Wisdom From WINNIE MANDELA On Her Birthday

Winnie Mandela passed away earlier this year in April. And she was so right about this when she said it. And she's still correct now.

But black feminists are changing this truth of hers into fiction one day at a time.

 Fewer and fewer women are buying the negative stereotypes men perpetuate about feminists.  And the Pick-Me-s are decreasing in number every day.   

Michelle Obama, Barack Obama, Ava DuVernay, Shonda Rhimes, Viola Davis, Kerry Washington, Brittney Cooper, Danai Gurira, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Paula J Giddings,  bell hooks, Melissa Harris-Perry, Roxane Gay, Morgan Jerkins, Beverly Bond, Beyonce, John Legend and all the rest of us famous and not famous are going to see to it.

Issa Rae's show INSECURE has Toxic Masculinity as one of its themes in the third season on HBO.

We're moving and shakin' Winnie. I know you're not worried. 

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A BROWN LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN

Feeling Rebloggy

Grandmothers are one of life's most precious gifts, so when it came time for Loida Guillen Strong to celebrate her grandmother's 95th birthday, she decided to mark the special occasion with a grandmother-granddaughter photo shoot. 

Using a baseball theme for the shoot, Rafael and Jacqueline, the husband and wife team behind Passio Photography, captured Strong and her grandmother in matching baseball inspired outfits that had their respective ages of 33 and 95...

~BecauseOfThemWeCan

Read More: https://www.becauseofthemwecan.com/blogs/stories/granddaughter-celebrates-grandmothers-95th-birthday-with-the-sweetest-photo-shoot 

BILL COSBY SENTENCED TO A PALTRY 3 to 10 YEARS IN STATE PRISON, BAIL DENIED

Cosby was convicted in April of three counts of aggravated indecent assault for drugging and assaulting Constand at his home in 2004, in the first high-profile celebrity criminal trial of the #MeToo era.   

https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/bill-cosby-sentencing/index.html 

Cosby is actually pre-#MeToo. 

Cosby's old crime came whizzing back to the public's attention during a slow news cycle. In 2014, a black male comedian named Hannibal Burris started riffing on stage about how Cosby had gotten away with it (rape) for so long. Either somebody videotaped the comedy performance or a reporter picked up on the performance somehow or both.

Then all of a sudden Andrea Constand's story is back in the news in a big way. It is at this point that I find out Constand was one of six or so women, drugged and raped, who gave some sort of testimony or written statement during the court proceeding in 2004.  

After Burris comedy routine lifted Constand's case up in national news, four dozen or so other women came forward to say Cosby drugged and raped them too. 

I don't consider #MeToo to have really started until Harvey Weinstein. 

When a powerful white man goes to prison over raping a "mere" woman, that's when you know you have a movement -- because prior to #MeToo rich white men almost never went to prison, not unless there's video of them with the bloody knife in one of their hands.

* * * * *
Cosby was denied bail. I suppose that means he'll go to prison today despite his attorney asking for house arrest.   

http://www.tmz.com/2018/09/25/bill-cosby-sentencing-prison-sexual-assault/ 

Cosby has also been labeled a sexual offender, so he'll have to register as a sex offender when he leaves prison. 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45644374 

The sentence isn't nearly long enough for raping one woman in this way, much less four dozen. If he's in jail for more than half of the minimum sentence, 3 years, I'll be surprised. 

I'm actually waiting to see if he gets out of going to prison period somehow. I'd say that upwards of 70% of white men and black men, both, think rape is a tiny little crime -- only worthy of a 3 year sentence, knowing men get out for good behavior when only half the sentence has passed.

The only solution is to vote women into office, mostly black and brown feminist women at that.

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ALL ABOUT LOVE FROM bell hooks ON HER BIRTHDAY

“Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape...




“We fear that evaluating our needs 

and then carefully choosing partners will reveal that
there is no one for us to love. 

Most of us prefer to have
a partner who is lacking
than no partner at all.

