So I am not going to even lie. When I saw the headline about a woman chasing neighborhood children in a cow suit, the image that popped up in my mind was NOT of a Black woman. Well surprise! CNN will put Black women on the front page of their website, but only if we are committing crimes.
“32-year-Michele Allen was sentenced to a month in the Middletown Jail Monday after she was arrested and charged with chasing children, blocking traffic and yelling at police – all while wearing a cow costume.” Source
When this picture popped up I was just MAD! Who gave her this suit and why didn’t they make her at least take off the hood for the mug shot?
Have mercy! Gwen Ifill, who is going to be hosting the Vice Presidential debate on Thursday ( Join us for our live blog and post debate podcast), has broken her ankle.
PBS’ Gwen Ifill has broken her ankle after tripping and falling down stairs at her home last night, a NewsHour insider tells TVNewser. We’re told Ifill had been walking up a staircase, carrying research related to her moderating duties at Thursday’s Vice Presidential debate in St. Louis, when she took a wrong step.TV NEWSER [hmmm. Tripped going UP the steps you sure Tavis or Roland weren't around Gwen?]
I’ve been waiting weeks for a Black woman to be center stage as a moderator. If you will recall Gwen was the one that asked Vice President Chaney about the affect of HIV on Black women in the last VP debate. You know Jim Jehrer would not have asked that question.
Well anyway, Gwen says that despite the broken ankle she plans to soldier on. That’s right Gwen. Take a bag of frozen peas and slap them on that ankle, and go on with the show. The whole world will be watching to see what Joe Biden and Sarah Palin do on Thursday.
Join us for Our Debate Liveblog and Post-Debate Podcast
For those of you who thought last weeks debate was a snooze fest, we’ve been told that our liveblog is pretty interesting. Join the huddled masses as we engage in serious public discourse on important matters such as tie colors, facial expressions and play a non-alcoholic drinking game with overused phrases from the candidates. Don’t worry, we’re taking shots of apple cider not liquor as we have at least one participant who is nursing. TMI I know, but that’s just how I felt when that popped up in my live blog.
So I was wanting to do an update post on some of the stories we’ve covered over the past year and in doing my research on Dorothy Dixon updates, I came across this story from East St. Louis. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard about this. It involves a violent crime committed against a Black woman so it is inherently unnewsworthy by the editorial decision-makers in this country.
Two teenagers have been charged with beating their 34 year-old mentally ill and physically disabled cousin over the span of about a year, police said.
They allegedly used a broom, switch, and pipe to severely injure the female victim. A 17 year-old man and 16 year-old boy have been charged with the aggravated battery of a physically disabled person. The 34 year-old victim has been hospitalized.
Police said her bones had been broken, but wouldn’t give more details about her injuries. Police are still searching for a 13 year-old suspect, and several adult suspects, who also lived in the victim’s home, in the 400 block of N. 22nd Street. SOURCE
The story is that the Aunt of the disabled woman would instruct the juveniles to beat the disabled woman because the “Aunt’s heart was bad.” WTH??? How you gone have a bad heart and independent contract out your brutality. Well of course the juveniles would start to beat the disabled Black woman without the direction of the Aunt.
The woman’s aunt, Sandra Bender, died of a massive heart attack Sept. 18 at the house. Bender had told the teenagers, who are her sons, to beat the woman “because she had a bad heart and couldn’t do (the beatings)” herself, Floore said. {no he didn’t stutter. He said that this sociopath independent contracted out here brutality to her kids]
“She didn’t do a good job washing the dishes or cleaning up the kitchen,” Ward said. Additionally, Sandra Culter believed the woman was poisoning her food and drink, and mixing her medicines, Ward said.
Sandra Bender’s husband told police he was aware of the abuse. “When he tried to intervene, his wife turned against him and he had a bad heart himself, so he left it alone,” [what a sorry individual]Floore said.
Two of the five children found in the home are the victim’s, and took no part in the beatings. The others were the children of her first cousin, Ward said.
Ward said the woman had not left the North 22nd Street house for at least two years. She told police the home had no telephone.
“She went out onto the porch, but she never said a word to anybody about what was going on or asked anyone what she could do,” he said. “The victim said she was afraid to tell anyone because they had told her not to tell anyone.” SOURCE
You can watch the video from police in East St. Louis. Of course while all this brutality is goign on, other fully grown Black people stood around and did absolutely nothing.
To all the people who get tired and dejected by the crimes against Black womanity posts, too bad- its not like I don’t warn you in the titles what they post is going to be about. If we don’t tell it, who will? I’ll stop posting when Black women and girls stop being brutalized.
