What About Our Daughters

Blogging While Brown 2010 Town Hall Meeting - Low Res from Gina McCauley on Vimeo.

The Blogging While Brown Conference was held in Washington, DC, June 18-19, 2010. On Saturday the conference hosted its annual town hall session. The town hall was moderated by Shawn P. Williams of Dallas South News. Panelists included Shirley Franklin, Former Mayor of Atlanta and Sr. Executive Adviser of the Alliance for Digital Equality, J. Joini Palmer, Communications Director of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Chris Rabb or Chrisrabb.com and Afronetizen.

The panel spoke about broadband infrastructure, how to engage with politicians in an effective manor, bridging the divide between generations, and internet fueled activism.

To find out more about Blogging While Brown go to www.bloggingwhilebrown.com.

Blogging While Brown 2011 will be held in Los Angeles, CA July 8-9, 2011.

Wow if I was still a subscriber to ESSENCE magazine, my feelings would be hurt right about now. We no longer post on Thursdays, but are making an exception because tomorrow is our last post before blogcation and there are so many things popping up at the last minute related to Black women and girls.

Well apparently folks are riled up because ESSENCE hired a non-Black woman (I'm not convinced she's White- Placas ) to be the fashion editor. I'm not the least bit interested in this controversy because when they started promoting sex slavery as a way to acquire male companionship, that was like crossing the River Jordan.... Try not to  look back. 

But this story took an interesting turn when the Editor in Chief, Angela Burt Murray decided to respond to criticism.  I wasn't expecting her to clap back like this.   She's had enough of y'allz whining and she's not going to take it anymore.  Plus y'all made her look bad in major publications like Huffpo, Gawker and Media Bistro. Angela Burt-Murray apparently decided to attend the Blogmother's School for Dealing with disgruntled readers and instead of apologizing, she chastened her readership for complaining in the first place :) I LOVE IT!

As Editor-in-Chief of Essence magazine I sometimes find myself in the unenviable position of ticking people off when it comes to matters of race. Whether it's a profile on P. Diddy and longtime girlfriend Kim Porter discussing their controversial relationship ("You're promoting having children out of wedlock and a negative image of black couples!" wrote one disgruntled reader) or assigning a guest column to singer Jill Scott to voice her opinion about black men who date outside their race, "The Wince" ("Reverse racism!" was a common critique). Or the February cover with a shirtless Reggie Bush ("He doesn't date black women--this is a betrayal of the highest order." Many readers shared that particular sentiment). And most recently my hiring of Ellianna Placas, who happens to be a white woman, to head our fashion department has stirred the passions of a small but vocal group in the blogosphere ("I feel like a girlfriend has died," stated one devastated African-American writer who not long agowrote about coming to terms with her daughter pledging a white sorority for the magazine). Really? Angela Burt- Murray

Well I guess she told Y'AAAAALL! Double snaps for the kids! She's not done however.

She then provides an explanation for her decision:

And when I set out to hire a new fashion director I certainly had no idea I would end up making this decision. I first got to know and came to respect Ellianna when she came to work with us nearly six months ago. We were conducting a search for a new director when she was hired to run the department on a freelance basis. I got to see firsthand her creativity, her vision, the positive reader response to her work, and her enthusiasm and respect for the audience and our brand. Angela Burt Murray

She makes a interesting point HOWEVER, were there any women of color who were willing to accept the freelance position? Were they given the opportunity to compete for the position? Was this an attempt to appease the Time Warner suits? There has to be more to this story. Quick- somebody send me an email with the 411, I promise not to post about it :) I just want to know for my own personal satisfaction. I'll be speaking  in NYC next week, let's do lunch disgruntled ESSENCE employees!

She then goes in on her reading audience and explains WHY those feature articles on these crises get buried in the back of the magazine:

But interestingly enough, the things I think should most upset people and inspire boycotts and Facebook protests, often seem to go relatively unnoticed. Like when Essence conducted a three-part education series this year on the plight of black children falling through the cracks in under-performing schools. Crickets. When we reported on the increase in sex trafficking of young black girls in urban communities? Silence. (Yeah but y'all then turn around and give women advice to go pick up men in strip clubs... THAT'S sex trafficking!) When our writers investigated the inequities in the health care services black women receive? Deadly silence. When our editors highlighted data from the Closing the Gap Initiative report "Lifting as We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth and America's Future" that showed that the median net worth of single black women was $5? There went those darn crickets again. When we run pieces on how unemployment is devastating black men? Nada. When we run story after story on how HIV is the leading cause of death for black women age 18-34? Zilch. The things that really are the end of our world apparently aren't. Snarkilicious

Ain't she snarky? Sure she's obfuscating and redirecting, but I love snark and she served it up! I can laugh at this because she isn't talking to ME. I don't read ESSENCE anymore and I have encourage you not to. If you still read after this then you deserve to be spoken to like a child. 

