann get of out of the car sans any sort of cover, and shoot?

I say that coward, Loehmann, wasn't afraid of a thing when he got out of that car. I say that idiot, Loehmann, has proven he's an idiot in multiple ways - on tests and via rejection from other police departments. But the Cleveland grand jury bought fear of black skin anyway.



Think about the conflicting stories on Tamir Rice from another angle - Tamir's motive. 
When the story was first told, Tamir was shot because he thought be a grown man waving a gun around on playground. Now, according to the prosecutor --NOT any sort of defense attorney-- according to the prosecutor we are to believe that Rice was not only a child, but a mentally deficient child who thought he could out draw a police officer and win ...with a toy gun. 


Mike Brown was supposed to be insane as well. Brown supposedly reached inside Darren Wilson's car and tried to grab Wilson's gun....for no reason other than he's black (who knows what THOSE PEOPLE are thinking) That's the story that the white folk believed when they let Wilson walk, right? This is only close to believable when you think black usually contains violent and crazy.



Worst than anything is this:

If the grand jury had seen through the prosecutor efforts to get the Officer Loehmann off by doing a Rodney King interpretation of the Tamir Rice video and indicted Loehmann anyway, this same prosecutor would have been prosecuting the officer during the trial going up against this cop's defense attorney.   That is, both the prosecutor and the defense attorney would have been working to get the officer off during the trial. 



Do you see how pointless the system is when the POLICEMAN'S CLOSEST ALLY, THE PROSECUTOR, is the one to sent to present a case to the grand jury? Why is this okay? You couldn't get a system more biased in favor of the police if the police officer and the prosecutor were two of three triplet brothers with the trial judge showing up as the third triplet.


I can't remember where the prosecutor stood in the Rekia Boyd case, but it was a Chicago judge that set her killer, Dante Servin, free. Michael Brelo, yet another Cleveland Officer, stood on a car hood and shot down into a car and killed two  unarmed black people, and it was the judge that let him walk as well.


These groups, police, prosecutors, and judges, work together daily to prosecute criminals. We expect that they're going to turn on one another when one of them "makes an honest error" (ha-ha) by mistaking one n-word for another n-word and kills him or her? Really?


The system is broken, and it's broken before you even add race and racism to it, in my opinion.
1) There has to be another entity that takes police murder cases to the grand jury. I think a special prosecutor, or some such person, should come from out of state. 


2) The grand jury process cannot be done in the dark anymore. No more secret grand jury. Let each juror make a decision in the light and live with it. 


3) There needs to be a process where judges can be called on the carpet and fired when their "judgment" is  blatantly unjust.


EVEN IF it had taken 32 seconds instead of 2 seconds for Officer Loehmann to shoot a child, on a playground, who was holding a toy gun -- it would have been worth it to go to trial to see what's what if the  cop, the would-be-prosecutor, and judge weren't routinely in bed together. 

If white racism were to disappear tomorrow we'd still have to fix this.



MORE ON HOW TAMIR RICE GRAND JURY PROCESS WAS TURNED UPSIDE DOWNhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/29/in-tamir-rices-case-the-grand-jury-process-was-turned-upside-down/

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER SAYS DON'T BLAME MY KIDS FOR SOCIETY'S ILLS

Today’s children have it harder than children of the ‘70s and ‘80s did when we were their age!

Much harder!



For one thing, we didn’t have high stakes standardized tests hanging over our heads like the Sword of Damocles to the degree these youngsters do. Sure we took standardized assessments but not nearly as many nor did any of them mean as much. In Pennsylvania, the legislature is threatening to withhold my students’ diplomas if they don’t pass all of their Keystone Exams. No one blackmailed me with anything like that when I was a middle schooler. All I had to do was pass my classes. I worried about getting a high score on the SAT to get into college, but it didn’t affect whether I got to graduate.

Nowadays, kids could ace every course for all 13-years of grade school (counting Kindergarten) and still conceivably only earn a certificate of attendance! Try using that for anything!


Moreover, my teachers back in the day didn’t rely on me so they could continue being gainfully employed. The principal would evaluate them based on classroom observations from time-to-time to assess their effectiveness based on what he or she saw them doing. But if I was having a bad day during the assessment or if I just couldn’t grasp fractions or if I was feeling too depressed to concentrate – none of that would affect my teacher’s job rating. None of it would contribute to whether my teacher still had an income.

Think of how that changes the student-teacher relationship Now kids as early as elementary school who love their teachers feel guilty on test day if they don’t understand...

