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Dear America: A few things this black woman would like you to know about ra
2008-04-02 19:44:00
It is normal to be prejudiced....and in a country like America that was born and raised on the notion of white supremacy (See manifest destiny, slavery, Jim Crow, internment of Japanese citizens...), it is normal to be prejudiced against black people. So ingrained is the idea that white culture is right, or at least the benchmark for all other cultures, that even most black Americans devalue blackness (See "the doll test" as one example. See black hack comedians and their "black people are always late, broke, triflin'..." schtick as another.) So white America, modern prejudice is not all your fault.Now that I have said that, now that I have absolved you of personal guilt, can we have the conversation about race that everyone keeps referring to? I mean a REAL conversation, not the one that has played out over the last month on talk radio and cable news and political blogs and Web sites, where black people attempt to shed some light on the ways race affects our daily lives and white ...
More About: Black , Woman , Things

Being "strong" can kill you
2008-03-31 13:08:00
I just started Terrie Williams new, must-read book "Black Pain" that tackles the taboo topic of blacks and depression, and how our inability to recognize our psychological pain and unwillingness to seek help is killing us.Black Pain identifies emotional pain ? which uniquely and profoundly affects the black experience ? as the root of lashing out through desperate acts of crime, violence, drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders, workaholism, and addiction to shopping, gambling, and sex. Few realize these destructive acts are symptoms of our inner sorrow.Black people are dying. Everywhere we turn, in the faces we see and the headlines we read, we feel in our gut that something is wrong, but we don't know what it is. It's time to recognize it and work through our trauma. More...As I read Williams' chapter on black women and our psychological traumas, I seethed a little more over all those people who were shocked, SHOCKED by the anger of the black community as voiced by Barack Obam...
More About: Kill , Strong

Hear the Come Together live discussion
2008-03-30 00:59:00
Hear the official live discussion that concludes the Women's History Month blog carnival, hosted by What Tami Said and Women's Space. Heart and I were joined by Karla Mantilla, Adele Nieves and Shecodes for a great discussion of feminism and its intersection with race and other issues.
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Update on Sharpton/Dunbar Village
2008-03-28 16:58:00
Subject: The Dunbar Village AtrocitySynopsis:In the past week, a rapidly-moving viral email campaign was launched, and thousands of concerned black citizens spread the word about a shocking crime against a Black woman and her 12 year old son, in which crimes against nature were committed. (read more details of the crime here)This email, entitled ?Stop Al Sharpton and the NAACP from endangering Black Women,? described a stunning betrayal in which the NAACP and Al Sharpton held a press conference and demanded bail consideration for three suspects in custody for the crime. (source1) (source2)Concerned Black citizens all around the country were outraged by the actions of the NAACP and Al Sharpton, and many vowed to withdraw volunteering and financial support from these agencies ?until they make the safety of Black women and children a priority.?On March 24, 2008 an NAACP memo that attempted to defend this betrayal was sent to Beverly Neal, who is the Director of the NAACP?s Florida Stat...
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Women's History Month blog carnival
2008-03-28 00:46:00
Come together? Maybe notby Latoya PetersonI wish hearing the words "come together" didn't make me cringe so much.After all, it's a kind-hearted exhortation. Come together means to unify, to place our differences aside for a few moments. But alas, I can't."Come together" to me now sounds a bit like a curse. For you see, the people who keep asking me to come together keep asking me to check my opinions and identity at the door.We can come together as long as I am willing to toe the line. We can come together unifed as women as long as I am willing to silence myself about how race impacts me and how people in this group perpetuate racism. We can come together as long as I help block the door against transfolk. I can be in the circle if I hold my tongue about my real opinions on sex work.These kind of feelings are what makes me like feminism, but stay away from it formally. The way my life works, I tend to take heat about my race first, with gender stereotypes influenced by thos...
More About: History , Carnival , Blog , Blog Carnival , Month

