DELUSIONS OF OWNERSHIP

COLIN KAEPERNICK COMMUNICATES TO WHITE PEOPLE NOT GONNA LET YOU KEEP LYING TO YOURSELVES

I'M NOT GOING TO LET YOU
KEEP LYING TO YOURSELVES
ABOUT HOW YOU
REALLY BELIEVE THAT 
ALL MEN AND WOMEN
ARE CREATED EQUAL
WHILE 
BLACK LIVES MATTER
SO LITTLE
THAT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY 
BLACK LIVES NEED TO MATTER TOO

"I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag. I know that I am a black man in a white world."

~Jackie Robinson, 1972

  

Background:  In case you've been living under a rock. Two black people have faced loud white criticism for not standing or saluting during the national anthem.

The first was Gabby Douglas, who looked to me like she just zoned out and wasn't paying attention during the Olympics. The national anthem will do that to the average person. And you'll never convince me that a larger percentage of the white population knows that when the person who zones out is white.

And now, as of last week, one of the 49ers Quarterbacks  (who is auditioning to become the main quarterback) Colin Kaepernick, deliberately refused to stand for the National Anthem during a NFL pre-season game.

When questioned he said he would not "show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.

And just in case you think Kaepernick was just started riffing about racism because he got caught napping too, just listen to this one minute clip of an interview.




* * * * * *

CNN AND FOX40 HEADLINE

Slavery and the National Anthem: The Surprising History Behind Colin Kaepernick’s Protest

"The American ritual of the National Anthem has always been a crucible for patriotism and protest. It presents a particularly fraught dynamic for sports stars, since sports events are often so closely tied with the rhetoric of American pride. When a highly visible opinion comes up against a highly visible symbol, the result is always incendiary.

1968 Olympics

Around the same time, Jackie Robinson was using his achievements to advance Civil Rights causes, two American Olympic runners, Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in a black power salute during a medal ceremony at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City as the anthem was playing.

The result was iconic. The reaction was ugly. Racial slurs were hurled at the pair [by white people] and an article in [the white run magazine,] TIME, called it a “public display of petulance.”

Today, similar criticisms have been leveled against Kaepernick [predominantly by white people], a biracial Super Bowl quarterback who was raised by white adoptive parents and made $13 million in 2014. He was called “spoiled.” He was called far worse [predominantly by white people] in his Twitter mentions.

Read More about the third verse of "The Star Spangled Banner" written by the slave owning, slave endorsing Francis Scott Key.  You may decide you'll never sing it again.
http://fox40.com/2016/08/29/slavery-and-the-national-anthem-the-surprising-history-behind-colin-kaepernicks-protest/  

IF AFTER 17 YEARS GOES BY...

I'm going to pretend like I don't believe the source within the article on Nate Parker's disappointment in the black community because I'm going to get too nauseous if I don't.

But I have one question:

If 17 years go by

and the George Zimmerman and Darren Wilson 

make sincere tearful apologies 

about their DISTANT PAST racist "mistakes"
that resulted in death

will that be enough for the black community 

to go see a movie they've made or a book they've written 

and  help make them rich?

* * * * *
Again, Nate Turner was not found guilty but he should have been because Celestin was and Nate solicited the rape

Forget the one-on-one sex between Parker and the now dead woman.  We could he said/she said that part of the rape until the planet earth comes to its natural end. So, forget it.

This is real simple:

If I was to hire a hit man and I successfully had grandma killed, I'd be put in jail for murder even if I was 10,000 miles away and didn't pull the trigger. By the same token, if Parker waved two men into the room to have sex with an unconscious woman then he's a rapist

...because Celestin, the one he waved into the room, was convicted of rape for having sex with a woman who could not consent.

I'm not disappointed in Parker's response because, if it's true, because I expected it. Rape is a minor mistake to a lot of men, something that might not REALLY have happened -- as rape-ism is regarded in much the same way as racism by a lot of white people.

Yet, I am disappointed in half (?) the black community's response even though I expected it.

