A New Feature: Black History Facts I Bet You Didn't Know!

Some Famous Birthdays Today

     I am a regular listener of the Tom Joyner Morning Show on WMMJ 102.3 (Not sure why I plugged them, but what the hay, they’re a cool station and they play a lot of stuff from my era!), and that’s where I got the idea to do a regular feature on my blog, The  'Black History Facts I Bet You Didn't Know’.  (The TJMS calls it "Little-known Black History Facts" but I don't want to get sued!!) This is supposedly “black history month” (what happens to our history the rest of the year?) but I don’t feel that the month of February (who chose the shortest month of the year anyway?) is anywhere near long enough to begin to teach our long and rich history. So, I'm going to be like Tom Joyner and McDonald’s, I'm going to honor Black History All Year Round!

This is the day that is observed as 'President's Day' in most areas of the country. However, the Presidents aren't the only reason today should be marked!

Two very famous black people have birthdays on this day, albeit 145 years apart. 

1. Born on February 17, 1818 was Frederick Douglass (1818-95). He was a prominent American abolitionist, author and orator. Born a slave, Douglass escaped at age 20 and went on to become a world-renowned anti-slavery activist.

An abolitionist, writer and orator Frederick Douglass was the most important black American leader of the nineteenth century. Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, he was the son of a slave woman and, probably, her white master. Upon his escape from slavery at age twenty, he adopted the name of the hero of Sir Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake. Douglass immortalized his years as a slave in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845). This and two subsequent autobiographies, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), mark his greatest contributions to American culture. Written as antislavery propaganda and personal revelation, they are regarded as the finest examples of the slave narrative tradition and as classics of American autobiography. (Staff, 2009)

 

2. Also born on this day (but in 1963) was a superstar; basketball superstar Michael Jordan. Michael Jeffrey Jordan, also known by his initials, MJ, is an American former professional basketball player, entrepreneur, and majority owner and chairman of the Charlotte Bobcats. 

His biography on the National Basketball Association (NBA) website states, “By acclamation, Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time.” Jordan was one of the most effectively marketed athletes of his generation and was considered instrumental in popularizing the NBA around the world in the 1980s and 1990s. (Wikipedia, 2013)

 

Staff, H. (2009). Frederick Douglass. Retrieved February 17, 2014, from History.com.

Wikipedia. (2013). Michael Jordan. Retrieved February 17, 2014, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Jordan

Voting - A Right For Everyone? Not According To the Attorney General!

Perusing the headlines this morning I came across this tiny little blurb tucked away in an area which would have been 'under the crease' on a newspaper page. There was Attorney General Eric Holder's picture, and the headline read "Restore voting rights to ex-inmates." I realized it was actually a viewer poll that someone had done on whether or not people who had 'done time' should ever be allowed to vote.  According to Attorney General Holder, "...nearly one in 13 African-American adults is banned from voting." This means 2.2 million black people are kept from voting by these antiquated state statutes...1 in 13 people. In states like Kentucky, Florida, and Virginia, the number is closer to 1 in 5!*

Here are the results of the poll:

Should former inmates have their voting rights restored?

1. 25 %

   Yes; it is a civil liberty.
   64,722 votes
2. 63 %

   No; they lost the right.
   163,433 votes
3. 10 %

   It depends on the person.
   25,318 votes
4. 2 %

   I'm not sure.
   7,021 votes

Total Responses: 260,494

Personally,  I voted #1, yes., give them back the right to vote. Why is it taken away in the first place? I've never understood that; once they do their time, 'pay their debt to society', they're finished, punishment over, right? I mean, why strip them of their rights entirely, permanently, especially if it's a nonviolent offense? I feel like if a person's crime is such that he is released from jail, is not on probation or parole, and is expected to work and pay taxes like any other citizen, then he has the right to vote like any other citizen. If you strip him of a citizen's rights, you are continuing to punish him for a crime he has supposedly 'paid his debt to society' for. You are also punishing the country by reducing the number of voters thereby influencing the outcomes of elections. Those best suited for certain positions may not get elected, while some shady character with more money than brains does, all because such large numbers of people could not come out and vote. These people have to live with the same government that everyone else does; why are they being denied the right to choose who that government consists of?

What do you think about this subject? Do you think ex-inmates should ever be allowed to vote?