I was drawn by the photograph at the bottom of the NYTimes.com of Black women sitting in church and the title of the story In a Town Apart, the Pride and Trials of Black Life. It is the story of Eatonville,FL- the first Black town to incorporate in the United States. Zora Neale Hurston introduced the world to Eatonville and some of the townspeople were not all that happy about it.
For those who don’t know, Hurston, who took some pretty mean spirited hits from Black male writers such as Richard Wright ( HATER!) ended up dying broke and being buried in an unmarked grave. She mostly went forgotten.
When Hurston died in 1960, she was poor and her books had fallen out of print. Along with much of the world, Eatonville seemed to have forgotten her.. Though she was once a literary star, a contemporary of Langston Hughes and the only black woman at Barnard College in the 1920s, she was buried in an unmarked grave in Fort Pierce, Fla., where she had been living.
In Eatonville, there were no major memorial services, no grand public readings. “I don’t think they understood her contribution to the world or her legacy at all,” said Valerie Boyd, author of “Wrapped in Rainbows,” a Hurston biography published in 2003. NY Times
Oh but all that changed when the state decided to send a five lane highway directly through town.
In 1975, the writer Alice Walker trekked to Hurston’s unmarked grave and began fighting to resurrect her reputation. Five years later, an acclaimed Hurston biography by Robert E. Hemenway hit bookshelves, reintroducing her to the American canon.
The highway project arrived just as Eatonville’s most famous daughter had once again found the spotlight. And this time, Hurston’s old neighbors saw her as a savior.
The community began planning in 1988 for a Hurston festival to show what the county could ruin with its highway. Thousands of fans came to the inaugural event two years later, and each January, many return for the celebration.
After several years, the county backed away from its road proposal. NY Times
Just thought y’all might get a kick out of that story.
I woke up Sunday morning and was cleaning out the comment que when I read this comment, and thought “Ah, yes, the sweet smell of righteous indignation in the morning!” There is something about the clarity and boldness that get’s triggered by righteous indignation. Charles wrote this comment in response to our post about the film, “Black Woman Walking”. The film and the post clearly touched a nerve with readers.
At the age of 47 this black man is starting to feel that the war is lost. I feel that if the black people who were fighting to survive on the slave ships could see the way our people act now, they would have given up and jumped overboard. Why do we embrace the worst behavior possible and hold up those who cause damage to our community. Why do black men have the courage to go up against a cop who has a gun, stick, mace, a badge that says he has the right to use the gun, and a radio to call more people with all of the above but the same black man will back down from an algebra book. We have the nerve to insult black women on the street but we don’t have the nerve to be a good father or husband. I see young men in my neighborhood who will stand outside all night to sell drugs but will not stand up for 8 hours in McDonalds doing an honest job that could lead to something better and is not illegal. WAOD Reader
Curtis, I often think about all the Black women who made the choice to NOT jump over the side of the ship in order for me to be here. Continue reading →
Well I guess one good thing about there being NO BLACK WOMEN on Saturday Night Live is that they can’t do THIS to us:
The “Rowboat Date” skit was another one that grabbed my attention. Keenan Thompson always does a marvelous job in his skits. Anna Faris plays the lonely girl who is danger when her ex-boyfriend is killed for a couple of computer discs, which he leaves in her possession. Faris and Thompson’s collaboration definitely made the scene happen. If it had been any other pair, I’m not so sure it would have been as funny. The scene consists of the two on a date on a rowboat in the middle of the lake. They each then take turns singing about what they are thinking about this first date. Anna’s character is love struck on this man that she “safely found on Facebook”, while Keenan’s character is a hit man, getting ready to kill her for these infamous computer discs. The woman finally suspects what’s happening when she realizes “the boat was chained up and he shot the lock off.” East Side Online
For those of you who don’t keep up with international affairs. China has/is/ continuing to make major inroads towards becoming the next colonizer of Africa. Continue reading →
I mean I am about ready to move out of the country. Oh wait, I can’t afford to, the US dollar keeps plummeting in value. We are being run by a bunch of complete total idiots. Fools! STUPID. STUPID.STUPID.CONGRESSIONAL CONTACT INFO AT BOTTOM OF POST
They say they have to RUSH to save the economy when people have stated unequivocably for YEARS that all this was going to happen.What’s the rush? The RUSH is that everytime this administration RUSHES Congress into doing something, they win. Remember No Child Left Behind ( aka Throw EVERY CHILD UNDER A SCHOOL BUS) Or how about that Patriot Act or that open ended Iraq War Resolution? The Prescription Drug Plan? Oh yes the swift formation of Homeland Security. Has Congress EVER cranked out anything of quality in a rush? Continue reading →
So I am not going to even lie. When I saw the headline about a woman chasing neighborhood children in a cow suit, the image that popped up in my mind was NOT of a Black woman. Well surprise! CNN will put Black women on the front page of their website, but only if we are committing crimes.