Like the author of the article below says, I was cheering so hard for this man until I heard about the rape accusation. So hard. A slave story told like "Saving Private Ryan." Yeah, everybody dies but they were all heroes. I expected to walk out of the movie theater with tears in my eyes. The boomerang effect inside me has probably made me more upset than I would have been.

Or not. I despise rapists. I despise them more when they look like normal members of society and people defend them.

Our black girls are not safe, not even here in the United States with all it's ideals having to do with freedom. 

http://www.clutchmagonline.com/2016/08/nate-parker-has-the-nerve-to-be-disappointed-in-black-peoples-response-to-his-rape-case/

RIDIN AND DYIN: AN OPEN LETTER TO AFRICAN-AMERICAN MEN

RIDIN AND DYIN: 
AN OPEN LETTER TO AFRICAN-AMERICAN MEN

from 2013

Feeling Rebloggy

"I like to think of myself as a lover of African-American men.



It's hard not to. Indeed, pledging my love and allegiance to your plight is treated as a sacred tenet of being a conscious/intellectual African-American woman. My commitment to you is informed by both my awareness of our shared history in this nation and my interactions with African-American males in my personal life. We share the bond of being the only group of people brought to this nation as chattel slaves, kept in that condition for centuries. Though the intersection of race and gender causes a divergence in our experience, I've often felt that I must be sensitive to and supportive of you. African-American women have been the original ride or die chicks, the Bonnie to your Clyde, down from day one.

We were chained to you in the hold of slave ships and stood next to you slashing sugarcane and picking cotton. We wrote letters to presidents to protest you getting lynched and sat next to you in pews when our churches were bombed. We've marched and picketed when you're beaten and racially profiled. Whenever anyone dares to insult you in my presence, to tell me that the worst stereotypes of you are actually true, I eviscerate them. I will bring the muthaf*ckin' ruckus for you. I stay ready and willing to defend both your humanity and your honor. However I confess that I often feel quite hurt and disappointed, because I don't feel that you are as ready and willing to defend me.

The repugnant Harriet Tubman Sex tape skit put out by Russell Simmons-and the manner in which it has been defended- is the latest chapter in sisters' being clowned publicly by brothers. Events like this hurt and wound me in a way that the antics of the likes of Rush Limbaugh never can. I know that African-American women have no worth and value to mainstream America. After all, we were only brought here to serve as a source of labor. But to be demeaned and attacked by you, the one who has endured so much with me, the one who is my reflection, is the deepest betrayal.

I think of all the misogynoir in corporate hip-hop and how you defend it, of how you shout us down when we attempt to discuss colorism and sexism within our own community. I think of the way you attack us for being too strong and angry - without realizing the context, that we often must be this strong and angry in defending ourselves because you don't defend and rep us.

I think of how often I hear you criticize and judge African-American women for the choices they make regarding their hair-yet refuse to call out both the Eurocentric standards of beauty of this society and our own community for internalizing them. I think of the ease with which you can enumerate our "flaws" for the world: we're too fat, too dark, too strong, too willful and we don't know our place.

But through all of this, I've still rolled with you. For so long I've done what you asked, made the sacrifices that you said were necessary for the advancement of the race, and some of my sisters have suffered dearly for that. From the sisters in the hood to those in the manicured cul de sacs, we've done what was expected.

I recall how African-American women were pushed to the side once the Civil Rights Movement took off, our contributions written out of the official story. I think of the African-American women who have suffered rape and/or domestic violence at the hands of African-American men, yet told they shouldn't press charges because of how unfair the system is to brothers!