TRULY SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
READ MORE:
https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2015/12/22/dont-blame-my-students-for-societys-ills/

Monday, December 28, 2015

NO INDICTMENT IN TAMIR RICE CASE


I fully expected there would be no indictment. The child just having a gun was enough for the cop to say "I was scared" and walk. We've seen cops be scared of cigarettes go buck wild during a traffic stop and keep their job.
"...it is now indisputable that Tamir was drawing his gun from his waist as the police car slid toward him and Officer Loehmann exited the car." ~ McGinty
Read More: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/28/461293703/grand-jury-declines-to-indict-police-officers-in-tamir-rice-investigation
Did you see that in the video? Did you see Rice reaching for his gun?  I didn't. And I'll bet I won't when we get to see the enhancement too. The power of suggestion is strong when you are white and the person at the wrong end of the bullet is black.


More important than anything though? If it had been a white child shot, the officer's shooting before he had time to determine a damn thing would have led to indictment even if didn't lead to jail.I think the only thing that mattered in the moment that Tamir Rice was shot was that Tamir Rice was black and maybe moved his hands toward his own body. There was no sudden surprising shoot out at the O.K. Corral between two grown men. A man got out of the car and shot a person in black skin, a boy, within seconds of seeing him. 

No indictment is what I braced myself to expect once it was disclosed that the boy had a gun within 100 feet of his person. I knew the system would be telling us that black lives don't matter yet again. So I'm not outraged. But I am tired.

Big decision between big holidays again too - minimizing the likelihood of protests once more.

We've got to find a way to make the grand jury process public. White people, all people, do things in the dark that they won't in the light. 






I can only hope that this is enough basis for the family to sue the city of Cleveland into bankruptcy



READ MORE: http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/01/timothy_loehmann_the_cleveland.html

1-800-WHITE-MAN PRIVILEGE HOTLINE by DENICE FROHMAN

DENICE FROHMAN


This woman's no joke




Sunday, December 27, 2015

COUNTING THE WAYS I LOVE "BEING MARY JANE" ON B.E.T.




1. Mary Jane is human. That is...

-she's kind, 

-she's gentle, 
-she's a ride or die chick loyal but sometimes fails
-she's bossy, 
-she loves hard but not stupid (for very long)
-she's judgmental, 
-she's right, 
-she's wrong, 
-she vacillates and equivocates,  
-and she walks softly and carries a big stick 
     to answer the front door at night (her baseball bat)
-AND when she's horny she's horny and she scratches that itch.

I know "being human" shouldn't be "a thing" But being black and female on three dimensional is so rare on television that it absolutely is "a thing."


2. Because of her character's job position as a television news personality, real life black current events can be introduced into the show via Mary Jane interviewing someone real like 'The Guerrilla Gardner.' He was actually a guest star and spoke on real issues.

3. Mary Jane, herself, is not always the most interesting character on the screen.  Her friends and family are going through some stuff . And sometimes when they are handling things badly or when they are handling things well -  divorce, depression, loss of custody of children- she, as the main character, has no answers. Sometimes Mary Jane is just there to listen. And when she does Mary Jane symbolically listens to black women (all women) everywhere.

4. When Mary Jane's niece talked about not being the right size or color to be attractive to black men, there was no neat Brady Bunch wrap up or conclusion-- just like real life. There was the niece coming to an ugly conclusion, bitter tears, hollow reassurances, and the scene ended on a down note-- just like real life. That made me unhappy at first. But it was so completely real, I couldn't really criticize it. I just couldn't.

5. Strong black woman doesn't live here, not in this series. Mary Jane hesitates when she should be moving. And sometimes she jumps ahead with her mouth when she should stop and think with her mouth in the closed position. And when people don't wind up being who she thinks they are, she cries and loses control. 


6. She does nerd things that are dear to my heart like having inspirational quotes all pinned up all over the place.

7. Her female friend and work partner Kara argue a lot but they always have one another's back in the end.  I swear, only feminists like Mara Brock Akil create female characters that have real fights over real stuff having nothing to do with silly misunderstandings and/or men.

8. Motherhood is examined from a variety of angles. Her relationship with her mother has turned out to be a lot more interesting than I thought it would. And one of the most powerful scenes I've ever seen about a woman and how she feels about being failing to be what society expects her to be as the female parent comes from Kara. And that's not tied up with a pretty bow either.

9. Race, class, and poverty and how these things impact one another is an undercurrent in this series. Mary Jane's family isn't quite a mixture of the Huxtables (The Cosby Show) and the Evans' (Good Times) But there's a mixture of earning potentials  and therefore questions about what success looks like in its various forms and also what one should or shouldn't be willing to do for money.   

10. The light-skinned black female characters look unmistakably black just like all the other characters. That is, most of the light-skinned women do not look like chocolate dipped white girls and/or puerto-rican or deliberately chosen for their racial ambiguity - like most of the paper bag test passing female characters in the movie "Dope" and half of the people in Lee Daniels' productions. 


I don't agree with all the conclusions and decisions the characters come to, but most everything in "Being Mary Jane" feels true to black female-hood to me. This series feels as ground breaking to me as the Mary Tyler Moore show was back in the 1970s.



