Category Archives: African American

Daniele Watts

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Has claimed that she was handcuffed because of racism.   She was kissing her white boyfriend in public and was handcuffed….when she refused to give identification.

I don’t know if race is involved.  I know that this nearly happened to me in Fort Wayne when I refused to give my social security number or my birthdate to an out of control fire fighter.

She was absolutely within her Fourth Amendment rights not to give her identification if she was not being arrested.  I have paralegal training, and the attorney teaching the class on the Fourth Amendment told us that unless we were under arrest, we did not have to give out any information, and did not have to have our persons or our vehicles searched without our permission.  He said all the client had to do was ask if they were under arrest.

This Amendment was put into place to protect us from a police state–so we would not become Russia, China, or Nazi Germany.

In my case, I was the Fire Captain of my five story building.  I was the one who jumped out of bed at 2 a.m. when the fire alarm went off.  I would communicate to the fire dept and to our maintenance on-call person that everything was okay…or not.

On this particular day,  someone had set off the alarm three times that day.  I called off the fire dept each time, but for some reason, they showed up anyway at the third instance.

I was already back in my apartment when I got a knock on the door from one of the residents telling me the fire dept was here and wanted to speak with me.

The fire fighter immediately began accusing me of setting off the alarm, of making a false report, and other stuff that i can’t remember at the moment.  He said he was going to shut this building down.  Then he demanded to know my soc. sec. number.  I refused.  He then demanded my birthdate, which I also refused, as I had done before with the other fire fighters.  Alarm bells were going off in my head by this guy’s irrational behavior, and I started to walk away.

He threatens that he is going to call the police as I was walking down the hall.  He does.

Three squad cars pull up within minutes. Three.

They, too, were bullying me into giving up personal information that they had no right to.  I didn’t set off any alarm, only reported what I saw, as was required of my job.

This went on for an hour.  They intimidated me to the point I was in tears.  I finally had to give this arrogant, irrational fire fighter my birthdate…because they threatened me with jail if I did not.

Afterwards, the police officer sarcastically said, “There, was that so hard?”

I said that it was none of the firefighter’s business.

He then shot back that I should not be the Fire Captain if I did not want to give out that info.

I had been a reliable Captain. I gave up nights and weekends to be in the building when the staff was gone.  I sure the hell didn’t need this grief.

And I’m not down on the fire fighters.  They’re good guys, for  the most part.

One of them even quietly thanked me for standing up to this creep.

And, no, racism wasn’t involved in this–I am white, the fire fighter and all of the police man were white.  It’s a civil rights issue,  for sure.

I beg to differ..

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President Obama was featured on MSNBC talking about the sexual assaults on college campuses.

One thing that bothers me is the focus on one area of a woman’s life….

But the thing that bothered me the most was when the President said that nations that treat women unequally…do poorly.

I beg to differ.

Our nation being one that has thrived because of women being treated as second class.

When you’re second class, it is easier for employers to justify paying you less…because you’re a woman and your work is inferior, or simplistic (anybody could do *that*), or seen as demeaning (cleaning houses).

The wealthiest of corporations have been built by paying low wages, mostly to women workers…Walmart being the best example of that.

President Obama should understand that, more than most, because of his African American ancestry.  Corporations also were built by paying blacks much less than whites.  Plantations are the best example of that.

Related to this is the Columbia University student who has been carrying her mattress around the school in protest of the schools’ handling of her rape by a fellow student…who still attends the university.

And the NFL spouse speaking out on the code of silence.

Happy Labor Day, Mom

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Wow. what a great piece.

When I first saw the title, I thought it was going to be a piece on the unsung workforce of women who take care of the home and children…with nary an acknowledgement by law or wages…but I was pleasantly surprised that even though it was about a mother who works outside the home, it held such a great depth and context.

I disagree with the author’s assertion, however, that the education “reformers” don’t seem to grasp the hard-won battles women have had to fight for the same rights that men enjoyed without resistance….

…the “reformers” know EXACTLY what they are doing.  They know that the teacher’s unions have protected working women with equal pay for the same work performed as men teachers, with protection of being dismissed for asserting the same equal rights enjoyed by men such as being able to be married, have children, have reasonable work hours and good pay.  You have to remember who the “reformers” are and their indifference towards women, or worse, loathing of women.

(By a weird circumstance, I belonged briefly to the American Federation of Teachers and was amazed at their strength, unity, and benefits.    It was like nothing I had seen before. )

 

 

 

The words of third grader…

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….only they’re uttered by a leader of a country…or I should say, the state-controlled media…

Actually, the title is an insult to all third graders.  My apologies.

