Category Archives: Thinking Aloud

How Could You…?

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So, after some serious internet searching on Sunday, I finally saw the “Harriet Tubman Sex Tape” video by Russell Simmons’ All Def Digital that raised such a stink.  I didn’t even watch it all because all I found myself asking and continue to ask is…

How could you…?

Females in general have so few women in history to look up to and aspire to, to begin with. American historical females are much fewer and the number of American heroines of color that is even smaller still. And you take Harriet Tubman, the most courageous, the most noble of them, the most widely known black woman in history next to Rosa Parks and turn her into some antebellum Jezebel for the sake of what was presumed to be satire. No! Just no!

How could you?

To the actors and crew involved, yeah, I know… It’s just a job, and you got paid. If you did not do it, someone else surely would have. So the money might as well go in your pocket, right?  I hope you are all proud of it because this will permanently be on your IMDB page someday.  I get it, really I do, but still I ask…

How could you…?

Russell, how little you must think of the woman who made such remarkable history! Clearly, you do not respect her or her deeds.   Deeds, may I remind you, that were among the stepping-stones, which now give you the ability to create the tripe you posted in the name of humor.

What on earth made you –the collective you for all who participated in this nonsense, but you Russell Simmons specifically– think this would be acceptable, let alone funny, to the intelligent general public and to black women in particular? You didn’t.

And that is what is so appalling.

Black women here in America spend every damned day of their lives overtly or otherwise fighting sexual stereotypes.  Stereotypes placed upon us by the very type of “massas” portrayed in your little piece of jacked-up faux history.  Over a century later and we women of color are still fighting those stereotypes just so you can take Harriet Tubman, one of the very few examples of black womanhood who was above all of that nonsense, and turn her into a sexual parody.

How could you…?

Simmons, you are –well, I thought you were– an intelligent man.  There is NO way you could not have known there was going to be some backlash on this. Perhaps not as much as what you received, but you had to know. I believe this was done solely for getting All Def Digital noticed. There were so many other ways All Def Digital could have debuted to be smart, edgy, relevant, and divisive. You chose to make a mockery of Harriet Tubman.  By making her a joke of this caliber you diminish not just the woman, but everything for which she is known.

And do you want to know the real funny part? Image this video some 50, 20, 10, hell perhaps as little as two years from now. When all of us have moved on to the latest hullabaloo of the time, some ignorant racist assholes –who managed to download a copy before you had your ass handed to you and pulled the content off YouTube– will  show this to others of their ilk and pass it on as ‘historical truth’.  All because of you  thought it was something hilarious. Ha-ha, very funny motherfucker.

We need to fight not just to preserve her history and her reputation. Not just Tubman’s, but all the sisters  who have managed to make an indelible mark on our history.  In addition, to keep known for our future generations for the truths they are. Not tear them down, not desecrate their images to garner base humor.

How could you?

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See what other Slices are happening at Two Writing Teachers!

That Which Is Called…

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What’s in a name? Shakespeare asks.

Clearly he was never subjected to the abject cruelty of schoolyard children to the poor child whose mama got a little thoughtless in the naming department. I’m also guessing one simply did not use a diminutive in those days. At least not one associated with male anatomy, right William?

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Another go at Flash Fiction, also called sudden fiction, micro fiction or nanofiction via Friday 55.
Write a story in exactly 55 words, then tell the G-Man!

Royal Pains…

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Let me begin with, I honestly am happy for Kate and William. I am glad the newest prince is healthy. I truly am as happy as I would be for any woman successfully bringing life into this world.  However, that is where my empathy/sympathy begins and ends.

I hold my hand up and totally acknowledge my desire to be the total bitch here.  You’ve been warned…

So, Catherine (Kate) Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, had a baby…

Yay, we’re celebrating the business of royal marital arrangements a.k.a. your womb is mine a.k.a. what’s love got to do with it?

Yeah, I said it.

They had a year and a half of time to themselves as man and wife. Most of it spent introducing the new bride to the rest of the free world.  Well, as much time as a young couple can have when heirs to the monarchy of one of the most prosperous of the first-world nations that is, but eventually the honey moon period is over. Duties await and what is a new royal wife’s first royal duty? – why to be an heir making apparatus of course. Don’t kid yourself, Kate performed her royal duty to the Crown and popped out an heir as fast as not-so-little Willie could pump one in her. I’m giving them three years max before Royal Tot #2 is out. After all, there must be a royal back-up baby in case, well, you know….  Royal Tot #2 can ask good ol’ Uncle Harry about how always being 2nd best feels, once he or she gets here.