Women's History Month blog carnival
2008-03-27 14:31:00
A wonderful new post by Dissenter is up at Heart's place:When I was little, my mother and I had a really strong relationship, but that changed as I grew into my teenage years and I began to blame her for a great many things, most of which she was ultimately not responsible for. I thought she was weak and worthless, that she didn?t care about me or my welfare, but I can see now how wrong I was to think that, and how courageously my mother always fought for me and my brother, against overwhelming odds. So I am writing this essay in honour of my mother, a wonderfully strong, amazing and radical woman who is a constant source of strength and inspiration to me.Read the full post.
More About: History , Carnival , Blog , Blog Carnival , Month

The biggest bimbo wins?
2008-03-27 10:58:00
Miss Bimbo is one of the hottest games on the Web for British tween and teen girls:Girls are encouraged to compete against each other to become the "hottest, coolest, most famous bimbo in the whole world."When a girl signs up, they are given a naked virtual character to look after and pitted against other girls to earn "bimbo" dollars so they can dress her in sexy outfits and take her clubbing.They are told "stop at nothing," even "meds or plastic surgery," to ensure their dolls win.Users are given missions, including securing plastic surgery at the game's clinic to give their dolls bigger breasts, and they have to keep her at her target weight with diet pills, which cost 100 bimbo dollars. Read more...What the heck happened to Monopoly...Uno...Taboo? Anyone?I blame (in part) the export of vapid Hollywood culture--a culture where half of the people on the cover of celebrity glossies these days are famous for naught but being young, tanned, plasticized and spotlight-seeking, a cultu...
More About: Wins

Women's History Month blog carnival
2008-03-26 11:02:00
by Diane Dorce of Reading Writing Blog gingOn being strong?..The one accolade I hear most is?.girl you are strong?.you a strong, independent woman?.you strong?but sometimes I don?t want to be so strong. Sometimes I grow tired of carrying the mantle and other folks on my back, hiding emotion, pretending to have it all together?.sometimes I just want to break down and cry, curl into a ball, and lie in the arms of somebody who is strong?.not my arms. Being strong can sometimes be a curse, because when everyone else thinks you?re strong, they never seem to think that you are in need of anything, compassion, sympathy, love, or joy?.they think you got it all together, when in reality you are depleted of the one thing you need the most, strength. I wear the mask, indeed I do?but not for long, because while I need to be strong for others, I also need to be tender, to be childlike, to laugh for no reason, to cry for no reason, sing, to dance, to jump and tumble, to fall and pick myself up, to...
More About: History , Carnival , Blog Carnival , Month

Women's History Month blog carnival
2008-03-25 20:35:00
A wonderful poem written by Dani Elle/Alecto has been posted on Women's Space.I am notAs white as youI am notAs rich as youStill I bleed redIn darknessWhile you shineWith your golden hairAnd your beautiful wordsAnd I hate youRead more...
More About: History , Carnival , Blog , Blog Carnival , Month

When will the Republican presidential nominee talk about race?
2008-03-25 16:06:00
Jennifer at Mixed Race America always has interesting things to say about race. In a recent post, she wonders why no one is asking John McCain about race. Have we simply decided not to hold Republican s accountable on racial issues, assuming they are unchangeably intolerant?Jennifer points out that in 2000, McCain publicly voiced a racial slur against Vietnamese people. This, in my mind, is considerably more troubling that what Hillary Clinton's surrogates or Barack Obama's pastor says.The other day a friend and I were talking about the remarkable speech on race delivered by Barack Obama last Tuesday. And she said that he was the only person qualified to talk about race in the way he did--honestly, openly, directly--among the presidential contenders. I agreed, but then I pointed out that there was one other person. I pointed out that John McCain was in a unique position to also talk about his experiences with race in America--most specifically, his relationship with the Vietnamese ...
More About: Presidential , Talk

The cry of the entitled: "I want it now!"
2008-03-25 00:24:00
I want the worldI want the whole worldI want to lock it all up in my pocketIt's my bar of chocolateGive it to meNow!I want todayI want tomorrowI want to wear 'em like braids in my hairAnd I don't want to share 'emI want a party with room fulls of laughterTen thousand tons of ice creamAnd if I don't get the things I am afterI'm going to scream!I want the worksI want the whole worksPresents and prizes and sweets and surprisesOf all shapes and sizesAnd nowDon't care howI want it nowDon't care howI want it now- From "I Want it Now," performed by the character Veruca Saltin "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"Remember ghastly Veruca Salt from the 1971 classic film "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?" The spoiled, entitled little thing who wanted what she wanted when she wanted it, at any cost? The "bad egg" who received comeuppance for her hubris when she was dropped down the shoot in the Golden Egg Sorting Room? Since Super Tuesday, the 2008 Clinton campaign has taken o...