What becomes apparent is
that we may be more interested in
finding a partner
than in knowing love.”

"To love well is the task
in all meaningful relationships,
not just romantic bonds.”

― bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

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RIGHT NOW THERE ARE DOZENS OF OLD RICH WHITE MEN THINKING...

Why the hell didn't we just throw Woody Allen's ass in prison when his Ronan Farrow's sister Dylan accused Allen of being a pedophile?

'Cause Ronan wouldn't be all up in their sh*t right now if they had. 

In case you don't know Farrow's backstory: 

Ronan Farrow proud of sister Dylan who accused their dad Woody Allen of molestation

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/confidential/ronan-farrow-proud-big-sister-dylan-article-1.3932465# 

His sister Dylan being ignored then being called a liar after what she suffered has majorly shaped who Ronan Farrow is.  

Farrow got the #MeToo ball rolling downhill fast by taking out Harvey Weinstein. And now, in addition to other stories he's written, Farrow has interviewed the second woman to accuse Brett Kavanaugh of predatory sexual behavior.  

Read It Here: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/senate-democrats-investigate-a-new-allegation-of-sexual-misconduct-from-the-supreme-court-nominee-brett-kavanaughs-college-years-deborah-ramirez


I'm also thinking Farrow must be needing a bodyguard right about now. He's taken down quite a few have-the-world-by-the-ass white millionaires at this point.

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The Story Of FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER On Her 193rd Birthday

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 24, 1825 to free parents. At the age of three, her parents died and she was sent to live with an uncle Reverend William Watkins, a teacher at the Academy for Negro Youth and a radical political figure in civil rights.

At the age of 13, she went to work as a nursemaid, but she continued her education on her own. She was allowed to use the library of the family she worked for and while still in her teens began to write poetry.  

In 1839, Harper's first poems were published in abolitionist periodicals. In 1845, her first collection of verse and prose was published in a collection entitled Forest Leaves.

In 1850, Harper left Baltimore in order to become the first woman to teach at Union Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio.

During the early 1850's Harper took another teaching position in Pennsylvania. During this time, she lived in an Underground Railroad Station, where she witnessed the workings of the Underground Railroad and the movement of slaves toward freedom. This experience had a profound effect on Harper, her poetry, and her later work as an activist.

In 1854, Harper was exiled from Maryland because of new slavery laws stating that black people who came in through the northern border of Maryland could be sold into slavery. This marked the beginning of Harper's activism. She toured the Northern United States and Canada where her writings appeared in the Provincial Freeman, an anti-slavery newspaper. Her speeches included her prose and poetry, in which she combined the issues of racism, feminism, and classism.

In the late 1850's she published another volume of poems entitled Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects. This work sold over 10,000 copies within its first five years of publication. Harper donated a large portion of the proceeds to the Underground Railroad. In 1859, her narrative "The Two Officers" appeared in the September-October issues of Anglo-African magazine, making her the first Black American to publish a short story.

In 1860, Harper married the love of her life, Fenton Harper.

With the birth of her daughter Mary in 1862, Harper curtailed her speaking engagements. But after the death of her husband in 1863, she returned to her busy routine of lecturing and writing.

Immediately after the Civil War, she went South and spoke to former slave owners and newly freed slaves. It was her belief that the lives of both were connected and that one could not succeed at the expense of the other. Harper formed alliances with strong figures in the feminist movement, including [the problematic] Susan. B. Anthony.  

In 1866 Harper gave a moving speech before the National Women's Rights Convention, demanding equal rights for all, including black women.

She also published books during throughout this period, including, "Moses, A Story of the Nile" in 1869, " Sketches of Southern Life" in 1872 and "The Martyr of Alabama and Other Poems" in 1894. Her most popular work was a novel, Iola Leroy:On Shadows Uplifted, a book about a wealthy slaveowner who falls in love with and marries an African-American woman, published in 1892. Iola Leroy was one of the first novels published by a black woman in the United States.

Harper's eloquent efforts to raise consciousness on this issue earned her election as Vice-President of the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) in 1897.

