A bad idea in the minds of some; but, in my opinion it’s a good move. I mean let’s be honest: there’s nothing that Zimmerman can say that will change the minds of the many people who would probably stand in line for tickets to watch him get strapped to a bed and put to death in a Florida prison. After all, as Zimmerman says, should that happen, it would be all part of God’s plan — yeah, who is he to question it, right?

But I digress…

Zimmerman gave an exclusive interview to Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel recently. Hannity isn’t exactly the go-to guy when you’re trying to convince the world that you’re not racist. Yet, the decision to do so was strategic genius, in my opinion. I mean think about this: the vast majority of the people who have donated, or will potentially donate to his defense fund, are the exact demographic Fox News targets. After all, unlike the left-wing media machine, Fox News and pundits the likes of Sean Hannity aren’t biased in their reporting and expression of views.

Yep, nothing like those MSNBC racists:

At the end of the day, how in the world can any self-respecting person ever say that George Zimmerman is racist? How can it be said when thanks to Sean Hannity and the folks over at the house Rupert built, we now know that Zimmerman mentored black kids, voted for Obama and wasn’t upset by his “if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon” comment when he weighed in, and that he wears hoodies like he says in the following web exclusive video?

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First, there was last week when he suggested that some people who support Obama would rather not own their own keep and instead would rather be his “slave,” and now he is comparing Social Security to slavery.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is why I think of Mr. West as a slave-catcher. In a world where he cannot rightfully locate and identify the actual slaves (the imprisoned and those buried under unrealistic student loan debt are the first and most obvious in my opinion), he must grab at ill-thought and apparently unexamined ideas and create them as slavery. Once he has swayed enough people with the age-old “say some shit and if ONE person repeats or believes it, then it is true” approach, he can set about his mission of “freeing” those “slaves” in a quest to make their overall situations better.

Now I never claimed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I am damned sure that slavery has NOTHING to do with receiving benefits that are usually quite necessary.

Now how does this make him a slave catcher? Well, on the surface and with the use of a little slick language, he has reversed the definition of it, almost to make it seem as if being a slave is a positive for the person being held down and a negative for the one bankrolling the operation. But no, slaves are not employees or dependent beneficiaries, they’re captive and uncompensated participants and would usually exit the system if given a chance to understand why they should want to. So now, with the roles properly reversed, he can take non-slaves and in turn CREATE NEW ONES, which by comparative definition makes him a slave catcher, taking those who have something – albeit it usually very little – and leaving them with nothing other than their apparently wasted efforts.

No, Allen West, Social Security is not a form of slavery. Nor is being among the working poor, elderly or otherwise underprivileged. True slavery comes in the form of having an even worse station in life than that, and to blame those people in an attempts to bring them closer to the actual definition of the word does not make you a “Harriet Tubman” as you champion yourself with your tastelessly applied metaphor, it simply makes you the 2012 version of these guys.

The post Slave Catcher Alert: Allen West Has a Weird Slavery Fetish, Likens Obama to a Slave Master appeared first on THE INTERSECTION | MADNESS & REALITY.

Walker, who is a long-time member of the boycott, divest, and sanction movement pointed out her own coming of age under American segregation and said Israeli policies were far worse. The writer expressed hope that her boycott would “have enough of an impact on Israeli civilian society to change the situation.”

Walker further writes…

In that regard, I offer an earlier example of THE COLOR PURPLE’s engagement in the world-wide effort to rid humanity of its self-destructive habit of dehumanizing whole populations.  When the film of The Color Purple was finished, and all of us who made it decided we loved it, Steven Spielberg, the director, was faced with the decision of whether it should be permitted to travel to and be offered to the South African public.  I lobbied against this idea because, as with Israel today, there was a civil society movement of BDS aimed at changing South Africa’s apartheid policies and, in fact, transforming the government.

It was not a particularly difficult position to hold on my part:  I believe deeply in non-violent methods of social change though they sometimes seem to take forever, but I did regret not being able to share our movie, immediately, with (for instance) Winnie and Nelson Mandela and their children, and also with the widow and children of the brutally murdered, while in police custody, Steven Biko, the visionary journalist and defender of African integrity and freedom — (read the letter in its entirety).