The same thing happens on this blog ALL the time.  I put up a post about women in Haiti being exposed to increased violence after the earthquake and we get 3 comments. Put up a post about Chris Brown the floodgates open. I no longer blame or judge my audience. There may be many reasons why she doesn't hear anything including the fact that people tend to complain and not praise. They might not be responding because they don't disagree with the articles. She should know this. I'm not offended that y'all didn't comment on the Haiti article. I expected that you wouldn't. I posted it anyway because I wanted to increase awareness about the study and the work of MADRE (Our Bodies Are Still Trembling).

I will have to say this, their advice to Black women looking for men in the strip club, notwithstanding, ESSENCE's feature articles on social issues tend to be very good (compared to other Black-themed magazines) and having been a source for a couple of those articles, the writers and editors of those articles work very hard... though the articles sometimes get buried at the back.

We here at What About Our Daughters don't care WHO works at ESSENCE magazine.  They are not a Black owned company and it appears that one day they will no longer be Black-run.  Your question is where are the alternatives to ESSENCE magazine? Heart and Soul comes close, but doesn't have the same polish.  Sister to Sister always looks like somebody was playing around on Pagemaker.  Ebony, while improving greatly over the past year isn't a fashion and beauty mag. So folks are basically going to do what they do with BET, the NAACP, and anything else Black, complain and then go back to their daily routine when it gets old.

P.S. Is the NABJ going to condemn ESSENCE they way they condemned CNN for not hiring a person of color to replace Campbell Brown? Just curious////

Previous ESSENCE Posts

When Time Inc. Employees ATTACK with "Astroturfing" !!! What Are they Afraid of?

Why You Should BURN the June 2009 Issue of ESSENCE Magzine Part 1

Bedroom Bioterrorism :Why You Should Burn the June 2009 Issue of ESSENCE Part II

ESSENCE's "New Normal" ain't "Normal"--Part III of Why You Should Burn the June 2009 Issue of ESSENCE magazine

PPS Its more interesting that she gave this letter to The Grio which is a part of the NBC Universal Family instead of Black Voices which is part of AOL and (I think) under the same overseer as ESSENCE- Time Warner.



Via @Aroundharlem on my Twitter feed. A new report about sexual violence against the women and girls of Haiti following the earthquake. Not surprising in that we know that when civilization unravels, women and girls suffer mightily. Here is more about a report that was created as a result of a collaboration between.

In May and June, MADRE joined delegations coordinated by the Lawyers' Earthquake Response Network (LERN) to Haiti to investigate the problem of rape and other gender-based violence in the camps. We found that women are being raped at an alarming rate—every day—in camps throughout Port-au-Prince. The Haitian Government, the UN and others in the international community have failed to adequately address the situation. Women, especially poor women, have been excluded from full participation and leadership in the relief effort.

Today, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), MADRE, TransAfrica Forum and the Universities of Minnesota and Virginia law schools released this Report, Our Bodies Are Still Trembling: Haitian Women's Fight Against Rape. The report aims to bring to light the crisis and guide governments, international organizations and other stakeholders in providing for even more effective protection and promotion of women’s human rights in Haiti. MADRE

More about MADRE:

MADRE is an international women’s human rights organization that works in partnership with community-based women's organizations worldwide to address issues of health and reproductive rights, economic development, education and other human rights. MADRE

91 % of their funding goes to program services.

Commemorative Snooker-gate poster by Gem2001.

Now before we begin today's post I want to speak directly to our young readers.  I realize we have an audience of teenagers that reads this blog so the Blogmother occasionally likes to pause to offer some words of wisdom lest I lead you astray.   It is never wise to bad mouth a former employer.  So don't do that. Especially if you identify your former supervisors in a a blog post. It's bad form. A, the people at the company you left don't care that you're bad mouthing them, they are still getting a paycheck.  Second, the people at future companies you may work for give you the side eye because you bad mouthed the last place you left.  

When it rains, it pours and it's a monsoon over at NAACP headquarters these days.  I received in my email inbox a dispatch from a one-time NAACP employee named Amy Alexander. She's a journo who unwisely pursued employment with the NAACP. I love being a blogger, I have an email inbox full of emails from BET employees.  I suspect that by week's end, I'll have a few more dispatches from NAACP employees.  Keep it coming folks!