Women's History Month blog carnival
2008-03-24 11:15:00
Dear Judith Townsend*,by Deesha PhilyawYou probably don't remember me. I'm that colored girl that you tried to cheat out of job opportunity in your school district in the mid-90s. Ring a bell?No? Let me refresh your memory. After graduating with a 3.4 GPA from an Ivy League institution in your home state, I took a corporate job but quickly became disillusioned. I wanted to do work that mattered, so I leapt at a fellowship opportunity to have your school district pay for my Master's degree in teaching while I simultaneously did my student teaching and served as a substitute in your district. The program was designed to attract highly-qualified "teachers of color" to your incredibly lily-white, affluent district. An admirable goal, and I was thrilled to be chosen to participate.As the head of human resources for the district, you were my primary point of contact regarding employment matters. For a year and a half, I checked in with you about the process of transitioning from the fe...
More About: History , Carnival , Blog , Blog Carnival , Month

Around the Web...
2008-03-23 14:22:00
Just the facts, ma'amPolitifact.com is one of the best political sites I've found this season. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. The site was named the "Best Overall Newspaper Web Site" by the Newspaper Association of America. Politifact.com, run by the St. Petersburg Times, is all about the facts. It filters conventional political wisdom through the "Truth-o-meter." The site puts candidate bios, statements, their attacks on rival candidates and their positions on issues, under the microscope. For instance...When Hillary Clinton said:"I negotiated open borders to let fleeing refugees into safety from Kosovo." on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 in an interview on CNN's American Morning.The Truth-o-meter says her comment was "barely true." More details...When John McCain said (three frickin times):It's "common knowledge" that al-Qaida is receiving training from Iran.Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 in Amman, JordanThe Truth-o-meter says "Zzzzzt!--False. Who in their right mind would vo...
More About: Barack Obama

Women's History Month blog carnival
2008-03-23 01:38:00
Now posted at Women's Space: "Given to Tears" by Jennifer WildflowerBlack mascara-turned-war paint regularly adorned the faces of the women I grew up with in the church of my early years (not to be confused with the church of my teen years where women did not wear makeup, and cried a lot less too). At services, at potlucks, baby and wedding showers, Bible studies and prayer meetings, the tears would flow. So many women, so many tears, so much smeared mascara.People who cried freely and publicly were fascinating to me...MORE
More About: History , Carnival , Blog , Blog Carnival , Month

Join us for Come Together: The official live discussion of the Women's Hist
2008-03-21 22:40:00
Join Heart of Women's Space and me as we conclude our Women's Hist ory Month blog carnival with an hour-long live discussion on Blog Talk Radio, 6 p.m. EDT, Saturday, March 29. We will review our favorite submissions to the blog carnival; discuss issues raised by the carnival, including race and feminism and their roles in the 2008 presidential election; discuss the state of feminism today; and talk about the most effective ways for women to work together towards equality.We will be joined by panelists including:Adele Nieves, a writer, journalist, and speaker, focusing on politics, women?s issues and race. She is Essence of Motown's "2007 Writer/Author of the Year," for her continued hard work, literary creativity, and her efforts to improve Michigan's literary community. Adele is co-organizer of Detroit Feminists, and a member and contributing writer for Critical Moment Magazine. She also writes a monthly column for Women of Color (Yo Soy Mujer!) for ThinkGirl Monthly, a non-pro...
More About: Join , Live , Discussion , Official

