Saturday, April 30, 2011

Super American?

*

If any of you reading this post would like to play professional hockey as a goal tender please send your applications to the Philadelphia Flyers Hockey team, ASAP. They would desperately like to find one.

A seven spot? You have got to be kidding me.

Anywhoo, what's with winguts and their hatred for things in popular culture?


The latest artistic endeavor to face the wrath of my wingnut friends is the television show, Glee. Personally, I have never watched it, but I do know that it's a television show, (A TELEVISION SHOW!) it is not real and therefore what plays itself out on the small screen is based on a script that was written by someone who is paid to write material that people will want to watch.


But try telling that to some people.

"Looks like Glenn Beck has hopped on the right-wing hate bandwagon that's been rolling all over "Glee" lately.

Beck trained his laser-like focus on the musical series on his show this week, deeming it "a horror show" and "a nightmare" because "everyone is sleeping with everyone else, it's all about self-gratification."

Just wait until Beck finds out that his boss (for now, anyway), Fox honcho Rupert Murdoch, is responsible for putting such trash on the air. He's gonna need a bigger blackboard to explain the complexities of that one...[
Source]

And then, of course, there is the latest little dust up with the "Man of Steel". Wingnuts have lost their minds because he is threatening to renounce his A-merry-can citizenship. The horror!
Is nothing sacred anymore in the world?

The wingnuts even tried to get cute with this shocking development:

Whatever. We all know what this is really about. It’d be one thing if Superman renounced his U.S. citizenship under The Evil George Bush. But we put a black man in charge, and all of a sudden the Man of Steel heads for the exits? Nice try, Kracker-El. You might as well trade in that red cape for a white hood and join the Kryptonian Klux Klan. [Source]

I like it. Console yourself -and the anger you are feeling -with satire.



Hey, what's wrong with just truth and justice? Must we throw in the "American way"?


Is American truth and justice any different from other versions of truth and justice? I don't think so. At least it shouldn't be.



Maybe Superman isn't liking what he sees with the "American way". When a significant number of Americans look at their duly elected leader as somehow illegitimate because of his....well something, it makes you wonder. That must be worse than kryptonite to the big fellow.



Oh well, relax folks, he was just threatening to renounce his citizenship. I don't think he really did it. We can still claim him as our own. His outfit is still primarily red and blue, not green and white.



We are just lucky that when he left Krypton he decided to settle here, in A-merry-ca.


*Pic from Action Comics.






















Friday, April 29, 2011

No fly over.




That is some serious weather they are experiencing down south. I guess mother nature must be still mad at us here in A-merry-ca. Hopefully those poor folks can get their lives back together.



It must be gut wrenching to look at where your home once stood and see total devastation.

I see his O ness took the presidential disaster tour today. That was nice. Nothing like a little "I feel your pain" from our leader to make us feel better about a tragic situation.

Still, as is always the case with O, not everyone was pleased.

"Texas Governor Rick Perry criticized the Obama administration on Thursday for not responding to a request for a disaster aid for the parched state, where wildfires have scorched nearly 2 million acres.

“You have to ask, ‘Why are you taking care of Alabama and other states?’ I know our letter didn’t get lost in the mail,” Perry, a Republican and frequent critic of the federal government, said after addressing a Texas emergency management conference. [Source]



No Governor, your letter didn't get lost in the mail, you probably just forgot to put a stamp on it. But hey, weren't you trying to secede from these divided states just a couple of years ago? I guess that limited federal government thing isn't looking so good these days. (BTW, I love the comments that follow the article on the wingnut site I linked.)



Finally, I think I know why Philly's finest have been a little trigger happy these days.



You Negroes better behave when you come to Philly. Our cops are pumped.































Open-Toilets for the Poor Unconstitutional

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is a joke.
"The construction of unenclosed toilets at the Makhaza informal settlement on the Cape Flats meant that the City of Cape Town had lost sight of the constitutional rights and needs of the poor, the Western Cape High Court ruled on Friday. 

In a judgment that lasted longer than three hours, Judge Nathan Erasmus declared the provision of unenclosed toilets at the settlement to be a violation of the residents' constitutional rights to dignity. 

He ruled that an agreement concluded between the then mayor of Cape Town and the City of Cape Town itself for the provision of unenclosed toilets, was unreasonable, unlawful and inconsistent with the mayor and City of Cape town's constitutional duties to provide for the basic needs of the poor." 
Read the rest of this breaking story here.

Comment: No sh*t hey.  What was the white party thinking?  Premier Helen Zille should be made to pay damages too or at the very least asked to demonstrate how to use an open-toilet ;0)

Picture Credit

Dumber than a Door Nail

A birther right?



"We’re living through something like a reverse Renaissance, a retro dark age where faith in manufactured fictions becomes more powerful than fact. That a sizable portion of Americans believe Obama was not born in this country is no different than the sizable portion of Americans who think he’s Muslim, or the equally sizable portion of Americans who to this day think Saddam Hussein plotted the 9/11 attacks or that those weapons of mass destruction will turn up one of these days and prove the Iraq invasion sham right after all, or the even more sizable portion of Americans who don’t know their socialism from their Medicare. If people want to believe in their prejudices, they’ll invent the stories to make those prejudices stick. Blacks didn’t endure 400 years of slavery because white Americans had a knack for the rational."
 Read Pierre Tristam's "Birthers, Royal, and Crocks" here

Idiot Credit

Arise You Revolutionary Philosophers

Raphael's Plato


"Mankind will find no cessation from evil until either the real philosophers gain political control or else the politicians become by some miracle real philosophers."  (Plato: Republic)



Onward!

Thursday, April 28, 2011

This explains it.



I was wondering why some of you Negroes can't make it in A-merry-ca. Thank god for elected republicans who can break it down for me. Who needs a bunch of social anthropologist telling us why certain groups are the way they are when you have people like Sally Kern.

Thank you Sally, it all seems so much simpler now.

"Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern, a Republican, made questionable remarks in the wake of a measure seeking to ban affirmative action programs advancing in the state, Tulsa World reports.

According to the local outlet:

Rep. Sally Kern, R-Oklahoma City, said minorities earn less than white people because they don’t work as hard and have less initiative.


“We have a high percentage of blacks in prison, and that’s tragic, but are they in prison just because they are black or because they don’t want to study as hard in school? I’ve taught school, and I saw a lot of people of color who didn’t study hard because they said the government would take care of them.”

