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


 

WHY WOMEN SHOULD BUY THE MEN'S VERSION OF ALMOST ANYTHING

Yes, there's a black tax

And there's a female tax too



"The scooters' price gap isn't an anomaly. The New York City Department of Consumer Affairs compared nearly 800 products with female and male versions — meaning they were practically identical except for the gender-specific packaging — and uncovered a persistent surcharge for one of the sexes. Controlling for quality, items marketed to girls and women cost an average 7 percent more than similar products aimed at boys and men."

~Washington Post

The gap I've been seeing for decades is a lot bigger than 7%  I just recently bought razors and new eye glasses. The gap I saw is like the gap I usually see probably closer to 10 to 20% in difference.


It pays to be a little creative too. For example, if I want a cute football shirt, I go to the men's section find something cotton then go get some lilac dye from a craft store. When you get it from the men's department, it's cute, it's cheaper, and it's not tissue paper thin fabric.

Think about it.  
Read about it 



"A Target spokesperson said the company lowered the price of the pink scooter after the report was released Friday, calling the discrepancy a "system error." (The retailer blamed the same kind of glitch last year after catching heat for selling black Barbies at more than double the price of white Barbies.)"




https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/22/women-really-do-pay-more-for-razors-and-almost-everything-else/

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

FOOTNOTES FOR KANYE by JASMINE MANS

Feeling Rebloggy


Jasmine Mans
gives us prose

on how black folks/ black children 
might feel about
losing Kanye










Kanye Rappin' With His Mama
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPsY2Y9oyvk

DEAR EX-LOVER by JASMINE MANS



Dear Ex Lover

I promise
I’ll stop chasing your memory in my dreams.
I’ll stop bringing your name up over cups of coffee, muffins, and loneliness.

I will marry a man and I will lay my heart on his chest
like red roses on Mohogany caskets
and I’ll have his daughter
and she’ll have eyes reminding me
that God still believes in second chances.
and if she ever decided to love a woman,
i will love bravery down her spine.

I will be reminded of
all the times that we loved,
like there were expiration dates
tattooed on our inner thighs.
If she ever comes home with eyelids
like cracking Levis
and bruised kneecaps
and a heart filled with question marks
I will hold her
like my mother never held me.
I will clasp her face in my palms
like the new testament on judgement day.
I’ll tell her that love is the passion
that allows you to do the right thing,
and that no woman can play coaster
to a half empty heart.

And if she ever feels as if she is alone,
as if she is a hand-me-down
pulled out of the depths of mummy’s closet
I’ll remember your name
and I’ll mumble it under my breath.
and when she asks me what I said;
I’ll tell her I know what it’s like
to drag a woman out of a cold war
and then being too worn to clean up the battlefield
that it has made of you.
I’ll tell her that your heartbeat
sounded like gun shells tripping over battered cement.
I’ll tell her that i know what it’s like
just to want someone to remember you
and that some women are as foul
as expired men in produce aisles
and that apologies
are like oxygen masks on a hijacked plane.
Forgive yourself
before you EVER forgive the person sitting next to you.
I’ll tell her to never regret loving
in permanent ink,
and that scars only give you stretch marks,
something to gossip about
and that hearts and stop signs are fraternal twins,
lost in open roads and hollow chests.

And if my daughter’s mirror
ever looks unfamiliar
and she’s too embarrassed and prideful
to run into mummy’s arms
I’ll pray, that she has friends
with hearts filled with thousands of fire flies
who are not too cold to pray with her,
who will tell her to stop looking
for the light at the end of the tunnel
and find God in the darkness.

If my daughter ever walks in my house
like shattering glass,
I’ll tell her about you.
I’ll tell her that we hurt
like c-sections birthing dead babies,
and that we cried together,
and we prayed together,
and we laughed together
like our smiles were the only ones
that mattered in this world.
And that we hurt like women
who loved women,
who loved people that did not love us.



Dear Ex Lover,

I hope my daughter never knows
what a goodbye kiss feels like..
I hope she never knows what
“I’ll see you later.” really means.
I hope she never memorizes the dial-tone
of a last conversation,
because a broken heart feels like
poisoned butterflies taking their last flutters
in the pit of your stomach


Dear Ex Lover,

I hope my daughter never
bears her soul at a poetry showcase
with her first love sitting in the audience.
knowing that the hands she’ll use
to applaud her with,
will be the same hands
that will never hold her again..