* (MSN.com, MSN News, US, Holder urges restoring voting rights to ex-inmates, Retrieved 2/12/2014)

Zimmerman vs. DMX - A "Celebrity Boxing Match?

 Or another Zimmerman attempt to get rich and famous because he killed an unarmed black teenager?

My intention today was to write a warm, happy post about Valentine's Day coming up, and mention different things that I feel make for a great day/evening. That idea went out the window however, when I opened my mailbox. The following is an email I received.


Dear Wanda,

Yesterday — had his life not been violently cut short by George Zimmerman — Trayvon Martin would have celebrated his 19th birthday. Instead, the day was marked by a grotesque new low in the killer's continuing efforts to capitalize on his infamy: the announcement that Zimmerman will face rapper DMX in a pay-per-view, “celebrity” boxing match to be broadcast online.
Fight promoter and professional con man Damon Feldman is enabling Zimmerman to further

Trayvon would have been 19 on Feb. 6,  if not murdered by George Zimmerman. (captioned by blog owner)

victimize a dead young Black man for personal gain, cynically declaring that this exploitative commercial spectacle will substitute as “justice” for Trayvon. Real justice was denied by Florida’s gun-lobby-written “Shoot First” law and broken court system — and we do not honor Trayvon’s memory with more violence.
We certainly don’t honor his memory by feeding into the stereotype of Black men as violent and belligerent that empowered George Zimmerman to take Trayvon's life without consequence.
The fight's details are set to be announced at a press conference Wednesday, but DMX hasn't finalized his contract and corporate sponsors have yet to sign on. Please join us in urging DMX to do the right thing and pull out of this shameful stunt now.
Feldman, who lost his promoter’s license — and was banned from promoting fights in his native Pennsylvania after admitting to court investigators that 95 percent of his matches were rigged — stands to profit handsomely from a fake fight designed to make money off anti-Black sentiment as much as from those of us outraged by Zimmerman's murder acquittal.
And Zimmerman’s bizarre eagerness to fight a Black man, the more high-profile the better — in a fit of dissociation, Zimmerman announced on Monday he’d like to fight Kanye West because he "attack[s] defenseless people” — makes a mockery of his criminal defense claim that he feared for his life in a struggle with an unarmed 17-year-old boy. Indulging Zimmerman in his monstrous fantasy recreation of that night — at 5’11", DMX is ironically Trayvon’s exact height, of which Zimmerman’s defense team made significant issue at trial — serves no actual purpose beyond driving money and attention to a violent sociopath and his bottom-feeder promoter.
Rather than giving Zimmerman and his legions of racist supporters what they want, let’s honor Trayvon’s memory — and prevent future tragedies like his — by demanding a justice system that values and protects Black lives. Let’s rid this nation of anti-Black policies like Shoot First and Stop-and-Frisk, and demand better of a media industry that demonizes Black men and boys, perpetuating the dangerous perception by people like George Zimmerman that violence against us is acceptable and necessary.
Please take a moment to let DMX — and anyone else who might consider stepping in to fill his shoes — know that we're looking to him to do the right thing for all the other Trayvons in our lives that we can't bear to lose. 
Urge DMX to cancel the fight now.
Thanks and Peace,
--Rashad, Arisha, Matt, Kim, Aimée, Dallas and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
  February 7th, 2014

While I am utterly appalled at the way George Zimmerman has been thumbing his nose at people (at least that's the way I feel, that he's been laughing behind his hand at us ever since he was acquitted of  committing murder!) I am even more appalled that DMX would consider consenting to go along with this spectacle!!! (As of this writing he had not yet signed anything agreeing to the event.) If there was a chance in hell of somehow, through this farce, proving Zimmerman guilty and sending him to jail I'd be all for it, but the only thing that is going to come out of this is a lot of pain for  Trayvon's family and friends, and a lot more hatred flowing between Team Zimmerman and Team Trayvon. Oh, and let's not forget the money the sleazy promoter will make. Even though most people will probably realize that it's just a show (not an actual fight.) they will pay to see it anyway, so they can tweet from ringside about how exciting it was to be there. What an example this will set for the young people that some of us are trying so desperately to save....

Please, go to ColorofChange.org and learn what you can do to help keep this travesty from taking place.