In light of the proposed constitutional amendment in question clearing the state House of Representatives on Wednesday evening, the GOP lawmaker also suggested women earn less than their male counterparts because they generally spend more time in the home.

The AP recently reported on the legislation:

The measure [will] put on the 2012 election ballot a provision that the state may not grant preferential treatment to any individual or group on the basis of race, color, sex, ethnicity or national origin. The ban would apply to public employment, education and contracting.
Opponents say the proposal targets a non-existent problem. Several Democrats contend the bill is an attempt to use race to generate fear and draw conservative white voters to the polls. "
[Source]



Sally, I think I know what it is; they think that just because their ancestors did all that work for nothing A-merry-ca owes them something. Sally, when will they learn that they can't depend on government handouts? Don't thy know that handouts are only for hardworking A-merry-cans?

Finally, I bet that Mr. Bad Hair is thinking that he should have kept his big mouth shut.


Seems my man's milk ain't so clean and folks are starting to dig. Apparently Mr. Bad Hair has been keeping company with some Tony Soprano types. (It makes sense, his hair already looks like he has been "sleeping with the fishes". ) [Story]



Anyway, now that he has decided to get into politics, he might want to lose his mob friends. Although, to be honest, they might be more honorable than the crowd he is hanging with these days.












US Officialdom's Interest in the 'Playboy Ways' of Barack Obama Senior

The Guardian
Richard Adam's Blog
April 28, 2011

New files reveal Barack Obama father's disturbing treatment at the hands of US immigration and university officials
Barack Obama senior and Ann Dunham, father and mother of Barack Obama
While the release of Barack Obama's birth certificate was the big news of the day, it wasn't the only new document about Obama's life published on Wednesday. A far more interesting trove of documents has also been unearthed by Heather Smathers, an investigative journalist writing in the Arizona Independent, a weekly newspaper.

Smathers made an Freedom of Information Act request for the US immigration service file on Obama's father, Barack Obama senior – and it contains a disturbing picture of Obama senior's treatment by government and university officials.

As early as 1961, a memo in the file notes a statement from a Mrs McCabe, a foreign student adviser at the University of Hawaii:
Mrs McCabe further states that Subject [Obama senior] has been running around with several girls since he first arrived here and last summer she cautioned him about his playboy ways. Subject replied that he would 'try' to stay away from the girls.
The memo also considers Obama senior's earlier Kenya marriage, and after noting that "polygamy is not an excludable or deportation charge," it recommends that "the Subject be closely questioned before another extention is granted – and denial be considered."

The documents show that official enquiries in 1961 were satisfied that the current president was indeed born in Hawaii, as Smathers reports:
A memo dated August 31, 1961 from William Wood of Immigration and Naturalization Services indicates that Barack Obama, Sr, was attending the University of Hawaii on a student visa and that a son, Barack Obama, II, was born in Honolulu on August 4, 1961.
Looking at the documents – posted online in full by Smathers – Obama senior is described within as "a slippery character," his relationships with several women are discussed and investigated, while the question of Obama senior's "marital problems" are repeatedly raised – in an era when interracial marriage was still illegal in many parts of the US.

In the memos, immigration officials press for more details on Obama senior's marriages and relationships, while in a memo dated 19 May 1964 an immigration service official appears to be conspiring with Harvard University to get rid of the student:
Obama has passed his general exams, which indicates that on academic grounds he is entitled to stay around here and write his thesis; however [Harvard] are going to try to cook something up to ease him out.... They are planning on telling him that they will not give him any money, and that he had better return to Kenya and prepare his thesis at home.
Another immigration memo, from June 1964, records that Harvard officials were trying "to get rid of him" and "couldn't seem to figure out how many wives he had."

Writer Andrew Rice has read the documents and sees a theme:
What I think the documents reveal, though, is a subtle, institutionalized conspiracy that in a way seems more insidious than overt cross-burning racism, because almost surely none of its participants thought of their actions as discriminatory at all. In that sense, the file is an instructive artifact, not just of our president's biography, but of our nation's history of conflicted attitudes about race, foreign cultures, intermarriage and sex.
Hard as it may be to believe today, it seems clear from a close reading of the the file that the president's father was driven from this country because of his messy personal life. And reading between the lines, it's not hard to see a subtext of miscegenation.
It's worth remembering that state laws banning interracial marriage in the US were only overturned by the US Supreme Court in 1967, at which time 17 states had "anti-miscegenation" laws – including Maryland, Delaware, Oklahoma, Missouri and Virginia.

Comment: So Senior was kicked out of the US for bonking white women?  What happened to the white women?  Did they have to leave too? 

But seriously, Senior is really to blame for giving us President Obama huh?  Is that what they call "original sin"?

It ain't right!  

They should revoke President Obama's citizenship and declare him unAmerican.  After all he was conceived illegally (not to mention unnaturally)!

Screw his damn birth certificate (pun intended).  And forget Oprah too (she is an enabler of miscegenation).

It is clear that the President is an illegal birthed from alien black sperm of the undesirable and ungodly Kenyan kind!

Dammit someone's got to take a stand once and for all.  

Bring on birther Donald Trump to the presidency!  He will save white women (and the White House) for white sperm only!

My head hurts ...

Onward!

Dragging Malcolm X to Obamaland

In packaging the life of Malcolm X for a wide audience, the late Dr. Manning Marable has presented us with an opportunity to reignite the debate over the meaning of Black self-determination, a discussion-through-struggle that effectively ended when the Black Freedom Movement became no longer worthy of the name. Unfortunately, it appears this was not Dr. Marable’s intention, since Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention is largely an attempt to render useless the vocabulary of Black struggle. Essential terms such as “self-determination,” “Black nationalism,” “revolutionary” and “empowerment” lose their meaning, abused and misused in order to portray the great Black nationalist leader as inexorably evolving into a “race-neutral” reformer on the road to Obamaland.
Read the rest of Glen Ford's exacting article here.

Comment: I have not read Professor Manning Marable's "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention" but I'm not surprised that he would want to re-manufacture Malcolm's politics.

His argument, as described by Glen, is aligned with his Obama-supporting-lefty-liberalism and consistently wrong about what Obama represents to oppressed peoples in general and black American struggle in particular.

Clearly, Malcolm's politics is the antithesis of the liberal American "idea" that constructed Obama. He did not seek to reform but to move beyond what Obama represents (just another agent of imperial whiteness).

