Summer Breeze

Teacher Binds Girls' Hands and Feet to Liven up Slavery Lesson

Source: MSNBC.COM

"On Nov. 18, Bernstein was discussing the conditions under which African captives were taken to America in slave ships. She bound the two students' hands and feet with tape and had them crawl under a desk to simulate the experience, Monahan and Shand said. Monahan said the girls were not the only blacks in the class."

In what kind of world do you live in that you think this would be okay?

Notice Anything Similar??

Painter's 8-year effort at Dallas Orthodox church nearly done

hmm.... Think he might've taken the "in man's image" thing too far....

Jason Whitlock Gets on My Last Nerves

I hope that when he wrote this latest article for msn/foxsports, he was playing Devil's Advocate. Otherwise.... side-eye

Excerpt:

Would someone please write a handbook? "What Will and Won't Piss Black Folk Smooth the **** Off"; would be an international bestseller.

I'm black, and I'm pissed off most of the time, but I wouldn't leave home without the handbook. Not in these racist-ly confusing times. I can barely keep up with when I'm supposed to be disappointed as opposed to offended as opposed to being pissed smooth the **** off.

He is making reference to the controversy over the LeBron-Gisele cover on Vogue. His opinion on the photograph is not clear, i.e., I'm not sure if he thinks that LeBron is not imitating King Kong and black people are overreacting, or if he thinks that he is portrayed as the beast, but that LeBron (and other athletes) also perpetuate stereotypes, so why are black people mad now. I'm pretty sure it's the latter, but that's beside the point of this post. My issue is with Whitlock's line of reasoning.

One of the ways he thinks LeBron is making himself a beastly stereotype is via tattoos. Apparently, and this was news to me, black people get inked up to look like prisoners. Betcha didn't know that. Here I was thinking that we all had different minds and motivations. Silly me. No, no.

According to Whitlock, when LeBron "covered his body in tatts years ago, mimicking a death-row inmate, [he] invited people to jump to the conclusion that he's dangerous." Did LeBron say that he got tatted because he was "mimicking a death-row inmate?" Or is that just what Whitlock sees when he looks at him? You know, "we" can be prejudiced, too. Couldn't be imitating rock stars or skaters or being alternative, or hell, just plain liking tattoos? Nope. Not according to Whitlock. Per him, "Half the black players in the NBA take the court each night in front of white audiences tatted from neck to toe like they're shooting a scene for Prison (Fast)Break."

Thankfully, we have Jason to voice what is apparently our one collective mind as black people, which he does in an article replete with "us" and "we" in reference to black folks. We all get tats to look like prisoners, we all get mad about the same thing, and we all love Tyler Perry's movies.

Not.

But hey, Jason, folks gotta make money some way, I guess, and if coddling white people who feel troubled and who like to chalk black people up to being overly sensitive is how you get down, more power. But one request:

Please stop speaking for the rest of "us". "We" are not all of one mind. YOU are perpetuating the idea that "we" are, which makes "you" worse than "them", because "you" should know better.

Hmm, I wonder why msn.com is highlighting this article as one of their headlining stories?

Open Letter to Ms. Geraldine Ferraro

Ms. Ferraro:

Recently you were quoted in the Daily Breeze as saying, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

I partially agree with you. If Obama were a white man, he would not be in this position -- i.e., the position of dealing with this kind of bull. If Obama were a white man, he would ALREADY have the democratic nomination. If Obama were a white man, his race would be a non-issue in this campaign, not the divisive, hotbed topic that it is.

That's the thing that kills me about self-righteous white people like you who use that line "it's because their black." What you fail to realize is that we in many cases are just as talented, if not more, than our counterparts, yet our accomplishments are marred under a cloud of doubt as to whether we achieved them based on ability or based on our race, whereas our white peers get to just bask in the glory without having to defend the glory.

A long time ago, my mom told me of the mantra that her professor had taught the black students at UAPB in the 70's - "You got to be gold to pass for silver."

Recently a former white professor of mine suggested that if I were interested in the Ph.D. program, that I do even more than what was required for admission (e.g., get an article published). I was to do this, not to increase my chances of admission, but in her words, to quiet any naysayers who may say that I was accepted because I am black. Here was a white lady in effect confirming what that UAPB professor had said. And here you are proving that no matter how golden you are and what you achieve, there are always going to be Ferraros who try to use your skin color to discount your achievements.