CONCLUSION:  

Shonda Rhimes  and Kerry Washington have the political murders and melodrama thing going on

AND

Shonda Rhimes and Viola Davis have the ruthless murder mystery thing going on

BUT IT IS

Mara Brock Akil and Gabrielle Union that have created the most three dimensional black woman that television has ever seen. I feel like "Being Mary Jane" is televisoin history in the making. I'm hoping more people will see how special this series really is.

-----------


By the way, Gabrielle Union is wearing some kick@$$ dresses.

And there is such an eclectic selection of music being used in the series. It's not all black and female. But it is heavily female, quite a bit black, and some of the songs are from other countries.

I can't believed I passed on "Being Mary Jane" for so long.  I know why I did though.

A) I skipped it because I'd heard about Mary Jane's first boyfriend and the whole thing sounded a little too Olivia Pope to me (And I was still mad at myself for getting hooked on Scandal in the first place.) 

B) The first half of the pilot, "Being Mary Jane," the movie, seemed like it was going down stereotype lane with an ex-drug addict brother and a baby daddy chasing niece.  But these two characters, only two among many supporting characters, jumped up, turned around and did a split into 3 dimensional characters that I actually value more than I thought I would.  

So here I am
in the here and now.

I adore Mary Jane, her family, and her friends. And I can't wait to see what Mara Brock Akil, also the creator of "Girlfriends" does next.

Black Feminists Rocking In This Post


Mara Brock Akil

Shonda Rhimes

Kerry Washington
Viola Davis
Gabrielle Union


Saturday, December 26, 2015

A JOHN CANOE CHRISTMAS FOR EARLY BLACK AMERICANS

Feeling Rebloggy

O
n a Christmas morning in the late 1840s, the people on a cotton plantation in eastern North Carolina – like Oak Forest plantation, owned by my fifth great-grandfather, Reverend William Bellamy – would begin their day with a few random thumps rousing people awake.



The thumping would give way to music, from hide stretched over boxes, gourd rattles, cowbells, triangles, whistles and horns, all urging excited children to rise from cornshuck pallets and put on trousers covered in patches and gleaming white shirts or dresses made from homespun fabric dyed in false indigo, poke berries and onion skins.


Peaceful White Christmas Out Front
Black Slaves bringing food from cook house out back
The children would joined the crowd outside the rough log cabin quarters, clapping and singing, as a man emerged covered in strips of colorful rags, his head obscured by animal hides and topped off with deer antlers. As he moved in time with the makeshift orchestra... 


[This] was called John Canoe...



~THE GUARDIAN 





A "JOHN CANOE" CHRISTMAS WAS BOTH A REST FROM SLAVERY AND A REINFORCEMENT OF IT. READ MORE:   
 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/25/american-slaves-christmas-was-a-respite-from-bondage-and-a-reinforcement-of-it





Friday, December 25, 2015

CHRISTMAS DAY FREEDOM FIGHTERS OF 1837

Feeling Rebloggy




On Christmas day in 1837, the Africans and Native Americans who formed Florida’s Seminole Nation defeated a vastly superior U.S. invading army bent on cracking this early rainbow coalition and returning the Africans to slavery. The Seminole victory stands as a milestone in the march of American liberty. Though it reads like a Hollywood thriller, this amazing story has yet to capture public attention. It is absent from most school textbooks, social studies courses, Hollywood movies, and TV.



~Zinn Project 
via
Native Lives Matter


READ MORE: http://zinnedproject.org/2013/12/seminole-anti-colonial-struggle/

MERRY CHRISTMAS

God bless him Posted by Alice Douglas on Saturday, November 7, 2015

Thursday, December 24, 2015

MISSOURI STATE REPS PLAY THE ONLY RACE CARD THAT COUNTS


And the only race card that counts in this country is the white one.

Consider what you read below Slave Master Mentality in it's most political form.



Rep Kurt Bahr
Infuriated that black football players upended white supremacy by supporting  the hunger strike begun by Jonathan Butler at Missouri University(?) after the school's president and various white others failed to respond, yet again, to attacks by white racist students on campus, a couple of white republican Missouri legislators, let their slave master mentality  all the way out of the box.

Rep Rick Brattin 
Kurt Bahr and Rick Brattin  proposed a bill that would allow schools to take away scholarships from any players that participate in strikes or protests in the future. The bill also calls for punishing coaches that support players that strike or protest.

It'll likely never come to pass, due to freedom of speech issues and the fact that the idiots that wrote the bill assume that players are employees of the school (they aren't). But the white-racist-like attempt to limit black and brown people from having the same rights as other (read: white) students might hurt Missouri's colleges recruiting efforts in the future -- or maybe I just hope it does. 

"The bill proposed by Republican Rep. Rick Brattin last week in the Missouri House of Representatives would strip scholarships from any athlete who "calls, incites, supports or participates in any strike." Colleges and universities would be required to fine coaching staff members who encourage or enable such student protests...