To align Malcolm with the race-denial politics of Obama is to erase the radical black nationalist politics that created/grounded Malcolm. But this does not mean that Malcolm believed race was an organic and an unmovable reality. His Muslim beliefs would speak against such an assumption.

Race is a socio-political reality in that it is made 'real' by imposed white structure and its power politics. Removing the structure was the purpose of Malcolm's radical politics.

In is, therefore, almost impossible to be race-neutral about black/brown liberation under white racism.

In these contexts, Malcolm would not be like Obama -the corporate and imperial president- who is seeking to save America (particularly its wealthy white clientele) from (inevitable) decline.

Obama''s politics is definitely not Malcolm's politics.

I am saddened to know that Professor Marable passed on April 1, 2011. He will be missed in the academic world of Black Studies, African American Studies, and African Studies.

May he rest in peace.

Onward!

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Still not good enough Mr. President!



I just saw one of those great You Tube moments on John King's show.

"JOHN KING, HOST, “JOHN KING USA”: You raised this –

DONALD TRUMP, CEO, TRUMP ORGANIZATION: No, no, you raised this.

KING: No, I did not raise this. I did not call the press conference in Palm Beach earlier this week –

TRUMP: Excuse me, you raised this. And every time I sit down with the press, all they want to talk about is the birth certificate. And I got him to do something that nobody else could get him to do, and I’ve been getting great credit for that.

KING: And you - you raised this issue of his credibility, that if he has it, he should release it.

TRUMP: Absolutely.

KING: There are people who question yours in the middle of all this. The other night, you went on "ANDERSON COOPER" and you said your investigators told you it was missing or it wasn't there.

TRUMP: Excuse me.

KING: What was that about?

TRUMP: Excuse me. Very simple. I had people looking into it. Now I don't have to have the people - I can call them back, I hope. I mean, I haven't seen this. I'm sure a lot of experts –

KING: But if – would you ever pay them – if serious people told you it was missing or not there, here it is. Here it is.

TRUMP: Would I pay them? I don’t know. Maybe I'll let you negotiate for me.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Some people think you just made that up though.

TRUMP: Let me just tell you, I don't make up anything. Let me tell you something. I have done a great service to the American people...."



For more laughs please watch the clip that goes with this link.



I will say this much for Mr. Bad Hair, he fits right in with the republican party. He looked right into the camera and told a lie. When King asked him why he said he was even with the president in the CNN polls he said because he was. When King told him that CNN had no such poll he told King that he [King] was lying and tried to send some flunky to get it [The poll]. CNN and the rest of A-merry-ca is still waiting for proof of that poll. It will never come. Just like we will never hear from the investigators that he had in Hawaii. It was all a lie.



Still, I am mad at O. I did not want him to release his birth certificate. The thought of an A-merry-can president having to release a birth certificate to prove that he is an A-merry-can is astonishing to me. It's why I can't stop blogging about it. Can you imagine? Two years into their presidency one of the previous 43 presidents having questions raised about where they were born?



So there was Mr. Bad Hair today taking credit for O showing a document which every person in A-merry-ca who doesn't see black helicopters over his/her lawn knew existed.



"Yes, but why did it take two years for him to show it. Tell the people, Mr. Obama, why two years? "



Mr. Wingnut, why did he have to show it to you in the first place?

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Not good enough.




You never find yourself until you face the truth” ~Pearl Bailey~

I can't believe it! Finally a news organization in this country investigates the birther charges against O and guess what they found? Nothing. Yes, it seems that he was born in this country.

I caught some of Gary Tuchman's report earlier, and my man did real journalist proud with his report. He interviewed the republican who is the former director of Hawaii's department of health, and guess what she said? That she did see the actual birth certificate. He interviewed other officials and journalist in Hawaii as well, and, I hate to disappoint you wingnuts, but there is nothing there. Looks like you are going to be stuck with his O ness for awhile.

I wonder if CNN would would allow FOX NEWS to dedicate an hour or so out of their programming and carry the CNN report? I am sure that some type of fee arrangement could be worked out. Let's face it, there is no other way to reach the wingnuts in this country. They sure as hell would never watch anything on CNN.

Will this put to rest all of this birther talk? (Shout out to Warren Olney on public radio in L.A. I was on his program today, and, as usual, he was a class act.) I doubt it. I know President Obama doesn't want it to stop. (Independents. Independents. Independents.) It's great for him when the people who hate him most are certifiable lunatics.

Anyway, now that the birther issue has been debunked; we have a new one: The "graders".

" Move over birthers, here come the "graders." President Obama was a "terrible" student who didn't deserve to get into the Ivy League universities he attended, Donald Trump suggests in an interview with AP. "I heard he was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?" Trump asked. "I'm thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Let him show his records." [Source]


I know Donald, "the blacks" always get special privileges. BTW what type of grades did you make at Fordham and the University of Pennsylvania? The next time you send one of your apprentices to the grocery story, you might want to tell them to stock up on Windex to clean your house.


Monday, April 25, 2011

COUYON!

*


Mrs. Field won't like this post, but I am going to have to rip her state tonight.

I mean honestly, it's one thing to listen to a certain lunatic fringe in A-merry-ca go on and on about the president's birth certificate and the nutty Muslim conspiracy theories floating around, but when elected politicians lend legitimacy to this madness it diminishes all of us as A-merry-cans.

Now we have the Governor of the Pelican state (an Indian A-merry-can whose birth certificate is safely tucked away somewhere in Baton Rouge) saying that he will sign into law a birther bill if it comes across his desk. Honestly, I think that those chemical plants on the Mississippi River are a little too close to the state house. My man must be inhaling some of the fumes.

"If it reaches his desk, Gov. Bobby Jindal says he'll sign a proposal to require President Barack Obama and other presidential candidates to prove their U.S. citizenship before their names can be included on a state ballot." [Story]



Don't worry Gov. I will still rock it in"da Boot" every chance I get. I will just watch my back when I am down there. Those Cajuns might want to see my ID.

* Pic from Getty Images.










Dumbing at Number 11

This is a round-up post with no real form or meaning.  In a postmodern sense it can be anything you want it to be ... or not :)

I heard a political analyst/government lackey say in an interview: "All the dead were previously living before the accident."

The moron was referring to victims of a car accident.

A young man running and kicking a ball in the street in front of number 11 said: "I almost did fall here."

A white man in a khaki shirt talking about a rhino he saw said: "The rhino was standing there by the fence just now."

