When it comes to stop-and-frisk, Don Lemon wants us to consider, that sacrificing the constitutional rights of minorities in the interest of safety is a good idea. I guess he’s been hanging out with Geraldo Riviera who recently said on Fox & Friends that stop-and-frisks protects minorities.

If Don Lemon had to wear and cape and save the black community, we’d be all dead. Just like many people with good intentions and Bibles, CNN’s negro warrior and his commentary is the worst reincarnation of Moses leading the people to the promised land.

Several months ago, in the wake of the George Zimmerman verdict, Lemon stirred up a hornets nest of shade with some pretty fucked up, albeit right-wing-leaning projection of comments made by Bill O’Reilly. And Don Lemon was drug through the mud by just about everyone for it.

Apparently, Don Lemon didn’t learn anything from the backlash (and, I seriously doubt whether he ever will). Because this week, once again, he’s back at it again with what he sees as him schooling the black community with an endorsement of the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy.

Offering his commentary on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, Don Lemon said that tampering with the “formula that has reduced crime in New York City,” could have dangerous consequences. It’s not a new argument, really. However, hearing it advanced by a person of color makes me sick.

“If you question many people in New York City, even some black and Hispanic people they will tell you that on the surface they don’t really have an issue with stop-question-and-frisk. Not the idea of it, at least. Not if the controversial policy was conducted like the occasional, random airport screening,” Don Lemon claimed. Now I know many people in New York City. The question is, who the fuck has he been talking to? I dunno, but the people I know do not think that way. Hell, if the cops were nice and offered donuts after groping our balls every 5 blocks, it’s still an inconvenience.

Listen to it below:

Can somebody tell Don Lemon to keep his inner conservatism in the closet?

Look, at this point I’ve argued against stop-and-frisk on this site enough. So much so that I won’t waste time right here, right now, by creating a good counter to Don Lemon’s foolishness. I could go on and on and spit empirical facts to support my arguments, but fuck that. Instead, I’ll just say that Don Lemon is trolling and he isn’t worth too many keystrokes other than to say that his “inner conservative” is missing his once closeted sexual orientation. So much so that it too slowly wants to come out and unfortunately pollute the intelligence of black and brown folks.

Besides, if stop-and-frisk as it has been practiced in NYC has net very few arrests, and or the removal of guns and drugs. Why then would anyone assume that its discontinuation would result in a spike in crime? I mean, I’m no criminal, but I seriously doubt whether people who ordinarily engage in criminal activity saw the NYPD’s policy as a deterrent. Like, “Yo, son, I was ’bout to rob the corner store… but I had to leave my gun at home because of stop-and-frisk.” Yeah, I don’t see the correlation-causation thingy. At any rate, anyone black who endorses the violation of the constitutional rights of minorities — you know, the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment? — is, indeed a slave-catcher in my book. Right now, Don Lemon is doing such a good job at being just that.

The post Slave Catcher Alert: Don Lemon Endorses NYPD’s Stop-And-Frisk appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Okay, so here we go again with another one of these, folks. Hopefully this doesn’t become a trend, but this is the second such shooting in recent months. Many of us here at TIOMAR were horrified by the story of Jonathan Ferrell being shot and killed by a police officer in Charlotte, North Carolina. Pryor, if you remember, was shot 10 times by a police officer after knocking on the door of a homeowner while seeking help after an early morning car wreck. Well, now there’s this story out of Detroit, Michigan, where 19-year-old Renisha McBride was shot and killed while seeking help after an auto accident at 2:30 a.m. last Saturday. Unlike Ferrell, McBride was not shot and killed by a police officer. Instead, she was killed by an occupant of a home, upon whose door she knocked. However, like Ferrell, McBride’s relatives are still seeking answers about why she was shot.

This from The Detroit News:

The family of a Detroit woman shot to death after she is believed to have sought help at a Dearborn Heights home is calling for answers in the incident.

