We don't have to agree on everything--or anything for that matter,
but I will respect your commentary as long as you respect mine.
In other words: Watch it, sucka.
George Floyd’s younger brother Philonese Floyd said today that Emmett Till was the first George Floyd. I would just like to add the words “THAT WE ARE NATIONALLY AWARE OF.” Same racism; different century. The only thing new is the cameraphone located in everyone’s pocket.
Read More
Honkey Kong, 2021. This is what happens when white people don’t get to oppress minorities in this country anymore: they commit treason. (Reference: United States History circa 1861)
For my birthday this year, I was gonna make a whole list of “things I learned on my last rotation around the sun” to coordinate with my big age.
Then racist White people went crazy yesterday and tried to stage a coup on our government.
All day, I’ve been trying to figure out how to put into words what it feels like to watch history be made, and then, less than 10 hours later, watch the country retch and writhe and vomit up its worst parts in reaction to PROGRESS like it’s bad sushi. I’m still drawing blanks.
Might be because I’ve slept a grand total of 9.75 hours in the last three days.
Might be because I’m overstimulated and have too much going on.
Might be because my feelings about this are so big, I can’t condense them into the tiny characters on my laptop screen.
I went to a prestigious magnet high school. This is not a flex. There was a documentary done about our school once, because of the groundbreaking advancements our principal made available to us. (Clips of it were on YouTube years ago—I don’t know if they’re still there.) We had grants from Compaq, Exxon, a formidable pre-Engineering program, AP (and regular) courses taught by people with PhDs...and this was a public school, not private. We really were afforded top tier instruction for FREE 99. The rough estimate racial make up of the school was around 60% White; 40% Black; 5% Latino; 5% Asian (South and East)/Eastern European. In 1994, we had a Black, female Salutatorian AND a Black, female Valedictorian.
The next year, White parents (mostly mothers) were on our campus trying to collect signatures from other White parents in the school pick-up line on a petition to get the magnet program removed from my school and moved to a school in their neighborhood. They were covert about it, but...I’m an observer. I’d noticed them milling about a few days in a row with their little clipboards, so I pretended I was going towards the buses in order to eavesdrop, heard one of the White mothers explain it to another, and watched with my own two eyes as that White woman determinedly signed her name. I don’t know if clipboard Karen was part of the PTA or just a regular parent trying to stir up shyt, but I knew without a DOUBT what the impetus was.
Obviously, she didn’t frame it that way. She complained about the kids not being rested because they had to get up super early to be bussed to “this side of town.” Poured on the “fear for our students safety” crap THICK for good measure. I should clarify here that yes my school was, indeed, in the hood. *MY* hood, specifically. Yes, it was wild IN the hood, on the residential streets—it was the 90’s and we were living the resultant effects of Reganomics and Ronnie’s disingenuous war on drugs. But CAMPUS was never dangerous before, during, or after classes, at least that I experienced, and I was in many extracurriculars that had me at school either early, late, or both. I remember track practices where it was dark outside, yet we never had issues because the corner dudes didn’t come on our campus. And if they weren’t coming to bother girls in track shorts, they weren’t gonna bother your precious Caucasian prince, clipboard Karen. Plus—our principal was a Black man and they knew we were the “nerd school.” They left us alone. There was never a shooting or threat of gun violence on our campus, because this was pre-Columbine. Sit with *that* bit of irony for a second.
My senior year, we had a race riot on campus when the kids from clipboard Karen’s side of town, who’d formed a group called “The Rebels of D’Ville,” posted a shoutout in the school newspaper with a bunch of acronyms, one being “KTN” which meant “Kill The N!@@ers,” hard -er. They tried to insult our intelligence and say that’s not what it meant. However, when the emblematic way you choose to represent yourselves is having the confederate flag on everything you wear, drive, carry, and stick on the inside of your locker...it’s a very hard sell. The Black students spent the weekend organizing a protest on carefully and creatively navigated three way calls. The plan was to wear all Black, meet in the square, and demand that the administration set rules that the Rebels can’t print codes in the paper anymore. We also wanted an apology.
The day of the protest, students gathered in the square—and the line of demarcation was indicated not only by clothing, but skin color. Threats were yelled across the concrete, and the Black students dared the White ones to “say it to our faces.” They never said the word, but one of the White male students spit—yes, SPIT— at our side, and that ignited a brawl. After the short melee, we had to sit in something resembling a damn sharing circle, and listen to White girls cry about “heritage, not hate”—again, this was the 90’s, lest you think that phrase is some new development.
We also had to endure gaslighting, because WE were not allowed to wear anything that represented Malcolm X, including the “Malcolm, Martin, Mandela & Me” shirts that were popular at the time. (Yes, Martin Luther King, Jr.). We had a very vocal Jewish instructor at the school, so I am willing to bet Malcolm’s affiliation with the Nation is what caused the ban on *his* paraphernalia...but it does not explain why we also couldn’t wear the red, black and green Africa pendants while the “rebels” were absolutely allowed to wear the “You wear your X, I’ll wear mine” shirts. And did. All the time. Again, my principal was a Black man. (Not casting aspersions on him at ALL, just pointing out the fact that this grown, accomplished Black man had to somehow swallow that White boys walking around wearing the confederate flag in his face everyday was ok, while also having to tell Black children they couldn’t represent El Hajj Malik El Shabazz in the same manner.)
All of this to say: I am no stranger to the capacity of hatful evil White people can internalize, justify, and act on when they feel like minorities are getting too big for their britches. As a daughter of the south, I have lived it first hand, many a day. Luckily, I’ve had wisdom passed down from generations that lived through harder times than I’ve ever seen. My grandmother was born in 1903 and lived to be 95 years old. My uncles, aunts, and parents had to drink out of water fountains that were labeled for their skin color. We, in the Black community, are not new to this.
It’s also why yesterday was not a complete surprise to me. I had no incredulity about what was transpiring in the Capitol when White supremacists stormed through doors with their privilege and nary a plan. All I had yesterday was exhausted rage and animated anguish over the fact that even when we do all we can to push this nation forward in order to help EVERYONE, the pushBACK comes from the same cast of characters that have been mad since 1865: LBJ’s lowest White men.
The Late President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." Such a shame that even when afforded access to everything by default, including top tier educations, ignorance is what a majority of White people choose.
And yes, Virginia, it *is* the *majority* of White people. 74 million people vs. 81 million people is damn near a 1:1 ratio. Percentage wise, 60% of white voters voted for trump. I already told you I went to a good school, so you should readily accept that *I* know how percentages and representation work.
We ain’t new to this; but we really wish the nation would stop being so ghatdamb true to this.
Maybe next year’s birthday will be full of fun and celebration, it will be my “Obama birthday,” after all. All I can say now is that y’all BETTER be glad these people chose the 6th and not the 7th to act a fool; had these troglodytes made Blue Ivy’s birthday a mess, THE ENTIRE BEYHIVE WOULD NOT REST UNTIL EVERY ONE OF THESE DOMESTIC TERRORISTS WERE FOUND AND PUNISHED.
The Capitol building really is a majestic building. I have been blessed with the opportunity to be invited to it multiple times, and have pictures of my husband and I on the Speaker’s Balcony. Such a pitiful, criminal shame it was desecrated by thugs, terrorists, and White Supremacist traitors to our democracy. May they get what they deserve.
My only birthday wish today was: America, do TF BETTER.
Shameful, Treasonous Domestic Terrorist Walks Enemy Flag Through the Halls of the US Congress
The rise in cases of teenage depression and suicide is an alarming one, especially in the Black community. Published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, a new study by Rutgers University shows that Black teenagers face racial discrimination up to five time a day on average, and said discrimination often leads to depression. With the recent increase in awareness toward mental health and well being, this kind of information is critical in the fight to save and improve lives.
Recent headlines lend an unwelcome validity to the study; the uptick of Black children committing suicide is particularly disturbing, and constant discrimination adds more fuel to an already dangerous fire. The difficulty of navigating adolescence has become increasingly demanding in the current age of technology. The trend of schoolyard bullying has now become an inescapable form of constant, consistent torture. Long gone are the days where name calling and physical confrontations were limited to school hours. In the smartphone age the malice follows teens everywhere they go, hitching a ride in their pockets from school to every corner of their existence by being preserved and amplified on social media. Kids can no longer evade the taunting of their peers, and the badgering is no longer contained to their specific school, peer group, extracurricular hobbies, town, state, country, or even continent. Multiply bullying by the current racial climate in this country, add socio-economic factors (such as poverty and violence) to the mix, and you have a formula for disaster.
