THE DANGER OF A SINGLE STORY Chimamanda Adichie

"Our lives, our cultures, are composed of many overlapping stories.
Novelist Chimamanda Adichie tells the story of how she found her
authentic cultural voice -- and warns that if we hear only a single
story about another person or country, we risk a critical
misunderstanding."

Learn while being entertained. 

A born story teller, this Woman.  Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of "Americanah," and guest speaker/rapper(?) on a Beyonce song.

She explains the danger that all of us of face by only knowing the details of our own tribe, whether the commonality of our tribe is based on race, class, or nationality, how only knowing our own tribe makes everybody else in every other tribe seem flat, lesser, and easier to stereotype.

It's all so simple when you let her explain it.

NAPA VALLEY WINE TRAIN MAY BE SUED FOR 5 MILLION

Members of the Sistahs of the Reading Edge Book Club, that were kicked off the Napa Valley Wine Train for "laughing while black" have retained a lawyer, Waukeen McCoy 

“There must be compensation for the humiliation suffered” McCoy told the San Francisco Chronicle.

READ MORE: 

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Black-book-club-members-exploring-lawsuit-against-6471969.php

AVERAGE BLACK GIRL Ernestine Johnson

Ernestine Johnson - Poet & Average Black Girl

They say I’m not the average black girl because I’m so well spoken

Poised, full of etiquette, a white man’s token

You know I remember my ex’s mother telling me,
“I didn’t know how I was gonna react
when he brought a black girl,
but I like you because you talk so white.”
But when did me talking right
equate to me talking white?

They say I’m not the average black girl
No! No! Not the average black girl
because the pigment of my skin
is just a shade lighter than
that black girl over there
You know, the black girl over there
The black girl with the nappy hair
The black girls
whose elbows can’t skip a day without lotion
Whose hearts and heads
are filled up with self-hate and bottled up emotion
The cocoa brown girls
who have to face society every day and be tough
Because no matter how good
they straighten their hair,
their good is still not good enough

Oh, but see. Luckily for me, see
I don’t fall in that category, see

They say I’m not the average black girl
because I speak with so much class and
I don’t have too much but just enough ass
and not too much but just enough pizzazz
You know, just a little bit of attitude
Cos you don’t wanna come off as one of those average black girls and come off as rude
You know, popping their gum and shaking their neck
Yeah, cos those black girls get like no respect

But see luckily for me, see I get pass
Cos the melanin in my skin
matches that brown paper bag
And my father, brother and men that I date pants don’t sag
And when I speak,
my tongue pronounces every syllable
And the combed part down the middle of hair
is naturally visible
Oh! Oh!
It must be a weave or she must be mixed
Cos we all know the average black girl
ain’t got that good *#@!%
Or when I walk in a room full of white men,
they all stare
It must be the long lengths
of my un-average black girl hair

See! See, they say I’m not the average black girl
because I corrected the professor when he used the word conversate
Converse! The word is converse
And in case you didn’t get the memo,
there are now eight not nine planets in the universe
And when you’re watching the numbers
on your stocks move up and down
Remember Oklahoma, in a small town
One of the first Wall Streets
was a Black Wall Street
that got mysteriously burned down

Oh, they say I’m not the average black girl
Well let’s flip this script and rewind this *#@!%
Repaint the lines and have them blurred over time
Because the average black girl that I know…
See, the average black girl that I know
made 19 trips through the Underground Railroad to free the slaves
Sat on segregated buses,
refused to get up and paved new ways
See, the average black that I know…
were Egyptian queens like Hatshepsut and Nitocris
who were ruling dynasties
and whole armies of men
Excuse me, why I set fire to this poem
on my pen cos I am tired!
Tired of the stereotypes black girls have fallen
into because of American mentality
Oh!
But not half as tired as
Ella Baker,
Diane Nash,
Septima Poinsette Clark
I am sick and tired of being sick and tired
Miss Fannie Lou Hamer,
Daisy Bates,
Anna Arnold Hedgeman and
Dorothy Height
are far more tired than I am

But do you think the ones who say
I’m not the average black even give a damn?
No!
So pardon me if I can’t openly accept your compliments
Pardon me if I can’t openly accept your compliment
It’s just the average black girl that I know…
The average black girl that I know
had courage that surpassed her every fear
And fought for justice and equality
year after year
So as I construct these words,
pardon me as I shed a tear
Because I’m not half the black girl she was!
I am not half the black girl she was!

