So, you know that debate over gun control we’ve had lately, in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting? Yeah, the one where everybody is talking past each other and not making any sense at all, or hardly offering solutions to the problem of gun violence. Yep, that one. Well, given that we’re all concerned about the safety of kids in schools in “certain parts” of the nation. Do check out what happened in Trenton, New Jersey this week. Yeah, you read the headline right. Uh-huh, so how’s that for irony, right? Yep, it seems that Officer Sleepy McSleepy is back in hot water again. I suppose getting suspended for sleeping in his patrol car while on the clock wasn’t bad enough. Now, Officer Richard Takach has “misplaced” hid semi-automatic service-issued weapon. I don’t know about you, but at this point, this cop needs to be fired. But considering that he works in a state that allows blind people to own, have, and shoot guns… umm, don’t be surprised if he isn’t relieved of duty.

This from NBC10:

A New Jersey cop who was spotted sleeping in his patrol car last summer has now lost a loaded handgun, according to his lawyer.

Trenton Police Officer Richard Takach misplaced the Glock semi-automatic handgun in the city’s West Precinct parking lot around 3 a.m. on Monday, his attorney Stuart Alterman said.

“It’s not a sign of him being careless,” Alterman added. “It was an accident. Nobody intentionally loses a weapon. He was changing in and out of his duty uniform to his street clothes. He was transferring his weapon from his duty holster to an off-duty holster. And unfortunately he lost a weapon. He left it on the car or the truck. When he realized it was gone, he called, he drove back to Trenton, they looked for it, and he notified his superiors immediately.”

Takach, a 15-year veteran, remained on the job and was scheduled to report for duty Tuesday night.

Takach was suspended in July after a photo was posted online showing him asleep in his patrol car while in uniform.

Watch the video:

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So this is where we’re at right now, black folks? Shoot, and here I thought the Love & Hip Hop Atlanta boycott petition on change.org was bad. Now Al Sharpton’s outfit is leading a boycott of the Django Unchained action figures being sold. Jesus Christ! Do we need another black kid armed with Skittles and Ice Tea to be shot because black rage is idle? But seriously, I could think of many other things to be pissed about as a person of color, other than some $299.00 collectibles being sold on Amazon. But hey, I suppose that’s just me being tired of being the angry black dude.

This from NewsOne:

Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network has been largely silent on the raging controversy surrounding Quentin Tarantino‘s ‘Django Unchained’ — until now.

In the wake of the release of action figures in the cast’s likeness, Rev. K.W. Tulloss, NAN’s president in Los Angeles, the progressive, civil rights organization called for a national boycott of the slavery toys which can be purchased for $299 on Amazon.com.

“Selling this doll is highly offensive to our ancestors and the African American community,” Rev. K.W. Tulloss, said to the NY Daily News. “The movie is for adults, but these are action figures that appeal to children. We don’t want other individuals to utilize them for their entertainment, to make a mockery of slavery.”

Now  yesterday I mentioned how this movie has made some of my “cousins” upset. And as I said then, some of them are probably more upset because the film was written and directed by Quentin Tarantino who happens to be white. I firmly believe that most are upset for no other reason than that fact. So, as far as the action figures go? Well, let’s just say that I don’t see them being packaged with chains, branding irons, or any of those ghastly iron masks used to torture slaves. That said, I really don’t see the big deal; because, it’s not like kids are running out to buy them.

It’s just standard movie marketing actually, and the National Action Network is doing a fine job by boosting sales with this frivolous attempt at a boycott of these dolls. Besides, it’s not like black folks are going to break their necks to drop #299.00 on Amazon to buy them anyway.

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So there’s a “Django” action figure being sold now; and, of course, some of my cousins are upset about it — yep, yet another reason yo hate this movie for some. The action figure isn’t actually a stocking stuffer, but I hope it doesn’t have a Kung Fu grip like G.I. Joe. Nope, no need to get Spike Lee any angrier about the movie than he already is at this point. Seriously, how much more disrespectful can they get with this thing? Oh well, it could have been worse. Yes, somebody could have had the bright idea to start selling a crack head action figure after the movie Do The Right Thing.

Oh, and speaking of “angry black men who hate white men with the audacity to make movies that illustrates what it was like for black folk back in 1853″. Did you hear what Tavis Smiley had to say about Tarantino and the movie Django Unchained? Well, like Spike Lee, he too hasn’t seen the movie nor intends to “pay to see it,” like he said in a recent interview featured on The Daily Beast. Like Lee, he too takes issue with a white movie director using his craft to bring to the big screen a film that revels in the painful but often avoided legacy of slavery. Responding to a question about his first reaction to the film, Smiley opens up the interview with the following:

Quentin Tarantino’s film, Django Unchained has as much to do with the history and culture of American descendants of African slaves as Dumbo has to do with the plight of Weimar Jewry. Spike Lee says that it disrespected his ancestors. It does not. It has nothing to do with them. It has everything to do with one white man’s fevered, second-hand vision of what it would be like to be something he probably can’t conceive. It’s like me attempting to write an intimate account of the pains of childbirth. I may have held a baby and changed a diaper, but one would doubt my authority on the subject.