"Lucky to be who he is," huh? Oversimplify much?

Senator Obama is a gifted leader who has put forth much to be where he is today, and were he white, he probably would not have had to work half as hard.

Just Once...

By now nearly everyone not living under a rock has heard the story and seen this photo,

with its accompanying caption (courtesy of cnn.com): "... with his wife, ..., by his side, apologizes to his family ...."One glance at the wife's face reveals what appears to be complete and utter sickness and disgust.

Just once, just once, I wanna see one of these wives go just ape-shit on somebody. I mean, just snap. Just start beating him up side his head, right on camera. Or just start mouthing, "you m****f**** " over and over. Something.

It always kills me that these momafukos have the ORDACITY (if I may use FOL's New York's pronunciation) to drag their wives out to support them and try to hold on to their political careers. How dare they! Bastard wasn't thinking about her when he was ordering prostitutes like pancakes.

Please, somebody, clown one of these fools, and stop the madness.

Somebody, Please Get These Children

Too Pretty to Fly? - Girls Questioned after Southwest Flight

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/02/25/porter.too.pretty.to.fly.wtsp

"I mean, nobody on the plane looked like us." That right there sums up their whole attitude -- STANK!

Looks Like They're Trying to Do Better

Last month, I railed against CNN for the convenient times they choose to focus on Blacks and other people of color. So I was surprised, though saddened, by the front (web)page, breaking news tragic article about the missing black lady being found dead.

I don't recall knowing anything about this story until now, which is unfortunate. But at least they are acting as though we are newsworthy and matter, too. Even if it's just to quiet the critics. I don't care what the reason. As long as they make changes.

You can read about the tragic story here. So sad. She was only 28. So sorry for her family.

Mind Your Business, CNN

Something about this article is not sitting right with me.

'Could Mr. Right be white?' More black women consider 'dating out'

Story Highlights

• Black women around the country are reconsidering interracial relationships
• They're taking cues from their favorite stars, as well as blogs and books
• Statistics suggest American black women are among the least likely to marry
• Some say they are frustrated by the narrow field of marriageable black men

From the title to the examples to the statistics to the "story highlights", something is just not sitting right. It's like the journalistic equivalent of a white person feeling permitted to air his/her disparaging feelings about blacks because his black friend speaks badly about black people.

When I'm not seeing our successes and achievements celebrated, and I'm not hearing about the prevalence of racial profiling, disparate sentencing, workplace bias, etc., then I don't need to hear about black men aren't as likely as their white male counterparts to achieve a degree or the number of black men in jail.

To me, this article felt like a way to dump on black men -- which by extension, is black people -- and say, "See, they don't even like each other." In fact, that is almost an exact quote they used from Tim Alexander, director of Diary of a Tired Black Man, ""To a certain degree, black people are sick of each other."

They stick jabs like that throughout the article. Like this paragraph, following the introduction about black women reconsidering attitudes towards interracial dating, made up of the lone sentence:

It comes as statistics suggest American black women are among the least likely to marry.

Their wording, their sentence placement, their quotes, make us sound like we are just some unwanted stray cats, slumping along, kicked to the curb by our own kind, "All the black men literally pushed (us) out the way to talk to the blondes," hoping for kindness from the ones who used to abuse us, "I'm not saying that white men are the answer to all our problems," Jones said. "I'm just saying that they offer a different solution."

Yeah, something stinks. And it's this article.

How about an article on the number of white women dating black men, and why they've "abandoned" their men? Or why couldn't even this article have been about more white men searching out black women.

Why couldn't we be the sought after item?

Why is an interracial relationship (black/white) automatically spoken of in terms of the the black person abandoning his race, "trying to come up?"

Until CNN is putting abducted people of color on the news the way they do whites, until CNN makes travesties of justice like what's happening with the Jena 6 front page the way they did the Duke Lacrosse case, until a whole helluva lot changes, Imma need them not to worry about who black people are or are not rejecting in relationships.

Define: Irony

FIRST... READ THIS

Highlights get girl sent home
January 11, 2007

By Stefano Esposito Special to the Daily Southtown

Some might consider Sandridge Elementary School Principal Leroy Coleman a bit old-school.

The 50-something educator doesn't approve of kids holding hands in the hallways or "romancing."

...