See, there’s a minor clause

She was out there fighting, breaking and changing laws

So I bow down to my black queen standing
in the merit of her work

And as America society continuously throws
these supercilious words onto me

I say, “No!”

I am not the average black girl,

I can only aspire to be.

Thinking Back on RUBY BRIDGES Birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUBY BRIDGES!

A BRIEF HISTORY ON RUBY:


At 6 years old, Ruby Bridges was one of the first black children to integrate an all white school in the south. White law enforcement officials had to guard her comings and goings. Her father wasn't so sure about Ruby going to the school. But her mother, Lucille, was sure in 1960 that Ruby would get a better education. And her mother prevailed. 

But the biggest thing going on the day that Ruby went to that all white school was making the Supreme Court decision in  Brown v The Board of Education a reality in the South.


Every time I see this photograph of Ruby Bridges (or the famous painting, "The Problem We All Live With" by Norman Rockwell) I don't think about how brave she was, I think about her parents.

I wonder what they imagined and felt before they set their child on this path. I wonder about the gap between what they imagined and what they saw, if they saw scenes like this photograph at all.  Then I imagine the horror at the gap between their imaginings and reality.

I can't imagine sending her again the next day.

I surely can't imagine sending her the day after that. A white woman had threatened to poison Ruby by then. (read link below)

I’m glad her parents had a faith stronger than mine because I can’t imagine feeling that strongly about an idea or a dream, not even the personal dream of her getting a good education - not strong enough to send her out there. I don't think I would have cared who promised what.

People made so many sacrifices for us to be where we are now. As hard as it gets sometimes. Now is nothing compared to then. 

---------------------------------

A new imagining for me!

I wonder if the men have guns under their jackets. They have to have right? They were Federal Marshals. I don't know why I never thought of that before.

Read More Here:  http://www.biography.com/people/ruby-bridges-475426#escorted-by-federal-marshals

SPENDING LIGHT PRIVILEGE WISELY

Dr. Joy DeGruy  (author of "Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome")

BIG LESSON
IN A SHORT STORY
OF AN ENCOUNTER AT A STORE
WITH HER 10 YR OLD

Dr. Joy DeGruy is a nationally and internationally renowned
researcher, educator, author and presenter. She is an ambassador for
healing and a voice for those who’ve struggled in search of the past,
and continue to struggle through the present. Dr. Joy is the acclaimed
author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome —America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: The Study Guide , with a second book in the works , Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome Part 2: Be The Healing.




Dr. Joy is a natural storyteller which makes her a natural teacher

More of her biography on the next page

FAKE DEEP by Cecil Emeke

"If I hear one more poem
written by a man telling women
how to live their lives
by policing their clothes,
bodies,
sexuality,
make up use,
reading habits,
exercise regimes
and cooking skills,

I’m going to slap somebody…

CONGRATULATIONS LORETTA LYNCH!

LORETTA LYNCH

FIRST

AFRICAN

AMERICAN

FEMALE

ATTORNEY

GENERAL


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/politics/loretta-lynch-attorney-general-vote.html

WHITE COP MURDER OF REKIA BOYD: CASE EFFECTIVELY DISMISSED

Before Judge Dennis Porter gave a direct verdict, that essentially dismissed the case, he said the prosecution had evidence for a first degree murder charge but they couldn't prove the recklessness associated with the manslaughter charge.

Defense Attorney's always ask to dismiss a case. It is part of the courtroom dance. But judges rarely ever grant this. But this judge did. He basically kick the case out.

Have you ever heard such garbage? How can there NOT be enough recklessness when somebody shoots into a crowd of people with an unregistered weapon, when he's not on duty, after seeing a cell phone -- whether the charge is manslaughter or murder. 