Tarantino obviously knows black people, but only a white man in America could believe that this provides him with the authority to speak on the black American experience. Like 99.9999 percent of the white population, he has minimal intimacy with the culture of the descendants of American slaves. That culture, imbibed from birth by American blacks raised in black American households, involves an intimate, often subconscious acknowledgment of history, of a unique place in the American hierarchy, of a struggle against mainstream paradigms of who and what we are. These are intimacies of which whites are necessarily ignorant — they’re white. Just as I, as a male, have no intimate knowledge of birthing pains, whites have no knowledge of being black. They can gain an abstract conception, but that’s it.

Um, excuse me, I know Tarantino is white and all, but I sincerely doubt whether anyone alive today — including black folks — are able to have more than an abstract conception of what slavery was like. Yes, though many of its scars still run deep throughout the diaspora, to suggest that by virtue of one being charged with melanin comes with a certain esoteric knowledge of slavery even if we’re fifty years removed from Jim Crow. Which is funny because it’s as though being able to endure “the struggle” was woven into our cultural and biological DNA — it’s as if unlike any other race, we’re predisposed to endure any struggle. And thus, we’re exceptional or something.

Of course, Tarantino has every right to make a film on any subject he chooses, and he knows his audience well. The film has become the white literati’s preferred lens into the forbidden territory of black rage (a sort of reverse Uncle Tom’s Cabin). But when blacks discuss it as if this product of white Hollywood is a legitimate expression of our culture or our rage, we do ourselves a gross injustice; we follow the pattern of outsourcing our history and self-image to the majority; we marry ourselves into the grotesque self-images that their history has tried to stamp upon us.

Django Unchained is nothing more than one white Hollywood director’s fantasy of what black revenge would look like. It would be no more to us than another big screen cartoon if we dealt honestly and independently with our own history — a history white studios or directors would never touch. Such history puts the lie to the frames and simplifications with which Americans maintain our halo of historical innocence on matters related to race.

If we lavished similar imagination upon the history of the blacks who fought for the British during the American revolution to escape slavery, the German Coast uprising, the Prosser and Vesey rebellions, the ‘Crazy as St. Paul’ Nat Turner rebellion, the Black Seminole rebellion of 1835, the innumerable anecdotal tales of black resistance against slave-owners, perhaps we wouldn’t glom onto the work of a white director who (with his infantile insistence on his right to fling the word “nigger”) seems frightfully similar to the clueless character in Lou Reed’s infamous, “I Wanna be Black.” If we taught ourselves to regard the Civil War as “a failed war to protect and extend slavery,” and not “a war to free the slaves,” we would be less seduced by the siren song of second-hand revenge fantasy. If we debated among ourselves the virtues and vices of real old-west outlaws like the notorious Rufus Buck Gang, Cherokee Bill and Isom Dart, perhaps one white man’s notion of blacks in the old west would be less noteworthy. If we knew that black freedman populated Indian Territory and that a black lawman named Bass Reeves served as a Deputy U.S. Marshall for “Hanging Judge” Isaac Parker, we’d have a far richer, more complex view of our history than that promoted by the likes of Hollywood and Tarantino.

Yes, blacks are giving this film too much credence, but it’s our own fault. We have outsourced our history to the majority and failed to devise the means to teach our history to ourselves. In a country in which we have been historically subjugated and reviled, we accept instruction about our history and our place in it from those who subjugated and reviled us. That’s a bit insane. As long as we continue to do so, the likes of Django Unchained will rise from the level of mainstream curiosities from black-cultural dilettantes, to fake nipples mimicking the teat of cultural sustenance.

Listen: We can only imagine just what it must have been like for African slaves not just in America, but also those spread all throughout the new world; but even so, we have no earthly idea, despite the documented research, of just how bad it actually was. So what is the point to this post? That I can’t wait for Tarantino to do the sequel where Django and Madea try to bust John Brown the abolitionist, out of prison for killing white folks so everyone can be happy. Yep, let’s try to rescue a white man in the next one, since folk wanna act like he had Harriet Tubman giving lap dances in this one. as cathartic as this film isn’t for some, maybe my suggested sequel will be received with open arms only if a black guy produces, writes, and directs it. Because quite naturally, who else is there better to tell stories of the black struggle than black people, right? After all, last time I checked, black kids are still picking white dolls over black dolls; and, it ain’t like y’all Negroes supported Akeela And The Bee anyway.