The family of Renisha McBride, 19, said she went for help after a car accident around 2:30 a.m. Saturday. She died of a gunshot wound to the head after knocking on the door of a home on the 16000 block of Outer Drive near Warren in Dearborn Heights, near where the accident occurred. Her cellphone battery had died, her family said.

Few other details about the incident have been released by the Dearborn Heights Police Department.

Rinesha McBride

“Dearborn Heights (has) identified the person who fired the shot and killed the woman,” according to a press release. The statement added that a final report on the shooting will be forwarded to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office for review in the near future.

McBride’s maternal aunt, Bernita Spinks, said the shooting was not justified even if the resident believed McBride was an intruder breaking into the home.

“He shot her in the head … for what? For knocking on his door,” said Spinks on Tuesday. “If he felt scared or threatened, he should have called 911.”

Spinks said the family met with officials from the Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday. Spinks said she believes her niece was racially profiled.

“You see a young black lady on your porch and you shoot?” said Spinks.

“He killed my niece and he needs to pay for it. He needs to be in jail.

“There was no window broken. My niece didn’t bother anyone. She went looking for help and now she’s dead.”

Now I know Detroit, Michigan is a pretty rough city. In fact, Detroit is so rough that violent crime are at historic levels. However, having said that, is it really that bad that someone can be shot and killed just for knocking on someone’s front door? I don’t live in Detroit; but I live in a city where old women get their false teeth and hearing aids jacked in armed robberies. However, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that this one is quite puzzling. Especially since relatives are of the belief that McBride was racially profiled, and there hasn’t been any sign of the race of the shooter. At any rate, hopefully the shooter doesn’t walk because police believe the shooting is justifiable, as I’m afraid it will be in the Jonathan Ferrell case. Because the truth is that no matter how dangerous the city of Detroit may be, someone knocking on your door at 2:30 a.m. isn’t a crime nor an imminent threat to one’s life.

Watch the story below:

The post Detroit: Black Woman Shot and Killed Seeking Help After Car Wreck appeared first on Madness & Reality.

So a mother in Virginia dressed her 7-year-old son like a Klansman for Halloween, and says it’s no big deal. Why? Well, aside from the fact that the KKK has reformed its reputation, according to Jessica Black, it’s no big deal because the Klan raises money for St. Jude’s Children Hospital.

Now we’ve discussed this Halloween racism thing here at The Intersection of Madness & Reality recently, but I have to tell you: This one takes the fucking cake. Apparently being post-racial means that not only is it okay to don blackface and poke fun at black people — and, other minorities. It’s also okay to get the kids involved; especially when educating them about this country’s history and “cool” costumes is so old school.

This from WSHV.com:

Jessica Black, whose son dressed as a Klansman for Halloween, said the costume is seen as a family tradition.

“My brother has when he was in Kindergarten and when he was 13.”

When Black’s 7-year-old son asked her if he could also dress as a member of the white supremacist group, she made him the costume.

“It was cool,” said Jackson Black, when asked why he wore the controversial costume.

“I did tell him that if you do it, you know there’s going to be people talking about you, there’s going to be people saying bad things about you when you do wear it,” said Jessica Black.

No, how about telling the poor kid that wearing a Klansman costume justifies people saying ugly things about him? I’m not into telling people how they should raise their kids. However, how about using this as an opportunity to say, “You know, you really don’t want to wear something like that, son. Yes, you don’t want people thinking you’re dumb racist hick just like your mommy. No, racism is only cool if you’re a Republican.”

Neighbors said they were shocked when they saw Black’s costume.

[...] When asked where he learned about the costume, Jackson said he saw it in the movie ‘Fried Green Tomatoes.’

His mom maintains there is nothing wrong with the costume or the Ku Klux Klan, which she says still exists in Craigsville.

“It’s supposed to be white with white. Black with black. Man with woman and all of that. That’s what the KKK stands for. The KKK every year, raises money to donate to the St. Jude’s,” said Jessica Black.