Consider the tragic story of Bryce Gowdy, the 17 year old Floridian football star, who was days away from enrolling at Georgia Tech on a football scholarship. Gowdy had been beset by mental health issues, and his family had recently become homeless. He was already under the pressure of maintaining his 3.73 GPA and trying to take care of his mother and siblings; Imagine what other discrimination based pressures a 6’3”, 207 pound, Black, dreadlocked, man-child living in the state of Florida encountered daily. According to the study, it would be safe to assume it was five times more than a white man-child. Bryce stood in front of a train one night to put an end to his suffering.
Weeks earlier, Zachary Winston, a 19 year old basketball player for Albion College in Michigan, did the same. Winston was also one of three Black students who all attended the same predominantly white high school in Michigan, and had all committed suicide within the span of two months. Again, the findings of the Rutgers study prove valid. As Black children experiencing a heightned level of discrimination daily, compounded with the challenges of modern adolescence, there is ample reasoning to conclude their mental health and well being was very much affected by race based inequity.
Dr. Michael A. Lindsey, Executive Director of the NYU McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research, worked with the Congressional Black Caucus on a study performed by the Emergency Task Force on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health. He was made aware of the disturbing Michigan high school trend by concerned parents, while waiting for the CBC to release the December 2019 report. In a Washington Post article, he is quoted as saying “It’s the thousand-pound elephant in the room that we’re not talking about…We think that black kids aren’t doing that — that’s something white folks do. Some of my research — and that of others — has pointed out that, no, that’s not the case. More and more black kids are doing this.”
The pressures of growing up in America are innumerably expanded for Black kids; Their experiences with heightened discrimination has been proven time and time again to affect their mental health, leading to depression and climbing suicide rates. If we are to impede this statistic, we must first accept that Black kids are seen in a different manner, thought about in a different manner, and treated in a different manner in this country, and that difference is literally killing them. As stated by professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “For all we hear about black men — the descriptions, the characters of thugs, of hard life — we never hear about the trauma, the pain, the humiliation, the suffering, the stress, the depression of what it must be like to be considered less than human by the society into which you were born. We never hear, for example, that for young black men age 15 to 24 suicide is the third-leading cause of death.” To draw on the title of Dr. Lindsey’s study: it’s time to “Ring the Alarm” on the mental health and well being of Black kids in this country, and help end this nightmare.
Pssst…American school teachers. Lemme holla at you right quick. Has there been some sort of collective agreement to always miss the mark when it comes to your Black students? Was there a vote taken to initiate an intentional push toward ignorance and insensitivity? A national mandate on “Making America Great” that necessitates the indoctrination of certain concepts, in order to roll our country back to its former financial glory? Either way, you got some ‘splainin to do, since a lot of you seem to have lost your collective, raggedy, rabid ass minds when it comes to the subject of American race-based slavery.
On Tuesday, news outlets released the UMPTEENTH story circulating on the internet of school teachers being completely obtuse when it comes to the topic of slavery. It seems that these misguided mishaps occur when teachers attempt to mix the history of what President Lincoln referred to as “the peculiar institution” with any other subject.
From as early as KINDERGARTEN, teachers seem to possess a desire to inform their students about slavery—which, at face value, seems noble, important, and responsible. The scourge of race-based slavery is one that our country has yet to reckon with or atone for; awareness is vital as early as possible in order to fully grasp the issue. Children should know about American slavery in order to recognize the systems it birthed, and how the descendants of this horrible, inhumane enterprise are still affected by them daily.
The problem, however, is that a LOT of teachers don’t treat the subject properly or with the correct amount of reverence. These particular instructors, in charge of shaping young minds and perspectives for the future, appear to have a desire to normalize the horrors of slavery while idealizing the profits of slavery, all in an effort to standardize the practice of slavery with every other capitalistic enterprise America has participated in. Don’t believe me? Just watch.
From PE teachers asking children to pretend they are on the underground railroad to escape slavery as a measure of their physical skills and teamwork;
-Or teachers who asked children to participate in a mock slave auction, where the 5th graders pretended “to put imaginary chains along our necks and wrists, and shackles on our ankles” and were bid on by their White classmates;
-Manhattan teachers assigning homework that asks: “One slave got whipped five times a day. How many times did he get whipped in a month (31 days)?” And questions about a ship filled with 3,799 slaves, asking "One day, the slaves took over the ship. 1,897 are dead. How many slaves are alive?”;
-Georgia teachers handing out worksheets that read: “Each tree had 56 oranges. If eight slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”;
-In Texas, children are asked to weigh the "positive" and negative aspects of slavery—yes, you read that right.
-Wisconsin fourth graders were challenged to give three “good” reasons and three bad reasons for slavery—yes, yes…you read that correctly as well.
-Eighth graders in Tennessee are told to "create a political cartoon depicting immigrant labor in the United States" and write songs or poems to "compare and contrast the lives of plantation owners and their slave population.”;
-In South Carolina, children on a field trip corresponding to a lesson on the Great Depression, were told to pick cotton and sing songs with lyrics such as "I like it when you fill the sack. I like it when you don't talk back. Make money for me.”;
-Lessons on the 3/5ths compromise in North Carolina, asked students how many slaves would be needed to equal at least four White people;
-And when teaching elementary students about Westward Expansion in Missouri, the assignment reads: ”You own a plantation or farm and therefore need more workers. You begin to get involved in the slave trade industry and have slaves work on your farm. Your product to trade is slaves. Set your price for a slave. These could be worth a lot.” Your product. Could be.
What. The Actual. Fuck.
You know…I could wax poetic about all of this, identifying the dangers of not having teachers with the proper awareness, empathy, or sensitivity imprinting the ridiculous concept that slavery was just a “thing that happened the past” on our youth. I could type scathing takedowns of the educational system’s complicity in perpetuating the disregard our country shows toward one of its most heinous profit ventures—including examples of how Texas Textbooks were edited to refashion the Atlantic Slave Trade as “immigration” for “workers”. I could talk about how racism, classism, and systematic oppression will never be conquered if this is what we are feeding our children from the onset of their educational careers. I could talk about how these types of assignments eat away at Black children’s self-esteem while building superiority complexes in White children. I could even talk about how these incidents, widespread and repetitive, erode the trust parents have in the school system when it comes to properly educating their children. But I’m not gonna do that today.
What I am gonna do, however, is simply ask the question: IS YOU IGNANT? Maybe a lapse in proper spelling and grammar will alert you to the ABSURDITY of this situation. If you are not teaching slavery within the proper context: how HUMAN BEINGS were kidnapped, sold as chattel, forced to work in horrendous conditions for no pay while making their owners and this entire country financially formidable, intentionally bred like livestock to continue the trend for 250 years, raped and murdered at the will of Whites throughout those 250 years (and beyond), and how half the nation literally went to WAR in order to continue treating Black humans this way, then YOU DON’T NEED TO TEACH ANYTHING ABOUT SLAVERY, PERIOD.
Stop asking Black children to romanticize the barbaric treatment of their ancestors. Stop asking Black children to dehumanize their ancestors. It amazes me DAILY how White people are the most ardent champions of anthropomorphizing pets, yet cannot attribute humanity to fellow human beings that possess melanin. Stop asking Black children to envision their ancestors as items in a math problem used to profit White people. Stop asking Black children to put themselves in the shoes of their ancestors fleeing from the unspeakable horrors of being torn apart by dogs, or hanged from their necks and burned while still breathing. Stop asking Black children to compartmentalize the repugnant hatred White people have for them and their ancestors as history. It is not history. It is ever present, it is tangible, and it is real. Stop asking Black children to be a lesson, while FREQUENTLY FAILING TO TEACH WHITE CHILDREN ONE.
This trend has to stop. Now. There are numerous resources teachers can consult to better inform themselves on how to tackle the sordid subject of race in this country. (Links to just a few are provided here, here, and here.) Maybe by doing so, they will arm themselves with a better approach to teaching about American slavery. Until then, parents and caregivers must remain diligent in calling out these preposterous assignments, and the teachers who hand them out in the name of education.
Imagine, as a little girl, you are told you are full of magic. That the women who came before you were also magic, and did magical things like breaking ceilings made of glass. That no matter what obstacle you face, as long as you magically lean in, you have the chance to overcome; propelled by the spirit of sisterhood, guided by goddesses and fairy godmothers, saturated with super-powered sugar, spice and everything nice, because that’s what little girls are made of. Imagine you are told you are special, unique and treasured; that your voice is worthy and strong. It is your connection to your magic and you should never, under any circumstances, allow anyone to take it away from you.
