June 29, 2013

NOW I Know Why The World is Round.... We Keep Going In Circles





I've come to the conclusion that the world goes round and figuratively, because we push it round and round.  I'm probably going to say a buncha stuff that people don't wanna here. Feel free to exit stage right at any moment, it truly won't hurt my feelings.

 This week in our nation has truly made me recognize, we haven't come as far as we thought regarding how to be good countrymen, citizens and neighbors. This week has been an incredibly eye opening and it feels, to me, as if we are taking steps backwards instead of forward while going in circles at the same time.

 I tell you one thing... I WANT OFF THIS CRAZY RIDE!!!

Just like in school, if we don't learn the needed things to move on with life, we keep repeating the same mistakes and it turns into a vicious cycle and eventually you learn  and progress or get dizzy and quit trying learning to be blissful in the ignorance.  Is our nation to the point of being blissful in the ignorance?
3d people- human character going in circles  3d render illustration Stock Photo - 14767501

 3 items of note have come to the forefront of the news.

Texas abortion Laws
Trayvon Martin Murder Case
Paula Deen, fallen from grace.


Sen. Wendy Davis of Texas attempted to stage a filibuster to block the vote on new Texas abortion law. The new law would ban abortions after 20 weeks and effectively close most abortion clinics in Texas by requiring tighter medical standards for the facilities.   I see at least two things minimally wrong with this. First let me state the I am wholeheartedly 100% PRO LIFE. I usually don't refer to my political preferences here but feel the need today.  I fully understand a women's right to want to abort a child because it's her body and her business. And I understand the desire to abort in cases medical necessity or rape or torture.  However it's our bodies not minding it's own business that gets us  pregnant.
  Anytime we women make the decision to have sex we know the risk of getting pregnant, even if we use birth control. Carelessness is not a justification for selfishness and selfishness is not a justification of carelessness. Neither are grounds to kill the potential of human life.  Yeah I said kill. If it's living regardless if it's inside or outside of your body (which in my mind is a technicality) it's murder.  Consider this freaky imagination I have.... if children could be conceived and incubated outside of the body would it not be murder to terminate it's life, regardless of the life's origins?  In my eyes, yup, it sure is.  So many families want and can't have children, why is adoption not a stronger option? Is it ego? Shame? Embarrassment of whats done in the dark coming to light?  some say it's not wanting to mess up their body. You'd think that there would be that kind of care taken in the beginning to protect the body if you didn't want to mess it up. 
   Again I fully Understand the desire when tragedy such as rape, incest or any other trauma may be concerned . There are medical measures to insure one doesn't get pregnant, give those a try. In the mean time expect it can happen when ever you lie down for sex.  This is a Fetus at 20 weeks old. It breaths. It moves. Being inside a sac of fluid inside another body doesn't make it less alive or less human. 


 The next thing i see wrong is....If you're the type to get an abortion... wouldn't you want to have it done in a facility with tighter medical standards? Seriously who wants to go to a substandard medical facility to have a procedure done? The tighter the better and healthier. I'm not sure what the problem is of raising health facilities to a tighter medical standards. It would scare me more that most places offering abortions would have to "step it up" to meet that standard and they should. Hopefully with that higher standard  their would be less chance of complications in the procedure and treatment.  It's almost as if those seeking to get abortions would rather go through some back door in an ally and have it taken care of as if it were a dirty little secret. Oh wait.... I guess in reality for some, it is like that.  Perhaps we should fight to have better education on how to not get pregnant. Or at least take responsibility for our actions for those who behave so selfishly..and then take it out on an innocent life by discarding that life.


I've been watching some of the Trayvon Martin hearing. 


Its been painful to watch the start witness take the stand. It's been painful to hear her speak and see her attitude knowing that it has confirmed what parts of the country believe about all black people: uneducated, mad as hell and justified in racial speech.


What some people aren't putting into perspective:  She is a young adult that's put under so much pressure right now. While this defense attorney is smirking and displaying her lack of articulation  experience and attitude about the situation, all while she is face to face with the man who killed her childhood/boyfriend. It doesn't appear she was properly prepped for court or her case and almost as if they picked her up from the local hang out spot and took her to court unprepared. 


I couldn't do it.  However the most painful thing, to me is the lack of support and overwhelming criticism of her by the black community, the very community who should be surrounding her lifting her up and carrying this burden with her.   

But we did the same thing with Olympic Gold Medalist Gabby Douglas didn't we:

 The child was out of the country winning gold medals under enormous pressure and competition...and all black folks did was talk about how badly her hair was did.   

This girl!.... Yeah... THIS GIRL RIGHT HERE... Who can do this move..


