If a Dunbar Village-esq crime happened in your neighborhood, how would that change the way you live your life?
How would that change the way you allowed your children to live their lives?
The latest from West Palm Beach ( It is official, these people are a tad bit off!)
Magnolia Park Rape Update (“Hurry Up! Me Next!”) Remember that second rape involving a group of Black teens less than a mile and less than a month after the Dunbar Village gang rape? The one where the rapist’s friends stood by yelling “Hurry Up! Me next!” Well they arrested a second suspect….a 15 year old seventh grader. Now I know I went to school a long time ago, but at fifteen, I was beginning either ninth or tenth grade, but that is another story. Earth to West Palm Beach… “Y’all got a problem”
Back to Dunbar Village First, the editorial writers have been busy, doing absolutely nothing but offering general words of advice, but nothing so rash as to actually demand specific action like say… install the donated air conditioners and fix the dayum street lights so the residents can see what is lurking in the shadows at night. Mayor Lois Frankel has had her “eyes on Dunbar Village since 2003,” well hell if this is the results of attentiveness, I hate to see the parts of the city that were off of her RADAR.
Officials Tour Dunbar Village ( What took so long… it’s only been over TWO MONTHS?). See Video here. I think they are trying to make a point, but they end up making another. You be the judge. Speak on it.
Some people apparently are planning to fight any plans to demolish Dunbar Village. Apparently unairconditioned 50 year-old barracks-style living is too difficult to part with. I don’t have a problem with nostalgia and historic architecture, but WTH?
[L]ongtime residents from the 1960s and ’70s, as well as County Commissioner Addie Greene, promised to fight any demolition plans, saying a chapter of local history would be wiped out.
“Why couldn’t this become a model project and other people could come and see what could be done with older buildings?” said Bettye Dawson, who lived in Dunbar Village from 1957 to 1962. She noted that the housing authority offices in the community, and the landscaping around those offices, look very nice….Security cameras are more than a month from being installed. (SOURCE)
THEY DON’T EVEN LIVE THERE ANYMORE! Again, corralling a group of poor folks in a concentrated area so that they can be abandoned again is IMMORAL and CRUEL! Relying on the good intentions of political leadership is what got you here in the first place. The best protection for poor folks is to live in the middle of people who aren’t. Why? Because when my street lamp goes out, I call the city. If the city doesn’t fix it in the timely manner, I call the city manager, if they are crazy enough not to get it done, I call my council member and the Mayor, if that is not enough, I call Eyewitness News to do a story on my broken street lamp. ( insert whatever problem you have in place of the street lamp).
The West Palm Beach Police Chief is till engendering confidence in her law enforcement abilities… you know the one that had 15 murders in one year in Dunbar Village, rampant property crime and assaults and 717 police calls in a single year from a housing project with only 334 residents? yeah that police chief:
Police Chief Delsa Bush says they’ve been extremely fortunate to make any arrest, let alone four, in a case of this nature where the arrests must be based on evidence not eyewitnesses or statements. (SOURCE)
Seriously, when is the FBI going to get involved( I explain possible reasons the feds could get involved if they wanted to later in this post.) Did I mention that chief Delsa sees no need to have more than a $1,000 reward in this case? Did I also mention that she is going to solve a rape case based on DNA alone? Hmm, um what law enforcement manual is that police technique from? What if some of the attackers didn’t leave recoverable DNA? What if they wore a condom as described in earlier news articles? What is the DNA was too degraded or was corrupted by the cleaning solvent the attackers threw on the victims? If you don’t recover DNA does that mean the crime did not occur? Well apparently so because doing actual police work and investigation instead of convictions via mail order are too much work for Delsa:
“I’m not even sure 10 people were involved,” Chief Bush said Tuesday in an interview with members of The Post Editorial Board. Nor, Chief Bush said, is a reward beyond the $1,000 offered by CrimeStoppers necessary: “We’re going to solve this case solely on the DNA evidence, and we have a lot of that.” SOURCE
I don’t think Delsa could solve 2+2 based on her public comments. BTW Delsa, the answer is not 5.
Apparently their US Representative is saying the US Congress might be increasing funding to public housing although with West Palm Beach’s track record at this point I don’t know if all the funding in the world could right everything that is so very wrong.U.S. REP. RON KLEIN,
What Bloggers Are Saying This story has legs, it might be slow moving, but it is still moving and spreading and everyday more people learn about this horror.