I'm torn about Ms. Alexander's post because clearly its the work of a disgruntled NAACP employee, however, Ms. Alexander's blog post is remarkable in that she confirms what many of us concluded about Mr. Jealous with no personal interaction with him.  That he is cowardly and passive aggressive. In other words, Mr. Jealous is a freedom fighter who doesn't like to fight. . . unlike Shirely Sherrod and her husband, but that's a whole other blog post.  Well anywho, Amy Alexander provides additional insight into the dysfunction at NAACP headquarters, in particular Mr. Jealous' dysfunction and the dysfunction of his communications staff. 

DISCLAIMER!

Let me say in advance that I was raised not to make fun of people who have disabilities this includes  speech impediments.  In addition, there is some discussion about an alleged mental health diagnosis.  I do not approve.  I think both items are hitting below the belt.  We can savage Ben Jealous based on his poor job performance alone.  I just wanted to say that in advance lest I get a text message from my Mama after she clicks the link to Ms. Alexander's blog post. I didn't write it MAMA! I'm just linking to the post.

Okay, so now that the PSA is over, pull up some popcorn and soda kids, its time for the show!

First, Ben Jealous  hired Amy Alexander to write for him... he should have kept her on, then maybe we wouldn't have gotten "SNOOKERED:

That is how I came to be the Voice of Ben Jealous for much of the summer of 2009. Not the head of the "I-unit" -- which, I soon learned, was being "temporarily" tabled -- but the writer of Jealous' op-eds, and of the Official Statements, and Press Releases for the association. But mostly, between June and August of last summer, I masqueraded as Jealous in the pages of The Nation, U.S. News and World Report,CNN.com, and on several other high-traffic websites. (Check out these enclosed links -- they take you to columns by "Ben Jealous," all reported and written by yours' truly.) Amy Alexander

On the NAACP's dress code in the Washington Bureau:

A truly Vampiric black woman in her late 50s. You know the type -- utterly in denial about the fading of their formerly femme fatalephysique yet still committed to thigh-high skirts and Tx3s -- Too Tight Tops. In Vampira's case, sometimes on special occasions, she augmented this look with 5-inch high heels.....Lucite, see-through heels. That's right, just like those that some hookers and sex-workers delight in. Amy Alexander

That's just cruel!

On the NAACP's public stance on Troy Davis... they had serious doubts about his innocence in private:

It eventually became clear to me that the NAACP couldn't be entirely positive, either, that Davis was innocent. Amy Alexander

And the she goes and says what polite people shouldn't:

Jealous rejected -- according to Vampira -- every opportunity to improve his on-camera performance skills. Yeah, I know -- paradoxically crazy, right?

Because what I saw during Jealous' turn at Maher's desk in June 2009 was a handsome, passionate, articulate black man.....who has a speech impediment. Amy Alexander

Note to self, have every single employee I may ever have sign a confidentiality agreement. Because this mess hey-ah! 

So hopefully this is the last swing we'll be taking at the latest dead horse the NAACP has thrown at our feet. But just to demonstrate that I am not the only person who thinks NAACP President Ben Jealous is not equipped to handle the current political, economic and technological environment. You have not one, but TWO NY Times Op Eds this weekend beating him about the head... and did I mention Newsweek has Rev. Al Sharpton sounding like an elder statesman? Heaven help us all:

Later, after officials at the organization had found and released a tape of Ms. Sherrod’s entire 45-minute speech, the group’s president, Ben Jealous, apologized and said the N.A.A.C.P. had been “snookered.”

Black people are in a terrible condition right now — economically, socially, educationally and otherwise — and there is no effective champion fighting for their interests. Mr. Jealous and the new edition of the N.A.A.C.P. have shown in this episode that they are not ready for prime time, and President Obama seems reluctant to even utter the word black. Or poor, for that matter.  Bob Herbert, NY TIMES

And more from Maureen Dowd:

And why does the N.A.A.C.P. exist if not to help clear a smeared champion of civil rights who gave a stirring speech about racial reconciliation at an N.A.A.C.P. banquet? Its president, Ben Jealous, shamefully following the administration’s rush to judgment, tweeted Monday night that Shirley Sherrod was a racist without even calling his Georgia chapter president or reviewing the N.A.A.C.P.’s own video of the speech. Maureen Dowd, NY Times

 

Okay so now that we've cleared that up....on to more important matters. I cranked out this lovely Snooker-gate commemorative image for y'all. Do you like it?