A political analyst talking the usual sh*t said: "The issue with that issue needs to be addressed inside of all the relevant issues."

Huh?

Oh yeah Mooi sent me a text that said: "Johnny Mathis (Sai Baba) has left his mortal coil."

To many (including the Coronation Guru) god is dead.  Wonder if he will just join his moms and the rest of the Anglicans in church now?

I watched Al Jazeera last night and what was left of his mortal coil was lying "in state" and in a see-through coffin of sorts.

I have a need for an Easter egg and foot spa like the Pope was handing out.

I have a young relative who is the most beautiful young lady I have ever seen (no exception) and she is even more so when she chooses to wear the Nikab.

Her name is Ridwana.  And they call her Ridi too!!  :0)

This morning an older married woman wearing Nikab looked me straight in the eye and asked me how I was doing.

"Are you married?" she asked.

"You should be.  Lots of men marry even later in life.  There is hope for you," she added.

Is there hope for Sarkozy?  And the bigots who are waging war on the bodies of Muslim women?

Onward!

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Why do we care?



I thought that you A-merry-cans went to war in 1775 to rid yourselves of those evil Brits.


Now look at you. You can't get enough of the Prince and Kate's upcoming wedding. The hype and publicity around this wedding here in A-merry-ca has been absolutely sickening.



All the major networks are sending their anchors across the pond, and we will be inundated with coverage of these two young people hooking up all week. We will know everything about Kate's ring, her dress, her honeymoon, and her makeup. It's enough to make every red blooded A-merry-can man cry. (Notice I said man, because I suspect that that many of those who belong to the fairer sex are eating this stuff up.) This is the Super Bowl of weddings, and they are covering it like one.



But again, I have to wonder, why do we care? What is this sick obsession A-merry-cans have with royalty and wealth? People are struggling to make ends meet and yet we can't get enough of a stupid wedding.



I guess, in a way, it's a kind of escape. A real life fairy tale complete with a Prince and a "commoner" becoming Queen. Honestly, every time I see one of those experts on British royalty on television I want to go out and smash the next Mini Cooper I see. It's such a waste. Isn't there more important stuff that the networks could be educating us on or talking about? Like, for instance, why is gas going to be damn near $5 per gallon before the end of the summer? Educate the public about the crude oil market and how it works. Why is it that more than half of the republicans in this country believe that their legally elected president is a foreigner and some type of "Manchurian Candidate" ? Why is it that the wealthy folks in this country keep getting wealthier and the middle class keeps shrinking? Those are the things that I want to see on news programs, not what fabric Kate Middleton's dress is made from.



Look, I love the British, I really do. I was born a British subject myself. But other than the EPL and Naomie Harris, I really need a break from all things Brit for awhile. So thanks Kate and William, because of you I have British overload. April 29, 2011, can't come and go soon enough for me.



I bet I am not alone.












Saturday, April 23, 2011

I don't know Dilbert, you might have some issues.




I think I want to jump in on this Dilbert Keli Goff feud. (Well, not Dilbert, but his creator)

Seems Keli (and others) took umbrage with actress Gwyneth Paltrow saying that she worked her behind off to get where she is in Hollywood and her fame is not a result of nepotism and privilege. (Quick question for Keli: Are you getting paid over there at Huff Po?)

".... I know I'm going to sound like a suck up, but you're gorgeous, have a great career, two beautiful children, married to a big rock star. It all looks so effortless. You're well spoken. It just rubs people the wrong way. You look perfect.

[Paltrow]It's funny because I'm so not. Of course, some of it is luck. My parents had money and they sent me to a good school, but it's like, what do you choose to do with that? You can rely on that and not do anything with it or you can say, "How am I going to justify that good fortune? How am I going to say my parents didn't waste their money on me?" I just think I'm really all about hard work and I honestly feel like anyone can have or do what they want as long as they put their mind to it. "

Well Gyneth, you do work in Hollywood, and having the right connections certainly helps.
So I can see where Keli is coming from on this one.

"In an age in which America’s class-divide is greater than it’s ever been, our patience has simply waned for the George W. Bushes and Gwyneth Paltrows of the world — people who were born on third base and act like they hit a triple. America was founded on the idea that everyone has equal opportunity to carve out their piece of the American Dream, but increasingly that’s becoming less and less of a reality. And there’s something infuriating about listening to people born into the Dream — silver rattle in one hand, silver spoon in the other — lecture the rest of us on how easy it is to obtain — if we’re just willing to “work our asses off” like they do. "

OK, so Missy says she worked her pampered behind off to get where she is, and Keli disagrees. No problem so far, right? Just two women having a a public debate about class, privilege, and hard work.


But then Dilbert's creator decides to defend Missy by saying the following:





"It’s worth noting, in the interest of context, that Goff was born with a few advantages herself. She’s beautiful, smart, and apparently had the resources she needed to make it through NYU and go on to get her Master’s Degree at Columbia University. If you ask Goff what made her successful, would she credit her hard work and leave out her other obvious advantages? Or would she answer honestly and say, “I worked hard for what I’ve achieved, but it didn’t hurt that I’m a brilliant, smoking-hot African-American woman in 2011.” I’m just saying that people don’t generally talk about their advantages. To do so would be…wait for it…gloating. " [Source]




Of course, because we all know that if you are a "smoking -hot African American woman in 2011", A-merry-ca will give you sooooo much. Those are always "obvious advantages". I am trying to figure out which one gives you a larger advantage. Being black? Being beautiful? Being a woman? Or just being smart?



Here is the thing: If Keli has all of the above qualities, she should succeed, and it would be
a travesty if she did not. If Paltrow is a good actress, and A-merry-cans find her attractive, (I don't know why, but hey, to each his own.) she should -and did- succeed. But for her to deny that her connections gave her an advantage over other aspiring actresses in Hollywood is ludicrous.



It's probably why Goff took her on for denying the obvious.



But why the defense of her from Scott Adams? Who, by the way, has had some issues of his own, lately. (Can you say sockpuppet boys and girls?) I think it's Interesting. It leaves me to wonder: If it was a melanin challenged writer dropping her two cents (no pun intended, Keli) about Ms. Paltrow in the Huffington Post, would we have heard from Mr. Adams?



I think not.

































Friday, April 22, 2011

Not everyone is being good on Good Friday.

*


WTF is going on in A-merry-ca? Now we have a two year old popping a cap in his own mother. ( I am still suspicious of the daddy.) That is not a good look. I know that we live in a violent culture and that six year olds are packing in A-merry-ca these days. But.....TWO?!