Mother Talkers finally heard about the story and she states why she is thankful not to be poor and points out the ridiculousness of building high rise condo towers while a portion of your town rots.
So in light of everything that is “happening” in West Palm Beach, I would like to offer some “observations” perhaps even a critique or two as I am prone to do. If you live in West Palm Beach, now would be the time that you stopped reading this post if you are “tender hearted” and have a heaping pile of civic pride.
Hmm,
Lots of movement, if not progress, seems to be occurring in West Palm Beach. I fear, however, that all this “movement” is all style and no substance. So perhaps we should clarify some things for the good folks in WPB, especially the political class because I become more and more distressed with each passing day of idiocy being generated from WPB. Pure unadulterated FOOLISHNESS!
1. Dunbar Village was a crime against humanity, not some petty theft of a bicycle. So what does that mean? It means that although the crime happened in West Palm Beach in a place called Dunbar Village, all of civil society has a vested interest in making sure that the conditions that facilitated this crime are stamped out and dealt with NOW, not when you get around to it. In other words this crime doesn’t just belong to you and your city and its apparently petty psychotic politics. Whether you realize it or not, the eyes of the world of on you…AND y’all are looking ridiculously bad right about now. We can’t afford to let you screw this up, despite your best efforts.
2. Clearly intervention from the State of Florida is required. Local government has broken down. Civil society is at risk for us all. You can’t have roving militaristic gangs running around committing crimes against humanity as a matter of course. You had two rapes with one month and one mile of each other involving an attack on middle aged Black women by a group of teens. Around these parts we called that a PATTERN. One that has to be stamped out. This mentality of lawlessness and a disregard for human life and the laws of nature must be met swiftly and forcefully. The perpetrators must be dealt with unmercifully so as to attempt to dissuade potential future perpetrators.
3. The Federal government needs to get involved if the State of Florida will not. Now if reports are true that this was in retaliation for the victim reporting crime, I think a case can be made that this whole series of events qualifies as an organized criminal enterprise. Second, the victim was clearly targeted based on her gender- HATE CRIME and possibly her national origin- HATE CRIME! The United States government has a extremely vested interest in making sure that militaristic sexual violence is an aberration, not a standard intimidation tactic used by the criminal underworld on United States. The danger that this kind of attack poses to “HOMELAND SECURITY” is greater or equal to any threat posed by foreign terrorists. This gang rape was a terrorist act. You have civilians targeted for the purpose of intimidation and/or Retaliation. You got an entire neighborhood paralyzed in fear. Folks scared to leave their homes. Law enforcement out gunned and apparently outwitted(That would be YOU Delsa!).
4. What kind of civil society will we have if the freedom of movement for women and girls is restricted because little Dunbar Villages start popping up all over the country? Not possible? Well the conditions that lead to Dunbar Village exist all over the place. You think West Palm beach is the only place in America where they have piled all the poor people in one enclave and then turned their backs on them and left them to fend for themselves while the City of West Palm Beach built a 164 MILLION DOLLAR office building and recently approved 40 MILLION DOLLAR tourist promenade while the people of Dunbar Village were left to live without any working street lamps, no AC, and no security patrol. Despite the fact that it was a hotbed of crime? If a Dunbar Village-esq crime happened in your neighborhood, how would that change the way you live your life? How would that change the way you allowed your children to live their lives?Folks, that is what is at stake here; OUR VERY WAY OF LIFE! This didn’t just happen to two people, it happened to us all so we have every right to maintain a vested interest in how we as a civilized society deal with this madness.