Now imagine, as a little girl, for seven hours of the day, five days a week, you are sent to a place where you are told your magic is too much. It makes no sense to you, because you aren’t doing anything differently than your peers, but you…look different. Which makes your magic…different. You’re told it’s not the right kind of magic, not the acceptable magic. It doesn’t match the other girls’ magic. It’s too big, even when you shrink yourself. It’s too loud, even when you whisper. It’s too strong, even when you’re not moving. (This video of fired School Resource Officer Ben Fields attacking a girl is an unpleasant example of that.) Your magic is perceived as dark magic: malevolent and vicious. Unseemly and uncouth, meant only for disruption and defiance. It’s a magic that seeps into your tone and your mannerisms, your hairstyles and clothing. It must be contained and disciplined at all costs.
Your magic scares the people who don’t understand it, and as a result, you are subjected to unnecessary and egregious chastisement, in an effort to subdue your voice, if not completely destroy it.
Dr. Monique Morris has spent years researching the trend of Black girls being more harshly disciplined in school than their white peers, and in a new documentary Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (based on her book of the same title), she explores why. Interviewing over 150 girls, educators, and justice professionals, Dr. Morris unpacks the numerous biases Black girls face in the classroom. Numerous studies have shown the disparity in discipline toward minority students, Black students in particular. Data collected in 2009-10 representative of approximately 85% of the nation’s students, show that in areas where Black students made up less than a fifth of the enrollment (18%), they account for the majority of students suspended once or more than once (81% combined), and almost half of all expulsions (39%). A more recent study from the National Women’s Law Center shows that Black girls are five times more likely to be suspended and six times more likely to be expelled than white girls.
Ironically, recent studies have also shown that Black women earn more degrees than any other demographic in this country when characterized by race and gender. The National Center for Education Statistics released information that shows Black women leading in the amount of conferred degrees, earning 66% of bachelor’s degrees, 71% of master’s degrees, and 65% of all doctorate degrees. These numbers have been on the rise for the past twenty years.
Comparison of this data could lead a conspiracy theorist to believe a calculated effort to halt this particular trend has been implemented in classrooms across the nation. They could argue the racist origins of this country have manifested themselves into TORs, IEPs, dress codes targeting Black hairstyles, and zero tolerance policies, all in order to stifle Black students. Their culture, heritage, religions, and language are heavily policed via disciplinary guidelines that were written without their culture, heritage, religions or language in mind. One doesn’t need to be a conspiracy theorist, however, to admit the efforts to suppress minority progress in this country are ever-present, calculated or not. And they have been effective since the beginning.
In the late 1600’s scared white men, fueled by hysteria, came to the conclusion that a Caribbean slave named Tituba “bewitched” two small girls (who had probably ingested toxic fungus, causing them to vomit and have seizures). Tituba is the first woman to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. It was later discovered that her “confession” was not only coached, but beat out of her by slave master Samuel Parris. She remained imprisoned until someone purchased her, and was then lost to history. Dozens of other people suffered during the trials, true—but it’s important to note that the first person was the one that was…different. The fear of Tituba’s cultural differences created a maelstrom that destroyed a community.
America was afraid of the different girl then, and they remain afraid. Yet with Black women being hailed as “The Most Educated Group in the US,” despite all the disciplinary disparities intended to trip them up, one thing is clear: #BlackGirlMagic is real.
As our societal landscape has gone through shifts and changes over the centuries, the American people have slowly adjusted their public behaviors to reflect our progress. In the wake of anti bullying campaigns, language is being scrutinized more than ever and, in some cases, rightfully so. The schoolyard chant of “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” has gone the way of the dinosaur, because with technology and social media being the major form of communication most young people use, words have indeed become weapons. Numerous schools are implementing new standards as to permissible behavior for it’s students, some even advocating for the “banning”of certain words. Within those standards, an argument to ban the n-word from all schools is a familiar and highly supported notion.
On the surface, it makes complete sense. The n-word, a word born out of pure ignorance and hate, has been used as a weapon to attack Black people since race-based slavery began on this continent 400 years ago. Earlier this year, I wrote about what it means when white people call us the n-word: “When white people say nigger, it’s saying ‘Black thing, you don’t belong.’ It is an attack on a Black person’s humanity, and not in a hyperbolic way. When white people call Black people nigger, it is their clarion call for Making America Great Again; That time where, less than 60 years ago, you could hang a Black body up in a tree just because you wanted to. For kicks, you could cut off their genitalia or cut out the baby growing inside them. You could take a picture of all this, and send it across the nation to your white relatives as a keepsake or as a postcard, inviting them to join you the next time. It was common practice. It was accepted. It was supported by law enforcement. It was encouraged and championed.” This, alone, is enough argument for us to regulate the word in every environment, ESPECIALLY schools. Young, malleable minds should never be encouraged to freely toss such venom around without consequence.
Yet, I still make an argument in DEFENSE of the n-word coming out of the mouths of Black people. Maybe not at school, of course—it’s akin to an expletive in that regard—but Black children who grow up in a culture where that word has been reclaimed, remixed, and repurposed for their personal use in their communities have the RIGHT to this kind of language. If we were to ban it from schools for EVERYONE, which means we end up punishing EVERYONE for saying it, we are being intellectually dishonest about the context and use of the word. This is a complete disservice to and highly disrespectful toward Black American culture. It erases the herculean feat Black people in this country have accomplished, by literally turning the singular word meant to destroy us into something we use on OUR terms. It also cripples children of other races; How are they to learn self control, common sense, and respect boundaries if the use and punishment for the word is equal among all children?
Author Ta-nehisi Coates brilliantly makes the point about context and relationship when we employ language: “Coates first pointed out that it is normal in our culture for some people or groups to use certain words that others can’t. For example, his wife calls him ‘honey’; it would not be acceptable, he said, for strange women to do the same. Similarly, his dad was known by his family back home as Billy — but it would be awkward for Coates to try to use that nickname for his father. ‘That’s because the relationship between myself and my dad is not the same as the relationship between my dad and his mother and his sisters who he grew up with,’ Coates said. ‘We understand that.’The same concept applies to different groups and their words. “My wife, with her girl friend, will use the word ‘bitch,’” Coates said. “I do not join in. You know what I’m saying? I don’t do that. I don’t do that. And perhaps more importantly, I don’t have a desire to do it.”
Therein lies the crux of the problem: the word itself really isn’t the issue, ladies and gentlemen. The issue is that white people DESIRE to say the word, and do not want to be told they can’t do something that Black people are allowed to do. ESPECIALLY if it’s something they created to hurt us, then we flipped the script and empowered ourselves with it, and now THEY are punished for using it.
People also love to prop up rap music and hip-hop as the evergreen, overpowering force that makes the n-word fly recklessly from the mouths of non-Black people. Just a few weeks ago, consistently problematic Latina actress Gina Rodriguez was a twitter trending topic, stemming from her use of the n-word while singing along to a Lauryn Hill verse on her IG Live video. The actress apologized, but a debate began about how Latino people should be given a pass because they are also a minority, and it’s ok for non-Black minorities to say it, ESPECIALLY if it was part of a song. I don’t know about you dear reader, but I grew up on hip-hop, even though my mother was never a fan of the language. Throughout the entirety of my hip-hop life, EVEN INTO ADULTHOOD, I have managed to recite hundreds of verses while self-censoring every curse word and n-word around her. Why? Because I respect my mother. I know these words—no matter what *I* mean by them—make her uncomfortable. So, I actively choose NOT to say them when I am in her presence. Are we expected to believe white people and non-Black people of color lack the ability to do the same? That their comprehension of context is inferior? That their multitasking skills are sup-par? If we choose to ban the word for everyone, just because white and non-Black people can’t control themselves, hey—it’s a fair claim.
In his interview, Coates makes another great point: “The question one must ask is why so many white people have difficulty extending things that are basic laws of how human beings interact to Black people.” Maybe it is because they don’t respect Black people’s right to set boundaries; Maybe it’s because they don’t respect Black people’s right to exist differently or Black people’s ability to do something they cannot. Maybe it’s because they don’t respect Black people’s right to be human. THIS is where schools need to start attacking and unpacking the issue. The problem isn’t the word, it’s the people who want to say the word when they know they shouldn’t. That should be the measuring stick schools use when choosing punishments for the offense. Blanket protocols and guidelines do not work to solve the real problem. Yes, the n-word should be banned from use by certain people; Yes, certain people should be punished for using the word; Those people, however, are not Black.