Stop Al Sharpton and the NAACP from endangering Black Women
2008-03-21 16:03:00
DEAR READERS:This mass open letter is a call to action for all black people who care about the safety and welfare of black women and children in America. If you are concerned about the recent developments about Dunbar Village, please copy the post below, and email it to all of your friends and coworkers.WE WILL NO LONGER BE SILENT ABOUT VIOLENCE AGAINST BLACK WOMEN.Copy and email below, and title your email: Stop Al Sharpton and the NAACP from endangering Black Women !Let us know in the comments section if you are supporting the movement to protect black women from black on black violence.Stop Al Sharpton and the NAACP from endangering Black Women!Right-thinking black people everywhere are stunned by the recent betrayal of Al Sharpton and the NAACP in a situation that is just too outrageous to ignore.This is a painful story to tell, but it?s important for the moral, law-abiding majority of black Americans to understand exactly why Al Sharpton and the NAACP must be immediately stopped...

Women's History Month blog carnival
2008-03-21 12:46:00
rambles on rageby Christina Springer of http://www.christinaspringer.blogspot.com / 1.i hopethe rage turnsinto a cherry blossom, soI can brewwine from sunset ripened fruit2.obama, with great delicacy and carei put my white liberal friends in the darkdrawer of hurt where i won' t see themagain for 15 years. maybe when you havemore than 152 pieces of passed legislationto her 20, or mice nibble the experienceof your fluffy wordsinto a victory confetti.i'll feel safe. see desperatelives bouncing "Yes, we can!"3.little girl insidescreams"fair! justwant everysimple thingfair!" justhear.4.why do faces that I lovehate my salvation?doves of broken handlerscrack aspiration.sugar smart smile, divine begentle and calm all of me.rage and rage and rage'til loved ones can not seehow oozing hapless happyfroth consumes identity.5.the equation for soul height +vision size divided by spin controlseems weighted, specialized.give me your equation for my destiny?
More About: History , Carnival , Blog , Blog Carnival , Month

"God damn America" sermon in context
2008-03-21 12:32:00
I spotted a link to this video on HuffPo this morning and thought I would share:Courtesy of Truth About Trinity blog.UPDATE: From Roland Martin at CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, the full context of the post 9/11 sermon.Read my perspective of Trinity United Church of Christ as a former parishioner here.
More About: America , Barack Obama , Sermon , Context , Damn

Playlist: Women in heavy rotation (Part I)
2008-03-20 16:25:00
Some of you liked it when I shared my playlist of rebel music, so I thought, in honor of Women ?s History Month, I would share some goodies on my iPod performed by female artists.Bridget Gray is a kick-ass spoken word artist, check out her two albums on CD Baby. Her phenomenal poem ?I Am a Woman? kicks off my World Weary Woman iPod playlist. Here is a partial performance of that poem:Sharon Jones was singing with The Dap Kings before anyone ever knew Amy Winehouse?s name. Unfortunately, the music industry prefers the thinner, younger, more English version of classic soul. Nevertheless, Sharon knows how to rock the house. Song number two on my playlist is the awesome ?How Long Do I Have to Wait for You??Here are Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings with ?100 Days, 100 Nights.? By the way, don?t be fooled by the black-and-white photography and old-school funk, the group was formed in 2000.Amy, you know I still love you. Maybe I prefer ?the thinner, younger, more English version of classic so...
More About: Playlist , Part , Heavy , Rotation

UPDATE: Women's History Month blog carnival
2008-03-19 12:33:00
A girl like meIf you missed Nicole's great post about the tensions colorism creates among women, check it out here. It occured to me after reading this comment to the essay:Speaking as a white person here, my first reaction is to think this stuff is just plain bizarre. I suppose it's always that way, when you're told about a form of prejudice which it would never occur to you to participate in. I want to say, "What's the point in _that_?" And yet, what's the point in any kind of prejudice? I suppose that for just about every one of us, there's some category of people that we'd be willing to hurt....that many people outside of the black community may not understand colorism or even know that it exists.There is no point to colorism. It has roots in slavery when lighter blacks, sometimes the children of their very owners, were seen as better and given preferential treatment. And it festered even after slavery, as Eurocentric physical characteristics (light skin, straight hair, n...
More About: History , Carnival , Blog , Update , Blog Carnival