I mean, really…your lack of intellect is showing.  Not only that, but the ad hominem attack only shows that you have nothing of substance against the person you’re attacking.

Classless.

 

Obama High School and Affirmative Action

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Fred Klonsky posted his viewpoint on Barack Obama College Preparatory School and Obama’s silence on a Supreme Court decision on Affirmative Action.

President Obama, however much I disagree with his education policies, is entitled to his opinion…whether it be for or against Affirmative Action.  I presume he is for it, but chose not to speak out at this particular decision.  I really don’t recall him speaking out on much regarding Supreme Court decisions— so because he’s black, he should speak out on this particular decision?

Perhaps I’m misinterpreting things…but this piece just struck me wrong.

As a side note~ Cabrini Green?  Really?  That was the housing project that was famously featured when former Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne *cough* moved in….the press was all over it…but what they forgot to tell people was that she wasn’t moving in as in moving all her household…but rather, she kinda sorta stayed there one night a week./snark

Or perhaps it was a few hours in the daytime./snarkier

Or perhaps she just drove past the place…on her way to her real home…./snarkiest

We need jobs, not eggs.  Funny how it’s been thirty years and not much has changed, eh?

Oh, wait…

Rahm builds an elite high school on this historical spot….not only do you not get jobs, but you get thrown out.

 

Rahm Emanuel, Propaganda, and CTU

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You would think that Rahm Emanuel would think twice before messing with Karen Lewis, but he apparently hasn’t been, um…schooled.  (sorry, bad pun I know)

She once again delivers a smackdown of the mayor by calling him on the divide-and-conquer politics.

Be sure to click on the links to Fred Klonsky’s blog, which also gives some insight to what is going on in Chicago.  What goes on there, is most certainly going on around the country.  Bless Karen Lewis.

 

Ethnic Cleansing in Chicago Public Schools

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Fred Klonsky has this up on the ethnic cleansing of Chicago Public Schools.  But I would go a step further and say not just ethnic, but prejudice against the poor in general.  They have made it abundantly clear that they don’t believe the poor have any worth or value or potential.

He links to the Chicago Teachers Union website.  This just says it all:

Schools slated for “turn around” include McNair, Dvorak and Gresham elementary schools. At McNair, 52 percent of the staff are African American; at Dvorak 70 percent of the teachers are African Americans; and at Gresham 65 percent of educators are African American. Black students are 97.1 percent of the student body and 98 percent of them are low-income.

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They also make note that most of the educators are in their 40s and 50s–a favorite target of the schools-for-fun-and-profit mob.  Get rid of the higher paid older folk, and you can a) pay younger ones much, much less, and b) get more compliant employees who are desperate for a job and will subject kids to enforced abusive testing because without a union to help them protest, they’re SOL.

 

 

Dear White People… **edited

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DN! has a piece up today on a documentary entitled “Dear White People…”

We need the conversation to begin, so I’m glad that they are taking it on…but as I viewed the excerpts, I started to get that feeling of dread.  Because a young African American woman states that we (black folks) are all different and another clip one states that because she is the person of color in the room, suddenly she becomes the “voice” of the African American community.  But it seems lost on the black community that perhaps whites feel the same way?  We don’t all think alike and because one treats you badly or is prejudiced does not mean that we all agree with that person’s actions.  Most white folks have good hearts but don’t realize some of the stuff that is said and done is hurtful (as the producer of the documentary states.)

During the interview with “Reggie” –he talks about his personal life and how he lived on an all-black floor in college.  He said it helped to be with his “people’ after having people touch his hair and professors say “stuff” to him….my thought was:  doesn’t he think some white people could understand that?  Again, it is a block put up to sharing a common bond.  White people whom have been bullied, put down, ostracized can all understand how being singled out feels.  They may not understand how it is to be black, but they can understand pain.

And the tipping thing?  Hello! Women are also stereotyped for being bad tippers.  A long time ago, when I had a life, I sat in a restaurant and waited while the white waitresses were gossiping for twenty minutes until one finally came over to take my order.  And it was cold when she brought it out.  And yeah, I left a penny tip.  Screw that.

In other instances, I would leave 15% tips when the going rate was 10%.  Sometimes the service warranted that, but most times it was just okay, but I left the bigger tip because of the prejudice against women.