Meet The 17-Year-Old Who Blew The Lid Off 

Racial Profiling

This video was made to show what the New York Police Department (NYPD) and their controversial Stop and Frisk program are doing to the residents there. The majority of the stops made by the NYPD are made on people of color (POC) although, as you'll see in the video, they do include some who are not of color. (In my opinion, the few they treat this way are known to be with POC , actually seen with POC, or behave in some way that personally irritates a member of the NYPD.) Because it was made there does not mean that what happens to New York City residents does not happen anywhere else, so don't breathe a sigh of relief because you don't live there! We may hear more about New York for whatever reason, but it happens in other cities all across the country, and as long as nothing is done to knock the upper echelon officers giving the orders down a peg or two, it will continue. And I don't mean literally knock them down; I mean do what this young man did. Sooner or later the police will come to realize that they can never know if they are being recorded or not, and that not all POC are going to just accept anything. Just maybe they'll stop thinking they are above the law and can stomp on all of us anytime they see fit.

Being a woman of color who is a recovering addict and has lived in the 'inner city' I'm quite familiar with racial profiling and how helpless it can make a person feel. It's degrading and humiliating, and it strips a person of their dignity as a human being, sort of like the way slavery did so many years ago. Back then, they wanted  people of color to feel that way so that they would be subservient, do as they were told without making any fuss, and if it meant beating them to make them submit, then so be it. That's what this audiotape makes me think of. There are times that the tape is extremely hard to listen to; for those like myself who are very sensitive, it may almost make you cry. It's sad that this is what is going on, and even sadder that so many are still trying to deny its existence even though the world knows better! We need more people like this young man to do whatever they have to do to shine a light on what is happening, to strip all the euphemisms and lies away and expose it for what it really is.

* If you live in New York City and want to keep the NYPD honest, download the Stop & Frisk app to record your encounter like Alvin did.

Credits:Original By The Nation. 

Found on the inimitable Dominic Powell's Facebook page 

by Alvin Meathe of Upworthy.

So This Is Their Next Weapon Against Obama??

Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash.

     GOP Taps Its Top Woman, Mom of Three, for Obama Rebuttal  

 By Carrie Dann, Political Reporter, NBC News

After hearing from the leader of the free world at Tuesday’s State of the Union address, Americans will hear a rebuttal from a woman unfamiliar to many of them.
Most of the national television audience hasn’t heard of Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the highest-ranking Republican woman in Washington, D.C. and the standard-bearer tasked with delivering the GOP response to President Barack Obama’s address. But Republicans hope that she’ll make an impression with her unapologetically conservative message, her journey from humble origins to the U.S. Capitol, and her family-friendly biography as a busy mother of three young children.
   (To read the article in its entirety, click here. )

     One of the things I truly never liked about the Republican party, other than their total lack of human compassion for anyone other than themselves, is the way they have of believing that money, power, and position make them smarter than everyone else. They think that they can run roughshod over anyone in the country they choose, and they will not only make them accept it but eventually come to think it's a good move!! They think they can take away all the things that to many people are their lifeline, but to them are 'crutches' (Social Security, Medicaid, food stamps, etc.) and we are supposed to think it's a great idea. They think they can force women to bear children conceived in rape because 'if it really was rape her body would take care of it' (sound familiar?). Don't forget one of the most recent, they wanted to hold the country hostage until all the poor people who cannot afford health insurance had their one hope of getting it snatched away! There are so many things they have done that I am not even going to try listing them, it would take me two days to get this blog out and then no one would read it because A. It would be too long; and B. It would be too repetitious. I think we're all familiar with their antics. 
     Now, they seem to be under the impression that in order to make women swing to their side of the fence, all they have to do is bring in a woman that most of us have never heard of to respond to President Obama's speech. Oh yes, that's all it will take to make me jump right over into their camp, bring a woman who is "the highest ranking Republican woman in Washington, D.C.", a woman whose income is enough to raise a special needs child and two others comfortably and still work everyday, a woman who obviously doesn't have to worry about affording daycare, a woman who had the choice to do what she wanted with her own body but doesn't want anyone else to have it; listening to this woman is going to make me have an epiphany and suddenly become Republican?? How can the male-dominated society that is the GOP be so stupid? How can they really think that women are going to wholeheartedly jump en masse on the bandwagon behind this woman? How can I relate to her? The answer is, Mr. Republican know-it-all, I can't. You deciding to have this woman do the rebuttal means absolutely nothing to me, other than confirm to me once again, just how out of touch your whole party is with what is really going on in this country. Go back to the drawing room with your cigars boys, and take your "highest ranking Republican woman" with you.