THIS STARTED  OFF AS A NOISE COMPLAINT


DANTE SERVIN HAD AN UNREGISTERED WEAPON

DANTE SERVIN WAS OFF DUTY

DANTE SERVIN SAID HE THOUGHT HE SAW A GUN (THAT TURNED OUT TO BE A CELL PHONE)


Keep in mind that Dante Servin did not walk up to Rekia Boyd with the intent to kill her. Maybe I've seen too many "Law and Order" episodes, but isn't some kind of intent required for a first degree murder charge? So if the prosecution had gone for the murder charge without enough intent, would Judge Dennis Porter have thrown out the murder charge too?
The Huffington Post reports that Officer Dante Servin was the first police officer in Chicago to face a trial in 17 years. With judges like Dennis Porter it'll be 34 years before one actually faces a jury of peers.




LISTEN TO A REPORT FROM INSIDE COURT & JUDGES VERDICT

NATASHA McKENNA:BLACK, FEMALE, UNARMED, SICK & DEAD BY COP

"Natasha McKenna initially cooperated with deputies, placed her hands through her cell door food slot and agreed to be handcuffed, the reports show. But McKenna, whose deteriorating mental state had caused Fairfax to seek help for her, then began trying to fight her way out of the cuffs, repeatedly screaming, “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me!” the reports show.

Then, six members of the Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team, dressed in white full-body biohazard suits and gas masks, arrived and placed a wildly struggling 130-pound McKenna into full
restraints, their reports state. But when McKenna wouldn’t bend her knees so she could be placed into a wheeled restraint chair, a lieutenant delivered four 50,000-volt shocks from the Taser, enabling the other deputies to strap her into the chair, the reports show."

The instructions with the taser say don't use it more than 3 times


The instructions with the taser say don't use it on the mentally ill because it won't work.

File This Under Callous Disregard for Black Life





CLICK HERE TO READ MORE AT WASHINGTON POST

THE RACISM THAT COUNTS

Marian Anderson, the first African American to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera in 1955

The shootings, the white cop murders of black people like Walter Scott are dramatic. But the most problematic racism is the racism that is not obvious to outsiders, the racism that we, as black people, talk about inside our own same-race circles after we get home from work or school. This is the hair that we all keep brushing at.

The racist rhetoric and the pieces of racism that most white people refuse to believe matter,  acted out daily on black and brown, is the field from which the extremists like white police officer, Michael Slager, are rising.

When the racist rhetoric and unacknowledged racism increases so does the frequency race based murder.

The first,
rhetoric,
fuels the second,
murder.

And white racist rhetoric in the U.S. increased with the election of our first black president. There are people, mostly white, that are still reeling at the thought of President Obama's existence.

It could be that black murder by white police officers is simply being reported more often these days. Maybe. But it really does seem like there has been a real uptick in the numbers of black and unarmed murdered by police.

And if there has been a significant uptick in the numbers of black and unarmed murdered by the police nationwide, then the worst of the police are going to start "feeling themselves" any minute now. They are going to start feeling omnipotent, powerful enough to move beyond the socially and politically weaker groups made up of blacks and browns to start shooting unarmed white people.

The move to include white people as target practice has probably already begun. Increasing numbers of white, mentally ill are being beaten to death or going down in a hail of gunfire. 

Are the worst of  white police officers going to move on up the social ladder to targeting the white middle class next? I don't know. But all of this reminds me of how only black neighborhoods were perceived as having problems with drugs...until little, white Johnnie died of an overdose in Wisconsin. Only then did the main stream media admit that "America has a drug problem"

"Just Say No" Nancy Reagan told us.


I don't know of things are changing at all, Black President or not Black President. I wasn't foolish enough to think President Obama's election meant this country was stepping into a post-racial era. And I knew thing would be risky for President Obama standing in so much limelight and so many circles of power simultaneously. I count myself surprised, in this moment, that there haven't been more frequent attempts on his life. But for some reason I did not foresee the uptick in racist rhetoric as being dangerous for all of us -- actually life threatening.

But I should have.  It's obvious now.  Hindsight is indeed 20/20. 
So, the mysterious, misreported death of Miriam Carey and gunning down of Walter Scott has me thinking I should change my cell phone camera settings so that it will start filming on a moments notice without having to put in my password. But my main focus is going to remain on reducing day to day racism and sexism, both. I'm going to do so by being as direct as I can possibly be when writing or when talking to people face to face.

Ideas have to change before behavior can.



Peace Out - Listen to Ave Maria

Being This Sexy

HA!  

HAPPY FRIDAY!

A DELUXE PIZZA'S EXPLANATION OF Intersectional Feminism

When Patricia Arquette won her Oscar for her role in the movie "Boyhood" she used her platform to call for wage equality for women.