I'm expected to put you first, and I've often done that. But through our shared history I am so hurt, and I now wonder: Is it worth it? Is the day going to come where you hold me down as fiercely? After all this ridin' and dyin' that African-American women have done I must pose a question. To flip a phrase used by Lauryn Hill: 

'Brother who I have to be to gain some reciprocity ?'  "

~ by Danielle Whitelow

53 YEARS AFTER THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON WE HAVE 

BLACK LIVES MATTER

but now we need
BLACK WOMEN MATTER TOO

NATE PARKER AND THE LIMITS OF EMPATHY

Feeling Rebloggy

As I get older, I try to have empathy for people...What happened in 1999 is a familiar story: college athletes, alcohol, a vulnerable woman and allegations of sexual assault. The unnamed woman pressed charges against Mr. Parker and Mr. Celestin, claiming she was drunk, unconscious and unable to consent to sex

The victim said that she was harassed and intimidated on campus by Mr. Parker, Mr. Celestin and their supporters. She twice attempted suicide, according to court records. She dropped out of school. The 2001 trial took three days. That the rape case even went to trial is a rarity. Mr. Parker was acquitted, based partly on testimony that he and the victim had previously had consensual sex. 

~Roxane Gay

New York Times 

Read More

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/21/opinion/sunday/nate-parker-and-the-limits-of-empathy.html

JUDGE SEEKS TO JAIL SHERIFF IN RACIAL PROFILING CASE

Feeling Rebloggy

In a written order, Snow asked federal prosecutors to file contempt charges for three alleged violations by Arpaio, who styles himself as “America’s toughest sheriff” and has built a national reputation for strong rhetoric and aggressive actions to crack down on undocumented immigrants...

In his 32-page order, [Judge} Snow said [Sheriff] Arpaio willfully violated a 2011 court injunction barring the sheriff’s office from stopping and detaining motorists solely based on suspicion they were in the country illegally. That practice continued for 18 months after the judge ordered it halted, Snow said.

~Huff Post

Read More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/joe-arpaio-criminal-charges_us_57b84c0de4b03d513688b4d8?dl3x8l3m38201i3sor

TOXIC MASCULINITY ON TOXIC MASCULINITY CRIME

If you have read my blog before, you know I have expressed the idea that black on black crime does and does not exist.

It does exist in one way because crime is intraracial in the black community.

But you can say black-on-black crime "doesn't exist" in that black on black crime isn't any more intraracial than white-on-white crime or latinx-on-latinx crime. Specifying "black on black" crime is like saying "the round wheels on my car are great" as if there are some square wheels or triangular wheels that might be better. Crime is intraracial. White-on-white and Latinx-on-Latinx crime exist too and usually at rates above 84% 

Intraracial crime in the black community was most famously given the special, little, catch phrase-y name of "black-on-black crime" by President Ronald Wilson Reagan during speeches for the purposes of making black people look dramatically more pathological than white people.

Mission Accomplished: There are tons of black people ashamed of the black community for black-on-black crime to this day. And they focus on black unity instead of black poverty, using pseudo black failure as a reason to turn away in disgust while saying to themselves "I'm glad not I'm not like that"   

Even though intraracial crime isn't any more intraracial for black and brown people than it is for white people, it does occur at higher absolute numbers because crime usually happens with more frequency and violence where people are poor.

When black and brown and first nations people are abandoned and segregated from the rest of the population in places where there isn't industry or jobs, a large portion of the community is poor and a small section becomes desperate.  And where there are poor and desperate people without much hope for better, there's more crime.

And where there's poverty, desperation, and white supremacist assumption of black inferiority, there is a ready made excuse for the police to not do very much policing of the 10%(?) that are doing ALL of the crime, to just sit and watch violence explode in places like Chicago. In fact, deFacto Segregated Chicago perfectly demonstrates this.

Black people fled the south and Jim Crow during "The Great Migration" from 1915 to 1970. Thinking they were leaving racism behind and fleeing into jobs they settled, in large numbers, in places like Chicago. And when the poor blacks moved in those that owned everything and did the hiring and firing everywhere, the white people, took to doing their white flight routine.  