Knowing that it upsets people, Jackson said he will still wear the costume.

I’m so glad that she didn’t use us being “post-racial” as justification. But then again, I wish she actually did use that as an excuse. Why? Because it’s hard for me to believe that this mother-of-the-year candidate actually said what she said; and, was so nonchalant with it. Okay, who am I kidding? This woman lives in Virginia, folks; yes, and the south hasn’t changed that much since the first African slaves landed in Jamestown, Virginia.

Jessica Black: Mother of The Year!

Besides, wearing a Klansman robe for Halloween is a family tradition. Yep, clearly dressing up as a Klansman for Halloween it’s right up there with Thanksgiving Turkey Bowl, cross burnings, and lynchings. I swear, some of you’s white folks play too damn much. What’s next? Someone will have the nerve to play a joke by calling Barack Obama a Kenyan or something? But of course me saying that makes me, well, kinda sorta racist, yes?

So yeah, a black kid in Chicago gets kicked out of school last week for wearing a Jesus costume for Halloween. But, a white woman with the last name Black, dresses her 7-year-old son in a Klansman costume, and it’s no big deal. You know, because that’s just how “certain people” roll.

See what you did, Barack??

The post Virginia Mom Defends Dressing Son Like Klansman For Halloween appeared first on Madness & Reality.

This past spring, I had the pleasure of attending a screening of the feature-length documentary Reflections Unheard: Black Women in Civil Rights, directed by up-and-coming filmmaker Nev Nnaji at Smith College. Via interviews and compelling archival footage, the film chronicles the marginalization of Black women within the Black Nationalist and predominantly white middle-class feminist movements during the 60s, 70s, and present-day.

Where both movements fail(ed) to acknowledge the intersection of gender oppression and race, the documentary explores the ways in which Black women galvanized to raise awareness about and seek solutions for those issues that often left us out of the overall framework: reproductive rights, dependable daycare for working mothers, government resources, employment and fair wages. That mobilization essentially inspired other women of color to project their voices about the same issues, which were also framed around immigration policies.

Reflections Unheard: Black Women in Civil Rights features useful commentary from Black feminist scholars who were former activists and members of groups like the National Black Feminist Organization and most notably, controversial Womanist and novelist Kola Boof who, according to Nev Nnaji—who I had the opportunity to speak with after the screening—inspired the documentary and Nnaji’s own awareness about the various aspects of the Black feminist experience, which isn’t always rooted in the Black Nationalist movement or shaped by the language of academe.

After a couple of minor setbacks—during the post-screening discussion Nev was vocal about the exorbitant costs of gaining access to old film footage pertinent to her film… resources that seem readily available to White male filmmakers—Nnaji was fortunately able to get the resources necessary to complete her film, and has been screening it at colleges and universities to growing acclaim and interest.

Most recently, the documentary screened in Glasgow, Scotland and was accepted into the 2013 African Diaspora International Film Festival in NYC (beginning November 29^th and running through December 15^th).

I highly recommend Reflections Unheard: Black Women in Civil Rights if you’re able to catch a screening near you. As many young Black women begin to explore feminist works by noted women of color, it’s definitely a valuable and important narrative that’s been added to the discourse. Particularly since people are of the opinion that the Black female (read: feminist) voice is inconsequential, irrelevant, and that it somehow ‘destroys’ the Black community… all erroneous myths that further cause division, subverts the lives and work of women like Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells, and Sojourner Truth, and only serve to keep Black women in a perpetual mulish state.

For a schedule of screenings and other information, visit Nev Nnaji’s website and Facebook page.

The post ‘Reflections Unheard’: Black Women, Civil Rights, & Feminism appeared first on Madness & Reality.