Dear Caucasian Teachers:
Let’s gather in a circle of safety, shall we? Everyone come and sit criss cross applesauce on the sharing mat, open two eyes, open two ears, and close one mouth. Now, take a deep, cleansing breath in…and gently blow it out. You ready? Let’s begin.
THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? HAVE YOU ALL LOST YOUR ENTIRE RABID ASS MINDS? DO YOU NOT REALIZE YOU ARE THE ONES RESPONSIBLE FOR SHAPING THE YOUNG MINDS OF THIS COUNTRY, AND IMPARTING UPON THEM THE PROPER GRAVITY OF CIRCUMSTANCES IN OUR HISTORY? WHAT MANNER OF INEPTITUDE ARE WE DEALING WITH IN OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM RIGHT NOW?!?
This latest example of educational incompetence emerges from the Freeport School District in Long Island, NY. Ah, the Liberal Northeast: where racists don’t ever think they’re being racist, because…geography. *eye roll*
Here we have an unidentified, white, eighth grade teacher who decided to ask her students for “funny captions” on Slave and Reconstruction Era photos of Black people. The teacher has been quoted as telling the children “don’t bore me” with their captions for the assignment. Many of the Black students at the school took issue with this, and when they got home, so did their parents and caretakers. The assignment was posted to social media, as it damn well should have been, and the community also expressed it’s displeasure with the demeaning and denigrating homework.
The unidentified teacher, who has taught in the district for 20 years (and, according to older students who attended this same middle school, has done this type of thing before), was “administratively reassigned” in light of the investigation into her actions (for the uninitiated, “administratively reassigned” means she isn’t teaching in a classroom, but is still employed, assigned duties, and getting a paycheck). She also issued an apology which, ironically, was VERY boring and boiler plate in it’s execution: "As a teacher and fellow member of this school community, it is my responsibility to exercise the highest degree of care and thought in all of my student and staff interactions. I failed to do so last week, and I fully accept that I must work hard to rebuild trust from my students, colleagues and the community.”
Girl, BYE. First of all, if you had even put the LOWEST DEGREE of care and thought into the Slavery and Reconstruction Eras of our nation, you would know there was absolutely NOTHING FUNNY about EITHER. ESPECIALLY not in the weary, worn, abused, and oppressed faces of those who had to live through those horrors. However, for one to realize that the inhumane acts of slavery and sharecropping contained no humor, one would also have to respect the race of people who endured said inhumane acts. This is a character flaw many, and I mean MANY people who are not of African descent in this country possess. The lack of reverence, empathy, and respect for what Black people have experienced on this continent from 1619 to 2019 is staggering. It’s almost like…no one is teaching about it properly. *blank stare*
Most students have a love/hate relationship with the subject of History, and in the age of twitter and hashtags, educators have turned to unconventional tactics in order to engage the students. This “funny caption” assignment could have possibly been an attempt to replicate the activity a Huntsville, Alabama teacher used to highlight events of the American Revolution as if they were on Twitter. Hypothetical tweets from General George Washington to George Cornwallis that read “Guess we’ll have to call the war the American ‘Revoution” because y’all took that L. #independence” made for a hilariously memorable teaching aid. The difference here, however, is that no one’s humanity is being disparaged in the act. There are certain historical events that should never be viewed through a lens so cloudy and casual as comedy. Slavery and sharecropping are two such events. No one would ever treat the Holocaust with such irreverence, and many suspect it is because white people empathize with Jewish people more than with Black people. One wonders why. *blank stare*
The superintendent of Freeport Schools, Dr. Kishore Kuncham, had this to say about the incident:
“Let me be perfectly clear: Our investigation has determined that this lesson was poorly conceived and executed…Aside from the fact that this is a poor lesson, it is an insensitive trivialization of a deeply painful era for African Americans in this country, and it is unacceptable…The emotional and social wellness of our students is always our highest priority and we take any insensitive comments made by staff very seriously.”
Let’s hope when the investigation is completed, this teacher learns a valuable lesson in history, respect, culture, and how not to devalue the Black experience in America.
The 26 year old adult who admitted to raping a 14 year old child.
Sometimes you read about a crime that goes unpunished or under punished, and you shrug your shoulders on some, “well…that’s our flawed justice system.” Then, there are times you read about a crime that goes unpunished or under punished, and you want to go full DRACARYS on said flawed system. Yesterday was the latter. (If you don’t know what that word means, you’re missing out of one of the biggest pop culture events of our time, and I really don’t know what to tell you about that.)
In an article from the New York Times last week, the headline reads: “School Bus Driver Who Raped 14-Year-Old Will Not Go to Prison.” Any normal, rational, human being with reading capabilities and analytical reasoning skills beyond a third grade level would see this and probably think, “Clearly, there HAS to be more to the story.” Reading past the byline, you are greeted with the words: “Shane Piche raped a girl who rode his bus in upstate New York.” If you then dared to investigate how this TWENTY-SIX YEAR OLD MAN RAPED A CHILD, TWELVE YEARS HIS JUNIOR, ENTRUSTED TO HIS CARE EVERY DAY OF THE SCHOOL YEAR, the details might evoke nausea.
Piche apparently planned this crime, giving the child gifts and pumping her underage body full of liquor before taking her to his house and raping her. After his arrest, he plead guilty to rape in the third degree. You might then say “So…this was premeditated, and more than one crime was committed. Plus, he plead guilty—he should be UNDER the jail, right? That “Will *Not* Go to Prison” has gotta be a typo in the headline. DO BETTER failing New York Times!!”
Yeah, no.
Piche was only sentenced to PROBATION and a stint on the sex offender registry at the LOWEST LEVEL, level one. Meaning he will not be included in online sex offender databases, nor will anyone be able to set up a relocation alert on him. So basically, if he moves to your town, you won’t know he’s there nor will you be able to research his sex offender history online. Hide your kids, hide your wife—because she might kill him if he touches her kids, and probation probably won’t be an option.
The judge at the center of this ridiculously lenient sentence, James P. McClusky, gives no legitimate insight as to why he was so compassionate, save the fact that Piche has never been arrested for this before (mind you, 3 out of every 4 rapes go unreported), and there was only one victim (lucky for Shane he wasn’t trying to get some group action going with the other 9th graders, eh?). Prosecutors argued for rape in the second degree and a level 2 sex offender designation, which would have at least put him in the database for maximum accessibility. But McClusky feels that all Shane needs is probation. For raping a 14 year old girl.
Shane’s lawyer, Eric Schwartz agrees of course, stating “Getting him onto probation to get sex-offender treatment, our hope is that we can teach him better ways to deal with these issues and maybe educate him about making better choices in the future, as well as keeping him from having access to children at this point which is part of what the probationary period will do.” WUT?!?! They don’t necessarily want him punished for the CRIME he committed and plead guilty to—they just want him to make “better choices.” Oh.
Shane choosing water over soda is better choices. Shane choosing grilled foods over fried ones is better choices. Shane choosing to purchase stock IN Starbucks instead of frappuchinos FROM Starbucks is better choices. But Shane choosing to have sex with ADULTS INSTEAD OF MINORS IS A NECESSARY CHOICE. Shane being given probation after raping a 14 year old girl is not a good, better, nor the best choice. It is an irresponsible, inexplicable, and insensitive choice. It ranks the worth of the criminal much higher than the worth of the victim. It robs the victim and her family of justice.
If Shane were not white, would McClusky have been so charitable? If Shane had raped a little 14 year old boy, would his crime be thought of as one he has a “low risk of repeating”? Where are we as a society when a 14 year old girl being taken advantage of sexually is considered LESS PUNISHABLE BY LAW than when Black and Brown people are caught in possession of marijuana for personal use? No, seriously—people are sentenced more harshly for weed than people who RAPE CHILDREN.
Even though the recommended sentencing for a sexual offense class E felony are 1.5-4 years in prison, McClusky chose probation for Shane. The guidelines for probation are as follows: “…the court may sentence a person to a period of probation upon conviction of any crime if the court, having regard to the nature and circumstances of the crime and to the history, character and condition of the defendant, is of the opinion that:
(i) Institutional confinement for the term authorized by law of the defendant is or may not be necessary for the protection of the public;
(ii) the defendant is in need of guidance, training or other assistance which, in his case, can be effectively administered through probation supervision; and
(iii) such disposition is not inconsistent with the ends of justice.
There is currently a MoveOn petition to recall McClusky. If you are outraged by the injustice of this case, feel free to click here and sign it.