Walker has been increasingly steadfast in her activism against Israel’s policies against Palestinians and has traveled to the Gaza strip on a couple occasions. In 2011 she joined a flotilla of ships to help bring supplies and raise awareness– (source).

Author: Alice Walker

The violent conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has been a major source of contention for decades for the myriad of reasons and has prompted strong opinions from and about both sides. Attempts have been made to mediate a resolution that would placate both parties, to no avail.  Tuesday, an unknown militant group claimed responsibility for a cross-border attack in Israel on Monday, prompting airstrikes by Israeli military forces on “militant targets in Gaza”. Monday’s and Tuesday’s violence resulted in several casualties, including a two-year old Palestinian child, due to a misfired rocket launch.

As predicted, Alice Walker’s position on the conflict didn’t bode well with commenters on various news platforms that picked up the story. Some readers  unleashed racist tirades against the writer, accusing her of anti-Semitism and “reverse racism”.

As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict continues to boil over, Is Alice Walker justified in her current stance against Israel’s policies? 

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One of the women in the group smashed a glass in CeCe’s face, cutting and injuring her. As a matter of fact, the glass sliced all the way through her cheek, lacerating a salivary gland. A fight ensued. One of the attackers, a 47-year-old male, died. CeCe was arrested and charged, and self-defense was not considered. By some counts, CeCe was denied proper medical care and was kept in solitary confinement for a month. The woman who initiated the incident and smashed the glass in CeCe’s face was charged nearly a year later; as far as I am aware there is no acknowledgment of a hate crime, despite the guy who was killed having a prior criminal history and swastika tattoo on his chest.

Also, the woman was charged after CeCe pled guilty to manslaughter.

CeCe was sentenced on June 4, 2012 to 41 months in prison. Whether or not she was given due process and justice, she is to spend 3 years and five months in prison. Some of you may be thinking, ‘she plead guilty, now she has to face the consequences.’ What might be the problem with this line of thinking?

CeCe McDonald is a male-to-female transgender woman, and while she identifies as a woman, she will be housed in a facility with male inmates.

The obvious issue popping into the minds of most people invested in CeCe’s case and hopeful for her wellbeing is the issue of physical and sexual violence by the other inmates in the facility. It is a concern an has been reported to the Transgender Law Center from previous inmates that this is a very real fear and concern for both male-to-female transgender inmates and also female-to-male transgender inmates. Rape and sexual violence in prisons are heavy concerns, especially for trans* inmates. There may be coerced sex by another inmate or inmates, or also prison staff. Coercion is rape. There may be gang rapes and violence. And there another main form of sexual violation on trans* inmates according to reports to TLC is unnecessary strip searches and forced nudity:

a frequent substitute for, or precursor to, sexual violence or coercion is the use of strip searches or forced nudity by deputies, guards, officers, or medical personnel. Because of the severe reduction in privacy that occurs in jails and prisons, transgender people have very little control over who sees their bodies. Bodies that often times do not conform to the identity they know to be true or at least society’s expectations about that identity. Therefore, strip searches and public nudity can be especially humiliating to transgender prisoners.

Transgender men in particular report being subjected to unnecessary strip searches. Two men who have been held in San Francisco County jail have told me about frequent strip searches conducted by deputies and medical personnel for no reason other than to seemingly satisfy curiosity. These searches were not related to visits or interactions in which these guys could have been passed contraband. Instead, they seemed to come randomly from many quarters and occasionally involve two or more people doing the search.

Back in Sacramento County Jail, one of the two women described above and two of her fellow transgender prisoners related stories of being forced to walk topless through a gauntlet of male cells in order to get new clothes each week. Along the way, the women were subjected to taunts and catcalls. The very act of walking the line made them objects of both harassment and ridicule.

There are also a whole host of other concerns that include:

- Lack of competent medical care

- Access to programs, jobs, and recreational activities

- Ability to dress properly

- Respecting one’s gender identity and referring to them by the proper name and/or pronoun

- Segregation from the rest of the prison population. This is a huge deal because it has already happened in CeCe’s case. She was kept in solitary confinement for nearly a month by most accounts. Prison staff may determine to place trans* inmates in confinement as a way to, possibly, keep them safe or keep the incidences from occurring. This makes less likely and nearly impossible for the inmate to receive jobs or proper treatment programs.