And when some 80% (?) of the population, the white population, in mid to late 20th century, refused to live in any area that was more than 7%(?) black, that ensured property values dropped down to nothing. A ghetto with low property values and therefore low property taxes and therefore bad schools was created.  (Book / Paper Recommendation: AMERICAN APARTHEID )

MOST RECENT
DOT CENSUS MAP OF SEGREGATED CHICAGOGREEN DOTS = BLACK PEOPLE      YELLOWISH DOTS = LATINX PEOPLE,   BLUE DOTS = WHITE PEOPLE
AND RED DOTS ARE ASIAN PEOPLE

Violence Of Poor White People
Is Glorified

Hands on crime, as opposed to white collar crime, comes with poverty. Anybody who has read one news article per month or watched the television news once per month knows this.  But the violence that attends crime comes with the toxic masculinity that usually walks hand in hand with hard gender roles. This is depicted quite well in the European American Movie "Gangs Of New York"Poor white people are cutting legal corners to get life done in this movie, but the violence comes into play when one man must prove he is tougher, more manly, more deserving to be in charge than the other.

When a population of men cannot execute their "provider role" with ease, some become violent because they are looking for other avenues to prove masculinity. In America a man can prove masculinity by

1. competition -earning a lot more money than the next guy
2.  competition - doing better at sports than the next guy as a kid or as an adult making a lot of money
3. competition - being physically stronger and / or scarier than the next guy
4. competition - the sexual conquest of women, getting more women than the next guy

The black population has a poverty rate that is usually 2.5 to 3x that of white people at any given time since 1970s or so. Therefore black men cannot use (1) to prove masculinity like upper middle class white guys and rich white men like Donald Trump do.

This means that black men are more often left with  (2) (3) and (4) as ways of proving masculinity. Black men that aren't extra talented sports stars are left with (3) and (4).  And if a black man is living in a place like de facto segregated Chicago, where there aren't jobs that will let him earn enough money to be THE provider and he is also willing to deal drugs, then he's back to (1) (3) and (4) as ways of proving masculinity. 

MALE UNEMPLOYMENT
AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE GRAPH

Turning to crime isn't the only thing that men suffering from frustrated toxic masculinity do. When men get angry with themselves and can't prove masculinity via a provider role, the other thing that they do is beat women. 

In the graphic to the right, you can see unemployment increase as a result of the near depression the banksters took us into in 2007 and 2008.

And beating women when frustrated about not being able to get a job is not unique to American men either.  This is a world wide phenomenon. 

This article makes this tendency of men to beat women when economically frustrated about their provider role sound new, but authors like Chester Himes were writing about this happening in the black community decades ago.   

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/08/when-male-unemployment-rises-domestic-violence-rates-fall/278423/



A man wanting to be THE provider doesn't sound like much of a threat to the black community in general and black women specifically. And it isn't until it intersects with poverty and white supremacy based segregation --a segregation that usually means being segregated from a location where jobs are plentiful. 

Some men are able to go to work at McDonalds, be way underpaid, and combine their income with 3 or 4 other adults to pay rent on a one bedroom hovel in the inner city. Women do this all the time. The accept that they were work hard, barely be paid, and maybe sexually harassed to boot. But men can swallow being underpaid less frequently because they are supposed to be "the provider" 

Anti-feminist men, and a lot of anti-feminist women too, are taught to see the financial condition household, good or bad, as a result of the grown male's effort rather than a team effort of everyone in the household -- like black families probably did in days closer to slavery.

A black feminist would not allow this kind of pressure to be put on "the man of the house," would not enable the thinking, in son or husband, that masculinity must be proved using some combination of (1) (2) (3) and (4). A feminist would not allow this because a black feminist with common sense knows that good men can be pressured into becoming criminals in the patriarchal system of masculinity creation. 

Central Park Five Example:  

In 1989 five black and brown teenage boys were arrested for the rape of a well-heeled white woman in Central Park. Rapes of Puerto Rican and Black Women in Central Park had gone unchecked and unmentioned in the news in the 1980s. But when this white woman was raped, her story went national, and was on the front page of a lot of newspapers -- when the powers that be really don't give a damn about the rape of women, even white women. The black and brown boys were tricked into confessing and went to jail for years before the real rapist, already in jail, confessed to raping (a) the-white-woman-that-mattered and (b) a number of black and Puerto Rican women that he raped before and after THE white woman.      