And and the move below:
can wear her hair however she want. Yeeuuh.. Im pretty sure she was working all day...and  all year while we sat on our butts hoping she would do her best no matter what she looked like.


 Only to pull this kind of Crap:.

WHO THE HELL DOES THAT?
 To which Little Sister Gabby Said: "I AM NOT MY HAIR!!"  Amen to that. But what you truly are is a Two time Gold medal Olympian. And I hope one day you get the chance to slap all the haters with that gold!

BLACK FOLKS, HEAR ME


...and hear me good:

 WE CAN'T EXPECT WHITE PEOPLE TO RESPECT US  IF WE DON'T EVEN RESPECT OURSELVES!. We can't expect them to live to a higher standard of respect when we aren't even willing to step up to that higher standard either.  It will NEVER happen if we don't get there ourselves. When we show the world we don't like each other, why should they have a reason to like us?   All things begin within. 

 Non black people already see us as having a double standard racially assuming "we can say  what we want about other races but nobody better not EVUH, EVUH say anything about a black person.  Don't even Say the word black when mentioning my name."


 We cant even discuss racial matters without someone assuming the race card is being played in a victimizing way. If I hear ONE MORE TIME..."Why is it ok for Rappers to Say Nigga in their songs but white people cant say it...AT ALL?"
 The Lead witness in the trial didn't feel the word "Creepy Ass Cracker" was a racially motivated phrase or slur. I feel she's brought up in a place t where this kind of speech is so common and tolerated that the ignorance of it all is lost on her.  
 Point number 1:  America, not all black people Appreciate Rappers singing it or other black folks saying it.  When i hear young people say it I let them know HEY... if you say it then white folks thinks it's ok to day it.  And it's not ok for them OR you to be throwing it around. 

Point Number 2; If my mama calls me chubbs cuz I was a chubby baby... I know it comes from a place of endearment. She's cared for me, she know my struggle, she loves me on conditionally and I hear it from  the place it was intended.  Same with the rest of the family.    Outside of the family, if you call me chubby, it's going to be a problem. I don't know you, you don't know me. you don't know my struggle and I don't know your intention or the place from which if comes.  There's a difference in "the family" using an endearment and a stranger just Seeing a difference and throwing it out there. 

Point Number 3.Although some words are the same they have distinct meanings.  I know it's an oxymoron and probably didn't make sense.so let me try to explain with a few examples
  Naked:: you don't have clothes on.  
  Nekkid: you don't have clothes on and you're up to something. 
Gay: Happy
Gay: Same sex orientation.
Gay: Lame or stale.
Bitch: Hey girlfriend!
Bitch: Female Dog
Bitch: Evil woman i just cant stand.
Negro: Uh oh, black man in trouble with a family member usually wife, mama or grandmama
Nigga: My Brotha!
Nigger: Ignorant under class/privileged black person needing to put in their under classed place or hung like back in the day.. (racial slur. themz fightin words)
Fag: Cigarette butt
Fag: a Drudge, someone less privileged in british culture *but we ain't in Great Britain, are we?*
Fag: Freak who has sex with the same gender. (homophobic slur, themz fighting words too)
White trash: Good ole' down to earth white folks living the simple easy life
White trash: Same definition as Nigger except with white folks.(for me these would be fighting words)
 Personally Im good eliminating all of the above from my vocabulary. I'd like to think Im intelligent enough to express how I feel without the  passive aggressive invitation to figure out what I mean by saying any one of those phrases.   Yet, on the other hand, people say they're just words, which is true. However we used words to bring across particular meaning. So they aren't just words. Words have meaning and evoke intention and action.  If someone can't read your meaning or intention, THAT'S A PROBLEM!
The U.S.A has a history of races struggling when discovered or brought to this country Starting with the colonial times. We hear all the time about "well American had white indentured servants who acted as slaves for time."    There is a HUGE difference in putting yourself into a life of servitude knowing that in a few years you'd be free and being captured and born in captivity with a nothing but a life ahead of you of servitude and you having no say or other options, except to try and escape and likely be injured for life or killed doing so. The word Nigger serves a a reminder of actual family members who endured that life. When white people use it, It makes us think you'd put us back to lifestyle in a hot second if you had the chance.

Is that so hard to understand?


Last but not least... need I say it?


The Queen of Butter is having a melt down.   You know this whole Paula Deen issues didn't even really start out about Race. The media grabbed that part of her deposition and ran with it.  Paula Deen is an old southern white woman who has used the word Nigger in the passed. What old southern white woman hasn't?  Not excusing it. Not condoning it. And sure don't feel like it's Justified. I'm not surprised by it either.
 Hell, at least she's honest and you know where you stand with her. But this is where Paula got herself into trouble:
Here is a summation of her court deposition.  The link gives you the source. Below are the "low"lights of the summation.