5. If ever there was something to be POLITICAL, how local and state leaders deal with this disaster should be POLITICAL. What the hell is government for if it is not shared defense? The primary function of local and state government are public safety and keeping the peace. What is more unsafe or warlike than something like Dunbar Village. So what does that mean? That means that before you build another promonade, or approve building permits, or send the mayor to some fancy conference in San Francisco, you have to handle civil order in your town. If you are not taking care of the minimal responsibilities of government, then we really don’t need any politicians do we? SO hell yeah make Dunbar Village political. I mean making it non political is what got these people stuck in hell on earth in the first place. DUnbar Village should be SO POLITICAL that any politician not addressing this issue head on ought to be drummed out of office
6. We ain’t going anywhere. Sorry, Mayor Frankel and West Palm Beach, you won’t be able to run out the clock and hope that we forget about the horrors of Dunbar Village so you can print out some new tourism brochures. IF necessary, the city of West Palm Beach can become synonymous with Dunbar Village. Keep ignoring the public outcry by doing absolutely nothing and you might as well plant a sign right outside the city limits that reads “Welcome to West Palm Beach Florida- Home of the Dunbar Village Gang Rape.” We really are not playing with y’all. Everyday, we become more sophisticated advocates and we are prepared to unleash a multimedia can of whoop @$$ if necessary. Unrelenting. Imagine every week waking up to wonder what multimedia send up we have prepared to alert the world about the foolishness in your city?
7. This whole situation from your neglect before the incident, to the apathy of your residents during and immediately after the crime to the current foolishness you political leaders are engaging in as they jockey to divert blame is RIDICULOUS and it is unacceptable. This circus might be acceptable to West Palm Beach residents, but not to the rest of the world.
You see, West Palm Beach, this is bigger than you so your typical petty myopic solutions are poorly unsuited to solve this problem so I suggest you try something new. Why not start with taking personal responsibility for you failures as political leaders to be good stewards for all of the residents of West Palm Beach. How about being man and/or woman enough to admit you could have done better but didn’t. How about admitting that enough has not bee done. How about asking for the help that you so badly need. AND I AIN’T TALKING ABOUT A GRANT FROM HUD….I am talking about assistance from state and federal law enforcement. Because afterall, what happened in June in a place called Dunbar Village was a CRIME…A crime against all of humanity. One that we will NEVER FORGET!
View our Dunbar Village PSA in the sidebar. We will be unveiling an extra special multimedia treat next week. We’ve only just begun. As far as I am concerned, this is a battle for civilization and the only option is victory.
UPDATE: Speaking of militaristic rapes and killings, the lone survicor of the execution style killings in Newark, NJ has a victim’s assistance fund: Natasha Aeriel, shooting victim and sole survivor of the brutal Ivy Hill slaying, needs your help.
This week, Mayor Cory Booker announced an assistance fund has been established in her name:
“the fund that is seeking donations to support the recovery of Natasha Aeriel, the survivor of the August 4 shooting incident in Ivy Hill, which took the lives of three young Newark residents and left her badly wounded.
More info in the comments. Don’t just talk about it. Be about it!
WAOD Guest Contributor, Symphony from Essential Presence was on the local news in West Palm Beach, Florida. They featured her YouTube video on the evening news. She’s been on top of this Dunbar Village story in an up close and personal way. GO over to Essential Presence and check her out. See the YouTube Clip that started it all.
What About Our Daughters? isn’t my first blog. One of my earliest attempts at blogging was called The Great Migration. I have since deleted it, and I regret that I did because it was a blog I used to keep my family and friends up to date on the mass displacement of an entire United States city in a span of days.
I compared what happened in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to The Great Migration
Perhaps Hurricane Katrina was the initial wakeup call that put me on the path to eventually starting this blog. Hurricane Katrina was a supernatural display of how fragile civil society is. It was a reminder that if everything went to hell in a handbasket, you really can’t count on the government to bail you out. You need family. Family matters. The government that is the police, the courts, social services, and all the entities that we’ve come to rely on… the government is one electrical outage from total absolute collapse. And when it crumbles as it did in the case of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, you have to rely on friends and family.
Family may send you $50 to get a tank of gas or ferry you out of harm’s way. Family may give you a place to stay when all the hotel rooms are full. Family feeds you, with no assistance from red cross. And family has your back when all hell is breaking loose and the police are no where to be found. Family forages for food when you have been left to die by local, state, and federal government. Family will try to come rescue you even though they know they can’t swim, but are willing to die trying…. Because you’re family.
I’ve told y’all before that I gave up on taking charge of anything since undergrad, but I was so outraged by Katrina that I opened up my tightly clasped pocket book and donated money and when Katrina evacuees got flown in to the town where I was station, near the south Texas border, I organized a drive to get them African American haircare products. No it wasn’t clothing or shoes, but it was what they needed since many of the folks donating weren’t African American. The vast majority weren’t. I knew how hard it was for me to find my stuff and I had a car and money. It was not much, but it was my small part.