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This post is completely the opinion of the author, who has no connection whatsoever with President Obama, his staff, the White House, or any political entity, other than as a voter.

Why Are We Always So Quick To Believe the "Children"?

The title of the video read:

Woman Forced Daughter Out In The Cold So She Could Smoke Crack

You can watch it here.

My interest was piqued by this for several reasons, not the least of them being that as a recovered 'rock star' (slang for crack addict), woman, and mother I could not see how anyone could be that addicted to crack that they would force their child outdoors in the frigid temperatures we just had! And I'm not saying that they wouldn't do it because of these great  motherly instincts; although the majority keep them, a lot of women out there lost any type of motherly instincts they had the first time they hit the pipe! No, they wouldn't do it because they would know that they could get arrested, and who would want to have their high ended with that booming knock on the door, and the accusation of child abuse? (For those saying "maybe she just wanted the rock that bad" I say bullshit! If she wanted the rock that bad, not her daughter, her mother, or St. Peter from the Pearly Gates would have mattered, she would have smoked right in front of them if she had to! That's too much time away from smoking, having to make someone go outside! lol) So anyway, I digress...

I can say honestly not only did none of my children ever see me actually using (but yes, perhaps they saw me after I'd used) I would have never dreamed of making them go outside! I might have gone in the bathroom and 'taken a long hot bubble bath' (ha ha ha) but no way would they have left, and I would have left and found somewhere else before I would have had one of my children do it! This is what made it so hard for me to take that headline seriously; I thought it would be something like in The Enquirer, where the headlines are based in truth, but it's been twisted around so much you don't even recognize it anymore. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. This woman is accused of sending her 16 year old child to her aunt's house a mile away, in the temperatures we had from that polar snap last week.  The daughter claims that her mother FORCED her to leave so that she could smoke crack. 

Okay, now I have to get a little bit racist here for a moment; please don't jump up and down people, it's just for the sake of the story. If we were talking about little blonde and blue-eyed, 110 lb Pollyanna from Mayberry, I could possibly believe it, but then we didn't have crack in Mayberry, did we? No, we're talking about a 16 year old, (probably) about 140 lbs, taller than her mother,  and if she had enough gumption to go to the police and cry "Crack!" then she also had enough to tell her mother "It is 16" below out there, I ain't going nowhere less you get me a ride!" They don't give all the details, but it does say that the mother's claim is that she told the daughter she could go if she wanted to. Now I'm not defending the mother at all, if crack was involved, then mom is guilty of something, if only not having good damn sense. But in my opinion, the scenario probably went something like this: Mom, (with or without company, with or without crack) in the bedroom, door shut. Daughter in her room or in the living room, bored to death, wants to go out somewhere. She asks Mom, who naturally says "Girl, get the hell away from my door asking them stupid questions! You know they said shouldn't nobody be outdoors!" and goes back to whatever she was doing. Daughter getting upset, she tired of sitting in the house, wants to go to So-and-so's, but nobody has a ride and Mom won't take her cause she busy in the bedroom. After a couple more tries, which get more and more heated cause Mom getting fed up, she hollers at daughter "Look you not gonna keep bothering me with this dumb stuff! You go wherever you want, I don't care. Bet you won't make it far as your aunt's house before you be running back in here crying cause it's too cold!" Well, daughter upset now, cause she wanted Mom to take her, not to call her bluff! So, she decides she can do it, she'll call her mother's bluff! She bundles up, goes outside, and immediately regrets it, but she can't go back in cause then her mother will have been right to tell her to stay in the house. What does she do? Decides she can't tell anyone it was her idea to come outside cause they'd say she was stupid, so she'll tell them it was her mother's fault! Yeah, great idea, and they'll believe her because she's a child, and they always believe the children in these cases!