1. She refused to have her empire destroyed by “a piece of pussy.” (Also, she uses that word!)
Former employee Lisa Jackson said that she was hired to replace a general manager at the restaurant Uncle Bubba’s who was fired for having sexual relationships with underage servers. While demanding the manager be fired, Jackson says that Deen told her brother, “If you think I have worked this hard to lose everything because of a piece of pussy, you better think again.” Asked in her deposition whether she actually said it, Deen responded with an abso-friggin-lutely: “I said that day and I would say it again today if it applied.” She then repeated the sentence, making not being in that room a regret we’ll all have to live with for the rest of our lives.

2. She really wanted to stage that Southern plantation-style wedding. But she didn’t because the media wouldn’t understand.
Jackson said she was put in charge of arrangements for Bubba’s wedding, which Deen apparently said she wanted to have a “true Southern plantation-style theme.” What, pray tell, does that mean? “Well what I would really like is a bunch of little n----rs to wear long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts, and black bow-ties, you know in the Shirley Temple days, they used to tap dance around,” Deen reportedly elaborated. Alas, the wedding Deen envisioned never came to be. “We can’t do that because the media would be on me about that,” she reportedly told Jackson. In her testimony, Deen said that she actually was referencing the “beautiful white jackets with a black bow-tie” she saw the wait staff of “middle-aged black men” wearing at a restaurant she visited “in Tennessee or North Carolina or somewhere.”
3. She did not use the N-word to describe the waiters.
Deen objected to the accusation that she used the N-word to describe the waiters. Asked whether there was any possibility that she may have slipped and use the word, she said, “No, because that’s not what these men were. They were professional black men doing a fabulous job.” Still, when asked why nicely dressed black men would be a part of a “Southern plantation wedding,” she said it reminded her of southern America “before the Civil War.” After being reminded that black men serving people in the South before the Civil War were slaves, she agreed, but said she “did not mean anything derogatory” by her comments.
4. She doesn't think that watching porn or being racist at work makes you a bad boss.
In her deposition, Deen was asked whether the fact that her brother admitted to watching pornography and using the N-word at their restaurant caused her to have concerns about him running their business. She responded, “just because he’s got a sense of humor does not make him a bad person or incapable of running a business.” Questioned as to whether jokes of a sexual or racist nature are in poor taste at a place of work, she responded, “We have all told off-color jokes … Every man I’ve ever come in contact with has one.”
5. But she does use the N-word!
Deen admitted to using the N-word in her life, after a “black man” put a gun to her head at a bank where she was working. She said she used it because she “didn’t feel real favorable towards him.” She also said she’s sure she’s used the word since, “but it’s been a very long time” and guessed that she probably used it when quoting “a conversation between blacks.”
6. She doesn’t think the N-word is bad, as long as it’s used in a joke. 
Deen said that she and her husband taught her children not to use the N-word in a mean way. Asked when exactly that word be used in a not-mean way, she said either when repeating what you may hear “black people” say in the kitchen or when used in a joke.
7. She sees nothing wrong with watching a little porn at work. A major point in the suit is that Deen’s brother, Bubba, was accused of looking at pornography at work and showing it to employees. Asked whether she has any problem with such practices, Deen said, “If somebody sent him something and he pulled it up and looked at it, no, I would not persecute him for that.”
Paula Deen is mostly guilty of Bad People Management in her business. Knowing these things went on in her place of business and omitting to do anything about she has put herself in a position of concern. She has put her self in a position to be sued for sexual, racial, religious and gender harrassment.  She is therefore a liability to those who have invested in her, her brand and her business practices. Were I a business partner, I would drop her on her butter too. So, to some extent, it's about race and her desire to play out some twisted good ole boys pre civil war plantation wedding. But for the most part. Her business practices in regards to her working staff cannot be trusted. And her sponsors are saying 'Aint nobody got time for that."  Now the "Deenies" are coming out of the woodwork to those who are dropping her and protesting. But I ask you.would you want an impressionable young adult child of yours, say age 20-21 work in that kind of  environment?  And do you want to be subject to that in your place of employment? Some of you actually would, but I bet the majority of her sponsor would not.  
I was reading an article inTime Entertainment Online Magazine that put race portion of the it so well....
"Deen made a pile of money off a certain idea of old-school southern culture. In return, she had an obligation to that culture–an obligation not to embody its worst, most shameful history and attitudes. Instead, in one swoop, fairly or not, she single-handedly affirmed people’s worst suspicions of people who talk and eat like her–along with glibly insulting minorities, she slurred many of the very fans who made her successful.
Paula, Much Like the star witness in the Trayvon Martin trial are both Products of their Environment and surroundings.  Are they racist, the old white woman from the south and the young black woman from the hood?  Possibly. Is there a difference in Using the word Nigger as long as it's in a joke, or not recognizing that Creepy ass Cracker is just as much of a slur?  Quite possibly.  While being a product of your environment is typically not your own doing, but how you hold yourself and serve in that community is the difference. The affect you have on others and the example you become when you're a Popular Star or on  a platform where the world can see you. How you uphold or betray the trusts and efforts of those who put you in the place and path of success, makes a world of difference in how the world will see you when you make mistakes. I feel for Ms Deen, I really do. I've never been a real fan. Never made one of her recipes, used her cookware (which I understand you can get a great deal on while supplies last) and never read a book of hers.) I know she's been paid millions for it all. And now, unfortunately she's paying the price of her actions (or lack of them.)