Harper continued her important work through her lectures and her writing until her death from heart disease on February 22, 1911.

Source: http://www.virginia.edu/woodson/courses/aas102%20(spring%2001)/articles/watkins_harper.html

HAS TRUMP FOUND A WAY INTO STOPPING THE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION THROUGH ROD ROSENSTEIN?

Feeling Rebloggy 

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein [who is the official head of the Russia Investigation] expects to be fired following the reports about his early tenure within the Justice Department...

A source close to Rosenstein said he believes he will lose his job following the New York Times report on Friday that described him discussing secretly recording President Trump and enlisting other Cabinet officers to remove Trump from power under the 25th Amendment.

Rosenstein twice denied the report....

 If Rosenstein were to make clear to Trump that he will not step down and that Trump must exert himself in order to terminate him, that makes it more complicated to install another deputy attorney general quickly. 

One big immediate question that would be raised no matter how Rosenstein left the Justice Department is who would take charge of the special counsel investigation, or whether Trump might try separately to end or constrain it.

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/24/651093301/rosenstein-expecting-to-be-fired-heads-to-white-house-for-meeting-on-tense-morni 

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DEBORAH RAMIREZ STEPS FORWARD TO ACCUSE KAVANAUGH OF SEXUAL MISCONDUCT TOO

Feeling Rebloggy

The New Yorker’s report deals with Deborah Ramirez, who says Kavanaugh, when they were students at Yale University, stuck his penis in her face during a drinking game and forced her to touch it. This would be significant both because, if accurate, it would be a second case of an alcohol-infused incident. But it would also be the first example of one taking place while Kavanaugh was an adult. (Ford’s accusation involved an assault that allegedly occurred when she and Kavanaugh were in high school.)

Even the New Yorker’s write-up, though, takes pains to raise caution. Chief among them is that Ramirez at first wasn’t prepared to say it was definitely Kavanaugh who carried out the alleged act:

In her initial conversations with The New Yorker, she was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty. After six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.

....The New Yorker interviewed multiple people who Ramirez said were at the party, and none of them said they could recall such an incident. 

...The reporters did speak to one former student who anonymously said he was not at the party but distinctly remembered hearing about the incident and Kavanaugh’s role in it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/24/breaking-down-new-brett-kavanaugh-sexual-misconduct-allegation/?utm_term=.f8cf6e7b0fd5 

So many republicans claimed they didn't see the point of the FBI investigation that his first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, was asking for. I guess they see the point now, hey? Finding all the accusers there are to find.

Ramirez is asking for an investigation as well.

Stormy Daniel's attorney, Michael Avenatti claims he has more information, possibly a third Kavanaugh accuser.

The White House is trying to ram Kavanaugh's nomination through anyway. But somebody must have the president's phone in lock up -- not so many outraged tweets over the last few days. 

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ERIKA ALEXANDER ON BRINGING GOOD BLACK CHARACTERS BACK TO TELEVISION

One of the hosts of THE BREAKFAST CLUB asked Alexander why black characters and black television shows disappeared after THE COSBY SHOW, 227, LIVING SINGLE etc. made so much money for television executives.

Erika Alexander said the answer is, "Racism."  Racism is institutionalized. And the institutions are made up of people. 

And the people in power in white and they really only like to see themselves. 

There was no good reason for black characters to disappear near the year 2000 up until Shonda Rhimes'  did GREYS ANATOMY, who acquired some power and then brought us Kerry Washington as a lead in SCANDAL and Viola Davis as a lead in HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER. 

Alexander also talked about how her character Max on LIVING SINGLE inspired women like Carol Mosley Braun to become lawyer and others to become lawyers.

Representation counts.



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Ceiling Breaking Dancer Arthur Mitchell Dies At 84

Feeling Rebloggy 

Arthur Mitchell, who paved the way for other minority dancers by becoming one of the first black dancers to join a major ballet company...died Sept. 19 at a hospital in New York City.

He was 84.