So yeah, blame Tarantino for that too.

The post Slavery, Django Action Figures, & Why Tavis Smiley is Wrong appeared first on Madness & Reality.

I never realized what assimilation was or is. I never gave a thought about genocide or Manifest Destiny and I thought the holocaust only pertained to what Hitler did to the Jewish people. And it didn’t matter to me, because I never gave a thought about it. I was busy living life as I knew how, a Lakota woman. I was raised in our traditional ways but never taught all those things until I was older. I just thought life was about being traditional, with our ceremonies, songs, traditions, and ways. Sure, I went to a Christian church with my friends, went to Vacation Bible School for a popsicle, and I tested out other religions as if dipping my toes in cold lake water, but I never felt right about it. I didn’t feel wrong about it, I just felt as if it wasn’t my thing. And I made my way back to who I was and who I knew myself and my people to be. Lakota. That is where I belonged and where I feel centered.

The first time I realized that a child raised without their culture and forced into another way of life develops a huge hole in their soul was in college. I read an essay by a Vietnamese American student. She was adopted as a baby, from Vietnam, by white parents here in America. She was given a good life, she was raised with little blonde brothers and sisters and she had a suburban sounding name like Caitlyn or something. She did everything right and everything she was supposed to do in life, plus she won a scholarship to a college away from her family. It was her first time on her own and she discovered herself questioning who she was. She was drawn to other Asians and began hanging out with them. She learned of their likes, dislikes, cultures, foods, and she felt “at home and at peace.” Many of them were also adoptees, taken from their families and countries and grew up American. They were drawn to each other to fill a need in their souls. Yet she felt this with a great deal of guilt towards her American family. She loved her adopted family but felt at home, finally, with her friends, who in turn felt the same.

That is the first time I realized how taking the culture away from someone can be somewhat traumatic or really traumatic. How lost it makes that person feel. As I grew older and started seeing cases of this same thing happening with my own Native people and it was shocking. I remember the first time, was when I met a lady in her twenties. I saw her at the casino we both worked at and asked her what tribe she was from. She became angry and said “The lady that gave birth to me was from so and so reservation but I’m white. I grew up white. I was raised white, so don’t ever ask me that again.”

All I could say was “Whoa.” I stood there shocked. I never in my life met another Indian who hated being Indian, and she had to nerve to say she was white, when she was a few shades from midnight? That’s when someone told me she was raised in a foster home, who eventually adopted her.

I began then to understand what it meant to be assimilated and colonized. I began reading of our history and how children were taken by the US government from Native families once they were put on reservations. Children were forcefully taken out of their homes at the age of 5 and put in residential schools until the age of 18. They made handcuffs so small to detain these children. They were beaten for speaking their language, hair was cut, and all for the purpose of “Kill The Indian, Save The Man.”

This generation was our grandparents and great grandparents, who suffered physical, sexual,and emotional abuse in the residential schools. They were never given the chance to heal because these stories were never told. They were kept on the down low by the Catholic church and the government who ran the residential schools. Many of these boarding schools who are now in operation are now making monetary payments, now wanting to hear the stories of abuse and now trying to make amends. After a few were hit with class action lawsuits.

The next generations, also suffered and still suffer. By the foster care systems. Children were taken from their homes and given to white foster families to raise. The families receiving funding for every foster child, would often take on many foster children. The state holds the households they take the children from to the standards set by white society. Without ever listening to how we set family structures, how we take care of our own, or how we live with our traditions, they set everything up to fit a mold, that they live by.

Based on a 1976 study by the Association on American Indian Affairs found that 25 to 35% of all Indian children were being placed in out-of-home care. (Eighty-five percent of those children were being placed in non-Indian homes or institutions.) Congress then passed the Indian Child Welfare Act (25 U.S.C. § 1901) in 1978 in order to keep American Indian Children with American Indian families.

However, this is not being followed in South Dakota. Why? Because South Dakota has a dirty little secret. According to a wonderful and very thorough investigation by National Public Radio that inspired me to find my brother who was lost for 21 years due to failure of the fact that DSS didn’t follow ICWA regulations and place him with family. I was 19 years old when he was taken from his mother. I was employed and had my own place and he was 8 years old. When I asked them why they didn’t ask me, all they said was sorry and also ,sorry we can’t help you find him now. That is when I began to search for him and I also began to investigate why so many of our Indian children in South Dakota are taken from their homes and placed in Non-Native homes, this is when I found their dirty little secret.

