You may have heard of Bethany Storro, the White woman in Washington State who, in August, claimed that she was attacked by an unidentified Black woman “with an athletic build” who threw acid in her face. In spite of serious holes in Storro’s account of the incident (just for starters, her eyes were protected by sunglasses that she was wearing at night) this story made national headlines. While police searched for a suspect, sympathy cards came flooding in from all over the country to the hospital where Storro lay recuperating from her injuries.
Black men with any manner of hair were stopped and questioned by police in the Overton section of Philadelphia for about a week after the incident. Fortunately, no arrests appear to have been made in relation to the falsified report, but the potential for harm was substantial. I mean, just imagine something like this happening with the NYPD! Oh, wait.
What fascinates me about all this is that the key to making these offenses plausible has been the addition of an imaginary Black offender. The perpetual troping of Black people as violent and criminal (among other things) creates a myth of constant potential White victimhood, and the more damaging and sinister countermyth of the necessity of unrelenting vigilance against Black criminality. What troubles me more is that some White people are willing to actually invent a crime in order to have a Black person to blame it on. Ralston, Smith and Stuart dumped their crimes at the doorstep of unidentified Black offenders to throw the police off their guilty trails. Todd and Storro made shit up with the specific intention of vilifying Black people. Ya know, because we don’t have it hard enough as it is. SIGH.
As saddened and outraged as I am about this, I’m not surprised. There’s bound to be at least one more case like this before the year’s out. World, get better.
Saturday, August 28, 2010 was an extraordinary day here in the United States. The date marked the 55th commemoration of the lynching death of Emmitt Till. It also was the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s incredible “I Have A Dream” speech, which was arguably the single most important moment in the Civil Right’s movement of the 20th century. And on Saturday, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and a host of other conservative politicians and political figures including Michele Bachmann and (sigh) Alveda King gathered with hundreds of thousands of their conservative supporters for a “non-political” rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. (Beck insisted that the date selection was purely coincidental.) I watched with equal parts outrage, sadness and amusement as the Restoring Honor march/rally/hullaballo-making unfolded on Saturday. With so many politicians spear-heading and keynoting the event, if promoting a political agenda wasn’t the goal, then what was? (Do you want more? Heck yeah, ya do! Go, read, enjoy!)
Every time Glenn Beck cries, an angel gets its wings. So kick him in the shins.
According to friend and friend of the blog Joseph, yesterday a Google-sponsored ad for the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) showed up on this post. After some enlightening (albeit upsetting) discussion with him about hasbara and new media, I discovered that WordPress does sometimes place ads related to a post’s content on a page. WordPress is a free service; this is how they sometimes pay the bills:
Note: To support the service (and keep free features free), we also sometimes run advertisements. We’ve tested a lot of different ad providers and currently use Google AdSense and Skimlinks. We try hard to make the ads discreet and effective and only run them in limited places. If you would like to completely eliminate ads from appearing on your blog, we offer the No-Ads Upgrade.
I guess I can’t really finger-point. I’ve done things I’m ashamed of for money, too. Now, those things typically involved flirting and some nudity as opposed to, say, compromising my ethics and personal integrity…but okay.
Who knows? Maybe I’m being unfair, judging AIPAC this way. I wouldn’t necessarily write off a kind and brilliant person with crippling body odor, and by the same token, I shouldn’t necessarily dismiss this organization because of a little surface stench. Really, there’s got to be more to AIPAC than its decades of relentless obfuscation and creepy air of menace, right?
So can we talk about it now? I mean, really. Can we talk about how condemning the actions of the Israeli government is common sense? Can we have this discussion without having it all boil down to ridiculous polarization and accusations of anti-Semitism? And can we openly condemn anti-Semitism when it does appear -because it will - and remain confident that doing so only strengthens the case for right? Can we just come the fuck out and say it when we see shit is WRONG, know that its WRONG, and call it what it is? Can we do that?
I know that economic sanctions are just not going down (it’s a nice thought, though, isn’t it?), but appalled citizens are welcome to join the ongoing ethical boycott. World, get better.
I know I talked about this before, but it bears repeating. I read this sign a few times with my mouth hanging open…proof positive that one can become stupefied by stupidity. Maybe that’s what these folks are going for? I don’t know. I DO know that these were the same assholes who sat with their thumbs up their apolitical butts whilst the previous administration initiated and escalated two concurrent wars-for-profit that made a small cadre of elites rich at the expense of several countries, including this one. I also know that they are LARGELY responsible for this chick’s continued relevance.