A few weeks later, my entire family in Texas was on the road at the same time running from Hurricane Rita. The biggest fear I had at the time was ending up like those people in Katrina, separated from Family with no way to find them. Not knowing if they were okay, if they were hungry, if they were out of gas, if they were in a shelter.
The Governor of Texas called for an evacuation of every coastal city between the South Teas border and the Louisiana coast. I was by myself in South Texas, My sisters and their families were in the Houston area and my parents…. well they ended up directly in the path of the storm.
You couldn’t find a hotel room in Texas during the Rita Evacuation. I would have paid any price to keep myself and my family out of a Red Cross shelter, but my money was no good. There was over 24 hours of traffic between me and my family who headed north to Dallas. It took them almost 24 hours to make what would normally be a 4 hour trip. They were three cars strong and the encountered shot gun toting sheriff’s deputies along the evacuation route through East Texas, no restrooms, and traffic that moved at 1 mile an hour in the hot Texas heat.
I used text messages to keep in contact with everyone because the phone service was non existent. My Daddy didn’t even know his phone could accept text msgs.
I was directed to go to Nuevo Laredo across the Mexican border because that was the only place with hotel rooms. I took a pass and decided I would rather ride out a Cat 5 in my compact car than to take myself into Nuevo Laredo with my Texas tags by myself. I lucked out and got a hotel room on South Padre Island south of the storm. Hurricanes do not go backwards. The rest of my family ended up in DFW with various relatives.
My hometown ended up taking a direct hit from Hurricane Rita, but luckily, the worst damage any family member experienced was loose shingles and a refrigerator that was damaged beyond repair after holding meat in it for two weeks without electricity. The county kept them form their homes for two weeks.
So I know lots of people learned lots of things and discovered many things about themselves, this country, their families and human nature two years ago. But the thing I will always remember is how vulnerable we all really are and how fragile civil society is. When everything else collapses around you. In your hour of greatest need, I hope you have a strong family to do what the government won’t be able to.
As we watch the Black family disintegrate in front of our very eyes. Where being a baby’s mama is the mantra of the day and the Black community is rife with an epidemic of half siblings and broken homes and a slave child had a greater chance of being born in a two parent household than a child born today, I hope people remember today that the glue that holds civil society together is family and if you don’t have that, you have to rely on the kindness of strangers and the government. Katrina should have told you that if you rely on the government for anything when you really need it…… you are going to be sorely disappointed.
Really we need to stop the foolishness. P.S. If you don’t have a disaster preparedness kit, you are a fool. Get one today no matter where you live.
I pulled an all-nighter and still couldn’t master getting the audio to go along with the slides. I know I caught one typo, but I am too tired to go back and fix it. With 79 slides, I am sure that there are others. REMIX it to your heart’s content and share it with friends and member of the League of the Immorally Indifferent.
Here is Symphony’s first video on Dunbar Village. It is getting attention in West Palm Beach.
If we let these “leaders” get away with ignoring this issue, you can expect Dunbar Villages to pop up in a town and suburb near you. The cost of silence is too high. Le me see if I can get in two hours sleep.
A multimedia onslaught is about to be unleashed. This foolishness is ridiculous! Enough already. Get Ready. Get Ready. Get Ready! Symphony and I are hard at work! More coming tomorrow morning. If I can learn how to do video editing, so can you. Prepare a clip of your own.
“I was so scared,” the woman told WPTV. “Some of them had sex with me twice, some of them had sex with me three times. They’re beating me up. They make me do those things over and over. The man with the big gun, he put the gun inside of me.” (SOURCE)
Head over to Essential Presence to read the latest foolishness out of West Palm Beach Mayor, Lois Frankel and what happened when some folks got a hold of a YouTube video done by WAOD Contributor, Symphony. More YouTube videos are on the way.
We are going on three months since the violent gang rape in West Palm Beach Florida and to date AT LEAST SIX of the TEN rapists are still running around and you wouldn’t know if from the response from the government officials in Florida.
Governor Charlie Crist is MIA….You can contact Governor Charlie Crist at (850) 488-7146. REALLY… SIX violent militaristic rapists on the loose and there is no law enforcement manhunt? WTF??