Alert the media: a Kardashian has decided to do something besides whore for the media! (Just kidding. This venture has and will be whored out via the media as well.) #YouThought
In her most recent interview and first ever solo cover of US Vogue (Reminder: Beyonce hit it first), Kimberly Kardashian West divulges that since last summer, she has been studying to become a lawyer. WORD?!? This is kinda amazing! Everyone knows she is rebranding, but this is totally unexpected! Is she going to USC and getting a PolySci degree? Maybe after graduation, she’ll go to Stanford Law, or follow in her dad’s footsteps at University of San Diego School of Law…oh…wait. Hold up. She’s not going to undergrad? She’s not going to law school? Then how TF…?!?
Turns out, ladies and gents, there are four states in the continental US whose archaic laws still allow for non-degreed persons to apprentice versus attend school in order to sit for their State Bar and become a lawyer: CA, VA, VT, and WA. (It should be noted that this was practice before the advent of Law Schools in America.) So Kimberly’s pursuit—while not commonly practiced or successful—is not unheard of. Interestingly enough, it’s actually been gaining attention and popularity over the past few years for college grads who desire to become a lawyer, yet don’t have the money for law school. The rising costs of education in this country is making Legal Apprenticeship options some law aspirants’ only hope.
But let’s get this straight: someone who is insanely popular, that actually has the money to pay for undergrad and professional school, decides to become a lawyer…yet is not going to attend undergrad or professional school to do so. INSTEAD, this person is using the trifecta of wealth, popularity, and privilege to take a shortcut, therefore bypassing the standards set for everyone else. Is Lori Loughlin a Kardashian family friend? Asking for reasons…*side eye*
You may be of the opinion that ANY effort toward getting a Kardashian off of Insta is a great effort and should not be criticized. That would be fine, if not for the blatant slap in the face this is to every person that struggled through undergrad and law school (and are still struggling to pay for it). Understand this: people who are able to, yet choose to avoid the full blood, sweat and tears process of attaining a law degree probably shouldn’t practice law or be called a lawyer. Preparation for the kind of intense, grueling work a law career brings comes through the PROCESS. Throughout the process, there are standards which measure how well you study, comprehend, retain and regurgitate material necessary for proficiency in the field. This is why schools are accredited as a measure of their competency, and why you need a degree from an accredited institution in order to attain entry into professional school. Your graduation from a professional school means (rather, is supposed to mean) that you have proven your competency to enter the field. Not only does she lack undergraduate level training, Kimberly may not have the staying power on a professional level either. She stated in her interview: “First year of law school, you have to cover three subjects: criminal law, torts, and contracts. To me, torts is the most confusing, contracts the most boring, and crim law I can do in my sleep. Took my first test, I got a 100. Super easy for me. The reading is what really gets me. It’s so time-consuming. The concepts I grasp in two seconds.” Well, gee. If grasping concepts was all you needed, a law professor could do a TEDTalk on Facebook, and we’d all be lawyers. Additionally, reading is like, 80% of being a lawyer. So…come again?
It should be no surprise that one of Kimberly’s major supporters is America’s favorite wishy washy political pontificator—ol’ milk dud headed ass Van Jones. They worked together on the widely known Alice Johnson case, brought last year before the current occupant of the White House for commutation. The case gained awareness due to Kardashian’s involvement and the media storm surrounding it is what piqued her interest in learning more about the law. It is through Jones’ #cut50 initiative that her apprenticeship is being carried out.
For those worried about how she plans to juggle her Calabasas based business with her required apprenticeship attendance 6 hours away in the San Francisco area, have no fear. Wealth, popularity, and privilege pay a part here as well. According to the interview: “…Kim’s two mentor lawyers, Jessica Jackson (with a half-asleep baby draped over her shoulder) and Erin Haney, show up. The three of them are scheduled to study for four hours this afternoon, in an office conference room not far from here—so that Kim does not have to travel every week to San Francisco, as she has been doing since July, to log her required eighteen hours of weekly supervised study.” I’d be willing to bet cash money that any other legal apprentice would not be afforded such flexibility or concession, especially from a mentor lawyer who JUST had a baby.
The fact that she has been afforded this opportunity is yet another example of how white mediocrity stays winning in this country. Monied white people have been paying to play in every professional arena there is, jumping the line while unqualified and amassing wealth, connections, and prestige galore. They keep the circles tight and impenetrable, scrutinizing the resumes and pedigrees of those who have worked hard to clear the hurdles they set, while walking their rich, socialite, celebrity friends around them. When you only have to compete against folks who are as mediocre as you, of course the winning feels valid. It’s why, when minorities slip through and prove to work harder, better, faster, stronger, talks of eliminating affirmative action arise. (But that’s another topic for another day.) Sure, this is the way everything in the world works; no matter the situation or profession, it’s all about who you know. This is absolute truth. That doesn’t mean it’s right, though.
Lowering the bar for the unqualified and unwilling to work rich and famous only hurts our society as a whole. It demonstrates that standards are flexible for those connected to the gatekeepers, and that being rewarded on merit is an impossibility (so, why try?). The people who "work the system" are the ones jacking everything up; they have no clue what they’re doing because they’ve bypassed every standard set up to demonstrate their competency. This means everyone surrounding them has to work harder to ensure they don't pull the whole thing under with their ineptitude. We should be TIRED of cleaning up the messes made by those who skated in on their name, celebrity, money, and connections. That’s how we ended up with a reality tv show celebrity as leader of the free world, who only understands what’s right or wrong if another reality tv show celebrity explains it to him. Maybe she told him his ratings would improve if he commuted Ms. Johnson’s sentence. I’m not mad at the outcome, because thank GOD that woman is free from that ridiculously egregious sentence. But if being intellectually dishonest to sway someone into getting what you want is Kimberly Kardashian West’s superpower…hell, maybe she’ll be a good lawyer after all. If not, there’s always politics. And she already has a MAGA hat in her bedroom.
Corinne Magoveny Terrone, calling a Black man nigger in front of small children.
Despite the fact that they’ve benefitted from white supremacy and systemic racism for the past 400 years, navigating through life with the assistance of privilege and power, white people are STILL MAD about Black people who dare to walk around freely existing as human beings in this country. Still. STILL. How do we know they’re mad? They demonstrate it daily when they choose to take on the behavior of their forefathers and call Black people niggers. Our latest example (of MANY) hails from the northeastern state of Connecticut, where they vote blue but think red. (You didn’t think racism stopped above the Mason-Dixon line…did you?)
Corinne Magoveny Terrone, a former employee of Hamden Public Schools, was caught on camera unleashing a racist tirade at a Black man and Black woman in an East Haven, CT grocery store the evening of Friday March 15th. According to the 911 call she placed (you already KNEW that was coming…even though SHE was the attacker…), Magoveny Terrone stated: “The man in his little, um, scooter said, ‘Are you talking to me bitch?’ And I said, ‘No nigger, I’m not’ because he called me a bitch, I called him a nigger, then he continued to get up and threaten me, so there was spitting going back and forth. He spit on the back of me and I am pressing charges.”
However various videos of the incident, which pick up in the middle of the altercation, tell a much clearer story. The videos start with Magoveny Terrone being plainly heard over all other noise calling the man “motherfucker,” and shouting about he and his companion being “…niggers that’s why, they’re fucking niggers in East Haven…” Here, the man starts walking toward the supermarket supremacist, amid the other customers chants of “noooo, don’t do it…” imploring him to stand down. As his female companion attempts to hold him back from approaching the racist, Cocky Corinne begins taunting the man by saying “…put your hands on me, come on, put them on me…” and then engages in the highly disrespectful act of spitting at the man. It is unclear if the “back and forth” she referenced in her 911 call actually occurred, but from the video it seems she was the first and only spitter.
The internet wasted no time in finding out Magoveny Terrone’s identity and place of employment, and by Saturday morning, she had “resigned” from her post, amid the investigation. It was also reported that the Department of Children and Families had to be called, since her two small children were witness to the incident. The DCF released a statement, saying “The Department does investigate reports that a parent or other person responsible for a child’s care is acting erratically or in an impaired fashion that puts a child’s safety at risk or is injurious to their well-being.”
So…let’s unpack this.
On a Friday night, while doing something as innocuous as grocery shopping, a white woman got agitated/irritated/disgusted enough with the presence of Black people in her town and grocery store to call them what is universally accepted as literally the worst thing a white person can call a Black person. This act of aggression was performed publicly, numerous times, in front of her (and other people’s) children, while she was well aware she was being recorded, and after numerous people tried to diffuse and deescalate the situation. At this point, any and every notion of her “getting caught up in the moment” or “not being able to control herself” should be abandoned. Why? Because she meant that shit.