South Dakota’s Department of Social Services receives money for Native children they take custody of. They receive more money than the non-Native children they take from their homes. Native children in South Dakota make up 15% of all the children of South Dakota, yet over half the children placed in foster care are Native. And only 13% of those children are placed in Native foster homes. While Native foster home sit empty for months. South Dakota removes children from their homes at a rate 3 time higher than any other state. But according to state figures, less than 12 percent of the children in foster care in South Dakota have been actually physically or sexually abused in their own homes. That’s less than the national average.

I still didn’t get to the dirty little secret yet. South Dakota, years ago, designated all Native children as “special needs.” Which means every Indian child in every school benefits that school with more funding and it also means that every Indian child taken from their home by DSS benefits South Dakota more than non-Native children. And although the state says they match all the money coming in from the feds dollar for dollar, the match is not exact. According

to records from 2010, the feds reimbursed the state three quarters for what it spent on the children they removed from their homes. There is also an adoption incentive program nobody hears about. The federal government gives the states $4,000 for each child who is placed into adoption from foster care. That amount is $12,000 for “special needs” children. And of course over half the children removed from homes in South Dakota are Indian children, who, you guessed it, are designated by the state as “special needs” just for being American Indian. The state has made almost a million dollars in the last ten years off of our most precious resource. Our children. They moved us to dry, barren lands that cannot be farmed, the took the gold and every resource from the lands they stole. And now they are after our children.

Why is this not making a splash? Why is it not news? Especially , in South Dakota? Because they will go to any length to cover up what they do to take our children away. Even as our children are being violated in the homes they are placed in. Here is one case that will blow anyone’s mind and still has yet to reach the media in South Dakota.

Former assistant state attorney Brandon Taliaferro and court appointed child advocate Shirley Schwab go to trial tomorrow, January 7, 2013 for crimes they didn’t commit. Mr. Taliaferro and Ms. Schwab have been indicted by SD Attorney General Martin Jackley with witness tampering and disclosure of confidential, Department of Social Services information. They are being accused of these crimes for encouraging two teenage Lakota foster girls to tell the truth about being molested by their non-Native foster parent, who is now serving a 15 year prison sentence for rape of a child under 10.

According to the Daily Kos: Mr. Taliaferro and Ms. Schwab now assert that South Dakota is engaged in a criminal conspiracy to discriminate against Lakota foster children and their mothers, fathers, grandparents and relatives. “It is financially beneficial for the DSS to remove American Indian children from their homes and place them in [white] foster homes,” said Attorney Taliaferro to the Aberdeen News on December 19, 2011. “[Had I followed] the orders of [my boss with respect to the Mette investigation, it] would have required [me] to violate the law, and ethical rules that govern attorney conduct.” Mr. Taliaferro asserts that in 2011 he refused to participate in “a cover-up of misconduct” by the DSS.

The charges are believed to be a direct response to Mr. Taliaferro and Ms. Scwab for criticizing the state’s payroll during the NPR investigation. According to reporter Stephanie Woodard in her article for 100 Reporters “Rough Justice In Indian Child Welfare” where two state Department of Criminal Investigation agents are seen on a Youtube video planning the cover-up by the state against Mr. Taliaferro and Ms. Schwab. They are unaware, that though they are off camera, they left their microphones on.

This is all dirty, low down, Gestapo like tactics used by the Department of Social Services . And it shows how far the state will bend, how low they will go, to keep the millions of dollars they have coming in by stealing yet again from the Indigenous people of this land. Instead they don’t take from the land, they take from the womb.

They won’t get away with this much longer. Something has to be done.

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Oh, so you think unions are bad for business and workers. OK, here’s one reason why you’re wrong. Yep, and I’ll give it to you in one word. Are you ready? Here it goes: slavery. Yeah, marinate on that one for a few and get back to me.

But don’t tell that to Michigan’s Republican governor Rick Snyder, who in a Wednesday morning appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe argued that their new anti-union law was beneficial to the state. According to Snyder, the states new right-to-work law could protect and strengthen unions by encouraging them to show more value to workers. Wow! So, reducing the influence and power of labor unions to act in the best interest of the Michigan worker when it comes to protecting and securing their rights, actually turns out to be “pro-worker.”

This from Think Progress:

Snyder appeared on the show less than 12 hours after signing two separate bills allowing public and private union members to opt out of paying union dues, while benefiting from union contracts, and defended the controversial measures. He characterized the law as benefiting workers and unions become more valuable.

The answer shocked the Morning Joe crew and led MSNBC contributor Richard Wolffe to interrupt the governor in mid-answer. Even Joe Scarborough grew incredulous and the Washington Post’s Carl Bernstein sighed heavily as Snyder spoke:

SNYDER: I’ve never said that unions are bad for business. And I don’t believe this is actually anti-union. If you look at it, I believe this is pro-worker, because the way I view it is, is workers now have freedom to choose …

WOLFFE: Hang on. Hang on a second. Are you serious? Are you serious? This is not anti-unions? This actually, at its core undermines the ability for unions to organize. So you can make any argument you like, but saying it’s not …

SNYDER: Unions have to be in a position to present a good value proposition… And if they don’t provide value, people shouldn’t be forced to pay for something they don’t see any value in. So again, this should make unions more effective in terms of having to put a value proposition to workers.