Where is the manhunt? Where is the involvement of state law enforcement? Where is the FBI? This was a hate crime where the hell are they? Where is the national news media?
I’ve stopped asking about BLACK LEADERSHIP…. we know they are immorally indifferent.
It is time to raise PURE UNADULTERATED HELL!
You can listen to me describe the violent gang rape in Dunbar Village by clicking on the media player above.
Two days after his alleged brutal attack on his wife, Prophetess Juanita Bynum, Bishop Tommy ” The Hit Man” Weeks lay blame for choking, kicking and stomping on his 5′2 wife squarely at the feet of the Devil:
Weeks, wearing a dark suit and his customary bow tie, blamed the devil for the accusation that has him facing two felony charges. He didn’t, however, offer any specifics before introducing a guest minister who preached in his stead, then exiting the room. (SOURCE)
The Devil, also known as Satan, is not taking Week’s accusations laying down and has sought legal counsel. In a telephone interview from his office at Black Exploitation Television headquarters in Washington, DC, Satan seemed perplexed as to why yet another preacher was blaming him for acting a dayum fool.
“I mean, really, is it necessary to drag me into it every time one of these preachers messes up or catches a case? I didn’t grab his hands and wrap them around his wife’s neck and I didn’t force him to kick her while she was down on the asphalt. What happened to Free Will?”
Satan says that at the time of the attack on Bynum, he was otherwise occupied.
” I was making up the Spring programming schedule for BET at the time of the attack. I wasn’t anywhere near the Renaissance hotel. ” While Satan has faced similar accusations in the past, he decided to seek legal counsel in the present case because of the role Bishop Week’s purports to play in the Kingdom of God.
” Now here is a guy that has been telling everyone who will listen that he is on the Lord’s side. Now all of a sudden he goes batshyt crazy and it is all “The Devil’s” fault. I’m not having it!”
To Bynum, Satan, a Bible scholar himself directs her to the book of Job.” Folks are with you when the chips are up, but at the first sign of real trouble, all these church attendees start yelling “Curse God and Die!”
Satan is trying to continue with his normal routine in light of yet another accusation that he has meddled in the lives of Preachers of the Word. He’s been cooking up an entire new slate of television shows designed to set Black American back about 150 years each.
Satan saves his harshest criticisms for Bishop Tommy”The Hit Man” Weeks, ” He needs to MAN UP and grow a pair. Take responsibility for what you did! That was all YOU! Hell, even Michael Vick didn’t try to blame me for his situation!”
WARNING: The above may contain sarcastic language and imagery not mean to be taken literally. Yes, I did have too much time on my hands on my day off.
UPDATE: Juanita Bynum taped a pre-recorded response to the Devil Bishop Weeks and the boo birds that are chirping. They don’t call her a Prophetess for nothing. It comes towards the end of the clip. Hat Tip to Why Black Women Are Angry.
Folks, it is time for another “What Black Bloggers are Saying” post. I do these periodically when a subject crops up that all of us seem to have a post on.
Weeks sparked thunderous applause and cheers when he asked members to tell those seated next to them: “We’ve got certain things going on right now, but I refuse to stop coming to the house God built.” (SOURCE), Tommy “The Hit Man”Weeks speaking with his congregation, TWO days after surrendering for beating the crap out of his wife Juanita Bynum.
According to The Mo’ Kelly Report, Bishop Tommy ” The Hit Man” Weeks was back in the pulpit on Sunday. Reason #1235 that I am a devout member of Bedside Baptist Church, lead by Pastor A. Larm Clock, Sr. “Church Folk” are a MESS. Now settle down “church folk” from what I can remember from studying the Good Book, the lord has an extra special crispy reward for folks who appoint themselves as High Priests without being called and lead their flock astray. Now if IIIII had been a member of his church, I would have taken it back to the old school and stood up in church and said “I demand that the pastor vacate the pulpit until his criminal case is resolved!” But that’s some ole school Deacon stuff, these young deacons and trustees ain’t got it in ‘em for a good old fashioned church fight! AAAh those were the times! But I digress.