You can now purchase your official Snooker-gate beer mug at the Snookered Store.

I whipped this up in about 20 minutes. My personal favorite is the  Snookered mouse pad.

What is The Blogmother's number one pet peeve? No seriously, I have a bunch, but what will send me up to level 10 in less than 2 seconds.... astro turfing.  

On Wednesday, I called for the resignation of NAACP President Benjamin Jealous.  I did so not because he was "snookered" I did so because I believe at this juncture in his personal development and the current political and technological environment, he is unfit to lead as demonstrated by his inability to accept complete and total responsibility for his organization's bad acts. No body made the NAACP condemn Shirley Sherrod before speaking to ITS OWN MEMBERS who were present at her speech. No one made the NAACP condemn Shirley Sherrod before getting its hands on a tape of her speech shot by ITS OWN MEMBERS. Nobody forced them to pick a fight with a foe they are CLEARLY too inept to respond to in a strategically sound and competent way. The NAACP took the path of LEAST RESISTANCE and when they were called on it they tried to deflect responsibility for their own BAD ACTS.  Leaders take responsibility. LOSERS make excuses. 

Well apparently other bloggers picked up on my post and its been bubbling up for about two days and I guess somebody at the NAACP decided that it was time to strike back at this blog for raising reasonable objections to the NAACP's wretched record of throwing Black women under the bus.

In those cases where an individual or an individual associated with someone I have criticized comes into my comments section and identifies themselves, we always bump their comments up to post level. That's fair, If I attack you in this space, you have a right to defend yourself. If I'm wrong, I'll say I'm wrong (are you paying attention Ben Jealous). But Heaven help the person that's an EMPLOYEE of an organization we criticize on this blog who fails to disclose their association in the comment's section. And heaven help them if they engage in personal attacks on WAOD community members from their employer's computer network.

You know good and darned well that your comments would have been perceived by other readers differently if they knew you were an interested party, but instead of saying "Hey! the NAACP pays my bills! AND I'm using NAACP resources to attack you!" you slither in here like a Baptist preacher purchasing porn with the church's prepaid debit card on Good Friday.

I can spot "interested" parties in my comments section from a mile away. In this case, I didn't even have to do my trusty IP lookup I just googled the name under which the comments were being made, Anson Asaka and found out that he's  regional counsel for the NAACP. Now to avoid a rush to judgement, its possible that someone who works for the NAACP who hates Anson's guts might be posting under his name, but I doubt it. This is what the NAACP website says about Mr. Asaka's current position with the NAACP:

REGIONAL OVERSIGHT

Each Attorney in the Legal Department oversees Civil Rights legal issues that may arise in their respective Regions of the United States. These legal issues relate directly to the NAACP’s mission and are typically issues that NAACP units, which includes NAACP State Conferences, have resolved to address.

REGION II

Anson Asaka

Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Maine
Vermont
Rhode Island
Connecticut
Delaware
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
New York
Europe

but then I was curious... would this idiot actually use NAACP resources to attack this blog? Nobody could be that stupid.  .  . yes. yes folks they can be THAT stupid:

MCI Communications Services, Inc. d/b/a Verizon Business UUNET65 (NET-65-192-0-0-1) 65.192.0.0 - 65.223.255.255 NAACP UU-65-207-113-160-D6 (NET-65-207-113-160-1) 65.207.113.160 - 65.207.113.191

 

Y'all notice anything significant in all those numbers that the reverse IP lookup spewed back at me?   Oh Yes, NAACP. So lets get a bit more detail shall we:

CustName:   NAACP
Address:    **** MOUNT HOPE DR
City:       BALTIMORE
StateProv:  MD
PostalCode: *****
Country:    US
RegDate:    2009-07-30
Updated:    2009-07-30

I blotted out the numbers in the address and the zip code as I do realize they get threats and don't want to make it too easy for the crazies, but you get my point.  The NAACP paid for the resources this man used to attack y'all and this blog all day yesterday.

This is SO typical of the POOR CHARACTER of the people in charge of this once great institution.  You won't accept responsibility for what comes out of your own mouth and then instead of taking responsibility for your own actions, you'd rather engage in a public disinformation campaign and smears. Isn't that what Breitbart did to Shirely Sherrod? Isn't that what YOU'RE whining about the Tea Partiers doing to the President? So why are you engaging in the same behavior you're condemning...... AGAIN!  

I know the NAACP SUCKS at social media and whatnot, but its generally BAD FORM and UNETHICAL to not indicate that you're being paid to attack your critics and doing it from your employer's computer network.