SCARBOROUGH: Governor, while I made a similar argument earlier that workers shouldn’t be compelled to have to pay from their salary to a union with whom they disagree, I would not go so far as to say what you’ve just said, which is that this helps unions. I mean, it undermines unions’ ability to stay vibrant, right?

BERNSTEIN: Absolutely!

SNYDER: It really leaves it up to the union to decide and innovate as to what their value proposition is….

BERNSTEIN: Come on!

Gee, who knew?

Listen, Rick Snyder (and the GOP as a whole) firmly believes that Michigan workers (and the rest of us) were born last night. The truth is that Michigan has been ground zero for the GOP’s agenda since 2010′s midterm election. Yep, this is the same state government that produced Emergency Managers who were responsible for not only firing teachers and shutting down public schools while being on the payroll of a corporate-funded organization that promoted privatization and charter schools. This is the same state government that used yet another Emergency Manager to take away the legislative power of elected officials in a predominantly African-American city called Benton Harbor, to be able to build a luxury golf resort for the wealthy.

Snyder and company has done a lot more than this, but I’ll stop there because hopefully you get the point. A lot of what has been done by Snyder and company, comes right out of the ALEC playbook; and, it is in fact an example of how the partnership between corporations and government aren’t always pro-worker, or even pro-democracy as it should be. instead, it can be very pro-slavery.

Now watch the following to understand:

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So I just found out that the world is coming to an end on December 21st, 2013. Yeah I know, we’re not gonna even have Christmas this year. Even worse is the fact that there will be no inauguration to attend in January. It really sucks because, even as historic as the last one was, I missed it. This being the last time they’d ever let a black man swear an oath to being POTUS, I was damn sure I wasn’t going to miss this one. But, none of you people told me about the world ending before now, so I suppose that’s not going to happen. Hell, who knew the Mayans were Republicans?

But anyway, speaking of end of times and apocalyptic events. Did you hear that Tea Party darling and slave-catcher extraordinaire, Allen West, lost his Congressional seat in November? Yep, fortunately for us, we won’t have to be assaulted with his ignorance in the next Congress. And of course after losing a requested ballot recount, West is now asserting that his loss was due to his opponent cheating – yeah, like all Democrats are obviously known to do.

Appearing on Mark Levin’s radio show last Thursday, West accused his challenger Patrick Murphy, of cheating: “I’m not going away just because of a congressional race where he seems to have to cheat to beat me.” Of course being no stranger to controversial statements, West never offered an explanation of how Murphy cheated. But in true self-aggrandizing albeit narcissistic fashion, West chose to beat his chest in defeat like the deranged “warrior,” and deluded nutjob that he is.

Check it out:

LEVIN: You are a national treasure. You are way too important to have something like this to happen and off you go. That can’t happen. So I’m really curious to know. Do you have further public service in mind, potentially?

WEST: The most important thing everyone has to understand is my voice is not going to be lost. We’ve gotten a lot of opportunities, a lot of offers, and we’re going to make sure we continue to have that platform. [...] I’m a warrior and I’m a statesman and I’m a servant of this republic. I’m not going away just because of a congressional race where he seems to have to cheat to beat me.

LEVIN: He sure as hell did. It’s disgusting.

Allen West suggesting that he lost his Congressional seat because his opponent cheated, sounds eerily like Marion Barry’s, “The bitch set me up,” line. Negro, you lost because you GOP pals through redistricting put you at an electoral disadvantage. Nope, they didn’t give a damn about your black ass. So, go sit’cho ass down somewhere and have a hot cup of STFU, with a “Nigga Please,” shit sandwich on the side. Of curse I have to give West credit for not blaming his loss on an Obama-created Mayan conspiracy with help from the Kenyan Mafia, and those Chicago gangsters.

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After reading this, you may ask: How can a mother stand there and let a man do such a thing to her child? Well, the answer is easy: The Bible teaches women to “submit” to their husbands. Additionally, it also says, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” That said, isn’t it easy to understand why something like this actually happened in our much touted civilized society?

After all, isn’t it telling that when they found 7-year-old Roderick Arrington unresponsive after being beaten to near death a day earlier for not reading the Bible, instead of dialing 911, they called their pastor? My guess is that this was all God’s will as well, right? Yep, Jesus loves the little children of the world; yep, even the ones who are physically abused that are raised by parents who love him.