Also, according to TLC:

The stated purpose of administrative segregation is that people being confined within it are a proven danger to themselves, staff, or other inmates. By using this classification for transgender prisoners, the message is being sent that a person’s gender identity itself is threatening to the institution and that person must be locked away in a prison within the prison.

The Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex (TGI) Justice Project has a prison survival guide for trans* and intersex inmates. According to the survival guide, written by transgender women, “prison politics outweigh prison policy.” Sadly, this comes after the explanation that if you are any race other than Black and housed with the general population, you will be removed or leave the yard because the gang violence geared toward you, as the transgender inmate, will be so harsh.

And sadly, I don’t think that this post adequately describes the horror that trans* inmates have faced, nor the injustice that CeCe and others are facing and will continue to face. According to an article that includes a survey of trans* people of color by Advocate.com:

38% of African-American respondents experienced police harassment, 15% reported being physically assaulted by the police, and 7% reported being sexually assaulted by the police; 38% of African American MTF (male-to-female) respondents reported being sexually assaulted by either another inmate or a staff member in jail/prison; 41% of African-American respondents reported being imprisoned because of their race and gender identity alone; a whopping 47% reported having been in jail or prison for any reason.

According to this article, transgender people are 10-15 times more likely to be incarcerated at some point in their life, and have to face the horrifying circumstances outlined above. Additionally, prior to their incarceration, they often feel unable to rely on the police for protection because the police are often perpetrators of crimes against them. Over 50% of trans* people, notwithstanding incarceration, have been victim to some sort of violence; self-report surveys vary but a significant number of these attacks are sexual violence. 43% of trans* rape victims (both FTM and MTF) who participated in self-report surveys believed their perpetrators homophobia to be the motivation for the assault while 35% suggested transphobia to be the motivation.

[imagebrowser id=3]I applaud President Obama for concluding recently that PREA will apply to all Federal confinement facilities. President Obama has included language that acknowledges the concerns that I have for CeCe and all LGBTQQI people that may be incarcerated at some point. I do have wonders for the general public though; and the main one would be exactly how effective the Prison Rape Elimination Act would be henceforth. A few of the guidelines that detention centers must follow in order to be in compliance with the new guidelines under PREA is that they must:

• Staff should be trained on effective and professional communication with our communities.

• Housing assignments should take into consideration individual vulnerabilities but do not, in most circumstances, place [LGTBQQI] in inferior wings or pods.

• An analysis is required of whether an abuser was motivated by bias against [LGBTQQI], if abuse does occur.

• Transgender detainees cannot be searched solely to determine their genitalia, and determinations must be made on a case-by-case basis about whether [LGBTQQI] should be held in a men’s or women’s facility and cannot be based solely on genital status.

President Obama and company have included many great provisions for trans* inmates, including that they must be given the opportunity to shower separately from other inmates. And while one would hope that these provisions would provide some safety for transgender men and women prisoners, I wonder how effectively it is enforced and how much protection they are really being provided. CeCe will still be housed in a prison of men.

Also, if prison staff are part of the problem, how effective will PREA be? And if trans* people are afraid (with very good reason) to come forward and make staff aware of their rights and request their protections, what can be done? And if, by the counts of transwomen who wrote a prison survival guide for transwomen, prison politics outweigh prison policies, what good is PREA exactly?

What will happen to the CeCes of our community?

The post CeCe McDonald: Self-Defense and Still Defending appeared first on THE INTERSECTION | MADNESS & REALITY.

Singer, Terius “The Dream” Nash also came to the Gwyneth’s defense, initially absorbing blame for the tweet…

The Dream then resorted to the “We give too much power to that word!” argument to further defend Lady Paltrow’s honor. An argument that only seems to surface when their favored non-Black friends come under fire for using the word liberally. I hardly ever hear rappers use that convoluted defense when “Nigger” is used with malicious intent to slight them or when they feel as if they’re being discriminated against in some way, however.