White people know EXACTLY what they’re doing when they call a Black person nigger. They not only know the history and power of the word, they know the vitriol and venom it contains. They say it when they mean “I’m better than you.” It’s their favorite synonym for “You are less than human.” They whip it out whenever they want to remind Black people “We once OWNED you, RAPED you, and KILLED you AT WILL with NO REPERCUSSIONS!” When white people say nigger, it’s saying “Black thing, you don’t belong.” It is an attack on a Black person’s humanity, and not in a hyperbolic way. When white people call Black people nigger, it is their clarion call for Making America Great Again; That time where, less than 60 years ago, you could hang a Black body up in a tree just because you wanted to. For kicks, you could cut off their genitalia or cut out the baby growing inside them. You could take a picture of all this, and send it across the nation to your white relatives as a keepsake or as a postcard, inviting them to join you the next time. It was common practice. It was accepted. It was supported by law enforcement. It was encouraged and championed. And when a white person hurls the word nigger at a Black person in the year of our Lord 2019, it is demonstrative of their innate desire to go back to the days where Black people were disposable commodities and white people were the only “people”. When they call you nigger, they mean to strip you of your worth. Thankfully with video evidence, numerous witnesses, and the self-snitching she employed, the only thing getting stripped in Connecticut is Corinne Magoveny Terrone’s job and earning potential.
Maryland State Delegate Mary Ann Lisanti (D)
Hard truth: lying is a part of being human. Big lies, small lies, lies of commission and omission; If there is one thing you can count on human beings to do at least once in their lives, it’s lie. Whether it be a lie to spare someone’s feelings, like the ones you tell at office pot lucks (You know damn well you’re not gonna try Brenda’s nasty looking crock pot surprise, so telling her you’re “on a cleanse” is just easier), or a lie to make something more appealing (Telling people Brenda’s dish was SOOOO GOOOOD last time you had it—which was never), or even a lie to avoid getting caught in a previous lie (YES you ARE still on a cleanse, you’re taking the cupcake hidden under this napkin HOME to your KID…), most people consider the majority of lies they tell harmless or benign, which is why they call them “white lies.” White denotes purity, therefore a white lie must be something pure in intention; innocent; meant to help and not harm.
Then we have actual white lies: the lies white people tell to excuse their racism and bigotry. From Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and his “it wasn’t me in that picture” (after first apologizing for being in the picture, but ok), to newly minted dummy of the day Del. Mary Ann Lisanti, white people can come up with some WHOPPERS when faced with the label of “racist.” Lisanti is the latest casualty of the True Colors Shining Through epidemic, after a colleague reported that she used disparaging language to describe the majority Black county of Prince George’s, Maryland. According to reports, Miss Mary Ann told her white colleague that when he campaigned in Prince George’s on behalf of a candidate last fall he was door-knocking in a “n----- district.” When first questioned on the accusation, she acquired situational amnesia (a frequent symptom of the TCST epidemic) and stated “I don’t recall that. . . . I don’t recall much of that evening.” Later, when asked if she’d ever used the n-word, Lisanti went with “I’m sure I have. . . . I’m sure everyone has used it. I’ve used the f-word. I used the Lord’s name in vain.” However when witnesses came forward, she firmly stated her white lie. Mary Ann Lisanti, a Democratic Lawmaker in the state of Maryland, released a statement to the American public, in the year of our Lord, two thousand and nineteen, that read in part: “I am sickened that a word that is not in my vocabulary came out of my mouth. It does not represent my belief system, my life’s work or what is my heart.”
A word…that is not in her vocabulary….came out of her mouth. Like, involuntarily.
Ok.
Now, look—I don’t claim, to have knowledge of every miracle, medical wonder, or inexplicable phenomenon to have ever occurred, but I’m fairly confident that words don’t just emanate from the larynx unassisted by the brain. Especially words like nigger. Especially words like nigger, when referencing Black people. ESPECIALLY words like nigger, when referencing Black people, from an American White person. For instance, I don’t know the French word for ugly. It’s literally NOT in my VOCABULARY,
therefore I have not, do not, and probably will not ever use it to describe ugly things. (I just looked it up though, and it’s “laid”—which now makes me question if every time someone said “your hair is LAID” it actually meant my hair looked like trash…but I digress.) Yet when you use a word in proper context and common definition, it is safe to say the word is definitely within your vocabulary.
Mary Ann, why you lying? WHY? Just say you didn’t mean to speak in such an ugly way. Say that you apparently have inherent biases that prevent you from being objective when it comes to Black people. Blame it on your privileged and prejudiced upbringing. Blame it on your parents using the word around you growing up. Blame it on the rain. Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol. But this whole invasion of the bodysnatchers routine is for the birds, as are most actual white lies. Reason being? Actual White lies are easy to spot. They require such a Herculean suspension of disbelief that the most common reaction to hearing them, across multiple demographics, is “bitch, please.” Actual white lies want us to disassociate with our own life experiences and believe in fantasies, fallacies, and fictional fuckery. They are not just an insult to human intelligence they are, themselves, just…dumb. Literally without intellectual content or logical thought. As are the people that tell them.
As of this writing, it has been reported that Lisanti was stripped of her leadership role on an unemployment subcommittee, and will attend sensitivity training for the offense. I wonder if the training will be run by a young priest and an old priest? Maybe Lorraine Warren, famed Connecticut paranormal investigator (and the lady from “The Conjuring”) will make the trip down to the DMV? No matter who facilitates it, I fear whatever possessed Mary Ann and forced her to say words that “aren’t in her vocabulary” won’t be exorcised. Some believe you have to call a demon by it’s name in order to cast it out—but as long as White people continue to tell these actual white lies? Racism and bigotry are here to stay.
Dear America: when will y’all start giving everyone else the same amount of credit/benefit of the doubt/empathy and/or sympathy you give racist white boys? Before you reply “Well, whatsoever do you MEAN?!?”, take into consideration the latest egregious examples of freely issued RHP™ (Racist Hall Passes™) white boys have gotten so far in the year of our Lord, two thousand and nineteen.
PS? It’s only February.
First, we have the MAGA hat wearing, cocky sneer projecting, destined to grow up and be a mediocre white boy failing forward Nick Sandmann; the Kentucky high-schooler who alleges the viral video of him in confident Caucasian confrontation with a Native American elder was misinterpreted by everyone who saw it. Sandmann claims he was “trying to diffuse the situation” through “silent prayer,” and that he and his friends did absolutely nothing to provoke anyone out there on the mall (insert picture of White Jesus with halo here). It was also widely claimed that video of an encounter with Black Hebrew Israelites proves that the teen and his group of future klansman comrades were attacked FIRST, therefore rightfully deserved to counter attack the Native Americans…who had absolutely nothing to do with the Black Hebrew Israelites. *blank stare*
Now, if you don’t live in a major metropolitan area where public transportation is the main mode of travel, you’re probably wondering “WTF is a Black Hebrew Israelite”? Basically they’re the Westboro Baptist of Black religion without the professionally printed signs (Seriously, they need to step their signage game up. Crooked letters taped to flimsy poster board is not a very convincing argument that you are *the* chosen people). They are usually dressed in costumes made with shiny lame fabric (yes, it looks lame but it’s pronounced lah-may), or in traditional-ish Middle Eastern garb, or padded breastplates and kneepads looking like they just finished laser tag, or in regular clothes…there’s really no consistency in their attire. BHI’s stand near the entrances of subways or in public gathering spots (like the National Mall), yelling their insanity beliefs into a karaoke machine and hurling insults at just about anyone that confusingly looks their way—especially white people. Seriously, WHO AMONGST US has not been verbally assaulted by Black Hebrew Israelites, no matter our race? If anything, they should be lauded as Equal Opportunity Offenders. With a surface level google search, you will find numerous accounts of BLACK people detailing their aggressive and abusive encounters with BHI’s. In Sandmann’s case, according to the video at least, the level of harassment they experienced was like a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10. (You haven’t experienced real harassment of the BHI until you’re standing at the Chinatown train station in DC, waiting at the crosswalk for the light to change, and that speaker is blowing your eardrum out calling lighter skinned Black women “demon possessed mongrels,” yo.) Being called “dusty crackers” from 10 yards away pales in comparison to their regularly employed insults.