The cause was renal failure, said a niece, Julie Mills-Ross.

Mr. Mitchell, who described himself as the Jackie Robinson of the ballet world, was hired by choreographer George Balanchine in 1955 to perform with the New York City Ballet and won over audiences and critics with his technical brilliance and charisma.  

Still, in an era when segregation was just beginning to crumble, his ascent to the upper echelon of dance met with many obstacles, from instructors who encouraged him to abandon ballet and take up other dance genres to shocked theatergoers who wrote letters expressing outrage about Mr. Mitchell being paired onstage with a white woman....

Read More: https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/local/obituaries/arthur-mitchell-black-dancer-who-became-jackie-robinson-of-ballet-dies-at-84/2018/09/19/67015ff8-bc25-11e8-b7d2-0773aa1e33da_story.html?noredirect=on

In 1969, he struck out with Karel Shook to form Dance Theatre of Harlem. His mission: Change the perception that black dancers don't belong in ballet...It has been under the direction of Virginia Johnson since 2009, and will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year.

In January, we asked Mitchell whether the dance world had caught up to his dreams for it.  

He told us, "Name all the companies in America. How many have a leading African-American ballerina? There's only one in a major company, that's Misty Copeland in American Ballet Theatre. There's still work to be done."

Read More: https://www.dancemagazine.com/arthur-mitchell-death-2606289088.html

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THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON DR MARTIN LUTHER KING JR 60 YEARS AGO TODAY

Feeling Rebloggy 

"On Sept. 20, 1958, 29-year-old Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was in Blumstein’s Department Store in Harlem, signing copies of Stride Toward Freedom, his account of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott which he spearheaded.

Izola Curry, a well-dressed [but mentally ill 42-year-old black] woman, approached the reverend and asked if it was really him. When he replied yes, she said, “I’ve been looking for you for five years,” and plunged a letter opener into his chest.

When police arrived on the scene, they found the civil rights leader sitting in a chair with the letter opener’s ivory handle still protruding just below his collar.

Fearful of the blade’s proximity to King’s heart, Officer Al Howard warned him, “Don’t sneeze, don’t even speak.”

While his assailant was taken into custody, King was carefully rushed to Harlem Hospital, where chief of thoracic and vascular surgery John W.V. Cordice, Jr. and trauma surgeon Emil Naclero were quickly summoned. Coming from a wedding, Naclero arrived still wearing a tuxedo, and prepared for surgery.

In a painstaking operation, surgeons opened King’s chest, exposing his aorta, and removed the letter opener with a surgical clamp.

His would-be assassin was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and spent the rest of her life in mental institutions. King was quick to forgive her, saying in a press release on September 30 that he felt "no ill will" towards her and hoped that she would get the help she needed "to become a free and constructive member of society."

King’s surgeon told him that the police officer’s warning had been right: The edge of the blade had been resting on his aorta, and a sneeze would have caused a fatal puncture.

King recalled this detail 10 years later, in his “I've Seen the Mountaintop” speech of April 3, 1968. "I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze".

MARTIN LUTHER KING, "I'VE BEEN TO THE MOUNTAINTOP," APRIL 3, 1968

The day after delivering his speech, King was shot dead by assassin James Earl Ray in Memphis."

Original Source Unknown

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Australian Athletes Donned Full-Body Blackface to Impersonate Williams Sisters

 

As the Huffington Post reports, while the three players have been reprimanded and apologized for the racist costumes, the Penguin Football Club also offered a (predictable) defense of the players, saying the trio’s “actions were never intended to be racist in any way” and “all they meant to do was dress as one of their sporting idols.” 

But supposing that is true—when it comes to racist behavior, intent doesn’t much matter. The term “racist” isn’t an opinion or a judgment—though it’s often treated as such—it’s also a descriptor of behavior. Objectively racist actions do exist, and blackface is certainly one of them.

While the term “blackface” and its practice is most heavily associated with the U.S., it certainly occurs outside of America (because anti-blackness and racism, in a world shaped by colonization, knows no borders). 