So far so fantastic.

BUT she also said, "It’s time for....all the men that love women and all the gay people and all the people of color that we’ve all fought for to fight for us now.”"


- like black people (including black women)
- like latino people (including latino women),
- like asian people (including asian women)
- like gay people (including gay women)

had survived oppression and come out the otherside relatively oppression free(?) in part due to the assistance given by white females-- and now the bill had come due for the rest of us to give back to white women.

Clearly the sentence was awkward and not exactly what she meant to say.And she might have apologized for how it "sounded" as white racial apologies always head off that same cliff.

VIDEO KEY for the CALL IN

But the
it-is-time-for-them (people of color and gays) to give-back-to-us (white women) was as crystal clear as it was heart felt. Gays and people of color were in the not-one-of-us zone. And many a white-woman in the audience did not hear this no matter how many times they replayed this speech.

A book or two or three by black people about white suffragist support of abolition and Ida B Wells' anti-lynching crusade might serve to education everyone on where white female support has been good and where it has been even shakier than it is now.

Until then, only Akilah can use pizza and burgers to call a few of our paler sister's in.

Definition

Calling in -- "A less disposable way of correcting another human being that has made a mistake. Calling people out, is sometimes necessary and correct. But calling-in needs to be in activists repertoire" (paraphrased from BLACKGIRLDANGEROUS.ORG)  . 

FOR WOMEN WHO ARE DIFFICULT TO LOVE Poet Warsan Shire

Warsan Shire

you are a horse running alone
and he tries to tame you
compares you
to an impossible highway
to a burning house

says you are blinding him
that he could never leave you
forget you
want anything but you

you dizzy him,
you are unbearable
every woman before or after you
is doused in your name

you fill
his mouth
his teeth ache with memory of taste
his body just a long shadow seeking yours

but you are always
too intense
frightening in the way you want him
unashamed and sacrificial
he tells you that no man can live up to
      the one who lives in your head


and you tried to change didn't you?


closed your mouth more
tried to be
softer,
prettier,
less volatile,
less awake

but even when sleeping

you could feel him

travelling away from you in his dreams

so what did you want to do love,

split his head open?

you can't make homes out of human beings

someone should have already told you that

and if he wants to leave

then let him leave

you are

terrifying

and strange

and beautiful

something not everyone knows how to love.


by WARSAN SHIRE

White Racial Apology #100,816,053, Cosmo Online Magazine

This may have happened back in January? Not sure.

But apparently a BUNCH of somebodies at Cosmo Online Magazine thought that all the white stars and models were gorgeous while all the black and brown models had looks that need to die (R.I.P.)

 

 

I haven't actually seen the apology yet. I don't know if there's been one made yet. I didn't bother reading the entire article below. I can't listen even one more time. But another apology is coming. Trust me.


And dare I say it? I do.

This is what comes of living around other white people that look like you 24/7 and only wanting to only see people that look like you 24/7 on TV and only wanting to see art centered around people that look like you.

Eveything body and everything not you gets tagged as less-than. Yeah, we know you're sorry. Yeah we know it wasn't deliberately done.  But we also know it comes so naturally, that we should be wondering if you'll ever be able to stop e-racing everyone else at the drop of a hat





Click here to read more at Buzzfeed

THE UGLIEST FRATERNAL TWINS IN THE WORLD: RACISM AND SEXISM

In early 2015, a Belgium Newspaper that passes itself off as "progressive"  did a story where they attached an image of Michelle and Barack Obama that had been altered to look like two apes. 



The newspaper, Charlie Hebdo style, tried to pass it off, as satire.

SSDD.


But this isn't about that. This is about how racism and sexism travel along the very same corridors and stop to execute the same behaviors along the way.


Within the Belgium story --only the latest pile of disrespect heaved at President Barack Obama and The First Lady-- the African author tells another, smaller story about a television show he was watching while in Belgium. And it illustrates just how acceptable the crudest forms of overt racism are there. (I won't be visiting.)


On this game show  the author was watching, there was a question:

What is "the technical term for a child of mixed parentage. The phrasing was a lot more offensive than I have suggested (Obama is the son of a N**** from Kenya and a white mother, etcetera). The answer was 'Mulatto.' I expected someone in the audience to stand up and call the quiz master to order. No one did. The show went on as normal

The show went on as normal?