Tuesday, December 29, 2015

WILL SMITH'S CONCUSSION

"Concussion is a 2015 American biographical sports thriller/medical drama film directed and written by Peter Landesman, based on the 2009 GQ exposé Game Brain by Jeanne Marie Laskas, and starring Will Smith as Dr. Bennet Omalu, the forensic pathologist who fought against efforts by National Football League to suppress his research on the brain damage suffered by professional football players. The film also stars Alec BaldwinGugu Mbatha-Raw, and Albert BrooksColumbia Pictures released the film on December 25, 2015."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concussion_(2015_film)


No, I haven't seen the movie "Concussion." 


No, this is not a movie review

Yes, I hope the movie is actually worth all they hype.

And yes, I truly hope Will Smith wins something for it


But I just wanted to make one or two little observations:
I think it's interesting that mothers all over the damn planet have been saying football is too rough and stupid since football was invented and the first mother of a football player ACTUALLY saw her son play.

And that first mother and every mother after her was "poo-poo-ed" by her husband, coaches, etc. and told she doesn't know what it is to be a boy becoming a man. And while that's true, she may not know x, y, and z about being a man or becoming one. But many, if not most, female human beings know idiotic when they see it...until they turn off their brains and let the men around her tell her that she doesn't see what she sees.


Now that a male scientist has come around to say all that hitting is dangerous (to head AND BODY) now there's been some sort of new discovery?


To me this sounds very much like Columbus discovered America -- the patriarchy/sexism version.
The thing that's unique about Dr. Bennet Omalu is that he's fighting uphill to get the National Football league to admit that players are being permanently damaged. It seems to me that Omalu has had about as much success as the general public at getting the NFL to sanction it's players for beating and raping women -- when nobody's looking. Maybe this movie will help change something other than padding and helmets required etc. 

The other thing I'm wondering about is the status/class aspect of this. I don't watch sports too much. But I've heard the inner-city rags to riches story over and over again. I'm wondering how many NFL hopefuls are wishing Dr. Omalu would just go away and let them take their chances with brain damage if they might earn millions of dollars. Black inner-city football hopefuls possible reaction to "Concussion" and Dr. Omalu put me in mind of that prison movie where the sadistic prison warden puts the inmates in a competition to the death. Only one out of 100 will win, live on, and make it out of the prison, but they're all desperate so the inmates volunteer for the competition. The prison warden always has a back up plan to kill all of them. Nobody ever wins. But football? A certain percentage might get to win for a good long while. If your only way out of the inner-city is through a life altering series of concussions, they might take the chance. Sort of sounds like the gladiator thing they had going in Europe so long ago too, doesn't it? So if people take "Concussion" seriously, I wonder if it'll only be rural desperate whites, immigrant desperate all-shades, and inner-city desperate black people that wind up playing football in a decade or so? Or maybe everybody's desperate when it comes to a chance at getting rich?

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 scared of lit cigarettes do things like go buck wild during a traffic stop and still keep their jobs.

"...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. 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. 





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








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

MISSOURI STATE REPS AND 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

Sunday, December 27, 2015

LeGRIER, JONES, AND ALTERNATIVES TO CALLING POLICE FOR THE MENTALLY ILL




"Quintonio Legrier's mother, Janet Cooksey, who was not present at the time of the shooting, told the Chicago Tribune that her son had been dealing with mental issues, but said police didn't have to react the way they did.

"We're thinking the police are going to service us, take him to the hospital. They took his life," she said.

She said her son "didn't have a gun. He had a bat."

"If you are a police officer, you are supposed to be trained for situations," she said,according to CBS station WBBM. "Seven bullets were put in my son. Seven." "

~CBS NEWS 


The Chicago Police put at least one bullet in a neighbor, Bettie Jones, for simply opening her front door. This was reportedly an accident.


READ MORE:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/chicago-police-kill-quintonio-legrier-bettie-jones-families-outraged/ 


COMPARE: British Officers disarm a man 
wielding a machete 
in Britain in 2011 (or before)






Pay more attention to the deaths of black women and maybe we'll all be a little more aware that calling the police for a mentally ill person that's even slightly out of control is a high risk maneuver if you want that loved one to survive the encounter.