Before I provide more links to other bloggers, let me comment on about some things I am observing from blog posts and the comments sections related to Juanita Bynum. As expected folks are taking the fact that this 5′2 woman was allegedly choked, kicked and stomped into the ground by a 6 foot man as some type of sign that her teachings were flawed, fraudulent, or a hypocritical. My response is, so what if she was flawed, a fraud, or a hypocrite? I don’t know whether she is or she isn’t. Does it justify a beat down like that?DO you really think that domestic violence is some kind of karmic retribution for prior bad acts? Need I remind some of you “church folks” that even Jesus was beaten!
Being the recipient of a beating does not make you inherently unworthy of preaching the gospel nor does it make you a hypocrite( other things do, but not this). Even though I am a devout member of Bedside Baptist Church where we are lead by the Honorable Rev. A. Larm Clock, Sr., I literally grew up in a church house Sunday through Monday, even vacationed with “church folk” so I knew that these comments were coming.
I don’t know if she is a false prophet, but then again, I don’t follow mortals. So it does not matter if she is a false prophet. I know that preachers are human not gods and ultimately I am responsible for my own salvation. I take everything with a grain of truth and if there ain’t a bible verse to back it up, it ain’t gospel. So attack Juanita Bynum for her teachings, or because of the clothes she wore, or the lifestyle she lived, but please abandon this whole thread of “SHE GOT WHAT SHE DESERVED” because you don’t like her ministry.……. It just ain’t Christian! The Devil is laughing at all of y’all right now. He did his work, the “church folk” will do the rest.
The MILLION DOLLAR WEDDING
Second, ALOT of people are almost chortling with glee that this happened in light of Juanita’s 1 MILLION DOLLAR wedding. Now y’all know I am “her royal cheapness.” I could throw any of y’all a wedding for less than $1,000. It would be nice too. The reception would feature peanuts, mints and fraupe ( punch made out of sherbet and gingerale/7UP/sprite). Your cake would be done by Sam’s Club ( do not sleep on the Sam’s Club cake. they even give you cake stands). If you wanted to take it out to $1,500, We could offer some chicken nugget platters from Chic-Fil-A, my official party caterer ( don’t sleep on the nugget platter. ) No need for plates or cutlery, some napkins and toothpicks would do just fine.
But let’s address this million dollar wedding for a number of reasons. First, you don’t have to wait until you get married to throw yourself a party. If Oprah had been the victim of a beat down, would we be talking about all of the lavish parties she threw for herself? No! So it isn’t just that Juanita Bynum threw a big lavish wedding is it? It is almost as if we are saying that a Black woman shouldn’t expect too much out of marriage. OF course he is crazy, of course y’all gone get a divorce, of course he’ll cheat, of course he’ll break his vows, why on earth would any woman be so audacious as to celebrate the start of what she thinks is going to be a wonderful life? How dare a woman be so outrageous as to throw herself a lavish celebration of finding what she had been praying to the Almighty for? I remember the day I got my bar results in the mail. Talk about catching the Holy Spirit, dancing and speaking in tongues. BWHAHA! I scared the crap out of my roommate.
National Gina Appreciation Day. Each year I celebrate National Gina Appreciation Day otherwise known as my birthday. Now whenever I tell people about this important national holiday that they have never heard of, they laugh and then they ask when is it? But yes, I have thrown myself a birthday party before, in fact, I have already sent out the initial save the date e-mail to family and friends for National Gina Appreciation Day 2007: The Life, the Laughter, the Legend.
My birthdays were always a big deal growing up in a big family where everybody’s birthday was a big production by my family’s standards ( I inherited my cheapness). Because I was an itinerant child who was constantly in some kind of trouble, my birthday celebrations were always a barometer of how much my parents loved or didn’t love me ( I didn’t say that was reasonable, but remember I was a mere child). Even now I will get fidgety if the clock is headed towards 11:59PM and I still haven’t heard for each one of my immediate family members on my big day. I’m still bitter about the year my Daddy stacked a bunch of OREO cookies in a pile and put a candle on top and said “happy birthday” I am still looking for my dayum cake!. Or who can forget the Christmas when I got a Nintendo 64 and I was so happy until my Daddy told me that I would have gotten the Nintendo on my birthday if I hadn’t been so dayum bad around the time of my birthday! Don’t feel bad for me, I bring that OREO party and that Christmas up about three times a year almost 20 years later. So yes, I have some “birthday” issues.