Still, it could be worse, we could live in Mexico. Look, I grew up in Jamaica, and there was a lot of violence in that island paradise. --Especially around election time.-- But the stuff going on south of the border is really scary. Especially when you can't tell the bad guys from the good guys. And before you gringos start shaking your fingers, just remember where they are getting their *guns, and who is buying up all of their drugs.



And then there is the "kook" in Colorado. My man wanted to spread carnage and destruction in a local Mall. Speculation is rampant as to why he wanted to disrupt some of our fellow A-merry-cans right to partake in crass consumerism. Was he a Columbine sympathizer? Was he a wingnut domestic terrorist? Or was he just a guy who hated the mall?



Mrs. Field can attest to this; I hate the mall at times my damn self. But I don't hate it enough to want to set off a pipe bomb in that bad boy. No amount of anger at having to lose some of your Sunday to endless walks through the women's shoe department should cause a man to do something like this. This guy had a South Carolina hat on. So already my inner bias is kicking in. I am thinking angry southern white guy with hatred issues.



But hey, I might be wrong. He could be just another mentally deranged A-merry-can, who, like so many other mentally deranged A-merry-cans, makes living here so interesting.




































Thursday, April 21, 2011

Too young.




I want to start this post with a sad story: The body of Phylicia Barnes has been found in a Maryland river. *shaking head*. This is a sad coincidence, because just a couple of days ago another young lady's body was found in the Schuylkyl river here in Philly.

She was also a beautiful young African American sister who was kidnapped from her home in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Her story didn't garner as much national attention, but it is just as tragic.

I am just hoping that the families of these poor young ladies can pull through these tragedies.

Finally, I see that yet another piece of scum in Washington is stepping down to avoid further embarrassment.

"WASHINGTON — Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, facing an ethics investigation over his affair with a former campaign aide, announced Thursday that he would resign his seat effective May 3.
Ensign said in a statement that he would send Vice President Joe Biden a letter Friday making the resignation official.

The 52-year-old Republican announced in March that he would not pursue re-election. He acknowledged in June 2009 that he had an extramarital affair with Cynthia Hampton, a former member of his campaign staff, and that he had helped her husband, Doug Hampton, a member of his congressional staff, obtain lobbying work with a Nevada company.

The ethics investigation focuses in part on some $96,000 Ensign's parents gave to the Hamptons, which Ensign's attorney has characterized as a gift.

..The Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission investigated, then dropped the cases with little explanation. The Senate ethics panel, however, named a special counsel to look into the matter.

Through it all, Ensign insisted he would seek re-election until his announcement in March, when he reiterated that he had not violated any laws or ethics rules. He also said at the time the investigation did not influence his decision to retire from politics after 2012.

But in his resignation notice Thursday, Ensign said the appointment of the special counsel shook him because he had hoped the investigation would end with the Justice Department." [Source]



Don't worry folks, he will be back. Scum- bag poli-tricksters never really go away.





"While I stand behind my firm belief that I have not violated any law, rule, or standard of conduct of the Senate, and I have fought to prove this publicly, I will not continue to subject my family, my constituents, or the Senate to any further rounds of investigation, depositions, drawn out proceedings, or especially public hearings," the statement said. "For my family and me, this continued personal cost is simply too great."


Riiiight.






Wednesday, April 20, 2011

You angry black men.

*


Oh Lawd! Now Tyler and Spike are having words. Seems Tyler told Mr. Do the Right Thing to "go straight to hell."

"Tyler Perry voiced his frustration with Spike Lee on Tuesday at a Beverly Hills press conference for the West Coast premiere of his new film Madea's Big Happy Family, according to Box Office Magazine.

In a 2009 interview with Black Enterprise's Ed Gordon, Lee alluded to Perry's work on film and television in particular as coonery buffoonery.

"I'm so sick of hearing about damn Spike Lee," Perry said during the press conference. "Spike can go straight to hell! You can print that. I am sick of him talking about me, I am sick of him saying, 'this is a coon, this is a buffoon.' I am sick of him talking about black people going to see movies. This is what he said: 'you vote by what you see,' as if black people don't know what they want to see."

"I am sick of him -- he talked about Whoopi, he talked about Oprah, he talked about me, he talked about Clint Eastwood. Spike needs to shut the hell up!" Perry reportedly said." [Story]


Now now Tyler, Spike is just as frustrated as the rest of us about the choices us black folks tend to make at times. It's not a knock on you. You found a way to plug into what black folks love to see: Laughter and religion. (That has always worked with black folks. Just keep em laughing or going to church and they will be content.) So go ahead and make your paper. Hey, if you don't do it somebody else will.


Speaking of angry black men. I see that O got into a reporter's grill in Texas the other day. Now O, you have to be careful here, you won over A-merry-ca's heart by being a calm and happy Negro; don't go making them think that you are angry like the rest of us. Nothing turns off A-merry-cans more than an angry black man, and nothing brings them more joy than to see a smile on your face.


O, you have to chill. I know that man was from Texas, and the only thing that they hate more than your beige behind in the Lone Star state is....well I can't think of anything right now. You seem to be pretty much it. Anyway, you have to suck it up and play nice. The man was just trying to ruffle your feathers. (No pun intended Obamaholics.) He would have loved for you to get up, rip off the mike, and tell him to go and f&*^ himself.


"See honey, he is just like the rest of them. I told you that it was just a matter of time before his father's side came out..."


So hang in there O, and when you leave office, you can ask Spike to direct the movie about your life, not Tyler.

* Pic from theGrio.com












Neville Alexander: Race is Skin Deep, Humanity is Not

Most South Africans will continue for a very long time to see themselves, and see one another, as “Africans”, “Indians”, “Coloureds” and “Whites”, simply because these identities were constructed in terms of ruling class agendas and interests over decades and centuries. 

These people have a right to see themselves as such but, given the history of racial conflict and inequality, it is the duty of those who have the power to do so to create conditions in which the need to identify in this way becomes unnecessary and undesirable. 

While there are many things we can do in the short to medium term to create a more tolerant and tolerable social climate, it will take generations of consistent and patient work to alter the underlying structures that cause and entrench racial prejudice and all the awful expressions of hatred and ignorance that inevitably go with racial stereotyping.
Read the rest of Neville Alexander's article here.