Australia itself has a brutal history of colonization: as with the U.S., the commonwealth forced indigenous people into schools rife with sexual and physical abuse in order to destroy their cultures. Aborigines weren’t considered Australian citizens until 1967, and in certain parts of Australia, they couldn’t own property until 1975.

https://www.theroot.com/australian-athletes-donned-full-body-blackface-to-imper-1829165630 

I'm supposed to believe white adults in Australia don't know the difference between the words "mocking" and "admiration" in order to further believe that this horse manure of a maneuver is based on lack of education?

No sale. 

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DEMOCRACY'S LATEST CRISIS

FROM THE ATLANTICHillary Clinton

"Trump and his cronies do so many despicable things that it can be hard to keep track. I think that may be the point—to confound us, so it’s harder to keep our eye on the ball. The ball, of course, is protecting American democracy. As citizens, that’s our most important charge. And right now, our democracy is in crisis. I don’t use the word crisis lightly. There are no tanks in the streets. The administration’s malevolence may be constrained on some fronts—for now—by its incompetence. But our democratic institutions and traditions are under siege. We need to do everything we can to fight back. There’s not a moment to lose."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/american-democracy-is-in-crisis/570394/?

 

As far as atrocities go, what white people did to black people in Africa beginning in the 1600s is most forward in my mind as a black person. And I know white people focus on Hitler because he's the worst thing to happen to white people as a group. 

But what Hitler did to the Jewish and Europe is more detailed in my mind, politically speaking, thanks to being educated in white schools where the white teachers definitely held white victims as more deserving of concern.

So, what I keep wondering lately is how gradually Hitler gathered his followers to him, what he did that might be very parallel to Trump's declassifying texts, documents, etc that are connected to an investigation aimed at himself.

Trump admits Fox News hosts influenced his decision to declassify key Russia documents

https://thinkprogress.org/donald-trump-declassify-russia-documents-fox-news-hannity-dobbs-pirro-2c7e1e6397a6/

Trump is attempting to use his power, abuse his power to discredit his investigators. 

Trump ordered the government to declassify information he apparently hasn’t read

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/19/trump-ordered-government-declassify-information-he-apparently-hasnt-read/?utm_term=.3274dcc3d92f

The fact that he's an idiot is beside the point. It's the attempt that matters. It is inevitable that Doddering Orange Dotard will continue on this path where he tries to compensate for the little toad stool between his legs. And he eventually may hit upon something that brings the entire democracy crumbling down around us

So I keep wondering what we're not doing that we should be doing.

I keep thinking Jewish people in the 1930s, the ones who didn't leave Europe, were sitting around wringing their hands, thinking the same things I am now.

We're telling people to vote. We're driving out useless incumbents on the left but we're not doing it fast enough. If we were, some of the democrats who have been in office the longest would be more aggressive on our behalf.

That is, Maxine Waters should NOT be a standout voice as she criticizes Trump in plain language. She should be part of a large blue chorus. 

 

But she isn't.

Our democracy is indeed in danger. But, other than removing Trump from office as quickly as possible -- which Nancy Pelosi recently said isn't a priority-- I can't figure out what big moves we should be making to preserve it.

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KAVANAUGH AND A CONGRESS THAT SEES RAPE CULTURE AS NORMAL CULTURE

Girls used to go out to clubs and bars in packs 20, 30, 40 years ago -- so they could close ranks against male aggressors just like Kavanaugh.

Sometimes you were only thinking about being safe after you said "no" to dancing or going off with some guy you simply weren't interested in. But, let's face it, the other thing going on when women went out in packs was rape prevention. 

Not being cornered or finding yourself off alone with some guy was uppermost in your mind when you were getting dressed to go out. You were trying to prevent EXACTLY what happened to Christine Blasey Ford

...because rape culture was counted as "normal" until very, very recently.

I knew that "men can't control their dicks"  thing was bullshit when I was 12. But I still played the game as best I knew how when I was 10 years older because I knew it would be counted as MY FAULT if I got raped. 