Sarah Palin, pre-$50K makeover, no doubt in the middle of saying something incredibly stupid.
One thing I’m glad about? It took the tea baggers and their more violent, extremist ”fringe” (I’d say “core” was more accurate, but okay…) to shock mainstream media out of its reluctance to call them what they are: xenophobic, anti-intellectual, racist, reactionary, anti-progress and most emphatically un-American. Oh, and stupid. Really, REALLY fucking stupid. Did I say that already? Eh. One more time couldn’t hurt.
And I’m not. Not that I have nothing to say (when is that ever my problem?), but that this whole mess makes my heart hurt. And I’m kinda at capacity for heart ache at the moment. No more, all full, thank you.
Friday Protest Will Demand: Emergency Relief Must Get to the Haitian People Now!
When: Friday January 22 12:00 noon (press conference) 4:00 – 7:00 pm Street protest
Where: United States Mission to the United Nations, 140 E 45th Street (3rd & Lexington)
The Haiti Emergency Committee announced today its opposition to the Obama administration’s conduct towards Haiti in the wake of the earthquake of January 12. It issued this statement: With 500,000 Haitians feared dead under the rubbles following the earthquake, Haiti needs robust Emergency Assistance. The first 48 hours in the aftermath of the earthquake were very critical. The Haitian people have been helping one another with their bare hands from the very first few moments of the earthquake. People everywhere are striving to support the Haitian people any way they can. Yet, the U.S. military having wrestled total control of the ports and the main airport in Port-Au-Prince as well as throughout the country is refusing to allow cargo planes from different countries such as Turkey, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba to bring urgently needed medical supplies, water, food, and medicine to the people in Haiti. For days, the US and UN officials on the ground stopped volunteers from distributing supplies to the people in the hardest hit places. This is mass genocide. There is a real Humanitarian crisis in Haiti and it must be dealt with as such. The Haitian People must be assisted and not be portrayed in the media as animals and criminals. The Haitian masses in Haiti – as they did in New Orleans during Katrina – did the best they could in mobilizing themselves to deal collectively with their situation. These efforts must be supported in all aid programs. Volunteers must be facilitated to distribute the aid provided by other countries around the globe and should not be suppressed. The United States, instead of providing the immediate aid necessary in the first critical hours, mobilized a whole arsenal of military hardware and personnel with at least 11,000 soldiers to reinforce the occupation of Haiti adding to the 9,000-strong UN military force in the country. TheHaitian people need Humanitarian assistance – water, medicine, medical supplies, healthcare workers not a military arsenal. We say NO to this military deployment in Haiti. We oppose the occupation of Haiti now and forever. We demand: 1) Let the aid get through to Haiti! Let the Haitian People organize! Stop U.S. Military interference with international rescue & Humanitarian aid. THIS MUST STOP! 2) Stop denying Humanitarian entryinto the US for Haitians whose lives are at risk! 3) END U.S./U.N. occupation of Haiti! 4) Stop the World Bank/USAID sweatshop plans in Haiti! 5) Stop the removal of people from their communities!
Happy New Year, dear readers! I’ve got a lot to chat about that really wouldn’t add up to much by itself, sooooo as promised in the last scraps post, here’s another hodgepodge piece. Enjoi!
My first New Year’s Eve alone was extraordinary. I walked down to the beach (three miles – oy!) at about 10 p.m. and arrived fifteen minutes to midnight. There, under the light of the full, blue moon, I swam and watched the fireworks from the nearby pier, meditating on my life: all that I had been granted in the last year, and all that I wanted in the new one. It was amazing. The only thing that would’ve made it better would have been if Rush Limbaugh had died. Ah, well.
Okay, now just imagine her, but darker, chunkier, bustier, and with much darker, thicker, curlier hurr. That
January 10, 2010 is my Golden Birfday! I am super excited about it because I have been waiting for 01/10/10 since I was a kid. You see, dorks loooooove binary. Not everybody gets a binary code birthday. It’s just further evidence that I’m special. The original plan was to have a faaaaabulous brunch with Mama here and then spend the rest of my day on the beach. Seeing as how we’re expecting SNOW in parts of my county this evening, that’s kinda not happening. SIGH. The winter loves me so much it followed me. That’s okay. I can still have some cake.