Anyway, on National Gina Appreciation Day, I pry open my normally tightly clamped pocketbook and go all out. This year’s celebration will feature a pony(a stuffed one), the cake of my dreams ( Italian cream meets carrot cake meets Vanilla Wafer cake- ambitious but possible), several Chic-Fil-A nugget platters and a pinata. I will challenge my nephew to a game of pin the tail on the donkey and Twister. We’ll play Taboo, and maybe this year I will splurge and have some fraupe. I will purchase my own gifts, pick my own menu and am currently considering whether to have a life-sized cut out of me wearing a tiara so that guests can take a picture with my likeness.
Now to some of you it may seem arrogant to throw my own celebration of me, I don’t care haters! I ain’t waiting till I get married ( or not) to throw myself a big ole party. Maybe some of y’all wedding-hungry folks should just put yourself out of your misery now and throw the wedding without the groom. Print up invitations, register at Target, hire a caterer and a band and celebrate you right now. Lord knows if you wait and throw yourself a big ole wedding, folks are going to be ticking off the minutes until you end up just like Juanita Bynum. In the moment of what may very well be the most humiliating and devastating betrayal of her life, having people throw the fact that she wanted to throw a big celebration on her wedding day back into her face as if she was too uppity for dreaming too big. Sisters be careful with jumping on the “her wedding was too big” bandwagon. If you have the money and ain’t going into debt to do it, go all out now, and don’t wait for the wedding!
So let’s see what other bloggers are saying.
The Mo’Kelly Report, one of my faves is wondering why some of these male preachers aren’t speaking out about domestic violence or wishing Juanita well publicly I commented on his blog that maybe they are honoring her wish to keep the matter “private” or maybe Bishop Weeks knows some of their dirty laundry and they fear him putting them and THEIR domestic situations on blast. Mo’ ain’t buying it. It is a hilarious post about what Mo would do if he saw his pastor laying hands on his wife int he church parking lot.
Sugar N Spice speculates on whether Juanita DID or SAID something to set Bishop Tommy “The Hit Man” Weeks off! The post is called Juanita Bynum Beat Down: More Lessons than She ever Taught. It borders on blaming the victim, but it is an interesting conversation about when to walk away from a confrontation. I am convinced that if he did all this, he didn’t need a reason. He probably just saved his prior beating for behind closed doors. UPDATE: SUGAR REPLIES –
“Hey! Hey! Trust that I did not intend to imply that Ms. Bynum did anything to deserve the beating that her husband dished out. At all! I’m merely stating the obvious. He didn’t just all of a sudden become crazy on that fateful night. She knew he was crazy from the offset and trying to meet in a public place to avoid another beat down is not a good strategy. She should have just left him and sent his butt the divorce papers….then, discussed it in court or in mediation.” Sugar from Sugar N Spice.
After all, as charisma goes, Weeks is to Hillary (Clinton) as Bynum is to Bill. But the analogy ends there. Because, in every other respect, all indications are that Bynum was utterly devoted to and supportive of Weeks. Unfortunately, she could not help the way her inspiring holistic message overshadowed his pedestrian evangelistic hucksterism.
Can you say DAYUM? and yes, iPinions goes into the rumblings I has mentioned in an earlier post.
The Religion News Blog is Reporting that Tommy “The Hit Man” Weeks is blaming de ebil Devil for making him beat the crap out of his wife. You HAVE to read the reactions from the “church folk” attending the service yesterday. Now need I remind them that even Jesus had to roll up in the temple acting up and turning over tables to throw the money changers out of the temple ( I wasn’t kidding about my Mama being a Sunday School teacher… Can you imagine having me as a student? BWHAHA!) What does the Good Book say…. Instead of cheering and applauding, y’all shoulda been turning over some offering plates yesterday SHEEPLE!
Halima over at the Black Women’s IR Circle ( yeah, I’m linking to it SUE ME and call me names members of the Anti-Black Women’s Bloggers Cabal who target all who dare to link to certain blogs by Black women( you know who you are. Your secret is out!)) Folks y’all think I am radical. Go read her thoughts on these “church folk” taking the Good Bishop back into their bosom, our obsession with marriage and relationships with men in general.
At Office Stuffer, there is even a post on what the Juanita Bynum Attack can teach office workers. Everybody is getting in on this thing. It is an interesting read. Going to work is dangerous! DAYUM! I’m glad I have today off.