As far as his admission that black folk use their blackness as a tool sometimes to navigate the world…but it creates barriers. As I experienced in Ft. Wayne, an African American guy had created a serious problem for the entire building that could have meant injury or death for the residents.  When one of the white fire fighters said something to him because he was yelling at them to shut the alarm off (they could not do that–it was a door alarm and they had the door open to let all the smoke out)** edited, he immediately blamed it on racism.  He went on and on about it instead of taking a step back and realizing HE was the problem, not his skin color.  And this is not a condemnation of the guy–he wasn’t a bad person, but had a screwed up view of the world.

It’s funny that this came up today, because when I was getting dressed this morning, I thought about seeing the Light in others.

Buddhists popped into my head –the Buddhists don’t believe in a God as one Supreme Being, but that God resides in each of us.  Their greeting “Namaste” means that they recognize God within you and within themselves.

Even if one doesn’t believe in the Buddhist religion, if we could stop looking at each other’s skin color…or anything physical…and recognize the Light within the other, we could move past the prejudice.  Our hearts involved in decision making instead of just our heads…

**edited for link to DN and further explanation above.

Heavy Metals and Chemical Toxins in Foods **edited

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Where’s my spoon?  /snark

Magnetic Wheaties.  The press refused to publish this because they didn’t think it was real.  Anyone want to test their own Wheaties and dispute it?

Heavy Metals in Vegan foods. 

Sea vegetables.

Here’s another paper on heavy metals content in foods.

Arsenic in food.  The discussion is in defense of reports of arsenic in organic foods.  What the news reports got wrong was that heavy metals are present in conventionally grown foods, too.  It’s not a fault of growing them organically…but it is a fault of our toxic environment—which we are all responsible for promoting.

Another link here.

While there is a set legal limit for the amount of arsenic in water, that’s not the case for food. In previous weeks, researchers also detected high levels of arsenic in apple and grape juices. “All of these arsenic studies come back to the fact that there are multiple exposures, with the levels varying from product to product and batch to batch,” says Patty Lovera, assistant director of Food & Water Watch, a consumer safety organization. “We need to figure out some regulatory limit.”

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Arsenic in rice has been discussed on the mercury support group–obviously, we’re concerned about putting more poison in our bodies.  It’s frustrating as hell because even if you eat organic, you’re still at risk of heavy metals by the soil contamination.

Someone said in a reply on one of the sites I visited:  you’re pretty much going to get exposed by anything you eat…nothing is safe.

But I would not give up organic food.  Conventionally grown food is less nutritious, besides polluting the environment even more–it doesn’t make sense on that point alone.

Finally, here’s a disturbing video produced by Environmental Working Group on toxic chemicals in babies’ blood.

I looked up the Kids Safe Chemicals Act of 2008…and I’ll give you three guesses how it turned out.  Yep.

But, wait!  There’s yet another bill introduced with link to co-sponsors…here’s where it stands. 

Sen. Frank Lautenberg [D-NJ] Bill Author

Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY] Bill Author

Max Baucus [D-MT]

Michael F. Bennet [D-CO]

Richard Blumenthal [D-CT]

Barbara Boxer [D-CA]

Maria Cantwell [D-WA]

Benjamin Cardin [D-MD]

William “Mo” Cowan [D-MA]

Richard Durbin [D-IL]

Dianne Feinstein [D-CA]

Al Franken [D-MN]

Tom Harkin [D-IA]

Angus King [I-ME]

Amy Klobuchar [D-MN]

Patrick Leahy [D-VT]

Robert Menéndez [D-NJ]

Jeff Merkley [D-OR]

Barbara Mikulski [D – MD]

Patty Murray [D-WA]

Bill Nelson [D- FL]

Bernard Sanders [I-VT]

Brian Schatz [D-HI]

Charles Schumer [D-NY]

Jon Tester [D-MT]

Tom Udall [D-NM]

Elizabeth Warren [D-MA]

Sheldon Whitehouse [D-RI]

Ron Wyden [D-OR]

Again, no mention on the toxins’ effects on the animals and birds.  Mercury has been found in birds on land and sea birds.  It’s also been found in marine mammals.

**edited to correct wording.

Jeffrey Thompson charged **edited

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Jeffrey Thompson is apparently deeply involved in D.C. politics and has been charged with violating local and federal campaign finance laws.

One campaign he contributed to was Hillary Clinton. Damn, I guess she’ll have to get another donor to finance her presidential campaign…

I’ll bet he’s regretting that cool $500k he spent on her ill-fated campaign….just think of the people that money would have fed..housed…gotten medical care for…sent through a pretty decent college…employed in a job for years…but we can’t do that, can we?  We need to spend millions on campaigns.

Washington Post also has the story here.

**edited to change wording.  I called Clinton a client in error.  Chalk it up to Spring Fever. Oy.