Jeremiah Wright's "Audacity of Hope" speech
2008-03-18 22:41:00
Andrew Sullivan at TheAtlantic.com has published the full content of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's "Audacity of Hope " sermon--the one that inspired the title of one of Barack Obama 's books. Now I don't often link to conservative bloggers, but Sullivan usually seems reasonable to me, even if I disagree with him, and this bears reading, especially for those who believe Obama's pastor preached hate, negativity and doom every Sunday for 30+ years:Then, Dr. Sampson began to understand why the artist titled the painting "Hope." In spite of being in a world torn by war, in spite of being on a world destroyed by hate and decimated by distrust, in spite of being on a world where famine and greed are uneasy bed partners, in spite of being on a world where apartheid and apathy feed the fires of racism and hatred, in spite of being on a world where nuclear nightmare draws closer with each second, in spite of being on a ticking time bomb, with her clothes in rags, her body scarred and bruised and b...
More About: Speech

A brilliant speech on race by Barack Obama
2008-03-18 17:39:00
...brought tears to my eyes.?We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.? Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America?s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787. The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation?s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution ? a Constitution that had at is v...
More About: Barack Obama , Race , Barack , Obama , Speech

Words to live by
2008-03-18 12:18:00
I love how you can find almost anything you're looking for on the Internets.I was in a meeting yesterday and the woman I was meeting with had this wonderful poster on her wall, titled "How to build a global community." I loved what it said and wondered if I might find the text somewhere online. Sure enough...I wanted to share this with you all. I don't know the origins of this text, but these are, in my mind, words to live by:Think of no one as "them"Don't confuse your comfort with your safetyTalk to strangers Imagine other cultures through their poetry and novelsListen to music you don't understandDance to itAct locallyNotice the workings of power and privilege in your cultureQuestion consumptionKnow how your lettuce and coffee are grown: wake up and smell the exploitationLook for fair trade and union labelsHelp build economies from the bottom upAcquire few needsLearn a second (or third) languageVisit people, places and cultures -- not tourist attractionsLearn people's histor...
More About: Words , Live

The problem with progress
2008-03-17 21:56:00
Okay, that?s just a catchy headline. The problem isn?t with progress, but our reaction to it. When it comes to social progress, America is like a chronically ill person who stops taking his meds prematurely once the most egregious symptoms are gone.Regarding racial inequality and black Americans, our country took its ?medicine? through civil war, grassroots rebellion and governmental upheaval. As a result, the most egregious symptoms of racism are gone?slavery, lynching ?parties,? poll taxes, ?sundown towns? and government-sanctioned (or at least ignored) hate crimes against black citizens, are for the most part, sad stories from out past. And so, America put away its medicine. And because we have stopped having substantive racial dialogue, because we have too soon forgotten the sins of yesterday and too long ignored the sins of today, America?s low-grade fever is turning into an infection: a race-torn presidential primary where a nationally-known politician can say without irony th...
More About: Problem , Progress

Women's History Month blog carnival
2008-03-16 15:07:00
No house slaves allowedwritten by Nicole Crawford of http://www.nicolecrawford.com/ While I was growing up, my mother had a ten-year relationship with a man named Gary; he was a divorced electrician with a son and daughter who lived in a neighboring city. Gary never attempted to act as a father figure in my life, but in many ways, he did treat me as his own. I always got the same Christmas gifts as his daughter, Persephone, and he showed as much concern over my academic success as he did his own children?s. Not surprisingly, his daughter and I got along well and liked to pretend we were sisters.Persephone looked as exotic as her name sounds. Even at thirteen, she was on her way to being what many men would consider a ?brick house.? She had longish hair and the kind of fair skin that we often refer to in Mississippi as ?high yella.? I both loved and loathed Persephone?s monthly visits to see her dad. Only a year older than me, she was funny, shared many of my interests and had a grea...
More About: History , Carnival , Blog , Blog Carnival , Month