So bam. We've got a mother under $1000 bond, in jail, and a daughter who might lose some skin and maybe meat from her hands for staying out there that long.  I AM NOT SAYING THIS IS THE STORY, please don't think that, it's merely one hypothesis that COULD have happened. My point is, the child knows that we always believe the child and uses that to her advantage!  IF it happened that way she's not the first, and I'm sure won't be the last! How many cases have we heard about with children coming forward and saying they were beaten, or raped, or locked in a closet, when nothing actually happened, all because they were mad at one or both of their parents and wanted to get back at them? It used to be "I'll run away, that will fix them", now it's "I'll call the police, that will fix them" and it's that way because we always believe the child! Now, in the case of a younger child, sure I can see it; most of them are not grown enough to lie about things like that. A 16 year old though? Come on! And we are the ones who gave them the power to do it! There are kids who are being abused, but there are also kids who, for lack of attention, or to get even with someone will lie about being abused, and we need to work on finding a way to tell the difference between the two. In my opinion, we can't listen to the so-called 'child experts' that are out here now, they're the ones who told us that spanking our children is wrong and it makes them dysfunctional, and kids should be able to call the police and send us to jail for disciplining them. To those 'experts' I say Hooey! Try getting on a public transit system, bus or train, in any major city, and see how many of these children have manners, don't swear at you, and will offer their seat in senior seating to an elderly or disabled person. If you're lucky, you might see one, and that's usually the one that is alone because the other kids make fun of them. Now if that's not enough to make a child dysfunctional I don't know what is!

I know I've really rambled here, this is one of those subjects that just drives me nutz. We accept whatever these kids say and punish the parents who really, may have done nothing wrong except in the child's mind when they were denied something that they wanted. (Again I state, I am not talking about this case specifically, I DO NOT KNOW what happened here!) The only thing I'm saying about this case is that me personally, I would not immediately jump to take the girl's word for what happened, there would  be a lot of investigation into the entire case and the history of their relationship before I  decided on what to do. If the mother did do what the daughter said, then throw the book at her, but if they find she didn't, I'd say daughter needs some intense, inpatient mental treatment, rid her of whatever it is that would make her do something like that to her parent.

What Puts Phil Robertson Above Anyone Else?

A&E reverses decision on ‘Duck Dynasty’ patriarch’s suspension

Phil Robertson of A&E's Duck
Dynasty

So, A&E has changed its mind, and decided to allow "Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson to return to the show when it comes back from hiatus, after being suspended for his statements in GQ Magazine describing gays " as sinners akin to adulterers, prostitutes and swindlers".  This after receiving threats of boycott, and petitions being signed by hundreds of thousands of people asking for his return. After people declared his freedom of speech was being trampled on. After their ratings for one week were just a bit lower than they were this time last year, or even the week before; we're not talking about a lot lower, we're talking:

"For the week of Dec. 16-22, the channel averaged 1.5 million viewers, compared to 2 million for the week before, according to Nielsen figures.During the week of Dec. 17-23 last year, a roughly comparable period to the post-Robertson flap period, the channel averaged 1.73 million viewers."

                                                                                  LYNN ELBER | Associated Press              

Now to me, while that difference is a large number by itself, relatively speaking it is not that big. Think of how many viewers the network gets over the course of a year; the viewers that did not watch that one week doesn't seem like as many now, does it? Also consider the fact that we don't know every one of those viewers' reason for not watching. That kind of brings the number down even more. So why did A&E decide to knuckle under? It is supposed to be a network which believes in “promoting unity, tolerance and acceptance among all people.” but I can't tell, not by this decision. 

So what is it? Is it because of Robertson's right to freedom of speech? I agree, he does have the right to say anything he wants to, as do the rest of us. However, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from the responsibility of respect for others. It also doesn't mean that if you disregard that respect, and say something offensive, that you are free from the repercussions of what you said.  If Dog the Bounty Hunter could be fired for voicing his opinion in a private telephone conversation which he did not know was being taped, why should Phil Robertson, who put his comments into a widely read publication without concern for who read it, be held any less accountable?