Lest you read the title and conclude that this author has lost her mind completely take comfort in knowing that I didn’t know what a golliwog was either until recently. Doing my due diligence of reading various articles on various places on the web, I came across an article talking about a situation where eBay had recently enacted a policy of not allowing holocaust items to be sold on its site. There were apparently a few instances of this happening – someone sold a full uniform from Dauchau and others were selling the yellow armbands and other personal effects from those caught up in the holocaust. Reading this you would say, “OK, that makes sense,” they would do this because why would you want to promote the sale of such morbid merchandise from such a tragic time period? One would even think to raise a glass to salute eBay for being so conscientious in acting swiftly to ensure these kinds of items do not appear in their listings.

Then you get curious and do a search for slavery memorabilia yes that is actually a term. This will pull you up a boatload of items that, depending on your point of view will meet with varying degrees of horror and disgust. Apparently there is a market for items connected to the brutal slave trade that existed in this country. There are enough people willing to buy them that there is space devoted to them on of all places eBay.

For some reason however, these items and this period has not invoked a similar response from the powers that be at ebay. They have not made any public acknowledgement regarding the selling of human shackles and chains and other related items – can’t imagine why. This is how I ran into the golliwog. While I am sure there are a few people of color who have committed themselves to the acquisition of these abominable items either to destroy them or to have them placed in museums, it is hard to believe that a person of color would be a fan of or would like to be the proud owner of a golliwog.

If one is familiar with the type of racist imagery associated with minstrel shows including the blackface thing that we are revisiting right now in the 21^st century with folks thinking its fun to

The Proud Golliwog

dress that way for Halloween, then you will have some idea of what this is. A golliwog is a rag doll that in appearance resembles one of those little Sambo caricatures that one would see in images dating back to slavery and reconstruction periods. If you are historically challenged, then let me just say, the little doll is charcoal black with a black frizzy afro-type hairstyle with big red lips and big wide eyed stare that typifies the negative imagery that was used to depict African Americans along with the mammy and images of watermelon eating colored folks.

So there is a market for sambo dolls and slave chains who knew? Apparently its also very lucrative as some of the pieces I saw for sale were close to a thousand dollars each.

Why then do we get so upset when a mother, Jessica Black decides to dress her son like a klansman for Halloween and defends her decision to do so by saying that “they donate to St. Judes and such”, why get upset with her choice and the racism behind it. After all it’s not racism to her its just a way of life that has been passed down from generation to generation. Not even fully aware of it as being racism just the “way things are”. Ask Paula Deen about that one.

As to the profit on slavery items, shackles, chains and such some people are always going to be involved in profiting from human suffering. I will leave it to my reader to glean which people those are with the caveat that this is after all America, the land of opportunity, for some anyway.

The post Golliwogs, Chains, & eBay appeared first on Madness & Reality.

By Tracie Powell

When it comes to the news industry, clicks are increasingly the coin of the realm. This is especially true for local television news. Take, for example, Washington, D.C.’s CBS affiliate WUSA 9 News, which aired a segment last week that was light on news, but racked up plenty of clicks when it went viral.

The segment features veteran broadcaster Bruce Johnson and his camerawoman on assignment, trying to get information about an alleged home invasion and hostage situation. A woman at the residence asks the news crew to leave, and assaults them when they don’t. WUSA 9 played the story big: Not the home invasion angle, but the journalists coming under attack part. In setting up the segment, Johnson reports that he doesn’t know whether the woman was one of the victims of the alleged home invasion, and she is never identified in the video clip.

Watch the video clip below:

“I think this is a pathetic example of journalism,” said Kelly McBride, a senior faculty member at the Poynter Institute who specializes in journalism ethics. “ The journalists don’t know who this woman is or what her relationship to the story is. The reporter and the anchors do the exact opposite of what journalists are supposed to do. They made the story more confusing, for no good reason.”

WUSA’s news director Fred D’Ambrosi defended his decision to air the video toThe Washington Post’s Paul Farhi (D’Ambrosi didn’t return phone calls fromallDigitocracy). “If the definition of news is something unusual happening, this was certainly something unusual,” D’Ambrosi told Farhi. “Bruce has been a reporter for 35 years, and this has never happened to him. . . . [Showing this] might help people understand what journalists go through. I wish I knew more about the woman who came out, but you have to make the best call under the circumstances.”