And since The Dream, Beyonce, Jay-Z, et al have reached the pinnacle of the “Class-ceiling” and cultivated a friendship with their privileged friend in the process, it wouldn’t serve their personal interests to explain to Gwyneth why it probably wasn’t a good idea to tweet the picture with that caption. And some would probably even argue that the onus should fall on Jay-Z and Kanye West for titling a song “Niggas in Paris” to begin with. Fair enough I suppose, since some rappers aren’t really known for tact and thinking of anything other than money.  And since Gwyneth’s Handbook for All things Epicurious and Goopish probably didn’t come equipped with a chapter on: The politics of navigating urban lingo and etiquette, and since rappers see no monetary value or incentive in checking their White protégés and/or friends (see here and here) when they commit racially insensitive infractions, perhaps I can try to offer a bit of insight about why it wasn’t entirely cool for Gwyneth to reference her “Watch the Throne” experience the way she did, without branding her as a racist…

When Lady Gwyneth drones on and on about her privilege and wealth, she’s already illustrating how out of touch she is with the rest of the country, particularly about those navigating the trenches of the urban jungle. Paltrow definitely may not have had ill-intent with her tweet, but the fact still remains that it came from a place of unfamiliarity with a world she knows nothing about. Some of the responsibility should fall on Kanye and Jay-Z for brazenly titling the song “Niggas in Paris” while being far removed from their former lives and (maybe) expecting their newly acquired, wealthy White friends to find creative other ways to reference the song — (although the tweet did seem to reference the actress literally being on stage with some Niggas in Paris“for real”). The Dream’s shoddy excuses and rationalizations for the tweet…

 “A word means something when u react to it! … Context is everything. Meaning it in the context as a Song which is how we Sold it to the world!!!!!! It is what it is … And actually N—az was in Paris! LOL. Stop wasting God’s time and do something with your life. Love not war.”

…  make him and his rap cohorts just as complicit in its gross misuse when “Nigga” suddenly turns to “Nigger”. To me, you can’t have it both ways; you can’t defend your White homegirl’s or boy’s right to use it while in the presence of Black people and then get upset if they then turn around in a moment of anger and hurl the epithet in its original, hateful context.

Niggas in Patris 4 Real: Gwyneth Paltrow pictured backstage in Paris with Kelly Rowland, Beyonce, Jay-Z, Spike Lee, and The Dream

There is definitely no need for the type of alarm that would call for boycotting Goop (other than it’s just an annoying newsletter) and creating online petitions. Calling the actress out with a warning, since her nouveau riche Black friends won’t, should suffice just fine; if she shrugs if off, then perhaps we need to examine the fact that her rich, Black friends wrote a song and titled it “Niggas in Paris” and told her to go ahead and repeat it as liberally and as often as she chooses to.  Hip Hop Mogul, Russell Simmons also rushed to Gwyneth’s defense, with a somewhat disingenuous argument of his own …

“It was this explosive expression that spread out of the inner cities of America into the walkmans of kids like Gwyneth Paltrow during their childhoods in 1980s and 1990s. It allowed white kids to begin to sympathize with the plight of many in black America. And these kids have overwhelmingly become progressive in their politics and their social concerns. Having any Hollywood starlet at your concert was unimaginable, and having her quote your lyrics as a badge of honor that she was hanging out with you, you never would have dreamed of that – until your poetry hit the market and changed the world.

So, for Gwyneth to tweet out her excitement about hip-hop taking over the planet is a good thing. She didn’t mean any harm, she just was trying to ball so hard, and like Jay-Z says, “motherf*ckers can’t fine” her. (Source)

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Listen to what his mother says:

Rudy Eugene: Naked Face-Eating Man Shot By Miami Police

But that aside, I figured black folk would be raising all kinds of hell and protesting in Miami by now; I mean, now that we know it was a brotha shot and killed by the police. OK, so he was eating another man’s face while growling like a wild animal; not normal, I get that. But damn, he was naked and unarmed. Hell, I know he wasn’t wearing a hoodie or nothing, but did they really have to shoot him? I’m only asking because you know how that hoodie thing plays out in Florida. But yet ain’t nobody marching or nothing, so I guess it doesn’t matter; yep, maybe he should’ve had Skittles.