So, Princess Catherine had a baby…

So did blank.blank million other women yesterday. Are we globally Facebooking and Tweeting about all of them?  I didn’t think so.  I wonder how many of the imminent-to-be  mothers were thinking ‘Ooh my baby is born on the same day!”? Oh come on, you know some of the ones in British territories did, or they will once they learn of the coincidence.  I’m guessing the rest of the women in the world, whose contracting wombs, widening canals, separating hips and ripping perineum were likely too preoccupied.  I could be wrong.

So, Kate Middleton had a baby…

Mind you, I fully comprehend the British interest in such; after all she is their princess.  I’ll even branch it out to Europe in general as they are all nearby neighbors of the monarchy such as it is, so love thy neighbor and such. What I don’t get is the American fascination with such so that nearly every other status post in Facebook and Twitter tweets are still yapping on about the royal birth. Hmm, I wonder what Kate would about all those who are playing the baby’s birth date or weight/length and other such factoids at the numbers/lotto/horse race?

I feel as though I am the only hard-nose, heartless wretch not wearing the “Awww the prince and princess had a baby!” rose-colored glasses in this.

So Kate had a baby…  

She’s fine? Yes.  The baby’s fine? Yes.  Okay then. What’s for lunch…?

 

You WERE warned…

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Slice of Life Teal

Slice of Life Weekly Writing Challenge – Jul SOLSC #4 

Rachel Jeantel On Trial

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Rachel Jeantel, the 19 year old young woman questioned as a key prosecution witness in the Trayvon Martin trial, was/is put through a trial of her own in the court of public opinion.  Social media overall, but especially Twitter have newly pages, status updates, posts and hashtags which mock nearly everything about her.  One would almost think that Rachel Jeantel was the one on trial Wednesday and Thursday instead of George Zimmerman.

I’m not going to lie; I cringed as I watched/heard some of the proceedings.   I knew how she would appear to some people. She was virtually a walking stereotype: a poorly educated, fat, angry black teenage female with an attitude.  However, I also saw a young woman thrown into a situation none of us would ever want to be in, trying hard to keep her head up and do the best she can.

Her demeanor, especially on that first day was most described as “antagonistic and defensive”.  No shit Sherlock.  Is this truly a surprise?  She’s a 19 year old witness at a murder trial facing the lawyer for the defendant.  The person she knows whose job it is to discredit her and anything she may say in hopes of making her look bad and his client look good to the jury.  Nah, you’re not going to be on your guard and defensive about that at all.

The next day, she was calmer; there was noticeably less antagonism between her and the lawyer during questioning.  Enough so that it West himself commented on it, to which a good night’s sleep was Jeantel’s reply.    Was the discerning public happy?  Not quite, for now the was commentary over her multiple uses of “sir” to Don West in a subtle implication of “Uncle Toming“.  Classic damned if one does/damned if one does not.

Nearly every other tweet regarding her either induced facepalming or had me outright cringing in its vitriol. Posters questioned her education, mocked her looks and retweeted her less than inspiring tweets. Because we all know, that at nineteen years of age, every phrase that spouts from ones thoughts in 160 characters or less is going to be jaw-dropping brilliant.  Still I what simply cannot grasp is why so many blacks in particular on Twitter felt the need to mock and insult a teenaged girl clearly still grieving over the loss of a friend.

The way these detractors have posted “in jest” is so heartless it makes me sick. And almost none of it has anything to do with the trail itself, but exists solely to humiliate a young woman at what must be the most vulnerable time in her life thus far.  It begs to wonder how any of those finding such humorous sport in this would fare on a courtroom stand, under a tremendous amount of pressure, while being watched by the nation, all at 19 years of age.

Makes me wanna holler throw up both my hands.

Verbal Diarrhea Diaries: Breathe

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Not sure when it happened, horrifies me that it happened without my noticing, but suddenly I am terrified of reaching – truly reaching and risking – for the things I want.

A friend recently posted the above as her Facebook status.  The below is my response…

Breathe. You slipped into a moment of complacency. It happens to all of us. Perhaps you needed the break for a moment, but it’s lasted too long and now you’re aware. Rest is over hon, time to get your life in gear again.

Breathe. It is a little more terrifying than the first you put your faith in His hands, while taking your guts in yours and leaped, because then you didn’t think anything could slow your forward motion. Now you know things can if you’re not paying attention and be vigilant, so it does not go too far again. Moreover, you know you had the faith/guts to start this path before, you will and find it again.

Breathe. Stop worrying about the endgame for a moment. What is the very first step you need to accomplish to set you on your path again? Focus on that, complete it, reassess, and focus on that next.

Breathe. How can you ever fail as long you’re ever trying to move forward and so many of us have your back? I’ll let you guess what final word of my heartvice to you will be. You can begin with that…

For an admitted Snark Queen, every now and then, even I surprise myself…

Verbal Diarrhea Diaries: Doctor’s Order

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Verbal Diarrhea Diaries – aka the shit that come out of my mouth:

A friend has had stomach problems for nearly a week. Well, nearly a week in which he has admitted it. Knowing him, it was going on for much longer. And why doesn’t he go to the doctor, you (and I) ask?