LAS VEGAS (KSNV MyNews3) — Markiece and Dina Palmer are accused in the murder of Dina Palmer’s 7-year-old son, who police say died from injuries consistent with child abuse.

It’s a heartbreaking story that’s left so many people asking the question. When the Palmers found second-grader Roderick Arringtonin the morning, the couple says he was unresponsive.

However, they told police they didn’t call 911 first. Instead they called a pastor.

Dina Palmer: Mother of Roderick Arrington

[...] Pastor Kenneth Hollingsworth says he’s as shocked as anyone that Markiece Palmer chose to call him before first-responders.

Metro police said they believe Roderick Arrington was abused at Markiece and Dina Palmer’s home near Decatur and Desert Inn.

Palmer admitted to hitting his stepson on multiple occasions in front of the boy’s mother.

He told police that’s how he would discipline the second-grader.

In the police report, detectives say they found a broken broom stick, belts, cords, spatulas and clothing — all with blood on them.

Roderick was taken to a hospital on Thursday and died a day later. (source)

Now, I’m not opposed to spanking my kids: and, I’ll be the first to admit that. No, you’ll get no argument from me when it comes to corporal punishment as a form of discipline. And I say that having been on the receiving end of more than a few as a child myself. However, whether deserved or not (yes mom, the jury is still out on a few of those). It’s very hard for me to rationalize inflicting the abuse to a child, for lying about reading the Bible. Having said that, I won’t be surprised if Roderick’s mother, Dina Palmer, is also a victim of religious-sanctioned physical and mentalabuse as well.

The arrest report details the child’s injuries, including open abrasions on his buttocks, severe bruising to his thighs, marks and bruises on his back and shoulders and evidence of previous beatings.

Markiece Palmer told police he and Dina Palmer spanked the child November 27th, because he lied about reading a Bible verse. Markiece Palmer said Roderick was spanked again the next day for not finishing his homework. In the arrest report, Markiece Palmer said the boy balled up his fists and “ran at him”. That resulted in Markiece shaking the child. He also told police Roderick slipped at the bottom of the stairs and hit his head on a table and the floor. (source)

Check out the following video:

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So I noticed that the racism is rich today. It’s like there are a lot of news stories featuring racism and racist outbursts from random white Americans. Seriously, what’s that all about? It’s like as if a black guy became president of the United States or something. Funny, right? I mean, something like that would never happen here in America. Besides, if ever a black guy could be so lucky to become president, I’m sure he’ll be embraced. Don’t believe me? Just ask Karl Rove and his friends at FOX. Surely if anybody knows, they will.

O’Reilly went on to predict that Romney would lose the election if he lost Ohio.

“How do you think we got to that point?” host Megyn Kelly wondered.

“Because it’s a changing country,” O’Reilly insisted. “The demographics are changing. It’s not a traditional America anymore and there are 50 percent of the voting public who want stuff, they want things. And who is going to give them things? President Obama.”

“The white establishment is now the minority,” he added. “And the voters — many of them — feel that this economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. You’re going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama, overwhelming black vote for President Obama and women will probably break President Obama’s way.”

“People feel that they are entitled to things. And which candidate between the two is going to give them things?”

Yeah, it’s hard to believe that something like that could happen…

The post Obama Wins Re-election, Karl Rove Goes Off On FOX News appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Republicans have waged a war against voter fraud since 2010′s mid-term elections. With sweeping changes in state legislations across the country that have favored the GOP, we have seen many laws implemented to stop in-person voter fraud. We’ve heard it all from dead people to “illegal aliens” casting ballots. And, to listen to the proponents for Voter ID and suppressive laws intended to stifle democracy, most of the people committing these crimes, tend to vote for Democrats.

Never mind the fact that there is an overwhelming lack of evidence to support the notion that in-person voter fraud is a legitimate problem that warrants concern in the interest of protecting the integrity of the democratic process. What’s important is preventing cheating, as has been the “alleged” practice of voters who tend to vote for Democrats — you know, the people responsible for putting Barack Obama in office. You know, racists like Colin Powell who refuse to vote for the white guy because Obama is black ? Yes, melanin afflicted voters genetically predisposed to crime.

Yes, those cheaters — of which, an overwhelming majority of them are people of color — are responsible for fraud, and are a threat to democracy. Having said that, let’s look at one such cheater arrested in Nevada this week, shall we? Yes, let us look at why there is a need for Voter ID laws across the country in spite of the claims of such laws being racially motivated. Yes ladies and gentlemen, meet Nevada resident and voter, Roxanne Rubin, the latest patsy for the Democrats.

This from the Las Vegas Sun:

Investigators today arrested a Southern Nevada woman suspected of trying to vote twice this week at two different polling locations.