Before The Central Park Five's innocence was established, one of the accused got out of jail and couldn't get a job because of being labeled an "ex-con" His pride was so hurt over being unable to get a job, he was so ashamed of eating at his father's table without being able to "provide" anything, he started dealing drugs as a way to get money. He wound up going back to jail.  

A woman in a parallel situation would have been able to participate in her parents household (or a new husbands household(?)) by cooking, cleaning, taking care of children etc. A man would be able to also if it weren't for hard gender roles and toxic masculinity.

In fact, if black men who saw women as true equals and what's been called "women's work" as dignified work, then throughout African American History, black men would have been able to work in the home when it was financially advantageous to do so -- instead of abandoning their wives and children because they were ashamed of not-being the provider. With masculinity shaped as it is currently, by men, the most of the men willing to stay home and not work for a wage are the ones willing to take advantage of a woman, the ones who wind up doing nothing -- not even the cleaning, not even the cooking, not even the changing of diapers in the middle of the night when she has to work and not taking kids to school, band practice, or the doctor. 

Even though it was the Puerto Rican member of the Central Park Five that went back to jail for a while, to me this proves the point that toxic masculinity combined with poverty drives decent men into crime. Furthermore, proving masculinity using (3), being tougher, is the thing that adds violence to the alternative economy of drug dealing etc.

In conclusion, I'd say that higher absolute numbers of intraracial crime in black neighborhoods and the attending violence of so called "black-on-black" crime, would be more accurately described as TOXIC MASCULINITY on TOXIC MASCULINITY crime.

Furthermore, toxic masculinity on toxic masculinity crime is the reason 1.5 million black men are missing. TM-on TM crime is also the reason why there is so much more black single motherhood than is healthy for a community  -- TM at high levels, even without crime, means that black single mothers are often better off raising a child alone if they cannot find a feminist minded man.

White Toxic Masculinity with money means that a white woman that's a lazy princess or a silly drudge can get by --until she's divorced, raped, or in a custody battle with someone that's rich.

Black women don't have the white female luxury of finding out TM has been kicking them in the teeth until they are 25 and raped or 40 years old and being raked over the coals by an attorney. Black girls start being told they are less than black boys, almost from birth. In tears, I've read at least four stories this year where black girls raped at college or high school apologized for even thinking about reporting a black male rapist.

The Black Lives Matter movement was started by black women and black women still can't get any respect. It's galling that #SayHerName had to be created to add black women BACK to Black Lives Matter and that for the most part it's really not working.  

It's mother *$^%^$%! unacceptable that Alton Sterling, a black man straight executed by white police officers, was a sexual predator who was probably raising male children to think like he did, has garnered more outrage in the black community than the shooting of Korryn Gaines herself and Korryn Gaines's child when all the Baltimore police had to do was w a i t   l o n g e r,  just 1/10th the amount of time they waited for the wackos holding white children in David Koresh's cult. 


We cannot afford the black male version of toxic masculinity. It's killing us all.


Tomorrow: How "ONLY BLUE LIVES MATTER" is another form of Toxic Masculinity on Toxic Masculinity Crime. 


  

  

BIG WHITE LIES AT THE OLYMPICS, RYAN LOCHTE

Many if not most black and brown people recognized what Ryan Loche was doing BEFORE he got caught lying. He was playing up the criminality of a non-white country for a white audience....but that's not REALLY what happened. He said what was familiar to white people as believable (playing up the criminality of a non-white country) to cover up HIS OWN criminality. He's not exactly Susan Smith, who killed her own children and said two black guys did it. But he dipped into the same white racist well to cover his tracks.  

KARMA WASN'T INSTANT, 

BUT IT WAS GOOD.

Lochte lost his endorsements.

Feeling Rebloggy

-------

"Ryan Lochte is a FRAUD.

This 32-year-old MAN and his gang of thugs stormed into a Brazilian gas station, took a piss on the floor, and broke the bathroom door.

When an armed security guard confronted the three thugs, Lochte and friends agreed to pay for the door, and stormed out. When approached by the press, Lochte told a different story.