Even still, Sandmann (and his PR team) decided to blame BHI’s for the disrespectful standoff with elder Nathan Phillips, and not Sandmann’s own inherent racism, as demonstrated by his choice to purchase and wear a bright red hat emblazoned with the official slogan of Trumpian bigots. Rather than examining the racist irony of a white kid smugly staring down a NATIVE American in a “Make America Great Again” hat, the media decided to give him a chance to “explain himself”. Folks like Savannah Guthrie of NBC’s Today Show offered Sandmann a huge platform to create a scapegoat, disingenuously portray his actions as an innocent attempt to heal the racial divide, and actually scold people for “jumping to conclusions.” (White women can always be counted on to uplift, protect, and preserve the virtue of white boys and men, can’t they? *eye roll*) As soon as Sandmann and his mendacious, mouth breathing countenance hit the air waves? Boom. America gave him a RHP™.
Next up we have Tom Brokaw who, for decades, was a respected journalist on NBC Nightly News (Wait…NBC again? What kind of conversations are happening in y’alls breakroom?!?). Recently, good ol’ Thomas was pontificating on immigration and allowed his true feelings on the matter to slip through his seemingly objective, thin lipped visage. He stated: “And a lot of this, we don't want to talk about. But the fact is, on the Republican side, a lot of people see the rise of an extraordinary, important, new constituent in American politics, Hispanics, who will come here and all be Democrats. Also, I hear, when I push people a little harder, "Well, I don't know whether I want brown grandbabies." I mean, that's also a part of it. It's the intermarriage that is going on and the cultures that are conflicting with each other. I also happen to believe that the Hispanics should work harder at assimilation. That's one of the things I've been saying for a long time. You know, they ought not to be just codified in their communities but make sure that all their kids are learning to speak English, and that they feel comfortable in the communities. And that's going to take outreach on both sides, frankly.” Ooof. Tell ‘em why you mad, Tom, TELL ‘EM WHY YOU MAD!!! But, like…only in English, I guess? Brokaw has since apologized for this colossal gaffe, and since his track record doesn’t lend itself to racism, one could argue he earned his RHP™. But let’s be clear: the incident is going into his file, permanently (alongside this). NBC has also offered a statement saying Brokaw’s comments were inaccurate and inappropriate and they are glad he apologized. (Maybe y’all need to hold a cultural sensitivity workshop over at 30 Rock…just saying.)
Most recently, Virginia’s Moonwalking Governor Ralph Northam was accused of appearing in a very racist yearbook picture unearthed from his Medical School days. There are only two people in the picture—one in a shit-ton of offensive blackface paint, the other in a hooded KKK uniform. The picture appears on a personal, “about me”-type page in the 1984 yearbook, alongside other fully recognizable photos of the Governor, with his full name emblazoned across the top. When the pic hit the media on Friday night, he immediately apologized for his actions, and numerous legislators called for his resignation. But in a privilege peppered PLOT TWIST: Northam called a press conference Saturday afternoon to say “J/K you guise!! That actually wasn’t me in that picture I took responsibility for yesterday and yes this is ABSOLUTELY the truth.” While denouncing one blackface incident, Northam strangely confesses to participating in a DIFFERENT blackface incident—a dance contest where he imitated Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk in just a tiny bit of blackface (because shoe polish is hard to get off, he only used a tiny bit. Yes this was the explanation he gave.) For around 45 minutes, everyone not only entertained his earnest and seemingly sincere switcharoo, the press mostly softballed him on the question front. I was waiting for someone to ask “Governor, are you high? Well, were you high yesterday? Was your yearbook editor high? Sir, do you think we are high?” As of the time of this writing, Northam is still refusing to resign, but a staff meeting was called Sunday night to discuss the future of his administration. That there is a possibility he will remain Governor of Virginia beyond Monday morning shows that he already has a temporary RHP™, and the probability is high that his permanent one soon come; This “unfortunate incident” will be considered an attack on him rather than exposing his past wrongdoings and bad judgement. He will be victimized and called a victim of political correctness. Never mind that he literally admitted to wearing blackface before.
If these same courtesies and allowances were offered toward minorities, maybe they wouldn’t feel so racist. If Black and Brown people got the chance to explain themselves when they were innocent, let alone when they are caught in questionable situations, maybe the world would feel a little more fair. If someone took the time to offer them a platform to maintain their humanity, minorities might actually trust that justice exists. As it stands, the only people given a pass in matters of race are the ones who offend minorities.
Today is the day we, as a nation, observe the birthday of Civil Rights Icon Martin Luther King, Jr. (who was born on January 15, 1929). Today is also the day lots of white people with selective memories shape shift like decepticons into progressive, social justice allies. History, their voting patterns, and their comment sections indicate that they probably loved the good Reverend Doctor then about as much as they love Colin Kaepernick now. But once a year, to show how much they’ve always stood for equality and justice for “The Blacks,” they will trot out some of MLK’s more famous quotes and plaster them on their social media pages, complete with fancy filters and fonts. If they’re feeling particularly introspective, they may mention something contained in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” circa 1963. Most times they stick to excerpts from King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, (which even he decried as superficial “optimism” that needed to be “tempered with solid realism” later in life). Rarely do they venture into the world of King from 1965-1968.
(Wait…y’all do know King didn’t get assassinated right after the Lincoln Memorial speech, right? I mean, I realize history conveniently leaves out MOST of his orations and writings in order to paint a defanged picture of him—especially the ones with stern language condemning America for its continued economic injustice toward minorities and poor whites, after Civil Rights Legislation had been signed into law. History would also LOVE for you to believe that this speech was the end of his social justice career…but nah. His vision advanced beyond the “dream” to his involvement in the Poor People’s Campaign...which ultimately got him murdered by a lone racist named James *cough* the government *cough* Earl Ray.)
When trying to convince people to do something, using the words of a prominent historical figure has been known to influence the masses and drive the point home. No matter the context of the original quote, if just one sentence fits a particular situation it will get chopped and screwed into a remix of “wise words.” King’s words are no exception to this rule, suffering an ironic twist of fate: the ones on tolerance and non-violence are often the tools white people use to try and silence the cries of injustice and intolerance from the very people King was fighting for.
On Sunday, during his vacation from the Hollow Tree Factory, Keebler Elf Mike Pence was the latest abuser of King’s Dream speech. During a “Face the Nation” interview with Margaret Brennan, Pence had the unmitigated gall to not only misrepresent Martin Luther King’s words, he compared King to the bloated Big Mac with sentience currently running our country, Donald Trump. (If you would like to take a second to rinse out your mouth, go right ahead. I threw up a little when I heard it too.)
Michael Pence, the sitting Vice-President of the United States of America, decided that the best way to make a point about the need for a xenophobic wall—which his party is currently holding the country hostage over (the government has been shut down 31 days and counting), was to quote a man who stood for equality among races. WHUT?
I don’t know what kind of product Mike uses to keep that dusty white hair helmet in place, but it must have toxins that are seeping into his pores, through his skull and affecting his brain. Pixie cut Pence stated, with a straight face mind you: “Honestly, you know, the hearts and minds of the American people today are thinking a lot about it being the weekend we are remembering the life and the work of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. One of my favorite quotes from Dr. King was, ‘Now is the time to make real the the promises of democracy…’ You think of how he changed America, he inspired us to change through the legislative process, to become a more perfect union, that’s exactly what President Trump is calling on the Congress to do, come to the table in a spirit of good faith.”
If you don’t get your intellectually dishonest ass up out of here, Michael.
To start, when people talk about “One of my favorite quotes”, they usually don’t have to stare down at a piece of paper to repeat it. If it’s a “favorite,” you can usually recite it from memory, no? Yet in the video, you notice Pence looks down to READ his favorite MLK quote off of a document in front of him. Interesting. Maybe he had a memory lapse because the quote is so out of context. You see, when Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of the promises of democracy, he was speaking about giving people equal rights. Here is the full text:
“We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.” Yet y’all want us to detach from reality and common sense…to the extent of believing…MARTIN LUTHER KING, JUNIOR would have DESIRED us to perpetuate the current RACIAL DISCRIMINATION toward Latino/Latina peoples through the democratic action of…FUNDING A COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY WALL TO SHOW HOW MUCH THEY ARE NOT WELCOME…IN THIS COUNTRY OF IMMIGRANTS? Ok.
While true that King inspired us to “change through the legislative process,” the change he sought is one that today’s Republican party actively fights against. We are nowhere near a more perfect union, and this administration is currently flying a raggedy looking Trump plane in the complete opposite direction. What Pence and his ilk are doing is completely adverse what King wanted, needed, or instructed us to do…yet they invoke his name in an attempt to get people on board with their bigotry and hatred. This commonplace perversion of his words is exactly the reason why lauded Chicago writer and public servant Leslé Honoré wrote the poem “my king” in 2017 (her entire book is amazing and poignant in our current social climate, and can be purchased here):
Somebody needs to tell Pence and those like him to get their hands and minds right… right off of the words and legacy of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. They didn’t respect their magnitude and meaning then, and they surely don’t now. If you’re not about his mission? Keep his name out your mouth.