To hear his friends tell it, he never used hard drugs:

I mean seriously, is this what’s hot out in the streets?

C’mon y’all, Harriet Tubman didn’t take a front seat on the bus for this type of foolishness:

JOPPA, Md. — A Maryland college student has admitted murdering and dismembering a man and then eating his heart and part of his brain, police said Thursday.

Kenyan-born Alexander Kinyua, who has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Nigerian national Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie, allegedly carried out the gruesome deed after ranting online about human sacrifices and death cults.

The 37-year-old victim had been living at the Kinyua family home in Joppa, Md., for the past six months, the Baltimore Sun reported.

His severed head and hands were found in the home and more of his remains were dumped in a trash container outside a church, police said.

Kinyua, 21, allegedly confessed to killing Agyei-Kodie with a knife then eating his heart and portions of his brain. 

Alexander Kinyua (L), has confessed to killing his roomate, Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie (R), and eating his heart and part of his brain.

Harford County Sheriff Jesse Bane said the crime was among the most brutal and bizarre he had seen in his 40 years with the force — and he had never come across a case of cannibalism.

“I’ve not encountered that in this county, and I hope we never encounter it again,” Bane said.

Kinyua’s father, Antony, reported Agyei-Kodie missing last Friday after going for a jog.

Then Tuesday night, Antony called police to say his other son, Jarrod, had found a human head and two human hands inside metal tins under a blanket in the laundry room, according to charging documents.

Kinyua told his father they were instead animal remains but when interviewed by police he allegedly admitted to killing Agyei-Kodie.

Kinyua faced a court Thursday via live video feed from Harford County Detention Center. The judge ruled he be held without bail.

Kinyua is a third-year electrical engineering major at Morgan State University and fellow students said his behavior had become increasingly troubled in recent months, the Baltimore Sun reported.

He was charged with first-degree assault and reckless endangerment for allegedly fracturing the skull of a classmate with a baseball bat on May 20, in what police described as a random attack.

Kinyua, who was born in Kenya but has lived in Maryland with his family for the past nine years, had also began making threatening online posts, including recent Facebook messages about “mass human sacrifices.”

I don’t know what’s really going on in Black America; and, it’s a damn shame I can’t even blame it on crack. I don’t know, but black folks eating  other people here in America, sounds a little bit like Negroes taking this post-racial thing too seriously. Sure we might be all “equal” now, but does that mean we gotta do what “other people” do? I tell you one thing that hasn’t changed, cannibal or not, police will still buss a cap in a nigga’s ass. I know assimilation can be a bitch; but, being post-racial doesn’t give black folks creative license to start eating people and having shootouts over Kool-Aid.

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No seriously, black folks didn’t even have to leave their homes to attend the Klan BBQ, because they were mostly set up on our lawns. But no, not today; not in North Carolina; the new Klan isn’t as welcoming of coloreds. They keep this up, next thing you know Negroes will be forced to buy their own rope and hang themselves. At any rate, I have to commend them for warning us by passing out fliers; yep, being black and showing up with a bucket of fried chicken would have been awkward.

This from the Winston-Salem Journal:

REIDSVILLE – The Ku Klux Klan protested in Eden last week, and this week some of its members have been passing out fliers inviting people in Reidsville to a cross-burning.

The fliers were placed in and around Sherwood Drive, Linville Drive, Reids School Road and Poplar Street in the city.

Annie P. Pinnix and her husband were among the residents who received the flier.

“I’m a little bothered by it,” Pinnix said.

Pinnix said the flier was found in her and her neighbors’ driveways, rolled up like a newspaper and tied with a yellow rubber band. Reidsville Police Chief Edd Hunt confirmed other residents found the fliers in a similar fashion.

The flier reads: “Join us, the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, for a rally and cross lighting, Saturday, May 26, Harmony, North Carolina. Free Admition (sic)-White People Only. No alcohol, drugs, fighting, glass bottles or weapons. Free on site camping-all major motels in area. Souvenirs. Vendors. Food and beverages for Sale. Cross lighting at dusk-a white unity event. Live country band. Security provided by LWK.”