--same as every other unmarried woman in the country in the 1980s (and beyond) 

Ten out of ten men  that will wind up voting on this in congress know how strenuously they themselves or their buddies argued against the possibility that "date rape" was a reality a few decades back. 

• Believe it or not, whenever we heard of a woman being raped on a date, most young men would say things like "She wouldn't have agreed to go out on a date with him if she didn't want to have sex with him" which in turn meant TO A LOT OF MEN that it was impossible for a woman to be raped while on a date.

So it's entirely possible that seven out of ten congressmen waiting to hear this woman testify on Monday have done the same as Kavanaugh -- with the possible exception of him putting his hands over the Ford's mouth when she tried to scream.

The heat from #MeTOO is the only thing that will stop them from confirming Kavanaugh -- because they already believe Ford. 

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CAN TRUMP'S PRESIDENCY SURVIVE TESTIMONY FROM PAUL MANAFORT?

Feeling Rebloggy

In August, in a separate trial in Virginia, a federal jury found Manafort guilty on eight counts of federal tax and banking crimes. He is still awaiting sentencing in that case.

[Before Manafort's current plea deal] President Trump had praised Manafort for not accepting a plea agreement prior to that case, writing on Twitter in August that his former aide was a "brave man" who had "refused to 'break.'"

Eisen, the Obama ethics lawyer, said there is a possibility Manafort will lead prosecutors to Trump -- which many observers, including the presiding judge in Manafort's Virginia trial, have said was the goal of prosecuting Manafort for tax and bank fraud in the first place.

Paul Manafort takes a plea deal that includes cooperation with special counsel Mueller; Corey Lewandowski reacts on 'Fox & Friends.'

"In our profession, those who defend and prosecute criminal matters, you only get a deal like this if you go up the chain," Eisen said. "Who is up the chain from Paul Manafort, who was the chair of the Trump campaign? Don Jr., [political consultant] Roger Stone, the campaign itself, and perhaps ultimately the president. ... I think there’s a substantial possibility that this evidence that Manafort is offering will implicate somebody up the chain."

Eisen called this week a "historic turning point" and a "new chapter" in the Russia probe...

Read More: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/09/16/president-trump-not-going-to-survive-testimony-by-paul-manafort-former-obama-ethics-czar-predicts.html

Dan Rather made a similar statement on his facebook page -- that Manafort's turn is something very, very new and significant. 

We'll see. When George Papadopoulos only got 14 days for lying to the FBI, I began wondering by what measurement the white collar white men who always wear suits count another white man as being in trouble "bigly" as Trump likes to say.  

Papadopoulos supposedly cooperated with the Russia Probe, but we still don't know what bang the American people got for its plea-bargain buck. I mean...14 days? I was thinking he'd get a reduction in sentence from  something like 15 years to 1 or 2 years for cooperation. A sentence of 14 days in exchange for information was nowhere in my imagination  -- not unless Trump was carted off to prison immediately. 

 We'll see what happens 

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SUPREME COURT NOMINEE BRETT KAVANAUGH PUBLICLY ACCUSED OF ATTEMPTED RAPE

From NBC

" A lawyer for the woman who is accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in the 1980s said Monday that her client believes his actions were "attempted rape" and she's willing to testify publicly about it.

"She believes that if it were not for the severe intoxication of Brett Kavanaugh, she would have been raped," attorney Debra Katz said on "Today."

Katz added that her client, Christine Blasey Ford, is "willing to do whatever it takes," including testifying before members of Congress about her allegations and that her coming forward is "not a politically motivated action." "

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/kavanaugh-s-sexual-assault-accuser-believes-she-could-have-been-n910126

Brett Kavanaugh

Apparently Ford had decided NOT to come forward publicly after she told Diane Feinstein about Kavanaugh's character. But other politicians's representatives or reporters learned her name and sought her out. A professor, those seeking information from Ford came to her classrooms. The publicity she sought to avoid tracked her down anyway. So, she came forward.