3 out of 4 of these black women, all except Yvette Smith,
were 
reportedly mentally ill 
and killed under questionable circumstances
Miriam Carey (Top Left) Natasha McKenna (Top Right) and
 Tanesha Anderson (Bottom Center)


We have no way of knowing how often the police handle these situations well. But when so little provokes the leading edge of white supremacy to violence in the United States. Police officers like Dante Servin, also of Chicago, tend to walk after they murder someone, much less when they are incompetent or negligent.


When people who carry weapons in order to protect ALL OF US are allowed to keep their jobs despite killing people due to being stupid,  overtly racist, or cowardly then you're kinda rolling the dice when you call the police on to help you with someone that's out of control -- especially if they are out of control while having dark skin. Heck, I've heard of some off the wall crap happening to mentally ill white people in some of the towns I've lived in.


THINGS TO DO OTHER THAN CALL THE POLICE TO HELP WITH A MENTALLY ILL LOVED ONE


"First things, first. A family member who is under a doctor's care, receiving prescriptions for medication and possibly also enrolled in some type of (clinic based) counseling is provided with "Crises Hotline" numbers--be it suicide or poison control or other outreach programs. 


Those numbers must be kept at arm's reach in the event the person stops taking meds or overdoses. If the person is being monitored others can detect when s/he is about to have "an episode" and then take appropriate action. There are also emergency domestic violence hotline numbers. 

This information should be researched and made available to all concerned/involved family members. It's way too easy to dial 911 under the misguided notion the cops will "go the extra mile" to research and contact a medical professional. 

Oh, the cops MIGHT do a little extra in the name of not getting charged with brutality. And I refer to the fake "caring attitude" a few of them tried to put on for the video cameras after Mr. Eric Garner was down, in cardiac arrest and not moving! 

They may try to "show clean and safe" [after] they d*mn near beat a person to within an inch of her/his life and only if they haven't killed the individual in the process of "gaining lawful control." 

You must think and prepare for "what if" situations instead of "hoping and waiting" and then--in a last-minute all out panic--dial 911 expecting them to "save or rescue" your loved one who is "acting up." They'll come as you well know. They'll show up guns drawn, batons and tasers, and pepper spray shouting orders the affected person will not necessarily hear or (in an altered state of mind) be able to comprehend and, therefore, respond to. 

All it takes is for one responding officer to yell "GUN!" and everybody on scene unloads their glocks. That's a "one shot quick way" to bring an "altercation" to a screeching a** halt and it's done more often than the public realizes. 

It's up to the family to know the number(s) of the prescribing physician, have a record of after-hours phone numbers along with any local emergency backup clinic off hours numbers. Even the pharmacy where scripts are filled can provide an emergency number to call in the case of suspected overdose. If someone is having a breakdown a "ready-to-action-family" plan must be the first place to turn. 911 ain't the place to go as the first line of defense. Trust."

JB


Saturday, December 26, 2015

THE 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/

Friday, December 25, 2015

MERRY CHRISTMAS



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

Thursday, December 24, 2015

FOR ANYONE WHO HAS HAD TO DEFEND THEIR MAMA'S ACCENT

Feeling Rebloggy




A Latina poet beautifully explains why we should be proud of our parent's accents.

Read More http://www.theflama.com/for-anyone-who-had-to-defend-their-parents-accent-1476343338.html


Hear It Here


Wednesday, December 23, 2015

POLICE BRUTALITY IN THE CLASS ROOM: NIYA KENNY AND SHAKARA STILL FACE CRIMINAL CHARGES


Video footage of the incident
 prompted the FBI and the Department of Justice to look into the incident and, after the Richland County Sheriff's Department conducted a 48-hour investigation into his conduct, Officer Ben Fields was fired. But the charges filed against Shakara and Niya Kenny, a classmate arrested for filming the incident, still stand.
READ MORE: 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/charges-assault-spring-valley-high_56733c14e4b014efe0d4d59c

BILL COSBY SUES ONE OF HIS DARKEST ACCUSERS FOR DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER






"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