I love the way they make it sound like such a groovy fun time. Which I’m sure it would be without any minorities in attendance. I mean, who really wants to have to curb their malevolence and repugnance of “others,” because of the company they’re amongst, right?

The flier also provided contact information for those wanting to attend the event.

Pinnix’s husband found the flier in their driveway. She said he wasn’t bothered by it, but she said it really makes her wonder what’s going on in Reidsville and if any of her neighbors called the hotline to attend the event.

Pinnix has lived in her neighborhood for at least six years and said it’s the first time she has seen something like this.

Hunt said the police station has received a few phone calls informing them about the fliers, but heard no real concern from residents. The issue has been passed on for the detectives’ division of the police department to look into.

Hunt said he isn’t sure if there is a connection to the KKK protests in Eden on May 8 or if the group passing out fliers has any connection to Reidsville.

I realize for many of us minorities, such an event and shindig would be tough to miss. But see black people, you guys can’t have it all. You can’t expect the tolerance of youse people to increase overnight, just because there’s a half-white man lives in the White House. You guys need to look at the bright side of things: If Obama was indeed 100% black, you people would have to contend with the issue of white folks going Nat Turner crazy and buying up all the guns (and watermelon); and, even more intimidating, hanging nooses as a form of, “Go the fuck back to Africa,” threat.

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Not to mention the conversation between my graddaddy with my twin and I when we were (maybe) 10 years old. We were out with him and there were a couple of gentlemen who were, um… ‘together’ and my brother and I started making jokes at their expense… My granddad explained that they had done nothing to us and, in such, were due AT LEAST the respect due to any other human being. He started the lesson (which was surely longer than the above sentence) with “boy…” which meant that he was not pleased with our behavior. Needless to say, that approach has followed us on into adulthood. Sure, we’re macho men who still get our hands dirty, drive manual transmissioned cars and raise (somewhat) traditional families, but we allow people the personal respect to at least be indifferent to how they live their lives, so long as they play us the same.
Sure, my brain-to-mouth (or keyboard) filter often errs to the ragged edge of couth or politically correct or even mature sometimes, but dammit my intentions are usually good.

Anyway, looking deeper into the amendment, it not only carries the redundant banning of something that is already illegal, but goes on to remove legal recognition of domestic unions/partnerships. The language I am seeing used in support of the amendment is to “protect the union of marriage from activist judges,” which again is striking up a fight that shouldn’t need to be fought in the first place, but why in the hell are we needing to cut off the lines of benefits/support for (yes, even heterosexual) unmarried couples WITH this? Healthcare benefits, right to make emergency room decisions, childcare, domestic violence protections and more stand to be lost on people if this amendment is passed.
I actually got into it with a friend-since-12 on Friday over this one. He is a son of my churches former pastor, and is now a pastor himself and he went into this one with blinders fully on. When called on it, he never changed direction or even addressed any other issue than the gay marriage thing. I wound up leaving the conversation.

With the vote coming up on May 8th and knowing that I would be at work, and not wanting to take a 10 month-old out to the polls, my mom and I went to early voting on Saturday morning. She tagged along not because she wanted to vote or particularly even understood the measure, but when I mentioned Friday’s discussion with my friend (whom she knows as well) on the way home from work, she started with “yeah, I’d been meaning to ask you about that” and I explained the measure and what it attempted to accomplish on its surface, what it would mean to people around us, and what it would ACTUALLY accomplish in the name of claiming something that already exists anyway. Her response? “well, that’s fucking wretched! What time are you going to vote tomorrow?”

To be totally honest, I gave about a damn about ANYTHING else on my state’s primary ballots this year, and I do not even feel bad about that. With an incumbent president for whom I already planned to vote, I had no real plans to even VOTE in the primaries. I make no qualms that I randomly pushed buttons matching names I saw in my neighborhood on the way to the polling station only 2 miles away until I saw the “AGAINST” on amendment one; and as a black Christian male, I proudly voted against it. I was very much, in spirit and intentions, with the Triad People of Faith on this one, to the point where if anyone had offered to put one of their signs in my yard, I would have gladly and graciously supported it. Perhaps giving more clarity to my “Jesus was a Liberal” post from before, there is literally ZERO amount of out-of-context scripture that I would then or will from now allow me to vote for anything as damaging to families as NC’s Amendment One would be.
In the end, bigotry and zeal won out and an amendment that will conspire to screw a lot of people after people voted with their preacherman and his cronies instead of their informed consciences, but I know how I voted and I am vocally proud to say it.