Roxanne Rubin was taken into custody as she arrived for work at the Riviera hotel-casino, investigators said. Rubin, 56, is a registered Republican who lives in Henderson, according to the Clark County Registrar.

Rubin allegedly cast a vote Monday at the Anthem Community Center in Henderson. Later that day, she tried to vote a second time at an early voting location on Eastern Avenue, investigators said.

When Rubin arrived at the second location, a poll worker conducted a routine database check and found Rubin had already voted. When confronted by the poll worker, Rubin denied having voted and claimed the database used by the poll worker was wrong.

Poll workers at the Eastern Avenue location blocked Rubin from voting and notified the county registrar’s office, who forwarded the complaint to the Nevada secretary of state.

Wait a minute, this woman was a registered Republican? You mean like the other Republicans currently in trouble for voter fraud? My God, how is that even possible? I mean, everyone knows that Republicans are law-abiding citizens who love God and country. No way is it possible for a white woman to commit such a deed, right? That is, unless she was a Democrat. no? I don’t know about you, but this sounds like this is a set up by the CIA with direct orders from Barack Obama himself.

“There are two important points worth noting in this case,” Nevada Secretary of State Ross Miller said. “First, is that as we’ve said and demonstrated in the past, we take all elections complaints very seriously and investigate them thoroughly. Second, this demonstrates the integrity of the system. Someone thought that by going to two different locations they’d be able to cast two ballots. The system immediately caught that, the Task Force responded, and an arrest was made.”

“It’s also worth noting that the Task Force has at least one other case of voting or attempting to vote twice in an election presently under investigation,” Miller said. “We will pursue all such cases and complaints aggressively.”

Rubin was booked into the Clark County Detention Center on one felony count of voting twice in the same election.

The Elections Integrity Task Force is a multi-jurisdictional task force made up of state and federal investigators.

While allegations of voter fraud or faulty voting machines are common during a busy election, Clark County Registrar Larry Lomax said this is the first time in his 15 years on the job that a voter has been arrested for trying to cast two ballots.

During early voting, poll workers use a database to look up a voter’s registration when the voter checks in at the poll. A card used to activate the voting machine is then programmed with the voter’s information and the voter is logged as having cast a ballot. If the voter tries to check in a second time, an alert will flash on a poll worker’s screen, Lomax said.

“When we pull you up, if you already voted, it says so right on the screen,” Lomax said. “It says this person voted at this site, where and when they voted.”

Daily audits are done at each early voting site to make sure the number of activated cards match the number of ballots cast. In Rubin’s case, the card numbers matched the number of ballots submitted exactly, dispelling any concerns that Rubin may have received an activated card but never cast a ballot, Lomax said.

Sorry, but I’m convinced that this woman is being railroaded by those election-stealing Democrats. Lord knows they have a history of electoral improprieties and irregularities. Speaking of which, check out the video below to see what those cheaters are doing out in California with absentee ballots.

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I like Dr. Boyce Watkins — yes, I really do. It is for that reason only that he isn’t this week’s recipient of my Slave-Catcher of the Week award. Not that what he said in a piece over at Kulture Kritic isn’t slave catcher behavior. But after thinking long and hard, truth is, the last few strands of respect that I have for him as the “People’s Scholar” just won’t allow me to go there. Having said that, the good doctor has been treading the fine line that is black intelligentsia and fuckery to my disappointment, for quite some time. And the last thing I’d hate to do is to finally write him off as one of those Negroes that I refuse to fuck with anymore because of his ill-formed misguided opinions.

To be frank, Dr. Watkins has been on some bullshit.

I don’t know what’s happening with the brother, but I hate to start believing what I wrote about him recently. That is, I hate to believe that much of his screed of late is motivated by a need to feel relevant. You know, with the likes of Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, and even Melissa Harris-Perry getting some shine, I’d hate to think that my man is feeling left out like the kid who never got picked on the basketball court. Even worse, I’d hate to think that the good doctor is putting out much of what he wrote recently for page views for any one of the many sites upon which he leaves his internet footprint. Yes, I’d hate to think that I’m being bamboozled. And, I especially feel the way I do because Boyce has been putting in work in the black community for quite some time. But, after reading the following, what am I to think? Not trying to be judgemental, but dude’s trippin’.

As we approach the 2012 presidential election, I quietly ask myself: Regardless of who is elected, is black unemployment going to dip below 10% over the next four years? Is the prison industrial complex going to get any smaller? Are black teens going to continue to die from guns being made available on every corner in our communities?

Then, I realize that when we fight to keep “our guy” in office, we’re kind of like prostitutes trying to keep their pimp out of jail. The hookers know that the pimp isn’t going to make their lives any better, but his incarceration might possibly make it worse.