The show went on as normal.


People who are blissfully unaware of the micro-variety of the above illustrated MACRO-aggression in the United States, don't seem to realize is that this is the kind of moment that tends to let us know that we are surrounded by people are deeply steeped in racism.

The level of racism that seems likely present was not reflected in the words of the solitary game show host or the words of one or two contestants.  It's the reaction of the audience that tells you where normal lives. It isn't about one T.V. show on during one hour one day in Belgium. The n-word being used interchangably for black person plus "the show went on as normal" sans any reaction at all from the audience tells you a lot about how widespread over racism is in that country.


By the same token, Chris Brown, Ray Rice and Bill Cosby may not be representative of black men in particular or black people in general --as many have pointed out.  But the collective reaction, or lack thereof, toward Chris Brown, Ray Rice, and Jello Pudding Man is representative of sexism and general devaluation of black women within the black community.

It's the reaction of the audience, live and in person or at home watching television, that tell you what the attitudes are. Furthermore, there has been much written and discussed on these three men. And there has been a huge percentage of our African American population, much more than half that, tried to make sure that:

- the show will go on as normal for Chris Brown

- the show will go on as normal for Ray Rice



- the show will go on as normal for Bill Cosby



...all while acting  as if the financial success of these three individuals uplifts the entire black race in some way.

The thing that wounded me most was realizing that the video didn't impact Ray Rice defenders anymore than video impacted Daniel Pantaleo defenders (the man who choked Eric Garner to death).

Do not think that my heart hasn't slowly and gradually shattered over the taint that Bill Cosby's sexism (prerequisite for rape), classism, and respectability politics has left on Dr. Huxtable too. And by the way that pain is quite a bit more sharp than the pain caused by Mel Gibson ruining the "Lethal Weapon" series for me with his racism.

Danny Glover, Mel Gibson's co-star, played one of the first black characters in an interracially cast movie where he wasn't the chocolate dipped white guy or present as a stereotype, token, or joke. Mel Gibson completely ruined the "Lethal Weapon" series for me....and Danny Glover as a Black History Moment At The Movies.

But I got over it.  Mostly. It was relatively easy.  Nobody, except one or two of the megarich New Blacks, tried to defend Mel's racist tirades. So it was easy to just be sad and move on. 



But people did tried to defend Bill Cosby. Black folk worked harder to defend Bill Cosby than they did to defend Clarence Thomas from Anita Hill Back in the day. New Blacks, Old Blacks, and Slightly Used Blacks defended Bill Cosby from close to three dozen accusations of rape --at the expense of my sisters, be they black, white, mixed race, Latino, Asian, or another ethnicity.  

And let me be frank. It is especially galling to hear those wailing about racism ignore black women who say they've been attacked by Bill Cosby. 

I'm not Charlie Hebdo.

And I'm not Phylicia either.

The accusers? They ain't ALL lying. As much as I love Dr. Huxtable, they can't be. And those that think more than 2 dozen women are lying should consider how crazy they sound.  A conspiracy that reaches across decades and thousands of miles just won't hunt.

And in my opinion? Cosby is not a surprise.

The superiority within Bill Cosby's respectability politics has been discussed, hashed, and rehashed in grumbles and growls between black folk for over decade and feels like two. For those who still don't see the 'I'm a black person but I'm not THAT KIND of black person' in his rhetoric? You're just too afraid to let the pain come. Move on to the next article. Come back when you're feeling a little stronger. Then read on.

The brave should consider this: If you see a glaring superiority in one aspect of a person's life, that usually means there's a cluster of superiorities that the person is trying, with varying degrees of success, to hide.

In my mind, drug-em and rape-em is just the latest evidence of that core of superiority because I'm pretty sure that you have to consider yourself vastly superior to any person you might rape.  Isn't that how rape works between two men in every prison movie you've ever seen? The alpha dog rapes the smaller weaker man.

And reading between the lines of stories written by female rape survivors, I see the same thing. Rape happens between someone who considers himself superior taking advantage of someone who he considers weaker and less than. That's probably an expression of sexism in and of itself.

When the audience, otherwise known as the public at large, doesn't even notice that they live in a world where the rape victims can't speak for fear of being blamed, that almost has to be a sign that the sexism is rampant.