Rep. Kurt Bahr, the co-sponsor of the bill, said his goal is to show that some state lawmakers don't approve of how University of Missouri administrators handled student unrest. Bahr said he hopes this bill fosters discussion between the legislature and university leadership"

~ESPN 

Hear More Of The Discussion Here
http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/14369127/missouri-legislator-proposes-bill-revoke-student-athlete-scholarships-strike

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

SANDRA AND SANDERS




Sandra Bland "would be alive today if she were a white woman," according to Bernie Sanders  



http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bernie-sanders-statement-sandra-bland

BILL COSBY SUES ONE OF HIS DARKEST ACCUSERS FOR DEFAMATION






"Cosby's lawsuit says [Beverly] Johnson joined other women making accusations against him to revive her waning career and to help sell copies of her memoir.




The lawsuit alleges defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress, saying Cosby and Johnson never spent any time alone in his house, he never drugged her and "her story is a lie."
 ~CNN


Gee, maybe he chose Johnson to accuse of defamation because he knows he didn't get past first base with her before she knew she was being drugged and took off. Therefore, he's absolutely sure she doesn't have a 30 year old stained dress stored in her mama's safe deposit box ala Monica Lewinsky.  



I don't know much of anything about Johnson. And I don't care one way or another about her. But we've seen exactly what Bill is



1) from his own words in "The Pound Cake Speech" 




2) from the co-stars who knew he was screwing anything that was pale, young, and looked like it wore a skirt once-upon-a-time while married to the ulta-pale Camille before, during, and after the filming of the wholesome Cosby show.



And we knew all this about him long before one woman said one word about drug-em and rape-em and also before Cosby, himself, admitted to why he bought the drugs.


He was not above seducing a young model by showing interest in her father’s cancer. He promised other women his mentorship and career advice before pushing them for sex acts. And he tried to use financial sleight of hand to keep his wife from finding out about his serial philandering.

Bill Cosby admitted to all of this and more over four days of intense questioning 10 years ago at a Philadelphia hotel, where he defended himself in a deposition for a lawsuit filed by a young woman who accused him of drugging and molesting her.





I really can't figure out how the women he "allegedly" attacked won't come out of the woodwork to back Johnson up. And I bet his attorney can't either.


In fact, Bill Cosby's attorney must be laughing all the way to the bank. Camille better have her own bank accounts after all these years.




 - - - - -

Black people who like to pretend they don't see skin shade faster than white folk pretend they don't see black skin may want to skip my Bill Cosby posts.

I ain't playin the white colorblind game OR the black colorism-blind game either. Both **just stop talking about it** groups irritate me equally. No, actually that's not true.

The betrayal and hypocrisy born out of the shame over our own group-level internalized racism bothers me more. The more black female history books I read, the more I see that colorism has changed very little in the black community...and for the very same reason white racism changes so slowly.

The cowards are the most committed in both groups and they scream the loudest. 'Just stop talking about it and it'll go away'

Yeah. Okay. 


Pretend you don't see how pale Camille is and how pale 95% of Cosby's accusers are even when they aren't white. I won't. That man doesn't have to shake a paper bag next to a woman's face, on camera, for me to know what's what with him. Shame on you, if you do.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=760207240680286&set=t.100000730507591&type=3&theater

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

TRAINING DAY FOR AMERICA'S SONS DANIEL HOLTZCLAW AND R. KELLY

File this under
#ALLblackLIVESmatter

Yes, We're happy Holtzclaw has been convicted for his crime but America should be convicted as well. This predator, as were many others, was systematically created

Feeling Rebloggy

"From where did Holtzclaw develop the notion that the bodies, voices, and lived experiences of low-income Black women would not be respected?

From whom did he learn that Black women's bodies could be violated without consequence?

What social cues, either implicit or explicit, encouraged Holtzclaw to target members of America's most vulnerable, silenced, and policed demographics?

[What social cues did the Los Angeles's Grim Sleeper,  pick up on that let him know he could hunt and kill 100s of black women without police or community really hunting for him for multiple decades?] 



Holtzclaw's conviction followed the celebratory welcome of infamous child predator R. Kelly’s appearance on BET’s Soul Train Awards show.  Both Holtzclaw and Kelly relied on similar tactics— made possible by centuries of abuse and devaluation of Black women—when targeting their victims. The unattested rape and exploitation of Black female bodies is deeply entrenched in this nation's history, and the devaluation of Black womanhood is a perpetual theme within the media, music, politics, and social justice movements. Holtzclaw is not an anomaly; thirteen was just his unlucky number..."
For Harriet



Read more: 
http://www.forharriet.com/2015/12/daniel-holtzclaw-is-americas-son-why-we.html#axzz3uspCzXif