The first week of 2019 offered us an informative and nauseating—yet necessary— docuseries on Robert Sylvester-the-child-molester Kelly, better known publicly as musician R. Kelly. Rumors about Kelly’s predilection towards teenage girls were confirmed, and allegations of his constant, consistent abuse of women were laid bare. For most people familiar with the self proclaimed “pied piper of R&B,” the doc uncovered nothing new. Kelly’s career has been haunted by his predatory perversions since the 90’s (Read: We know this fool is a nasty ass creep. Who names THEMSELVES “the pied piper,” a character known for leading children off a cliff with music? A NASTY ASS CREEP IS WHO).
But seeing the episodes professionally compiled, coupled with heartbreaking images of parents trying desperately to communicate with their brainwashed, sequestered daughters, brought Kelly’s ghosts of misdeeds past (and present) to life in 2019. What remains most frightening is the number of people who continue to support his nasty ass. Most of Robert’s supporters fall into the 40+ age bracket, meaning they are too damn old and have too many gigs on their data plans to fall for the okie doke, therefore should absolutely know better. They’ve convinced themselves that the survivors are lying, but like the old folk say: “Everybody ain’t telling the SAME lie on you.” He has male and female supporters alike, which should make any decent human being cringe in horror. The female supporters are quite the conundrum; for starters, they’re absolutely too old for him to find desirable, so if they’re holding out hope that their fandom will win them a place in Robert’s heart, bed, or song lyrics, they are sadly mistaken. Additionally, as a woman, they should be fully aware of how young girls are routinely targeted for sexual abuse by older men, and usually suffer in silence. They probably have girls in their own households or families who have been abused, but after seeing their reactions to the R. Kelly situation, will never say a word.
Most Generation Xers/Xennials were in middle or high school when 25 year old Kelly hit the music scene with the group Public Announcement. The group found fast fame with their debut album and New Jack Swing sound, which was hugely popular in 1992. The album produced enough hits for Kelly to venture out solo, and the next year his “12 Play” album became one of R&B’s sexiest chart toppers. Even though most were too young to engage in the activities Kelly crooned about, he cemented his place in that generation’s musical consciousness and earned hardcore fans. During this time, he was also known to be a constant presence outside of Kenwood Academy, his former high school, propositioning (or having members of his crew proposition) the girls attending the school. Due to his fame it was an easy task, and he readily avoided ridicule and resistance from surrounding adults.
Let’s hear that one mo’ time: a 25 year old man was able to prey on girls aged 13-17 for years, at their school, just because he had popularity and money. Tha hell? Where were the administrators? The teachers? Where were the big brothers/cousins/uncles/daddies who would whoop a dude’s ass for this? Where were the cops, who were supposed to be protecting and serving these CHILDREN? (Allegedly, Kelly had police officers on his payroll then and now to keep him out of trouble. There is currently no evidence to support this claim…besides the fact that he is still walking around as an unharmed, free man.) Is the proximity to money and power so intoxicating that people are willing to offer up young girls as a sacrifice to have it? In the case of R. Kelly, it seems that way.
Around this same time, Kelly was grooming 14 year old label mate Aaliyah Haughton as an artist…and as a lover. He was lead writer and producer on her 1994 debut album, whose “Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number” title was, in hindsight, a reflection of his relationship with the singer. (Newsflash: Robert BEEN a bold ass, nasty ass MFer.) As much as they attempted to keep it under wraps, people detected something untoward going on in this supposed mentor/mentee situation. The docuseries produced witnesses that revealed 27 year old Kelly’s illegal marriage to Aaliyah happened due to a pregnancy scare when she was 15, and that forged documents were produced to claim she was 18 (the marriage was annulled by her parents months later). After the annulment, Aaliyah ended her contract with Jive and severed all ties with Kelly and his crew (See? This is what happens with parents who cared more about their child’s welfare than fame, fortune or even HER career).
Amid sexual harassment charges that were settled out of court, what brought Kelly’s behavior to the legal spotlight in 2001 was the now infamous “pee tape”—a video recording of Kelly and an obviously young girl (said to be 13/14 at the time of the recording), having sex with and urinating on her. This young girl was actually the daughter of Kelly’s guitarist and niece to his former background singer turned protege, Sparkle. According to Sparkle, when she found out her niece was being sexually abused by R.Kelly, she went to her siblings, but nothing was done. When asked to testify in court, Sparkle identified the young girl on the tape as her niece, but the girl and her parents refused to testify. Due to their refusal, R.Kelly has never been found guilty of any legal misconduct and has remained free to wreck havoc upon others. (See? THIS is what happens with parents who care more about fame, fortune and their careers than their child’s welfare.)
The doc goes on to highlight victim after victim of Kelly’s manipulative abuse, some of which are still, to this day, under his control. Timothy and Jonjelyn Savage went to the media with their claims that R. Kelly is holding their daughter Joycelyn hostage, refusing to allow her to contact them. Joycelyn later appeared in a TMZ video denying the claim, yet it was reported by a former Kelly employee Joycelyn was coached on what to say, and Savage’s father points out where you can see someone signaling her in the shadows on the recording. Angelo and Alice Clary, whose daughter Azriel has not talked to them for three years since turning 18 and running off with Kelly, attempted to get Chicago PD to do a wellness check at the studio where she is allegedly living with Kelly. CPD’s hands were tied, however, and the parents were denied any access. The Savages and Clarys are still fighting to contact their daughters, and reportedly, Kelly is facing criminal investigations in both Georgia and Chicago after the docuseries aired.
That it took a major network to air a 6 hour, 3 day special for most people to pay closer and more serious attention to this situation is mind boggling. This should serve as a wake up call in our communities to not only #BelieveSurvivors, but to also remove celebrities and people with money and influence from the pedestals of immunity when it comes to harming our children. No song is worth more than a child’s innocence. No amount of money is worth selling out our youth. For those that want to continue to support deviants like R. Kelly, step your ass in the name of sexual assault and criminality from now on—because you have no idea what the word love means. The faster we #MuteRKelly, the less likely anyone in the future will have to proclaim #MeToo from his reign of terror.
So, we’re three days into 2019, and thirteen days into the toddler-in-chief’s latest temper tantrum. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, or purposefully unplugged from politics to preserve your sanity, you’ve heard about the government shutdown that occurred right before the holidays. President Grinch asked Santa Congress to attach $5 Billion in funding to the government spending bill, so that he could build the wall he promised all his racist, xenophobic supporters on the campaign trail (you know, the one he REPEATEDLY said Mexico was going to pay for…), and Santa Congress said “hell nah.”
Now, maybe it’s because he never watched School House Rock or paid attention in civics class, but Trump honestly doesn’t seem to know how the US Government works. In order for a bill to pass, it has to have the required number of votes in both the House of Representatives (where, at the time, there was a Republican majority) and the Senate (where there is still a Republican majority). When he met with Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer prior to the shutdown, he claimed that Democrats were the reason behind the bill not passing. In truth, there aren’t enough House Republicans on board with this ridiculous ass proposition either. Pelosi reminded him of that, and Trump did what Trump does best: vomiting up nonsensical word salad, telling lies, and demonstrating his incompetence. By the end of the conversation, he’d stepped into a pile of huge, steaming shutdown of his own making.
If the shutdown only affected the paychecks of those making the decisions on capitol hill, the decision might be a little more understandable. But numerous government agencies are feeling this hit. Departments like Housing and Urban Development, the Coast Guard, the FCC and FEMA just to name a few, have had to furlough close to 800,000 federal employees or ask them to work without pay. Most ironically, the department that oversees Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is affected. The very people who work to protect the border are now working without pay, because the president wants to build a wall which probably costs more than 10 years of their salaries combined. This whole situation is just…stupid.
The 116th Congress was seated earlier today, and newly elected Speaker Pelosi wasted no time in bringing a measure to the House floor aimed at partially reopening the government. The bill passed with bipartisan support, but is said to face a veto from the president (if it even makes it out of the Republican controlled Senate). Congressional leaders are slated to meet with the president on Friday in an effort to discuss compromise, but if his previous behavior is any indication, getting him to let go of this wall funding will be more difficult than getting him to pronounce anonymous.