I would not go to the extreme of agreeing with WEB Dubois, who once said that he was not going to vote, since neither party cares very much for the African American community. But I am certainly in favor of African Americans being as selfish as every politician in Washington who simply does what’s best for him or her, without any regard whatsoever for the needs of the African American community. The fact is that you should care about them about as much as they care about you, end of story.

Whew! I’m so glad he’s not going the W.E.B. DuBois route of telling black folks not to vote. I am because if I recall corrently, DuBois in his infamous passage even noted that in voting for third-party candidates, he often voted against his own self-interest as a black man. But Bouyce is right, no matter who we vote for in Novemeber, there’s not much that will change overnight as far as black unemployment, the prison industrial complex, or even the long-standing problem that is black on black crime and violence. The problem I have with this melancholy self-defeatist position, is that no one presidency can, has, or will ever fix these issues. Indeed these are issues that negatively impact the black community. However, let’s stop it with the bullshit fantasy that this was all supposed to change with the swearing in of America’s first African-American president.

Yep, because Mitt Romney’s policies are best, right Boyce?

There is nothing wrong with supporting third party candidates, since most of us can agree that the two party system simply isn’t working. What offends me most is the determination with which the Democratic Party relies on fear and seeks to undermine individual freedom when it comes to how we vote. The fear is driven by reminding you that if you don’t give them your vote, horrible things are going to happen to you. Their subjugation of freedom comes from the fact that they are seriously threatened by the notion of anyone telling black people to think for themselves. They are accustomed to doing the thinking for us.

Negro, please!!

I’ll admit that, while I like Barack Obama and hope that he wins the election, I find myself unable to be as excited about this election as some of my friends. In fact, it’s downright depressing. I’m sad to look around me and see a world where anyone who doesn’t want to line up and have Barack Obama’s baby is somehow defined to be a traitor. It is also a world where anyone who tells our politicians to help battle against the diseases of poverty, violence, inequality and mass incarceration is told that they are peeing on the Negro Juneteenth Political Parade. No one wants to hear about black people who are suffering, since we’ve been trained to believe that a certain segment of our community just doesn’t deserve any better.

I am firmly against the consumption of alcohol, but this election is driving me to drink. To know that your vote isn’t going to have much of an impact on those you love is, admittedly, downright devastating. Perhaps it’s time that we demand something more, for our politicians have us bamboozled.

Boyce is right — the politics of fear is very powerful. However, the politics of fear isn’t one-sided — no, the fear mongering Boyce speaks of isn’t exclusive to Democrats. As a mater of fact, the very third-party candidates he suggests supporting employ the very tactic of fear mongering themselves. Shit, fear will always be a [art of our politics for as long as heaven is used as a better option than hell. The bottom line is that as long as the political narrative is dominated by the plutocratic power structure as it always has, things will never change. And there’s nothing wrong with being idealistic; but, if Boyce is going to be borderline suicidal and depressed about voting or the election cycle, then he might as well kill himself. I’m just sayin’, does he get this depressed about every presidential election? Shit, I’m only asking because, well, the two-party system has been around a long time. I mean, it’s not like the system or the problems affecting black folks have popped up overnight, no?

OK, so I’m not advocating that he ends his life. However, I am suggesting that he gets his shit together and stop feeding our people the slow poison that he has been serving up lately. You see, this isn’t about Barack Obama being black. This is about an ethnic group of people with a long history of marginalization exercising the right to vote after years of struggle. More importantly, this is about the very group of black people Boyce claims to love, mobilizing, and being a part of the democratic process. What pisses me off about Boyce’s tripe, is that he’s projecting the idea that voting is the end all be all to our struggle for equality. Quite naturally it’s easy for one to be depressed if everything was to be solved by simply casting a vote. But, that’s not how it works.

Listen, voting is important; yes, it is. However, as the late Howard Zinn said: Democracy is what happens between elections. Democracy doesn’t stop at the ballot box; no, it doesn’t. Democracy is us continually speaking truth to power and organizing ourselves so as to influence change. Yes, we have to become the change we believe in. Yes, it sounds cliché as hell, but it’s the truth. And believe it or not, Dr. Boyce Watkins knows this. How do I know that he does? Well, if he didn’t, he would have never started the program Building Outstanding Men and Boys (BOMB). If he didn’t, he wouldn’t traverse the country promoting his family empowerment series that targets the parents of young black males. That said, surely Boyce believes in himself as being a person being able to affect change. It’s just sad that he too is an infected crab in the bucket of black academia starving for relevance. I don’t know what’s up with this brother, but either he stops listening to that Emo Hip Hop (yeah dude, Drake sucks) or refrain from writing stuff to be published on the internet after having a fight with his baby momma. Seriously, get it together, Boyce — this ain’t you. Sheesh!!

Seriously Boyce, you’re better than this….

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