Neville Alexander
Comment: Professor Neville Alexander is a formidable academic, intellectual, and struggle activist who was imprisoned on Robben Island for a decade during the apartheid era.

His insistence on pressing past race is not a denialist argument of the non-racial kind that Mandela and company postulate and it is definitely not the liberal race pandering nonsense that Jonathan Jansen sells to weary whites and others.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about whether we can survive race.  It is an unfinished task and one that is greater than me.

What would our world look like when race is not used in any context?  Will its class contents -as Marxists point out- still be the main point(s) of oppression?

Alexander pushes us to think beyond race.  It is a relevant push and one that will have to provide alternatives if it is not going to end up being just another wish for a better way.

To get there we will need a real revolution in thinking and in living.

Is it possible?  Can we solve race?

Onward!

Picture Credit

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

I shot up with the Sheriff. And everyone has an opinion.







While you Negroes keep slinging and splitting each others' wigs in urban A-merry-ca, those other folks keep living out their Mexican "Federales" fantasies in meth havens all over rural A-merry-ca.

You Negroes could learn a thing or two from those other folks; start slinging from the inside.

"VAN BUREN, Mo. – One county on the edge of the Missouri Ozarks seemed oddly immune to the scourge of methamphetamine ravaging the state, boasting few meth raids or arrests in recent years. Some residents now think they know why, after a meth bust landed the Carter County sheriff himself in jail.

Tommy Adams, county sheriff for a little more than two years, was arrested earlier this month after giving meth to an informant at his cabin on a remote and hilly gravel road, according to a court document. He also allegedly snorted the drug himself with a straw. Authorities would not detail the extent of Adam's alleged meth involvement, but charged him with meth distribution. He is being held in Cape Girardeau County jail on $250,000 bond...."
[Source]



I know Tommy, times are hard, they just don't pay sheriffs like they used to.



Finally, yet another Charlie is giving an interview. But, sadly for this one, he isn't "Winning!"



This one will continue to spend the rest of his miserable life in prison for committing some of the most heinous crimes in A-merry-can history. And yet, he seems to be joining the legion of O haters around the country. I am not surprised though, he fits the wingnut profile.



Still, this all has to feel like the worst kind of piling on for my man O. I mean first your own people, and then one of A-merry-ca's most notorious murderers? Where does it end?



The only good news for O is that in order to win a second term he only has to beat a republiclown. And unless they are in a lab building a secret candidate as I type this, I am sure that O isn't losing any sleep over any of his likely opponents.














Monday, April 18, 2011

Strange bedfellows.


Rick (I should be in a) Sanitarium is a former senator here in Pistolvania who got his ass kicked by Bob Casey when he tried to represent our state in Washington. Now he is running for President. Yes, this homophobic neanderthal who actually stole from the people of Pistolvania to benefit his own family actually thinks that he can become president. (As one writer said recently, he couldn't beat Sasha Obama.)


So here is the funny part: Remember I said that he was a homophobe? Well he actually kicked off his campaign by lifting some lines from a very famous homosexual who also happens to be....wait for it...wait for it...black!


"Salon reports that the day after announcing that he was setting up a presidential exploratory committee, Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum's website featured the slogan "Fighting to Make America America Again." That is, until a student clued him about its similarity to the title of the poem "Let America Be America Again," by Langston Hughes (the avowed leftist, black, pro-union poet who many people believe was gay).


Uh-oh. Hughes, evidently, is not the best symbol of the version of America Santorum was pitching at an "Econ-101" town meeting at New England College:


Santorum by and large stayed on message but was tripped up a bit when a student asked him if he knew that the choice of his slogan, "Fighting to make America America again," was borrowed from the "pro-union poem by the gay poet Langston Hughes."


"No I had nothing to do with that," Santorum said. "I didn't know that. And the folks who worked on that slogan for me didn't inform me that it came from that, if it in fact came from that."


The student, whose name was not immediately available, was referring to the poem "Let America Be America Again." When asked a short time later what the campaign slogan meant to him, Santorum said, "Well, I'm not too sure that's my campaign slogan, I think it's on a web site."


It was also printed on the campaign literature handed out before the speech." [Source]


Whoops.

Washington's Long War Against Africa

The US bombing of Libya in support of rebel clients in the spring of 2011 is part and parcel of a sustained policy of military intervention in Africa since at least the mid 1950’s. According to a US Congressional Research Service Study published in November 2010, Washington has dispatched anywhere between hundreds and several thousand combat troops, dozens of fighter planes and warships to buttress client dictatorships or to unseat adversarial regimes in dozens of countries, almost on a yearly bases.
Read the rest of James Petras' article in Countercurrents.org here.

Comment: Ambrose Bierce once said: "War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography."

Onward

Sunday, April 17, 2011

And a Chimp shall lead them.


I am sure that not many of you reading this have ever heard of Marilyn Davenport. You would be excused if you didn't.


She happens to be a hot- shot republican party official in Orange County, California and a tea party member.


I am also sure that many of you reading this who happen to be in a certain clique of A-merry-cans have seen the picture accompanying this post. (One of my regular posters uses it as their pic to accompany his/her post.) It's the kind of stuff ignorant racist circulate among themselves to make themselves feel better about their own pathetic lives and miserable existence.


Rather than attack O on the substance of his policies, (and there is room for attack) they choose to use racist caricatures to poke fun of his ethnicity. Nice!


So anyway, seems that my tea party friend made a mistake that racist of her ilk often make; she sent an e-mail which was seem by others outside of her racist circle and was called on it. (Maybe the NAACP was right.) But here is the funny part: She actually got upset at the thought that others would find it offensive and used the old "some of my best friends are black" meme to justify her despicable actions.

"Oh, come on! Everybody who knows me knows that I am not a racist. It was a joke. I have friends who are black! Besides, I only sent it to a few people - mostly people I didn't think would be upset by it," explained Marilyn Davenport , Teapublican activist and member of the Orange County Republican Party Central Committee.


Davenport is in hot water for circulating a racist hate-email depicting President Barack Obama and his parents as chimpanzees. The email also noted, "Now you know why - No birth certificate." As with most white racists on the defensive, Davenport's "excuse" was that she only sent the email to her closest racist friends, that she is not a racist , that she didn't realize the email was racist, and that it's perfectly acceptable to make fun of black people as subhuman.


These are each classic forms of racism denial. Instead of an apology, Davenport said she was concerned over who leaked her racist email and then blamed the media for running it."