"WE WERE ROBBED! THEY POINTED A GUN AT US!"

The press devoured Ryan's tall-tale and white America shared its unwanted assessment of Brazil and Latin America, painting the entire country/continent as filthy and with naturally violent people.

This mechanism of white lies influencing public opinions is a REAL, DANGEROUS thing. THIS is how racial stereotypes and oppressive white mentalities are formed. 

These lies include:

Read More at Love Life Of An Asian Guy:

https://www.facebook.com/theLLAG/photos/a.493561587401992.1073741825.100744900016998/1098489140242564/?type=3&theater

JOHN STEWART GIVES LARRY WILMORE THE SEND OFF HE DESERVES

Comedy Central cancelled one of its only black shows, Larry Wilmore's "The Nightly Show" because it didn't resonate with Comedy Central's audience  -- because the audience is mostly white? And the audience is mostly white because so many of the shows are...all white? I'm just guessing that cancelling Wilmore's show is just going to get Comedy Central more of the same. 

I've never been a Comedy Central fan, but I've seen Wilmore on occasion. He was good. And his stand up routine for President Obama was daring to say the least. I can't help but wonder if that skit didn't help scuttle his show --- just as the election heats up. 

But maybe I'm being a little too conspiracy theory-ish

Very few details on the cancellation

http://blackchickrocked.blogspot.com/2016/08/the-nightly-show-cancelled.html

Feeling Rebloggy

HERE ARE PIECES OF JON STEWART'S SEND OFF. 

~Franchesca.Net

Read and See
the lovely gif-conversation here

http://blog.franchesca.net/post/149201122797/micdotcom-jon-stewart-gives-larry-wilmore-the

RACIAL PROGRESS IN AMERICA

NEVER FORGET

 WHERE 95% OF

AMERICA'S RACISM PROBLEM 

IS STILL BEING GENERATED

Chris Rock is right. When you hear "Racial Progress in America" your brain should translate that into "White People Slightly Less Crazy"

But now it is 2016.

The "disaffected white people" are looking to move the entire country backward by electing Donald Trump.

Every time Trump opens his mouth, I become more and more convinced that I am correct, that he is trying to cross a final line so that someone will save him from being president, so that someone will snatch him off a stage and say "You've gone too far."

I swear he just wanted to be the national center of attention and now he's scared he just might get elected. So now he saying the wildest thing he think of.

That crack about second amendment people taking out Hillary Clinton, joking about killing her?  I don't care how big an egomaniac he is. That's OUT THERE.


The white racists who pretend they don't know he's a racist and crazy, both, must have the brain wattage of cabbage. I don't care how much they love his racism, his basic disrespect for racial-others in the form of being "free of political correctness." They can't see that he's threatening to cut us off from allies and making jokes about killing a fellow presidential candidate?

Just last night as I was sort of half watching a movie, Oliver Stone's "JFK," I thought to myself, if I was writing a movie about this time in our history, I'd have the CIA plotting to take Trump out should he get elected. Oliver Stone probably thinks they are.  Even the powers that be -- on the right-- are seriously scared to death of his idiotic mouth.


TELEGRAPH HEADLINE

Donald Trump 'dangerous' say 50 Republican major US national security figures


Read Morehttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/08/donald-trump-dangerous-say-50-republican-major-us-national-secur/

RACISM PRECEDES RACE: WHY WHITE PEOPLE ARE CALLED "CAUCASIAN"

First comes greed
then comes corrupt marriage
then comes racism
sharp teeth bared 
in a baby carriage

Next comes fake science
then comes justification
then comes race
in the form of segregation

...and genocide
...and enslavement
...and fake freedom (Jim Crow)
...and fake equality (Only White and Blue Lives Matter)


"Caucasian" is part of creating race out of racism. 

Watch Francesca break it down here: 




Racism precedes race: 
First those with superior weaponry land on land that they don't own and are greedy for it. They notice that "those people" on the land they want look different from "me and mine."  It's a short leap from "those people" have weapons that are inferior to "those people" are inferior.