Johnson agrees with his boss, and so does Mike Cavender, executive director of the Radio Television Digital News Association in Washington. Cavender told Farhi: “Based on what I saw and what I learned of the story, I would have gone with it.”

But what exactly did viewers see? What did they learn? And even though the station has the power to air whatever it wants, was it ethical for WUSA 9 to do so? Many of those commenting on the video, including fellow journalists, root for the news crew and poke fun at the woman who may or may not be a recent crime victim, raising even more ethical questions about the station’s goal of airing the clip.

A study on images of black women released last month by Essence Magazine found that the “angry black woman” is one of three negative stereotypes all too prevalent in the media. The unidentified woman in the video fits the myth of the angry black woman almost to perfection: Hostile, hysterical, ranting and aggressive, no matter the myriad emotions — if in fact a victim — she may have experienced the night before. Viewers simply do not know, and this is precisely why the video should not have seen the light of day.

Jackie Jones, Chair of the Department of Multimedia Journalism at Morgan State University in Baltimore, said beyond the stereotypical imagery, there was nothing to have been gained from airing the story.

“Usually when someone is cussing you out and threatening you, you get in the truck and leave,” said Jones. “There was nothing to be gotten out of that story and once he did the stand-up, he should have been through. All that said, since no one was hurt and it wasn’t clear what this woman’s role was in the house, I probably wouldn’t have run the story at all, except that there had been a standoff and possible hostage situation.”

Phyllis Fletcher, an editor at KUOW Public Radio, said viewers simply aren’t given enough information about what really happened. Nor is there enough information for it to be a story, she added.

“The reporter, and ALL due respect to the brother and the position he’s in, admits that he doesn’t know whether the young woman had been a victim in the crime the news crew sought to report. That is a serious issue,” Fletcher wrote in a Facebook post. “Yes, it’s true she doesn’t represent herself very well in the video. But we don’t have context for who she is or what the news staff said outside of their edits. She may not even be 18. The focus of this segment is not even actual news. The station anticipated, correctly, that it would go viral though.”

In the end, WUSA 9 probably accomplished exactly what it wanted. After all, there is more pressure than ever for news directors like D’Ambrosi to rack up clicks, often at the expense of true engagement with audiences.

Poynter’s McBride said she suspects WUSA 9 “just wanted to show the video of this woman making a fool of herself because it is sensational.” McBride wondered: “Why not do some reporting? Why not knock on the door and ask her if she wants to talk about what happened at her house? Why not get more information from the police?”

Answer: Because good journalism isn’t necessary when all that’s really wanted are clicks.

[This post originally appeared at allDigitocracy.org]

The post Clicks Ain’t Journalism: WUSA 9 News and the Angry Black Woman Story appeared first on Madness & Reality.

“…To be white in this culture means to deny the reality of racism; it means to deny the privilege that we have as whites. Most people, who are Whites, don’t want to accept that they are privileged, because they are.”

People don’t want to talk about being White because they know that at a deep level, even though some of them may not have talked about it with anybody or every expressed it, they do know that they get a benefit from being White.”

“… To me, it’s about privilege. A lot of people get to walk around thinking that we live in a meritocracy, and thinking that their own hard work is the only thing that’s responsible for their achievements. I think that it shapes everything.”

“I was taught that you respected Black folk, but not really as human beings, but more like cats, and dogs, and cows; you wouldn’t mistreat a cat or a dog in my family, and you wouldn’t mistreat a black person. I don’t have any trouble admitting that I’m a racist; I think it’s absurd to try to fight with that. I grew up in this society I was conditioned by, I think internally in my psyche I have grounded and rooted those attitudes and I see it in me all the time… I mean, I’m always dealing with it. I don’t think that make me a bad person … I just think it means I’ve been well indoctrinated.”