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This via The Real News Network:

We are here to say that incarceration has nothing to do with solving the problems of American society it has everything to do with putting people in their place repressing people and it’s time for this to end, we want jobs, education, health care, we do not want jails…right now the United States represents 5 percent of the world’s population but we incarcerate 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, this in a nation that’s obsessed with the idea of freedom, the question is why, why do we incarcerate so many people than other places in the world, we clearly don’t have the answers so we are here to say we have to stand up for people like Mumia Abu Jamal. - JOHANNA FERNANDEZ, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, BARUCH COLLEGE, CUNY

It is imperative that we continue to bare witness to the many injustices suffered particular by people of color and poor people in general, all across these United States of America – a country where as you know, said people are over-represented within the criminal justice system, by no accident.

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In an unsettling, macabre, seemingly sexist and racist depiction of Female Genital Mutilation during an April 15^th World Art Day event at Moderna Museet in Stockholm; Linde purportedly decided to highlight the issue of FGM, by well, appearing  to mock the issue; insinuating himself into a cake shaped like a naked African woman, as the head. With his face covered in crude, Minstrel-y makeup Linde, who is an Afro-European man, yelled out in pain each time event revelers gleefully cut a slice. Swedish Minister of Culture, Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth kicked off the clitoridectomy by cutting a slice from the bottom (where the clitoris would be); smiling her way through Linde’s performance.  The artist and Culture Minister incited the ire of the National Afro-Swedish Association, who demanded that Liljeroth resign for participating in the spectacle…

“According to the Moderna Museet, the ‘cake party’ was meant to problematize female circumcision but how that is accomplished through a cake representing a racist caricature of a black woman complete with ‘black face’ is unclear,” Kitimbwa Sabuni, the spokesperson for the National Afro-Swedish Association told the The Local.  “One cannot see how it benefits those people to degrade them in this way with racist caricatures in this kind of mocking spectacle.”

Sabuni argues that the Minister of Culture’s participation in the event, which he describes as having “cannibalistic overtones”, shows poor judgment for someone in her position…

“Her participation, as she laughs, drinks, and eats cake, merely adds to the insult against people who suffer from racist taunts and against women affected by circumcision.” He said. “We have no confidence in her any longer.”

In  (a somewhat patronizing) response to the outrage, that seemed to dismiss the National Afro-Swedish Association’s concerns, Liljeroth opined that the organization’s anger and disappointment was misdirected at her instead of the artist in question, and unwarranted…

“I was invited to speak at World Art Day about art’s freedom and the right to provoke. And then they wanted me to cut the cake. [He] claims that it challenges a romanticized and exoticized view from the west about something that is really about violence and racism. Art needs to be provocative.”

Makode Linde himself seems more pleased by the attention and conversations his exhibit has prompted, rather than it conveying the message he claimed to be trying to highlight, as evidenced by his Facebook page where he wrote; “This is after getting my vagaga mutilated by the minister of culture, Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth. Before cutting me up she whispered ‘Your life will be better after this’ in my ear. “

While art is indeed supposed to encourage discourse, I’m not exactly sure what to make of Makode Linde’s art installation, as I’m not familiar with his body of work or any recurring themes any of it is supposed to invoke. I will say that the image of a man, in Minstrel makeup, portraying an African woman and victim of FGM as a caricature for a predominantly White audience, is unsettling. Particularly since his message of awareness seemed to be lost in translation amongst the sea of laughing and smiling European faces; none of which showed any semblance of concern about the intended message of Female Genital Mutilation or its effect on African women. Perhaps the artist set out to intentionally evoke the lassez faire reaction from event goers, to prove a point. Either way, I’m going to go ahead and tick off the FAIL box in this instance.

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