Quote– I know… I need to see the Dr.. but I am afraid — unquote

Of course me, being the caring, compassionate, being that I am (*cough/wheeze/choke/hack* – dang I can’t even say that in a blog with a straight face- responds as follows:

“Go right ahead and keep on procrastinating seeing the doctor. I declare if I have to come visit you in a hospital because you let something minor turn into something major, all because you were afraid, I am going to redefine the word harangue so badly as to make a filibuster seem a like mere quip!”

Want to take three guesses on who made an appointment -in my presence- to see the doctor on Friday?

Thai Like It

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View of a Glass of Thai Iced Tea from Above

This mouth watering goodness is a simple glass of Thai Iced  Tea. Usually I take drink pictures from the side, but this was truly a more interesting view. I’m going to consider this angle more often.

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Daily Prompt | Weekly Photo Challenge From Above

Calm Under Pressure?- Fine, Completely Uncaring?- No Bueno

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I understand many major municipalities police dispatch units are woefully understaffed.

I understand that dispatchers have a “script” they must follow, to get the pertinent information.

I even understand that dispatchers receiving crank calls by the dozens on the daily, can easily grow jaded over years of hysterical phone calls coming in.

Still, I have to say the seemingly complete apathetic attitude of the Cleveland 911 dispatcher regarding Amanda Berry’s frantic  phone disturbs me.

If you have not heard it, give a listen…

Amanda Berry 9-1-1 Call – Missing Since 2003, Found Alive 5.6.2013

Okay, on the reality side, I am not expecting any dispatcher to go all out ala Halle Berry’s character in “The Call”, so let’s not go there.  However,  a panicked crying woman tells she’s been missing for ten years,  just became free of her abductors and needs help deserves more of a response than “We’re going to send them as soon as we get a car open.” and “Talk to them when they get there.”.

“…as soon as we get an open car”????  If Amanda Berry had not practically begged dispatch into sending a car immediately it makes one wonder just how long she could have potentially waited for assistance.  Dispatch could have, and should have, placed her on hold as a car was sent out and then stayed on the line and talked to the girl, now a woman, until the police arrived.  It was so clear Amanda desperately wanted to keep a connection to the dispatch until her rescue. Amanda desperately needed that connection, yet dispatch simply did the minimum, and dumped the call.

The way dispatch dismissed Amanda with “I told you they’re on their way; talk to them when they get there, OK.”  sounded like an irritated parent, fussing at the child who keeps interrupting in the midst of watching a favorite show.  You can all but see the dispatcher’s rolling of the eyes in annoyance. Can you imagine Berry’s confusion, frustration and fear at that moment as she was politely, but firmly being forced to hang up?

“…Check out the kidnapping in District 2…”

Even as we listen to the dispatcher transfer the information to have it processed, the complete sense of  “whatevs”  in the handling is near appalling.

To be on the fair side, Dispatcher Perdy (sp?), the dispatcher who took the fateful call, did her job. She took the call, got the pertinent information and transferred it to the appropriate party. That is all she is required to do. Yet, I pray no loved one of hers, if having a desperate emergency, gets processed in the same indifferent manner in which she handled Amanda Berry.

My God, all the things that could have gone so horribly wrong because of this dispatcher’s nonchalance. Thankfully this story has a happy ending, and bless you Charles Ramsey!  Oh but, would I have loved to have seen the dispatcher’s face when the truth of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight came to light.

In The Spirit

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The passionate call of the joined heart beat
Felt long past when the heart was nubile
The feeling of spring’s first blooms so sweet
The old memory that still makes me smile
It’s the urge at a concert to just weep
The comfort at night when I fall asleep

The piece that’s with me wherever I roam
In the spirit of land, of heart, of home

The knowing when it’s my time to let go
After countless days and nights on this earth
A song on the end of the world I know
That began playing since the day of my birth
As my Deity holds my life in sway
I am drenched peace, as though it’s my last day

For I know I’ve lived the best way I can
In the spirit of love to fellow man

The not so free will that brings me to here
Those voices of guidance to go or to wait
Gifts of inner light to make the dark clear
Past lessons that leads me to paths straight
The persons I feel when no one is there
When needed their presence snakes through the air

Their hands go right through me like ghosts and walls
In the spirit of the ancestral call

A coat of many colors dark and fair
Sometimes it is sparse, sometimes it flows free
Those are my scarves and my rings that I wear
The glow of words that accessorize me
The trifle of rhyme that falls just right
The feeling that haunts “post this tonight”

Paint, pencils, pens and pixels I use
In the spirit of the magic I call Muse

The delightful joy I can’t put into words
The raw anger growing above the din
The most quiet of calm I’ve ever heard
The connection of love with my close kin
The slow chill of knowing hell’s on its way
The warm glow of just being, that needs no say

And it’s to my core when I feel it
In the spirit of living in the spirit
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dVerse ~ Poets Pub | Meeting the Bar: Your Voice–Let’s Hear It!