Those comments were from a blogger named ThosPayne ,who is clearly not a tea partier or a conservative because he seems to be,well, a decent person.


Now, as is to be expected with these types of incidents, there are calls for Ms. Davenport to resign. (Because we all know that this incident is an aberration..... yeah right!) We will see.

Personally, I hope she stays on and does what she has been doing all along. If she leaves she will only be replaced with someone who is better at covering up their true feelings about a certain beige man in the people's house. Besides, this is A-merry-ca, calling the President the son of chimpanzees is not the same as yelling fire in a crowded theater.


So go on tea party lady, do your thing. I am sure that you have a lot of supporters out here who are behind you 100%. We will find find out soon enough if they actually vote.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

"Obama Is Likely to Lose"?


I like Peggy Noonan. Yes, I know she was reagan's speech writer back in the day, and she is, for all practical purposes, a wingnut---- albeit a more educated and somewhat reasoned one.


Anyway, I read her piece in the Wall Street Journal today (yes, I read the WSJ) and I found her comments about O to be quite interesting.


Basically it was a cheer up fellow republicans note, and it came with the usual things that you would expect from someone trying to give their base hope.


I am paraphrasing here, but she writes things like the following: Obama will lose because he was too focused on his health care plan. His foreign policy is confusing and muddled, and he is getting all he can handle from Gaddafi in Libya. He was outgunned and outclassed by republicans domestically because their budget proposal was serious and offered a unique approach to solving our fiscal problems, and his did not. The polls show that 69% of Americans say that we are on the wrong track and only 38% of Americans say that O deserves reelection. Throw in the fact that his numbers are down among folks he could count on in the past such as....(Gasp!) African Americans, and, well, you can see where she was going.


And yet, in spite of all that gloom and doom predicted for his O ness, she finished her column with a warning:


"You would think Democratic professionals, who read the same numbers Republicans do and pick up similar trends, would be hanging their heads in despair. They are not. They have hope.


Their hope is that Republicans in the early caucus and primary states will go crazy. They hope the GOP will nominate for the presidency someone strange, extreme or barely qualified. They hope that in a mood of antic cultural pique, or in a great acting out of disdain for elites, or to annoy the mainstream media, Republican voters will raise high candidates who are unacceptable to everyone else.


Everyone else of course being the great and vital center, which hires and fires presidents. The Democrats' hope is that centrists will look at the Republican nominee and, holding their nose, choose the devil they know. Especially if the one they don't know seems to have little horns under his hair.


Republicans voting in recent presidential primaries have tended to pick the candidates who are viewed as the moderate in the race—Bob Dole in 1996, George W. Bush in 2000, John McCain in 2008. But in truth, there are some pretty antic candidates out there this year.


The great question of the coming year is not, "Will Obama reignite his base?" or, "Will the Democrats outraise and outspend the GOP?" It is: Will the GOP be serious? Will Republicans be equal to their history, their tradition and the moment? If they are—if they recruit and support candidates who can speak to the entire country, who have serious experience and accomplishments, who are grounded and credible, then they will win centrist support. And with it they will likely win the thing without which they cannot achieve the big changes they seek, and that is the presidency." [Source]


As a fellow republican Peggy is worried that there are no adults or serious candidates in her gang. I can't say that I blame her. When their great weight hope is a guy who can't control his own appetite and yet they want him to control the nation's budget, there just might be a problem.


A problem that doesn't look like it can be fixed with the gang lining up to ride the elephant in 2012.


Good luck wingnuts, at least half of the country is counting on you.


*Pic by Chad Crowe in the WSJ.

Friday, April 15, 2011

“There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.”


Watch out Mr. Bad Hair, it looks like O is fighting back.


Still, my question to O would be this: Why? O, let bloggers like yours truly have fun with the birther crowd, sane people (what few of us are left) in this country have no time for such nonsense.


The more the wingnuts ride on that birther train the more people who actually have a brain will want to send that train to the closest insane asylum or tea party rally.


"President Obama has a message for Republicans who embrace the birther movement: You're only hurting yourselves with this nonsense. Obama told ABC News's George Stephanopoulos that he was born in Hawaii and "doesn't have horns," stressing that birthers just makes the GOP look bad in the long run.


"There's been an effort to go at me in a way that is politically expedient in the short term for Republicans but creates I think a problem for them when they want to actually run in the general election, where most people feel pretty confident the President was born where he says he was, in Hawaii," Obama said.


The president added, "He doesn't have horns. ... We're not really worried about conspiracy theories or birth certificates."

You are wrong Mr. President. Metaphorically speaking you DO have horns, your horns just happen to manifest themselves in the color of your skin.


Funky Friday: Zoom II

I may be just a foolish dreamer

But I don't care
'Cause I know my happiness
Is waiting out there somewhere

I'm searching for that silver lining
Horizons that I've never seen

I'd like to take just a moment
And dream my dream

Zoom

I'd like to fly far away from here ...



See Fat Larry's Band: The other Zoom ;0)

Making Africa Safe for the West

Kulundi Serumaga has written a thought provoking article entitled "West Makes Ivory Coast Safe for Cocoa"

He writes in part:
 At the heart of this (the fallout in the Ivory Coast) lies that great unmentionable of African politics: Should Africans embrace the artificialities in which they live for the sake of preserving the foreign-owned economies that underpin them, or should they find a way of reasserting their actual identities?
Theoretically his argument is underpinned by an acceptance of the artificiality of the African nation-state.  This artificiality makes the African nation-state a contradiction at best and an incoherent mess at worst.

In effect, the adventures of colonialism and the production of nationalism have ceded (in the vein of Mary Shelley) unworkable (for Africans) Frankensteins that are doomed to exist in contradictory and permanent crisis.

For the colonial master this Frankenstein is not an oversight or a mistake.  It is purposeful.  The post-colonial Frankenstein nation-state is a vehicle for continued resource mining.

So France steps in to 'stabilize' the Ivory Coast and one despot is replaced by another.  The same process (game) has been played over and over again (even in South Africa).

In these terms, as Serumaga points out, the pressing issue (existential question) is whether Africans should continue to fight to keep the Frankenstein relevant/alive.

Most nationalist politics/politicos (produced inside of European colonialism as they were) are occupied with keeping the Frankenstein alive.

Austerity measures, privatization, even democratization, are all derived remedies meant to keep the Frankenstein alive.

But it does not work because the Frankenstein is not real (not viable).  It is a fiction propped up by political myths that serve the masters who put it together on the makeshift table of colonialism.