Racism and sexism in the 2008 presidential campaign
2008-03-15 15:16:00
You must read this very insightful and well-written post on Zuky, a blog I will definitely be bookmarking (Hat tip to Racialicious). Some things you should know:- Kai, who wrote the post, is neither a Clinton or Obama supporter, but believes he will vote for Cynthia McKinney.- Heart, and all of my new friends from Women's Space, I have learned the error of making blanket assumptions about white women not supporting black female presidential candidates. I am too young to remember the Chisholm campaign and I encourage anyone with facts that disprove Zuky's statement to comment here, or better, on her post....All forms of oppression do share certain characteristics, but each one operates along a different axis of life. Sexism often operates in the most intimate settings, as sexist men often live with, marry, and rely upon women; but racism tends to flourish on a more coldly institutional level, as racist white folks seek to structure their lives precisely so that there is no intimate...
More About: Barack Obama , Presidential , Hillary Clinton , Campaign , Racism

The truth about Barack Obama's church
2008-03-14 14:23:00
Rev. Jeremiah Wright is my pastor, too. At least he was. My family and I moved away from Chicago and Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC) about three years ago, and Pastor Wright has since retired. (The current pastor is Rev. Otis Moss III) A lot is being said about TUCC right now, a lot that I think is distortion and untruth. So, I?d like to share my truth, as a former parishioner. Trinity is part of the United Church of Christ, a mainline protestant denomination. I was raised a Baptist and was unfamiliar with the UCC until I visited Trinity. But now, if I were to become active in a church again, I would want it to be a UCC congregation. Why?Among our many firsts, we were the first mainline church to take a stand against slavery (1700), the first to ordain an African American person (1785), the first to ordain a woman (1853), the first in foreign missions (1810), and the first to ordain openly gay lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered persons (1972). We value education for all peo...
More About: Truth , Barack Obama , Barack , The Truth

Wake up!
2008-03-13 12:07:00
Which Spike Lee film was it where he screamed "Wake up!" (Was it "School Daze?") That's what I feel like doing this morning. We're killing Mother Earth. Kids are getting dumber. War and famine are killing people all over the world. In this rich country, children are starving and going without healthcare. Women aren't safe in their own homes. The government runs for the good of corporations and not its citizens. Women still don't get paid the same as men for doing the same job. American jobs are floating away overseas. Gay families don't have the rights hetero ones do. We're sliding into recession. Gas is inching toward $4/gallon and our president merely finds it "interesting." Oh, and racism? Bigotry is being inflamed by a power-mad MONSTER (Yeah, I said it!) and (some of) the people who love her.We're in the middle of a presidential election cycle and I haven't heard anything about Iraq, healthcare, the economy or anything else important in days. So, when I heard the strain...
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An open letter to Maggie Williams
2008-03-12 19:57:00
Dear Maggie ,May I call you Maggie? Because I want to talk to you sister to sister.First, congratulations on the gig as campaign manager for Hillary Clinton 's presidential bid. Being at the helm of a presidential campaign is a stellar achievement in a career of firsts--first female African American chief of staff for the First Lady of the United States, highest ranking black woman in an American top 50 public relations firm. (SOURCE) I know what it must have taken to get where you are. You should be proud. Reading your bio, I am proud.I'm not so proud of the way you are doing your job, though. Now, before you think I'm hating on you for being a black woman and supporting Hillary Clinton, let me tell you: I'm not. I hate racial litmus tests. I've failed quite a few in my time. In fact, when this race began, I supported John Edwards. You better believe I heard about it from some folks. Even though Edwards and Obama have always been my top presidential picks, until recently I respe...
More About: Barack Obama , Open , Letter

Women's History Month blog carnival
2008-03-12 19:45:00
On being a heterosexual feminist...As I started tentatively stepping into feminist circles and speaking out and asking questions, it became apparent on some levels that my sexuality would become an issue. Not being a lesbian seemed to be proof I wasn?t a true feminist and that to love a man as a sexual partner meant I wasn?t truly in step with feminist ideals. In talking with lesbian friends I know locally as well as new friends met at festivals, it became apparent that there was distrust between hetero and lesbian feminists. On one level I understand the issue as I found out many lesbians felt that when things got tough and someone needed to stand up, hetero womyn simply wouldn?t back them up.Read more of this essay by Donna Mitchell at Women's Space.
More About: History , Carnival , Blog , Blog Carnival , Month