That's a sexy cake right there.
Sci-fi rill life bullshit. The year long siege of Gaza has been shamefully absent from the national headlines. (Not like, “brutal and repeated rape and terrorization of women in the Congo” absent, but definitely absent for a cause that most Americans are purportedly concerned about. I wonder what it takes to stir compassion for women raped so viciously that they lose control of their excretory function for life? Maybe if they were just a smidge more White Bosnian? Anywhooo…) Just when I thought that the racist, fascist face of absolutist Zionism couldn’t GET any uglier, here comes this horrifying story of ILLEGAL organ-harvesting of Palestinians by the Israeli government. Special thanks to Joe for bringing this to my attention. I have NO IDEA why this shit isn’t on 60 Minutes. No, wait. I know why. Stupid ole mainstream media. o_O
Speaking of “shit I cain’t believe”: Whitney Houston’s Oprahinterview. Let the record show that, because crack is cheap and crack is whack,
Whitney and Bobby laced their weed with rock cocaine.
Ya know, because that’s classier. SIGH. Y’all, this had me stuck in side-eye for a WEEK.
ENVY ME!!! I own this bag, the beautiful and “green” Michelle Obama shopper. Neener neener NEEner!
So sharp you might wanna reach for it handle first!
If one more person compares my lips to Angelina Fekking Jolie’s, I’m gonna vomit. Like a lotta Black girls who grew up before Naomi made “beestung” lips acceptable to the mainstream, I got a lotta self-esteem levelling crap growing up for having a very, VERY full mouth. I don’t consider the lauding of a feature that I was ruthlessly made to feel ashamed of because some White chick a celeb has it a “win.” And I never will. My lips were lovely before White folks decided to openly covet them, and they will ALWAYS be. Comparing them to Jolie’s is some vurry nasty, backhanded-complimen-type appropriation, and it is what Kyriarchy uses it to conquer the self-esteems of little girls of color everyday. Soooo, if you’re gonna compare my lips to anyone’s, please refer to Chrisette Michele. I love her.
Just. GOAHGEOUS.
Junot Diaz needs a nut punch and/or corrective therapy for literary Tourette’s Syndrome. Like everyone and their mother, I read this book in the summer of 2007 and looooved it. Seriously, in spite of its RIDONKULOUS later popularity and the somewhat condescending tone of some of its critical accolades (“voice from the gutter”? Fucking REALLY?) it remains one of the Best Books I Have Ever Read. SIGH. Having said all that, throughout this exquisitely woven tale, Diaz dropped the n-bomb with an alacrity that was inexcusable. Seriously, Diaz tossed The Word That Wouldn’t Die out like a nine-year-old throws pellet firecrackers on a hot sidewalk in summer. Fuck that “he writes like he talks” nonsense. As a writer, I know what a lack of narrative restraint looks like. However, because every person of color in my life adored this novel, I was seriously loathe to bring it up or engage in critical discussion of the novel, particularly with regard to race (which was explored really well and sensitively – with that one glaring exception). It won the Pulitzer. I think I can be gently critical without getting any static about it now.
This is one of those moments where I roll my eyes, exhale loudly, and mutter, “WHITE people…” I recommend that y’all do the same.I have to say the ruckus around Harry Reid’s ignorant-assed comments amused me more than anything else. Code-switching is a survival technique that many Black fokes (including yours truly) employ on a day-to-day basis in order to simply LIVE. Some amphibians breathe air and water their whole lives. Plenty of PoC occupy dual worlds in the same manner.
Lungs: CHECK. Gills: CHECK. Effective camouflage from predators: NONE. Toxic skin when handled, ingested,or otherwise fucked with: CHECK.
And while one’s ability to effectively code-switch does help ensure survival, it is NOT necessarily a reflection of any aspect of one’s character, nor does it necessarily reflect one’s talents, intelligence or abilities. I am always amused at just how much some White people – who never have to code-switch and always carry Whiteness and its accompanying privileges with them – have to say about the “Negro dialect.” I also like to say some real Black shit in all-White settings, just to see White people squirm. Seriously, next time you’re talking with a group of oh-so-liberal White fokes, throw something like, “One monkey don’t stop no show!” into the middle of the conversation, and see if the mofos don’t stare at you like you whipped a tampon outta your purse and used it to stir some sugar into your glass of shiraz.