If I was her? I seriously doubt I'd have put myself through this. As serious as the appointment to the supreme court is, I feel like it'll likely be for nothing.  It'll mostly be men that will making the decision as to whether Kavanaugh's behavior was abhorrent or whether his actions in high school was just a matter of boys-will-be-boys. 

-- even though Kavanaugh allegedly put his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream for help. The only reason he couldn't fully execute the rape, according to his accuser, is that he was too drunk. 

In this era of #MeToo even the men of the republican party have to be a little careful before they write this attempted rape off as youthful male exuberance. Ford didn't tell very many people about the attempted rape -- most of us women don't. But she did tell the details of the attack during some sort of couples counseling in 2012. So there's a record of the event even thought Kavanaugh's name wasn't mentioned. 

So far Kavanaugh hasn't admitted whether he knew the woman or not.

On the news someone said Kavanaugh took a polygraph test to prove he's not lying about having attacked this woman. It was reportedly given to Kavanaugh by an ex FBI agent. Why an ex-FBI agent?  Even if a polygraph isn't admissible evidence or something why wasn't there an official polygraph test given by a real FBI agent?  

• Was the polygraph test done undercover just in case Kavanaugh didn't pass?
• Was the polygraph test done in the dark because they did test 9 times before Kavanugh passed the 10th time? 
• What's with the shady polygraph test?

The bottom line is this: Most men don't believe rape is rape. When people describe rape to some men, you can almost see the wheels turning in their heads as they start thinking, 'I've done that. My buddy Sam has done that.' and then the words "That's not rape" comes out. Worse than that there have been studies that show that a lot more men would force women to have sex (rape) if wasn't against the law.  

[A] recent study on male college students’ attitudes toward rape led by Sarah Edwards of the University of North Dakota and published in Violence and Gender, the authors cite research first conducted in the 1980s:

Specifically, when survey items describe behaviors (i.e.,‘‘Have you ever coerced somebody to intercourse by holding them down?’’) instead of simply label them (i.e., ‘‘Have you ever raped somebody?’’), more men will admit to sexually coercive behaviors in the past and more women will self-report past victimization. 

Edwards and her team wanted to better understand the male side of this gap — that is, why men react differently (and divulge different information) depending on the wording — so they had a group of college men fill out a few surveys. 

One asked them which sorts of behaviors they would engage in “if nobody would ever know and there wouldn’t be any consequences.” It included items that both used the word rape and that instead described the act of forcing someone to have sex against their will without using the r-word itself...

Read More: https://www.thecut.com/2015/01/lots-of-men-dont-think-rape-is-rape.html

It's going to be interesting to see the democrats can even get the republicans who control the House and Senate to even back off long enough to listen to what this woman has to say. But I'm not terribly hopeful about the outcome. 

I keep hearing -- "It was 36 years ago. It was 36  years ago" ---as if that makes a rape attempt not a rape attempt. We cannot put a man on the supreme court who would look at someone like Brock Turner and decide that the alcohol is responsible for the rape. 

Funny how men will believe that alcohol can make man insane and not responsible for their actions when rape is involved. But they have no answer for how it is normal women don't get drunk, pull out their gun or knife and force men to have sex. 

When women DO perform such behavior, drunk or not, they are deviants that must be punished. They don't get put into a category of girls-will-be-girls, patted on the head and excused -- whether 36 years or 36 minutes have passed since the sexual assault.

As it stands most of our elected male officials seem perfectly willing to put Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court for life even if somebody pops up with video of the attempted rape.

And this is entirely because men do not think of rape, especially date rape or rapes at parties, as real crimes. Women are not going to see justice on certain matters until women are at least 50% of the United States' power structure.

It's going to be interesting to see if Chrstine Blasey Ford can connect to the outrage of the #MeToo movement and slow the republicans roll toward confirming Kavanaugh. I think the only way that happens is if this reluctant witness decides to do interviews either today or tomorrow.
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