When black people can't speak up about racism, we know the racism is rampant. Why don't we know the same thing about sexism?  





The original article:http://africasacountry.com/belgium-is-an-insular-country-it-lives-like-history-happens-outside-of-it/

GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN Ikard about Baldwin on Black Female Patriarchy

A REPOST FROM NEW BLACK MAN BLOG
http://newblackman.blogspot.com/2009/07/book-review-breaking-silence-toward.html

A pivotal moment in James Baldwin’s novel Go Tell It on the Mountain (1952) sees the churchman and patriarch Gabriel being confronted by his sister Florence over a devastating past infidelity.

James Baldwin

Upon fathering a child with his mistress Esther, Gabriel stole the savings of his first wife Deborah and gave it to Esther to hush up the matter. Deborah wrote a letter to Florence testifying to Gabriel’s ruinous behavior, which left her neglected, isolated, and economically dependent on him.

When Florence musters up the courage to confront Gabriel, ten years after having received the letter, the effect on his psyche is profound:

“It had lived in [Deborah’s] silence, then, all of those years? He could not believe it…And yet, this letter, her witness, spoke, breaking her long silence, now that she was beyond his reach forever” (212).

Confronted with the suffering wrought by his patriarchal authority, Gabriel reels from the memory of Deborah as it is framed by Florence’s criticism of his actions. As if to underscore the power of speech in these women’s intertwined voices, Baldwin has Florence rebut Gabriel’s power over her by uttering,

“When I go, brother, you better tremble, cause I ain’t going to go in silence” (215).

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

David Ikard

Ikard’s chapter on Go Tell It on the Mountain is exemplary in this regard because it introduces the idea that both men and women have a stake in black patriarchy—a dynamic that underscores the need for genuine intergender dialogue (rather than, say, a feminist critique of male oppression as “ONLY” an issue of men dominating women).


On the one hand, Ikard shows how the novel’s patriarch, Gabriel, consistently shores up his sense of masculine identity by compelling the black women in his life to submit to his religious and familial authority.

When his mistress Esther is left on her own with their unborn child, she is “virtually at Gabriel’s mercy” because she is a “poor pregnant woman of disreputable social standing” (64). Esther might reveal Gabriel’s infidelity to the church, but Ikard understands this as an impossible choice, given the practices of community policing which downplay such infidelity in the name of securing strong black male leaders.


In this way, Gabriel’s sense of himself as “the chief victim of white oppression and the burden-bearer of his family” continues to justify his ill treatment of black women.


Yet in his chapter on Baldwin, Ikard is also keen to show how the novel “disrupts the victimization discourse that allows black men like Jones and Gabriel to explain away their subjection of black women” (50).



                                         *    *     *    *   *


Crucial to this narrative disruption, according to Ikard, is black women’s recognition of and rebellion against their complicity with black patriarchy.

In the figures of Elizabeth (Gabriel’s current wife) and Gabriel’s mother, Ikard identifies how “women unknowingly support patriarchy in their relationships with men,” particularly through the“internalized…expectation of black female self-sacrifice” (50, 67).

1) Elizabeth buttresses Gabriel’s authority by assuming guilt for being a “bad mother” and having had sex prior to their marriage.

2) Gabriel’s mother is a more resonant example of black female patriarchy in that she “rears him to believe that as a man he should expect black women to cater to his every emotional, physical, and material desire” (55).


In both cases, Ikard outlines a convincing case to extend the study of black patriarchy to women who support its ideological and institutional viability.

Importantly, this perspective does not cast judgment on black women for supporting patriarchy but instead seeks to understand

1) how their stake in it is conditioned by white supremacy, and

2) how a more inclusive politics of resistance would overturn both racists and gendered structures of oppression.


Ikard’s perspective is echoed in the character of Florence, who emerges as the novel’s privileged witness to the range of patriarchy’s harms precisely because she has also suffered from black women’s (her mother’s) investment in patriarchy.