Boam says her daughter is being singled out, pointing out that Coleman has sent her daughter home from school several times for no good reason, including for kissing a boy.

"The only reason they come here is to get educated," Coleman said. "I'm not having any romancing going on." (http://www.dailysouthtown.com/news/206522,112NWS3.article)

NOW... READ THIS

Principal, teacher quit after sex video surfaces

POSTED: 11:06 p.m. EDT, April 13, 2007

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A principal and a teacher at a suburban elementary school quit amid allegations they were caught on video having sex in the principal's office, authorities say.

In keeping with Cook County's reputation for bare-knuckle politics, the scandal broke after copies of the sex tape were mailed anonymously to parents this week, just days before a contested school board election.

The case has also created something of a mystery: Who planted the camera that recorded the action? [Summer says, "See Story #1 above. Mystery solved."]

Leroy Coleman and Janet Lofton submitted their resignations after meeting with the district superintendent Thursday, said John Izzo, board attorney for the Sandridge Elementary School district, about 20 miles south of Chicago. (http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/13/teacher.principal.sex.ap/index.html)

Imus is not just Imus and Rutgers Women are not Just Rutgers Women

The other day I was the recipient of road rage. In short a guy thought that I was trying to take the parking spot he spotted (though I saw it first anyways), but I was actually reversing to take the newly-opening spot to the left. I was actually being polite, and even put my blinker on to signify that I was going left -- NOT RIGHT. That doesn't stop him from blowing at me repeatedly, though. Both cars in their respective spots pull out nearly simultaneously, and I wave my hand to indicate that he can pull into his spot first. (I didn't want his spazz ass to crash into me, thinking I was going for his spot.) Well, this jackass, before driving past me into the spot, stops to flip me off and mouth obscenities. I was FUR.I.OUS! Here I was, actually being polite, giving him a spot that I was very well entitled to, and he still assumes I'm being a bitch. In shock, I impulsively responded to his tirade in like fashion. By the time I got out of my car I was fuming. "I wasn't trying to take your lil funky spot!" I announced loudly. (Not only was that very uncharacteristic of me, but also not the smartest move since the guy could've been a psycho.) My eyes met with the eyes of a white couple in their car staring fearfully at me. That was the beginning of my fed-upness.

At my next stop, a little French bakery, there was a sorority-type chick all up in my personal space, repeatedly asking if I've ordered yet, like I don't know ordering protocol or something. I found myself getting so irritated by her "it's my world" attitude. The thing is, the annoying sense of entitlement that she exhibited is not uncommon, especially in this predominantly white yuppie area of town. But after the previous incident, that was it: I was done with white people for the rest of the day.

That feeling has never happened to me before. I even had to call up Quel to air my grievances. She helped me realize that it was actually the sense of entitlement that some whites exhibit that I was really fed up with.

What I also didn't realize at the time, was that it was the same day that I had read what Imus and the other guy said about the Rutgers women and had also engaged in some discussion about it on Rell's blog. I thought that I had gotten it out of my system, but as it turns out I was still a little bit sensitive. It wasn't until Tuesday night, as I reflected on Monday's events that I realized why I was so out of sorts: Imus is not just Imus and Rutgers Women are not Just Rutgers Women.

Just like Imus felt it was no big deal to categorize the black female ballplayers from Rutgers as he did, this guy felt like he was within his right to flip me off and use derogatory language against me. Obviously this is completely arguable and I have not one iota of proof, however my gut tells me that if I were the same person in the same situation, but painted white, this young, white executive in his power suit wouldn't have spoken to me that way, and Imus tells me that my gut reaction is not that far-fetched. But black women aren't seen as delicate and fragile like white women, are we? We can be yelled at, dumped on, degraded, by people of all races and genders, even our own, and we are supposed to shake it off and not take it personally, not be too sensitive. Like other remnants of slavery, this stereotype that we can handle anything works to our detriment and results in our being used as the "mules of the world." Well, dammit, I'm sensitive and fragile, too! Protect me. Respect me.

So the reason the Imus thing affected me is because Imus' degradation of black women is merely a representation of the rest of the world's tendency to disrepect us. And the immediate lackluster response is representative of the tendency for no one to defend us. I heard on the radio this morning something about Imus being fired. I wasn't signing petitions or anything, but if he was disciplined to that extent, I hope that will at least cause others to think twice before defecating on us.