Not long ago there was a period of time when it seemed like a lot of celebrities were being suspended, fired, scolded, boycotted, punished in whatever way possible for using the word nigger. (No, I didn't say "the N-word" or any other silly euphemism; that's a post for another time though.) We were hearing in the news every day about some white comedian, reality show star, radio or TV personality (Richie Incognito, suspended NFL player; Paula Deen fired by the Food Channel for saying it in the past; GinaMarie Zimmerman, Big Brother reality show star fired from her day job; Michael Richards, Kramer comedian who said it on stage; and who can forget Doug "Dog" the Bounty Hunter who was fired from A&E for using it during a taped phone conversation?) using it and losing their job, their reputation, everything; where was their 'freedom of speech'?? Why were all of them just about tarred and feathered for their use of a word, but this man can publish in a magazine article the way he looks at gays, and suddenly A&E capitulates? Are gays' rights any less than those of blacks?  Oh wait, maybe it's okay for gays to be talked about like that because they weren't slaves all those years ago...But then again, a lot of the gays he's talking about are black, so the difference can't be because of the history of slavery. Could it really be because A&E was worried about ratings, or the almighty dollar? How do you put the human rights of a group of people up against  the dollar bill and have the people lose? 

It doesn't make any sense to me that anything about this one man means more to A&E than the sensitivities (and viewership) of the millions of people he has offended. It's my personal opinion that what a person says and does in private should be their own business, but when you put your comments out in a public forum for all the world to read and be offended by, then you should be man (in this case) enough to stand up to whatever repercussions come. Once A&E fired him, Phil Robertson should have stayed fired. 

Live From BikiniBottom, that's my truth and I'm sticking to it.

Kicked Out For Marrying His Son!

Pastor defrocked for performing son’s gay wedding will appeal

Pastor Frank Schaefer

This news is actually a few days old, but as I'm still hearing deeply emotional conversations about it I decided to throw my .2 cents worth in.

 A man's son, a minister, asked him to perform his wedding ceremony and he did, as most ministers (that I know of anyway) would. After performing the ceremony, he was asked to "give up his credentials" by his church (in effect taking away his ability to minister to that denomination). He refused. The church then basically kicked him out; sort of 'ex-communicated' him, to use the Catholic terminology, because his son was gay, and was marrying his partner.

In my opinion we are in a battle for our society's ethics and morals; we're no longer in the age where it was a shock to find people living together without benefit of marriage. Children are no longer routinely raised by two people who love them and who are committed to one another, they grow up in households with one parent who struggles to raise them while dating various people and presenting a horrible example for the child of what they have to look forward to. Weren't we not long ago bemoaning the fact that people didn't get married anymore? Ministers get up in the pulpit and preach every Sunday against fornication and promiscuity, yet here is a minister who has brought up a child that believes in marriage but because he doesn't marry who the church thinks he should, his father is punished for doing the ceremony!! Come on!! What kind of example does this set? You are telling the clergy in your church that if their child comes to them and wants to be married to someone they love, they should turn their back on him and say no? I don't see any difference between this man marrying his son and a man, and marrying his son and a woman that he didn't approve of. While he may not approve in either case, he has to support his son; if he doesn't, he's made a mockery of everything that the church teaches. God embraced the sinners, why can't the church? I know a lot of people are pointing their fingers and saying "See, this is why I don't attend church, why I no longer believe in religion; they are hypocrites and liars." I can't exactly dispute that either, not in this case. What kind of example does it set when we have so many cases of priests being 'outed' as pedophiles yet the church kept them on, but because this man performed one ceremony for his same-gender loving son, he was kicked out. What does that say about the church? It would be difficult to be comfortable in a place where you are constantly overshadowed with the ugly spectre of discrimination and ostracizm by the people around you. Is this their plan for rebuilding our society, by telling people that it's okay to be a member of a church and volunteer your time and donate your money, but if you want to get married, you're going to have to take it somewhere else because they won't marry you if the person you love is not someone they approve of! Is the church ever going to stop this close-mindedness, and learn that there is more to God's love than always standing in judgement of others?? It's this singleminded purposeness that has contributed more to the decline of the church than anything else ever conceived in the name of God.

I'm sorry; I didn't mean for this post to go in the direction it has. After all, the point of the article is about a man, his son, and his church, not about the church and its role in tearing down our society. It's just such a shame to see an institution that weilds so much power in our society misusing it like this. Instead of taking advantage  of every opportunity to bring people together,  they are alienating people from one another. Having a man tell his son he can't perform his wedding because of who he chooses to marry is not the way to rebuild the family structure. Those who made the decision to 'defrock' Pastor Shaefer need to be defrocked themselves.

Of course this is strictly the opinion of the author, coming to you Live From Bikini Bottom.....

Is This Teacher's 'Exercise' of Value?