“… Like Malcolm X said: ‘Racism is like a Cadillac; there’s a new model every year’. Racism is a dynamic social construction, so it’s always changing and it’s always mutating. So people that say, ‘well there’s no racism anymore’, they’re referring to racism as it existed in 1950 or 1920 or 1910.”

Above,  is a collection of quotes from Whitewashed: Unmasking the World of Whites, a 2013 documentary-short by Mark Patrick George. Clocking in at just under 35 minutes, this interesting featurette examines White privilege and racism via footage—(collected over the course of several years)—of several White Americans offering insight on what ‘whiteness‘ means to them and the situations that have prompted them to realize how institutional racism works to marginalize  ’others‘ and work in their favor. According to the official website, Whitewashed is “intended to educate and spark dialogue both within and across racial groups.”

Many of the confessions in this documentary are stark and revelatory. Very often during discussions about race between people of color and White people, things will disintegrate and melt into a sticky puddle of defensive excuses (via ‘I’m not like them‘ disclaimers that decontextualize the conversation), dismissive hand waving and demands that we ‘get over’it’ (although some long for its return), thinking discussions about race is reserved for people of color, silencing, and tone policing; which is why many people of color shut down and refuse to engage any further, because we feel as if our voices are being stifled, we aren’t truly being heard, the White person (or people) we’re conversing with isn’t really ready to deconstruct the topic of race as much as s/he just wants to prove how ‘anti-racist’ s/he is, and we feel as if our lived experiences navigating microaggressions are viewed as being trivial… note the many antagonistic blackface costumes that abounded this Halloween despite pre-Halloween pleas that White people have their costume fun sans anti-Black minstrelsy, and the collective annoyance at Black people’s disappointment and righteous indignation.

The quote that stood out to me the most was from the subject who admitted to being racist, and who likened the respect he offered to Black people as being akin to not mistreating an animal, as opposed to the deference he’d extend to another human being. That was the most evocative statement, because it was the most honest. To be frank, more often than not, many White people don’t see the humanity of people of color despite protestations to the contrary, and this is what makes it easy for them to ignore oppression, to disregard intersectionality within various social justice and present-day civil rights movements, to deny that racism still exists, to ignore the violence (mentally, emotionally, and physically) wrought by institutional racism, and to peddle post-racial propaganda.

The discomfiting feeling race discussions generally incite, comes from hearing things that are difficult to process and  many times, when uncensored, they come from folks who benefit from White privilege, when they’re allowed the space and time to talk freely. I believe those perspectives are equally as important, because White people can’t begin to try to help deconstruct racism and work towards resolving tensions and present themselves as genuine allies (a word I’m beginning to loathe) like many claim to want to do, until they unpack their privilege and say the words they loathe hearing out loud and identify the elephant in the room for what it is. When you call it out… White privilege… Racism… you can begin the work to dismantle it.

See Whitewashed in full, below.

The post Whitewashed: White Americans Discuss Their White Privilege appeared first on Madness & Reality.

So a black kid in a Chicago suburb dressed up like “Jesus” for Halloween, and was kicked out of school as a result. I could think of getting kicked out of class for any number of infractions. But, to be removed from class for dressing up like Jesus — especially for Halloween — would have never made the list. As we’ve shown recently, when it comes to Halloween, racism cannot be escaped. With all the talk of white folks in blackface for Halloween being racially offensive. Who would have thought that a black kid dressed like Jesus Christ for Halloween would be considered offensive?

This from Fox 32:

HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. (FOX 32 News) – A north suburban high school student was pulled from classes on Halloween after dressing like Jesus.

According to Angenetta Frison, mother of Highland Park High senior Marshon Sanders, some teachers found his costume offensive. Her son was readmitted to school after changing out of the costume, she said.

Sanders’ costume included a long, white robe, red sash, head scarf and a cross necklace.