Not only is he underhanded and sneaky, but this attorney who is responsible for "regional oversight" is such an intellectual lightweight that he had to rely on such lame attacks as calling the readers of this blog "crabs in a barrel" and "haters" and then called this blog a "gossip column" for reminding him that his bosses at the NAACP National Headquarters can't seem to keep it in their pants when it comes to the women who have the misfortune to work there. Those aren't MY conclusions, those are the conclusions of the NAACP's own internal investigation regarding the treatment of the women who work there.

The same day in May 1999 that Kweisi Mfume abruptly announced that he would not be a candidate for mayor, an internal investigative memo was sent to top officers of the NAACP describing allegations of Mfume's mistreatment of female subordinates at the organization's Baltimore headquarters.

For the next five years, the civil rights organization - still recovering from the 1994 sex scandal under former Executive Director Benjamin F. Chavis - kept that memo secret and did nothing more, even as Mfume refused to answer any questions from the board's lawyers about the allegations.

But in an internal report last year, more serious accusations were made against the former Baltimore congressman, alleging that sexual harassment and favoritism festered for years within the national office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Within months of the completion of this 2004 investigation into his leadership, Mfume resigned as president - but, sources say, not before every board member had signed a confidentiality pledge. Baltimore Sun

So here's what's going to happen. If they are smart, someone at NAACP headquarters will pull attorney Anson Asaka to the side and tell him to start using his work computer to do LEGAL WORK on behalf of the NAACP and stop trolling around "gossip columns" on the company dime.  They are also going to instruct their employees to engage in specious attacks on the NAACP's critics on their own time. Then hopefully whoever is in charge of "communications" for the NAACP will have a chat with Anson and speak to him about the need for a coherent message from the NAACP and how important it is that employees not appear to issue public statement's on its behalf without going through the communications department. Normally I charge $450/hr for social media consulting, but y'all can have that advice for free. It's my personal gift to you.

Look. I don't want to fight with the NAACP. I said my peace. Ben Jealous should have taken his lumps like a man instead of copping out talking about being "snookered" into exercising poor judgement, abandoning the concept of due diligence and tossing aside a Black woman's career to make the NAACP look good. I'm pretty sure Ben Jealous and the National HQ staff are embarrassed, demoralized, and reeling. You don't gave egg on your face, you have an entire omelet!

I've been there. In January 2008, I was "snookered" by a source as well. I made public statements as a result of the information this source provided. I attacked people based on what was factual information, but I ended up being a pawn in a much larger scheme by the source to extort money out of Proctor and Gamble and Viacom. Upon realizing that I'd been had, I took steps to remedy the situation. I called the NY Times to withdraw my support from the source. I renounced my earlier support on this blog. I was attacked publicly and more savagely attacked privately for that decision, and I never ONCE publicly blamed anyone else for what came out of my mouth or was posted on this blog. Why? because at the end of the day I am the only one that can "snooker" me into saying something.  I asked for the forgiveness of my blog audience, some extended that forgiveness, others did not. I took my lumps because that's what leaders do! It was an extremely painful experience for me as I was a relatively "new" blogger and I was in minute number 19 of what I thought would only be 15 minutes of fame. That "snookering" was a valuable impetuous for personal development and maturation. You're robbing yourself of an excellent growth opportunity by continuing to blame others for your poor judgement.

“Losers make excuses. Winners make explanations. Excuses don’t teach you anything and keep you from making needed changes. Explanations help you learn what went wrong and give you insights for needed changes.” Mark Sandborn

 

The sooner you stop trying to cover your rear and start accepting responsibility for the SELF INFLICTED damage you have done to YOURSELF the sooner you will gain insight for needed changes. You can continue to believe that EVERYONE else is the problem or you can pause for a period of personal reflection and recognize that your organization is OUT. OF. CONTROL! At every level you are careening from one public embarrassment to another. All the while schools appear to be resegregating in Raleigh, NC, Black people are headed for devastating consequences from long term double digit unemployment... oh yeah and did I mention we appear to be on the cusp of a full blow race war?

Get off of my blog and go get your mess together. Stop squandering moral authority behind gimmicks and accept the fact that some of your critics just MIGHT have a point. That has nothing to do with us being "crabs in a barrel" or "haters" or "gossips," and everything to do with you being out of your depth.

Anytime the NAACP wants to address my audience they can do so in a dignified, decent, and orderly way. Send me an email with your statement to this audience and I'll post it, but if you continue to act like petulant toddlers, I will gladly rap you on the knuckles until you get a freaking clue.

Y'all have a great weekend!