Jane Elliott - Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes
creator and facilitator

     Ms. Jane Elliott has been conducting a workshop called Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes since 1968. She has done workshops all across the country, and in several other countries as well. 
     I've heard from several people on the subject of her workshops,  and the general consensus is that while her idea was a great one her way of going about it, of teaching non-minorities what it means to be 'of color', was not.

     I disagree.

     I'm not saying that there aren't other methods she could have used, I'm sure she could have thought of other ways to try to make the point that people of color suffer everyday in ways that non-minority people have no clue about, and cannot hope to ever understand. I don't believe she could have come up with another method that would have driven the point home as deeply or as quickly as this one did. She put people into the position that people of color are in everyday, and made them feel (at least to a point) the helplessness that many people of color feel throughout their adult lives.    

     Now, I didn't see the entire exercise carried out; I wish I had. I would have liked to have seen what happened before this video began  just to see exactly how the brown eyes vs. blue eyes exercise worked. From the looks and statements of some of those who were assigned the role of the minority, they had suffered some wounds that they never knew anyone could suffer and still survive.  In my opinion, some of those who took part in the exercise left with a newfound respect for the strength that it takes to be a person of color and to have to live with the shadow of racism and bigotry hanging over their head. Of course there were others who were determined to not be affected by the exercise; to not allow themselves to feel but instead to logically talk away their knee-jerk reaction. I believe it was because something ugly inside them had been brought to light and they didn't like it. They were determined to talk it away; to make excuses for it, to say it wasn't there, to call it anything but what it was: racism.

     Will this young lady learn anything from this exercise? Probably not. She will continue to cry, and continue to deny the existence of what so many others see right in front of their faces. For most of us, I think we realize that denying the existence of racism, or pretending that it doesn't affect us, will not make it go away.  Like Ms. Elliott says "Don't deny differences. Accept them, appreciate them, recognize them, and cherish them; they are extremely important."                                                                                                                                                                        
                                                                                                                                                                    If  you want to see what the Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Workshop is all about, click here.  
Ms. Elliott is in no way affilitated with the author of this post or with Live From Bikini Bottom.     
Credits: ORIGINAL: By Jane Elliot. Found on Modernjournalism. Viewed on: Upworthy                                                                                                                 

Judge Lets Him Off Because He's Rich!!

This is such a sad story. Not just sad because of the people who died, not just sad because the person who killed them got off; it's sad because what does it tell the children (and teens) coming up now? If they are anything but rich and white, it tells them that they don't mean anything. That rich white people run the world and that nothing has changed in all the years since slavery was supposedly abolished. Back then, if

a young black teenager was accused of whistling at a white woman, he was beaten beyond recognition and lynched, whether he did it or not!

Now, a white teenager can kill four people and tell the police "I'm outta here", but he doesn't even get a 'beat down'!!



What is wrong with people that they think this is okay?

At first I wondered what judge would go along with such a backwards defense; then I read on and discovered that this is the same judge that gave a 14 year old black child 10 years for punching a man who died 2 days later! He got 10 years, but read this story of what this teenager, Ethan Crouch actually did. And the judge let him go???

Texas. The state that executes retarded people like Marvin Wilson, convicted of murder ( (even though the Supreme Court said they couldn't!)

 Andrea Yates (drowned her 5 children),

Genene Jones (nurse thought to have killed up to 46 children)

 Richard Ramirez (the Night Stalker),






With all the criminals including Clyde Barrow to come out of Texas, you would think they'd be experts at the whole procedure by now.

Related Links:

Aftermath of the Accident

Teen Kills 4 Judge LITERALLY Lets Him Off Because He is Rich

My Way News - Kennedy's vision for mental health never realized

     Seems like every time we hear about someone going on a killing spree (whether adult or juvenile) somewhere in the story there is always mention of his/their mental state. From the time we read the headline we look for it; as a matter of fact, we pronounce judgement!!  "That man was crazy!" "You know they had to be crazy".  So many people with some type of mental problem, and more dysfunctional traits are being named as mental illnesses everyday! (i.e. addiction)
     Perhaps if President Kennedy's plan had been fully realized, if all the centers were built and the money to fund them put into use, he himself might still be alive as well as many other citizens who could have done real good for this country.
My Way News - Kennedy's vision for mental health never realized