I am hesitant to publish the Black hurr post because of all the crap Black women are getting from MSM recently. It’s like Chris Rock took over a major network or some shit.
And my jaw-drop moment of the New Year. Flava Flav’s “music” video. In Autotone. I don’t think I ever laughed so hard. Oh, Flava Flav. You wear the late crown. You rilly, rilly do.
It is tragic when an icon falls. When a black icon stumbles the tragedy seems doubly problematic.
Funny, she doesn’t sound so sorry. You can actually hear the glee in that sentence. Really, read it. See? Oh, and this:
Both men are of mixed race. Yet the majority of the country, including black Americans, sees them as black. That’s not a bad thing. Except when such men of intelligence and talent, men who have such influence and power, can’t help but succumb to the age old twins of greed and power. Although each has risen from ordinary beginnings to be at the top of their field but now things don’t look so good for either of them.
Hmmm. While I could really go in here about (White) mainstream media’s defense of Tiger’s right to not self-identify as Black (half, quarter, or whatevs) versus Barack Obama’s self-identification as the Black son of a White mother from the start, I won’t. (I will note that it is interesting that Warren states that lots of people see Tiger Woods as Black, and many glom whatever negative notions that they have about Blackness onto him the same as they would any Black person – including her.) There are things that my current chosen path no longer permit me to say or do. Like shout, “Oh, bitch, PUH-LEEZ!” and slash aperson’s tires. I feel like it would be more satisfying to do these things than engage in discussion with Ms. Warren about all the neo-liberal racist fail in this piece. HuffPo is really doing a number on my ulcer in 2009.
Our death is our wedding with eternity.
What is the secret? “God is One.”
The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.
This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;
It is not in the juice made from the grapes.
For he who is living in the Light of God,
The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.
And what I know too well for sure.
“God’s place is in the world. But the world is not God’s place.” -(Unknown)
Y’all, I know I say it all the time. But I attract internet fuckery like a black shirt in July attracts heat: it burns, I sweat, and nobody’s happy. (Hat-tip to Jameelah for passing this on.) There are far too many things to unpackage with these ads, which are actually spoofs, and from a purely spoofy* standpoint I guess conceptually they work…as much as ANY ad for a product with a Noveau Mammy figure can “work.” It amuses/depresses me that some consumers still eat this up and ask for seconds. Already, the reception to these ads has been tremendous. After all, who doesn’t LOOOOOOOVE the Pine Sol Lady? “It’s Pine Sol, baby!” Good grief.
Mammy aside for just a moment though, I think Diane Amos looks beautiful in these ads. But therein lies the rub. These ads are not designed to be taken seriously. These ads are designed to be appreciated because of their absurdity. What they’re doing is essentially inviting you to laugh behind your hand at what everyone knows is a grotesque inversion of desirability, femininity, and beauty. Why does this feel…familiar?
"Aww, look! That pig thinks she's PEOPLE! Isn't that HILARIOUS?" (No. It's not.)
Ohhhh. Yeah. That. Huhn. o_O
As someone who laughs at everything and who a friend teasingly calls “The Giggle Box,” please let me be the first to tell ya that this kinda isn’t funny. Beyond the immediate spoof context, it’s EXTRA not funny. It’s not funny that a talented actress is reduced to pushing toxic floor cleaner because that’s what a sexist, racist, and sizeist world has decided is her niche. It’s not funny that the people who love the Pine Sol Lady never ask themselves just why they do. It’s not funny that every time it feels like this world is getting a little better, I’m reminded that while its steps towards change are incremental, its lapses back into misery and evil are often monumental. I know that this is just an ad. But you know what? It’s NOT just an ad. And I’m not fucking laughing.
TOO through.
*Aaaaand cue my inner critic: ” ‘Spoofy,’ Fiqah? Wasn’t Smurfy enough? MUST you mangle English with your *air quotes* ‘wordsmithing’?” Someone pleeeeeeeeeease tell me I’m clever and shut this bitch** the hell up.
** I know. I’m using the word “bitch” a lot today. If the world wasn’t so chock fucking full of weak-ass, simple-ass, sorry-ass, triflin’-ass bitchy-ass bitches, then maybe a bitch could use another word to refer to them bitches! Sorry. My bad.
The original plan was to have a faaaaabulous brunch with Mama 
Folks Who Like the Taste of Possum Stew!