"Those people have something I want so let me make up this fake categorization called 'race,'  then make up some sub-category called "caucasian" to cover me-and-mine that is wonderful in every way, then use "caucasian" as a measuring stick against which everybody else fails. I can even make up some phony science that will make my newly formed proud "caucasians" think the word "race" is practically synonymous with "species" then tell me-and-mine that it's not really stealing, genocide, and enslavement when you're doing these things to other human beings are that are clearly lesser beings...if they're even human at all."  

COMMERCIAL BREAK FROM REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING: HUMAN AS SPACE SHIP

Feeling Rebloggy

Human as Spaceship


You are a spaceship soaring through the universe. So is your dog. We all carry with us trillions of microorganisms as we go through life. These multitudes of bacteria, fungi, and archaea have different DNA than you. Collectively called your microbiome, your shipmates outnumber your own cells. Your crew members form communities, help digest food, engage in battles against intruders, and sometimes commute on a liquid superhighway from one end of your body to the other. Much of what your microbiome does, however, remains unknown. You are the captain, but being nice to your crew may allow you to explore more of your local 
cosmos.

A friend said, "Now I'm going to feel like a mass murderer every time I take a shower."
LOL
Source:http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160815.html

ONLY BLUE LIVES MATTER TO SEATTLE POLICE UNION?

Feeling Rebloggy

Robart, a George W. Bush appointee, is presiding over a consent decree—a court-ordered settlement—between the Justice Department and Seattle reached in 2012.

That agreement required the city to remedy unconstitutional practices at nearly every level of policing, from illegal stops to unreasonable and deadly use of force. Since then, Seattle’s chief of police Kathleen O’Toole has pushed the police force to adopt innovative and successful trainings on crisis intervention and bias-free policing. But further reforms are necessary to fulfill the consent decree’s requirements—and the police union has tethered its adoption of these reforms to pay raises and benefit increases.

In order to fulfill its legal obligation, Seattle attempted to reach a compromise with the police union this summer, offering a new contract that mixed the requisite reforms with wage hikes. The union overwhelmingly rejected the contract on the grounds that it did not sufficiently reward officers with more money and benefits in exchange for engaging in constitutional policing. According to the Seattle Times, it was this repudiation that pushed Robart to speak out so forcefully. In particular, the union appears resistant to adopt new standards and procedures regarding officer discipline and internal investigations, which Robart insists are vital to any sufficient reform.

~SLATE.COM

Read More of 

Federal Judge Declares “Black Lives Matter” From the Bench

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/08/16/federal_judge_to_seattle_police_union_black_lives_matter.html

THE FLAG AND EDGES OF GABBY DOUGLAS, PART 2

Douglas's sweaty hair picture up below looks so "normal" to my eyes I can't even tell what the hair whiners are talking about unless I stare really hard.

But people are running her down again.



Out of all the people attacking her hair, the most obnoxious group, by far,  almost has to be black women with weaves being embarrassed for themselves. 


Now, I'll wear a weave in a minute if I want to and I don't necessarily want to announce when I'm wearing one. But I'm black. I have edges.  If I work out and sweat the edges are going to curl up. That's life. 


But some black women are out in the world tryin' ta perpetrate like the weave is their own hair. And that's normal for us.

White people really don't know a weave from relaxed hair, or even what "relaxed hair" is. Black men pretend they don't know a weave from a hole in the ground when they are first dating a black woman even if she has long, bone-straight hair to her waist in a day-glo orange color.  

We pretend.  It's part of the game. Don't hate the playa, hate the game because Gabby and Gabby's critics are all playing THE SAME GAME

This means that Gabby and her edges are essentially putting er'ry body on blast when her edges curl up or coil up on the national stage. 

If there were no white people on the planet, Gabby's edges coiling up even slightly would be a major problem for some black women because I know how some of us are about having the makeup and the coif under control at all times, regardless of circumstances.  I know.

All weaved women know this. So Gabby knows this. In fact, everybody black person knows this.