These are not new experiences and situations we're having where we don't know how to act toward's our brothers, sisters, neighbors, community and countrymen. I feel like we took steps backwards this week and truly haven't come as far as I thought we have. Why are we not learning from these situations so we have to keep on peddling in circles like some crazy carnival ride that just wont stop.   I don't know about y'all but.. I'm tired and tired of it.   It's time to stop the madness and get out of the circle that is doing nothing but making us Sick...and dizzy.



Peace out...

2 comments:

s'mee said...

I'm white,11 years younger than Ms. Deen, but still kinda old. I also grew up in a very "white only" town with bigoted parents and surrounded by folks who thought as Ms. Deen, that if it was a "joke", what's the harm?

I am the "bleeder" in the family, the person who is thought to be SO liberal, a lot of it because I do not put up with the "jokes" or the slurs or the demeaning of anyone. I stand up and say something, aggressively, sternly, and it *will* stop in my presence.

My problem with Ms. Deen (after reading all 62 pages of the official transcript of her deposition) is that she still thinks that if "it's a joke" it's o.k. or that if the person/group whom the joke is about isn't present to be humiliated, it isn't harmful. So in other words we can make fun of *any* group as long as it's a "joke" and they aren't present. And in particular, that most jokes *are* about certain groups, races, genders...otherwise what would a joke be about? Isn't this a lot like bullying? Can I push you around, say rude comments to you, humiliate you in a "joking" way and laugh it off as an excuse? Sure! According to Ms. Deen- why not? It was just a joke, and men do that sort of thing now don't they? If a woman degrades a woman, well she is in essence only joking about her own gender, so "it's o.k."

WTH?

O.k. If I were robbed at gun point I just may let a few swear words fly. And yes, if it happened in the 60's I would hope to Hannah that people could see that I was under stress and it was a very long time ago. However, allowing porn to be opened in the workplace, pointed out, jokes read out loud, and personal opinions hurled during work hours- and thinking this is o.k. and just what men do, is wrong today. (Isn't it SOP to add a little header in an email NWA "Not Work Appropriate"?) Assuming middle-aged Black men "who are very professional at their jobs" wouldn't be offended if someone were to suppose they looked "Pre-civil war" is ludicrous. Calling *anyone* "p#$$^" -even in righteous indignation during work hours or in a work related setting is not only unprofessional, it's legally wrong.

Her personal definition of "sexual harassment" was limited to not promoting and/or not giving raises due to one's gender... hostel work environment never occurred to her.

I feel bad that she is so naive or has been (evidently) living under a rock for the past 50+ years; meanwhile the rest of us have read a book, seen t.v., listened to radio, and generally been a part of society that has not only promoted, but set into place legalities that ensure if someone thinks or feels inappropriate things about another person, they should keep it for the ride home and in public "play nice".

Being a sweet heart reared in the south is no excuse. This is 2013, bullying is against the law, racism is against the law, hostile work environments are against the law, and yes, all three of these things she willingly participated in or at least, allowed in *her* company recently. RE-CENT-LY. Not in 1962, um like last year.

Boo hoo, you lost your endorsements, sorry, stinks to be you. T.V. is fickle that way. The star is only a star as long as they represent their sponsors in a good light, and Ms. Deen, not getting that your company was way over the line and got caught kinda sends the wrong message to like a zillion book buyers and ham cookers.

As far as that Trayvon Martin case goes, they need to lighten up on that young woman. I know the trial has just begun, but I hope that idiot murderer gets what's coming to him. For the life of me I do not understand what the heck Florida is thinking.

And yes, the abortion ship has sailed, so let's use our God given agency to make "good better best" choices given our current circumstances, I sincerely doubt Row v Wade will ever be reversed. Best should read: "Better safe, than sorry".

Black Mormon Girl :) said...

S'mee! I love your point of view and your elaborations. So few of us live in the world of commonsense and really paying attention to the underlying matters and not the fluff and stuff the media bring attention to. You are one of my favorites!