Mountain Dew Drops Racist Commercial

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Mountain Dew  Drops “…the most racist commercial in history”

For those of you at work or on a device that can’t/won’t let you view the video, let me break it down for you:

In a police station, on one side of the one-way glass a battered white woman, on crutches stands next to a white detective who casually sips a Mountain  Dew while asking her to “nail this little sucker.”  Two other men, one white and one black, presumed to be fellow detectives, are also on their side of the glass.

On the other side of the glass is a line-up of all African-American male suspects. But  not just your average Joe Blow black man, no.  Each male exemplifies every inner city hip-hop/urban/thug stereotype a mama could ever warn her precious babies about, and a goat.

Yes, an actual goat.

The police detective tries to get the woman to point out her assailant “..the one with four legs”, but the woman is paralyzed in fear over whatever these scary black men, and a goat, have done and might yet do to her if she talks.

To further ensure her silence, the goat with the name card of “Felicia”, is portrayed with a deep speaking voice that sounds more like a pimp character from blaxploitation films than one would imagine say – a nanny goat would sound like, as he(?) utters encouragement such as “snitches get stitches, fool”  and “Keep ya mouth shut. When I get outta here, I’m gonna do you up” until the woman hobbles out of the room in tears, screaming.

You just need to watch this hot ass mess to get the full impact, but I’ll go ahead and ask the question already formed in your mind, in some fashion:

WHAT. THE. FUCK?!?!?!

So PepsiCo, tell us again, how did this bullshit come about? Mountain Dew recently released three new ads featuring a crazed goat voiced by rapper Tyler, the Creator, who was also the mastermind behind the commercials. The goat is seen attacking a waitress after she gives him the soda, fleeing a cop after getting caught with a car trunk full of the soda, and then threatening that waitress from behind the window of a criminal lineup Tyler, the Creator  is a founding member of the rap group Odd Future. Never heard of them? Neither had I and I apologize for ruining that particular peace of bliss for you.  It seems shock and offense are the tools of his trade for Odd Future. Tyler, known for his violent lyrics (“You’ll see the meaning of stalking/ when I pop out the dark to find you/ And that new dude that you’re seeing with an attitude/ Then proceed to fuck up your evening”), the rapper is committed to crossing boundaries of taste and decency.  It is members of the group who portray the human suspects in the line up. Odd Future is a group known for trying to provoke people with their actions. And provoke they did.

In just 59 seconds, the total running length of the clip, there is

Misogyny:

The sole female in the commercial is not a cop, not even a thug, but a beaten, abused, and likely sexually assaulted woman.  Because yes, this makes total sense in a soda commercial.

African-American Misandry:

It this Dewiverse it seems all black men are either misogynistic thugs, especially in the hip-hop/rap culture, or the token brother, barely noticeably standing in the background.

Stereotypes:

Black man in the urban/hip-hop/rap culture all wear du-rags, gold front teeth, white t-shirts (generally under an over-sized plaid shirt),  and go around abusing women, especially white women, every chance they get.

Racism.

What? Don’t you know only the ‘good ones’, read a non-threatening black man,  who knows how to stay in his place just outside  of the main spotlight that shines on the others, get to be in the place with the good, read white, guys.    When the detective coaches her with “the one in the du-rag” the camera focuses on one of the human, though by this point we clearly understand the goat is the perpetrator.  They are all are animals and look alike. (Think about it, what side of the glass was the goat on again?)

Yes, now that it has been brought to their attention on several fronts PepsiCo, has pulled the offensive ads from their site and their subsidiaries as well as have Odd Future remove it theirs.  Yet, oddly enough the blame is not spread on the various ad execs who not only signed off on this fuckery from the concept stage and then gave it the green light to be produced and aired. No, the finger is squarely pointed at the black guy, Taylor the Creator, read scape goat – pun fully intended. I mean what’s the problem? If the black guy was okay with it… right? Because clearly not one of those ad makers  were born and raised here in America and were totally clueless as to how such bullshit would be perceived. The ad-makers were very aware of Tyler’s music and decided to exploit that button-pushing. They absolutely knew what they were in for and wanted to to start shit—why? Just to sell soda – period.   PepsiCo deserves to be taken to task for this.

Congratulations Tyler, you not-so-stupid fuck, you’re getting your Dew. I hope they’re aren’t using lube.