Even folks in Japan are talking about Juanita. The Rising Son of Nihon give a potential take from a Japanese perspective.
Aisha Music, goes into TMZ’s idiotic ( as usual) reporting of the Bynum incident. I ain’t linking to TMZ, but you can read Aisha’s take. TMZ went all over the line and made this seem like it was something from a Saturday Night Live Sketch. No, TMZ that was a real life Black woman that got brutalized by her devoted spouse in a parking lot.
What About Our Daughters? Guest Contributor, Content Black Woman, is breaking it down over at Why Black Women Are Angry. She is the first to report that Bishop Eddie Long has broken the embargo of silence from Black male preachers and addressed Bynum’s attack in his Sunday service. Content also Talks about what all this may mean to some babes in Christ who are trying to make sense of the foolishness. For those of you who are not connoisseurs of Christian entertainment, you may not know that another well-known female televangelist, Paula White announced that she and her husband Randy are separating. Now I don’t think this is a coincidence that Paula and Randy announced this during the Bynum fallout, but Content breaks down about folks who may be confused about what has happened to Juanita and Paula’s marriages. It is a really food post about gender dynamics in the church. On Saturday, she predicted what would be said in pulpits around America about Juanita and Paula in a post called Easy Like Sunday.
FIGHT ‘EM on it. Contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Juanita Bynum and her husband are public figures. Video related to sermons they may have preached or even portions of other preachers commenting on the Bynum incident in a public place ( IE THE PULPIT THIS PAST SUNDAY) Probably fall within the realm of what is called “fair use.”
If YouTube pulled your clip, you can respond and try to have it put back up. TBN, Eddie Long, Juanita and Tommy “The Hit Man” Weeks may control their churches, but on the internet nobody can muzzle a story. You should have known the “church folk” would be trying to keep stuff under the wraps. Give it up already! What is done in the dark will surely come to light.
Whether you are quoting someone on your blog, inserting clips of CNN into your own video news report, or using a song sample in a musical parody, your free speech often depends on incorporating and referencing other people’s creations as part of your own. The courts call this “fair use”, and strong legal precedents exist to protect the limited use of copyrighted material in your work when you do so for expressive purposes.
Unfortunately, copyright owners often object to these uses, and may look for ways to take them offline via the legal system. A copyright cease-and-desist letter to your webhost or ISP may be all it takes to make your online speech disappear from the Internet — even when the legal claims are transparently bogus. Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Do these church folk really want to start a “holy war” with bloggers? Trying to hide your dirt, just makes it worse. I actually was going to stop posting about Juanita Bynum today, but this campaign to erase YouTube clips is noteworthy and affects us all. Somebody had better start saving these clips to hard drives before they are all gone. There is definitely an organized campaign at work to hide video. SMH?
Okay, we had our diversion for the day, let us get back to business.
For genocide and crimes against humanity to occur, the dehumanization of the potential victims must first take place. Perpetrators of such crimes often use art as a tool to help them accomplish their goals. Indeed, without the intense propagandistic effort of the National Socialists to demonize Jews, Africans, Roma, the ill, and others they deemed “undesirable,” the genocidal intentions of Hitler and the Nazi party may not have been realized. SOURCE
I am often criticized for focusing on popular culture and mass media. ” Aren’t there more important things to do than worry about Rappers?” Each time one of these people say this to me I think ” This fool is completely ignorant of human nature and human history.”
It is no JOKING matter anytime you use instruments of mass media to target an identifiable group of people for dehumanization. I have been working on my first book, Defunding the War on Black Women, and in doing the research, some of the things that are happening to Black women have already happened to other groups in the past.
I found this site that lists the 8 Stages of Genocide and the similarities are frightening. Read it and tell me we have not made it to at least Stage 3 and hell Dunbar Village looks like Stage 4 to me.
SO when I say Defund the War on Black Women, I ain’t joking. This isn’t funny at all. Don’t let other people convince you that the systematic dehumanization of Black women in popular is no big deal. Don’t let them convince you that there are more important things to worry about when we have major African American publications referring to Black women who are the victims of horrific crimes as “hookers.” What is more important than the survival of future generations of Black women and girls? And yes, there are some fates worse than death.