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



FROM A NEW BLACK MAN A PARTIAL REVIEW OF
"BREAKING THE SILENCE: TOWARD A BLACK MALE FEMINIST CRITICISM"  by David Ikard. Read More -  http://newblackman.blogspot.com/2009/07/book-review-breaking-silence-toward.html



Click Here for more about the book itself  

‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’ Archived in Library of Congress

At the 41st Annual Grammy Awards in 1999, Lauryn Hill made history as the first female artist to win five of the golden trophies in one night. Hill, rocking her gorgeous locs, was nominated ten times for her ’98 album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, and took home major awards, like Album of the Year and Best New Artist. The musician and actress had proven her talent to be undeniable and a rare specialty while singing and spitting in hip-hop group the Fugees, but still, no one could have predicted the magnitude of sheer magic she would bring via her solo album.
READ MORE: BLACK ENTERPRISE http://www.blackenterprise.com/lifestyle/miseducationlauryn-hill-library-congress/

Choosing Rape over Race

But as I vomited in the backseat of the taxi that Cosby ushered me into after he assaulted me one night in the late 1980s, that Dr. Huxtable image no longer made sense. I felt both physically violated and emotionally bamboozled.

Still, I didn’t want the image of Dr. Huxtable reduced to that of a criminal. For so many of the African-American men I knew, William H. Cosby, Ed.D. provided a much-needed wholesome image of success, and the character he made famous was their model for self-worth and manhood. I knew that, in my reluctance to add my assault to the allegations facing Cosby, I was allowing race to trump rape...”


As I debated whether to come forward, I struggled with where my allegiances should lie – with the women who were sexually victimized or with black America, which had been systemically victimized. I called several friends for advice. While some encouraged me to speak out, others were cautious – even angry.

One friend, an African American man, insisted I should stay quiet: “You will be eaten alive, and for what? The black community is not going to support you.” It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but I think it was his way of protecting me.


When I finally told my story in the New York Daily News in November, it was hard for me to look other African American people in the eye. On some level, I felt that I had betrayed black America. And some of my African American friends seemed too hurt by the damage to Cosby’s image to offer me any support. The friend who had dismissed the stories of Cosby’s white accusers, for instance, didn’t offer me any words of comfort.


READ MORE AT THE WASHINGTON POST http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/03/06/bill-cosby-sexually-assaulted-me-i-didnt-tell-because-i-didnt-want-to-let-black-america-down/

Your Silence Won't Save You - Audre Lorde

I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me...Your silences will not protect you...

I began to ask each time: "

What's the worst 
that could happen to me 
if I tell this truth?"

Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, "disappeared" or run off the road at night.

Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever.

Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end.

And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."

And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is MORE frightening than speaking your truth. And that is NOT speaking.”

~ Audre Lorde

The War On Men Through The Degradation Of Women

FROM SINUOUS MAGAZINE, THE COMPLEX

When the press attacked her girl child or being free, Ms. Jada Pinkett Smith took some time out to tell us all how much more uplifted the men in any culture could be if they only invested in themselves by investing in their women.  

"How is man to recognize his full self, his full power through the eye’s of an incomplete woman? The woman who has been stripped of Goddess recognition and diminished to a big ass and full breast for physical comfort only.

The woman who has been silenced so she may forget her spiritual essence because her words stir too much thought outside of the pleasure space. The woman who has been diminished to covering all that rots inside of her with weaves and red bottom shoes.

I am sure the men, who restructured our societies from cultures that honored woman, had no idea of the outcome. They had no idea that eventually, even men would render themselves empty and longing for meaning, depth and connection.

There is a deep sadness when I witness a man that can’t recognize the emptiness he feels when he objectifies himself as a bank and truly believes he can buy love with things and status. It is painful to witness the betrayal when a woman takes him up on that offer. He doesn’t recognize that the [creation] of a half woman has contributed to his repressed anger and frustration of feeling he is not enough. He then may love no woman or keep many half women as his prize.

He doesn’t recognize that it’s his submersion in the imbalanced warrior culture, where violence is the means of getting respect and power, as the reason he can break the face of the woman who bore him four children.

When woman is lost, so is man. The truth is, woman is the window to a man’s heart and a man’s heart is the gateway to his soul.

Power and control will NEVER out weigh love.

May we all find our way.
J

Different but equal. This is a concept that's recognized in regards to race. And it should be just as easy to recognize in regards to gender.




~ Jada Pinkett-Smith, Sinuous Magazine http://www.sinuousmag.com/2012/12/jada-pinket-smith-war-on-men/