Some of the hair criticism is definitely due to internalized racism. Most of us were beat to death with the idea that long swinging hair equals feminine (afro, coily, curly, braided extensions, or straight weave)

Still I'm not crying for Gabby this time. 

Gabby and her critics are living in the same life boat as far as I can tell

Either Gabby Douglas toughens up and takes it or gets a natural style that doesn't separate into two completely different textures when she sweats.


Don't get me wrong. I'm not hatin' on any of worshipers of the weave --which includes Gabby.  I sometimes like long but never straight hair (doesn't look right with black features in my opinion) A long weave or long extensions hide my marble-shaped head and gives my real hair a rest at the same time. Sometimes I go weave-ish because a big chop was in order due to some damage (I live in reality: I don't have Halle or Lupita's face, so I can't go to a zero hair profile.)  But mostly? I probably have to have long hair on my head (curly, coiled, or my own afro) because I too have also been trained that long hair is feminine - no matter the texture. 


However, 
when I do not abide by 
the black woman hair rules 
and some individual black woman 
decides to give me  the look 
at the gym 
because there are 
two different curl patterns 
on my sweaty head, 
I gift her an 
oh-heffa-please look in return. 


But I do hot pout.

I know the black women's rules of engagement when it comes to weaves.  Gabby does too.  It is time for this 20 year old woman to stand in her ovaries. She's not a little girl anymore. 

lol 

THE FLAG AND EDGES OF GABBY DOUGLAS, PART 1

I wasn't going to address the Gabby Douglas problems because I thought everybody black understood why Gabby Douglas is being dragged over forgetting to salute the American flag and her hair (again). 

*  *  * * *

THE FLAG

Yeah, she forgot to be patriotic as she should have been at the Olympics where she was representing the United States. 



But, so what?

She spaced out for a few seconds or sixty. If Becky had done the same thing, the questions about her behavior would have been somewhere along the lines of, 

"Oh my Gosh! Where was Becky's head? Why didn't she salute the flag? What WAS Becky thinking about instead?" 

NOT

Who does this ____ think she has the right to deliberately skip putting her hand over her heart for the American Flag? 

But Gabby is black and not white like Becky. Therefore, a number of things have to be kept in mind.

1) I tend to think that anybody who hasn't spaced out when saying the pledge of allegiance or hearing the national anthem is lying. But for black folks? Sometimes putting hand over heart for the flag is kinda galling.

When is it galling you ask? It's galling to salute the flag 10 seconds after you've finished reading a news article about how white people don't know what Black Lives Matter's goals are.

(Pssst!   BLM want white and white-adjacent police to stop shooting black people for nothing)

2) Authoritarian white people, especially those on the right, think they own everything American. They think that anybody not-white is a guest lucky to be here, are people that need to prove their American-ness. That's why some are voting for Trump (--who probably doesn't want to be president, just the center of attention on a national stage)

3) In the white racists opinion, Gabby Douglas, as a black guest lucky to be here at all, should always be showing how grateful she is to be allowed to live here in this white man's country of the United States.

In the white racists mind, even the ones that don't know they are racists, black people should always be bowing and scraping with gratitude to be in the white man's America --and damn well better not forget to put their hands over their hearts during the national anthem.  

The white racist never remembers that the blood of Gabby's ancestors has soaked the ground and makes her have more right to be here than just about anyone except First Nations descendants.  

If Gabby had been white and she forgot to put her hand over her heart, many might still have been somewhat irritated as she was at the Olympics representing the U.S.A. But just irritated

They wouldn't have come anywhere near hinting,

 "How dare that militant black Gabby Douglas deliberately not salute the flag? She should go back to Africa."

President Obama (birther movement) and Michelle Obama (called "militant" in place of the n-word) have been getting this treatment since President Obama was elected the first time.

It's possible I could get my militant behind into a snit and deliberately decide not to salute the flag a month or less after a cop murderer was exonerated, even at the Olympics. But it would be ten times as likely that I just spaced out. And some of us suffer from resting-b*tch-face, so....

Part 2 tomorrow: THE EDGES