Nothing inside the post-colonial state is untouched.  Fanon called it right in the late 1950s.  Even the politics of consciousness that describe resistance is in effect "parasitic" like sociologist Orlando Patterson might say.

In other words, it does not exist outside of a parasitic relationship (host and parasite).

And so the organic context of what is African and what the African response should be is lost.  Disfigured.

How to reconstruct that return is the next vexing question.

Fanon claimed the peasants to be the reservoir for a politics or organic resistance and return.  Marx called the proletariat the vanguard in Hegelian terms (dialectical materialism).

But who in African politics is above the manipulated Frankenstein that is the post-colonial nation-state with all its derived affectations (mimicries)?

Can we find an authentic African underneath the power politics of the post(s) eras?  I remain confounded and looking to move to outer space - preferably to heaven on a liter motorcycle with Rani Mukerjee riding pillion into eternity ;0)

There are no easy answers and these kind of questions will frustrate the 'real world' types who like just to negotiate imbalances and get the most out of the least we have inherited.

But these are enduring and pressing questions that brought DuBois and Nkrumah to the 1945 Manchester Conference to ask what a post-World War II Africa would/should look like.

Despite the failure(s) of Panaficanism and the contrived nonsense of Mbeki's 'renaissance' the questions stand.

And they stand because ... well because we are still not free.

Onward!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

NEGRO SEEKING WORK

*
So Mr. Bad Hair has people on the ground in Hawaii trying to unearth the greatest hoax in A-merry-ca's long history. Not since the birth of a certain little guy in a town called Bethlehem has so much been made of where a child was born.


"He spent $2 million in legal fees trying on to get away from this issue, and if it weren't an issue, why wouldn't he just solve it?" he said. "I wish he would because if he doesn't, it's one of the greatest scams in the history of politics and in the history, period. You are not allowed to be a president if you're not born in this country. Right now, I have real doubts."

Donald, I know that some folks don't like it, but I have to tell you, I have my doubts as well. So I was wondering; could you use someone else on the ground in Hawaii? For a small fee-- and daily per diem --I would be glad to interview people and go over every public record with a fine- toothed comb for you. No one will work harder than the field to uncover this fraud perpetrated on the A-merry-can people by this Obama guy.


If there is some kind of fraud there; I will find it. Promise.


Finally, it seems that another republican presidential candidate is a little confused about his own intentions to lead our great country.





"Running for president has become such an elaborate press operation that it's sometimes hard for even the candidates to keep up.


Just ask Tim Pawlenty, who sounded a verbal miscue during an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan Tuesday night about whether or not he's actually running for president.


"I'm running for president," Pawlenty told CNN. "I'm not putting my hat in the ring rhetorically or ultimately for vice president so I'm focused on running for president.


" The comments--a partial transcript of which was forwarded to reporters ahead of the actual broadcast of the interview--instantly made big news, given Pawlenty, technically, has filed only an "exploratory committee." It's a phrase that seems to imply the former Minnesota governor is still thinking about whether to mount a full-fledged run, even though it's fairly obvious he's very much in the 2012 race.


But Pawlenty's aides quickly tried to stamp down the story their boss was officially in the race, insisting that CNN had mischaracterized the ex-governor's comments. As evidence, they pointed to another segment in the interview in which he dialed back his initial claim. "I've got an exploratory committee up and running, and we'll have a final or full announcement in the coming weeks here,"


Pawlenty added later. "It won't be too much longer, but everything is headed in that direction." "I'm running for president," Pawlenty told CNN. "I'm not putting my hat in the ring rhetorically or ultimately for vice president so I'm focused on running for president."


The comments--a partial transcript of which was forwarded to reporters ahead of the actual broadcast of the interview--instantly made big news, given Pawlenty, technically, has filed only an "exploratory committee." It's a phrase that seems to imply the former Minnesota governor is still thinking about whether to mount a full-fledged run, even though it's fairly obvious he's very much in the 2012 race. [Source]



OK, let's run that back: "I AM RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT". Mr. Pawlenty, I think that you were pretty clear. But yet your aides said that "CNN had mischaracterized" your comments.


You would make a great republican President. They all lied when their lips were moving.


*Pic courtesy of theGrio.

Fair/Light Skin and Beauty II

Somewhere in early January 2010 I wrote a post about skin color and beauty. 

In that post I discussed the emphasis by many on being fair/light to emulate a white vision/version of beauty.

This morning I read the following article in The New Age newspaper that covers some of the same contrived socio-political ground. According to the article Jamaican women, particularly poor women, use harmful skin lighteners (bleachers) as "a ticket to a better life."

The lighter your skin the more desirable you are:
Mikeisha Simpson covers her body in greasy white cream and bundles up in a track suit to avoid the fierce sun of her native Jamaica, but she's not worried about skin cancer.

The 23-year-old resident of a Kingston ghetto hopes to transform her dark complexion to a cafe-au-lait-color common among Jamaica's elite and favored by many men in her neighborhood. She believes a fairer skin could be her ticket to a better life. So she spends her meager savings on cheap black-market concoctions that promise to lighten her pigment.

Simpson and her friends ultimately shrug off public health campaigns and reggae hits blasting the reckless practice.

"I hear the people that say bleaching is bad, but I'll still do it. I won't stop 'cause I like it and I know how to do it safe," said Simpson, her young daughter bouncing on her hip.

People around the world often try to alter their skin color, using tanning salons or dyes to darken it or other chemicals to lighten it. In the gritty slums of Jamaica, doctors say the skin lightening phenomenon has reached dangerous proportions.
Skin color prejudice among so called 'non-whites' (still hate being a 'non') is still very prevalent just about everywhere.  Even now, 16 years into apartheid, relationships/marriages are often decided on skin color (the lighter the better).

The need to emulate whiteness in skin color and hair color/texture is astounding.  Just yesterday I was reading about a black artist who was talking about her proud African upbringing and in the accompanying picture she was wearing a blond wig and blue contacts.

What kind of pride is that?

Have I missed something?  Is it OK now to just accept the white beauty myths and pile them on-top of all the other racist baggage that comes from our past and act like we have overcome?

Surely there is still a need to think critically about our liberation.

Dunno.

If you are still thinking about lightening your skin, or dealing with "hyper-pigmentation", you may want to check out this self-help remedy.

My brain is fried and I need to take a break from ranting here :)

And we are not free.

Onward!