Marshon Sanders

“I wanted to be Jesus because I just got baptized and so I felt like, why not?” Marshon says of his costume choice. “He’s the most influential person in my life.”

He says 15 minutes into his first class he was called to the dean’s office.

“She tells me that, um, my costume was offensive and I was promoting religion, which I wasn’t at all,” he explains.

Shortly before school let out for the day, the high school released a statement, stating that: “We initially were concerned that the costume could be offensive to religious sensibilities. Upon further review, we realized the student did not intend to be offensive.”

Sanders was told he could put the costume back on.

But Frison, who met with school administrators along with her son to discuss the matter, said he chose not to do so.

“They realized they might have been premature and didn’t really assess the situation,” said Frison, who wondered if the image of a black Jesus evoked strong feelings.

“Race is an issue in our country,” she said. “We still struggle with racism. I don’t know if that was a factor, but it may have been. Would a Caucasian student dressed as Jesus have had the same effect?”

My thoughts? I’m sorry, but I understand the unwillingness of this kid’s mother to throw down a race card in the wake of this incident. But hey, that’s what this blog is for. That’s right, mom; allow me to say what you really wanted to say. If the kid had painted his face white his costume would’ve been acceptable. I mean, everybody knows that melanin “Jesus” is a problem here in America.

Heck, just ask Kanye West.

Kanye is now embracing the Confederate flag — you know, America’s preeminent symbol of defiance and hate? — but even he knows that melanin Jesus is a problem. How? Kanye hasn’t forgotten the backlash to the Rolling Stone magazine cover that depicted him as Jesus on the cross several years ago. Yep, and recently while on tour, Kanye had sense enough to have “White Jesus” walk across the stage as a hologram instead of, you know, a not-so-welcomed “Black Jesus”, Yeezus, or whatever Mr. Kardashian calls himself these days. Like this kid, Kanye is from Chicago but he’s not that crazy. And trust me, Kanye is rather strange; but again, that fool ain’t crazy.

All jokes aside, folks. What they did was a serious infraction per the U.S. Constitution. Forget about me and my race card for a minute. What they did was to infringe on this kid’s freedom of religious expression. In case you didn’t know, the constitution affords you that protection. But hey, in a country where a New York appellate court ruled today that it was kind of okay for now, for the NYPD to use “its “stop-and-frisk policy” which violates the rights of minorities. What else can we expect from our school system when it comes to a black kid choosing to look like Jesus for a day. But like my friends said on Facebook: The poor kid should have turned a bottle of water into wine, taken a swig, and walked out of the classroom screaming, “Sexual chocolate!”.

God Bless America!

The post Black Student Kicked Out of School for Wearing Jesus Halloween Costume appeared first on Madness & Reality.

As a child, I remember Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas being the most fun holidays at the final quarter of each year. I loved Halloween because I looked forward to eating loads of candy. I loved Thanksgiving because school was closed for a few days. I looked forward to watching the broadcast airings of the Thanksgiving parade hoping to see my favorite cartoon characters as giant balloons. I loved Christmas, because like most children, I wanted presents, particularly some fun stuff. And during each holiday, I channel surfed to catch animated specials, especially those that starred a certain lovable blockhead who can’t kick a football to save his life.

Now that I’m older, wiser and more bitter, these holidays suck the big one. Christmas is getting more commercialized year after year opposing the “true meanings” of the holiday that include love, peace and altruism. Altruism, in a capitalist society? What are you smoking?

Thanksgiving is nothing more than a shroud to cover up its genocidal past. Yet, many of us pass over the fabled version of white and Indian Native American men getting together for a peaceful celebration for a chance to dine on some turkey, ham, rice, stuffing, dessert and other goodies adding more pounds to the obesity problem.

And then, there’s Halloween. It’s still a time of year for kids to dress up and go trick-or-treating, but adults also suit up in the spirit of fun and silliness. Outside comic book and sci-fi conventions, Halloween is the one time of year where grown folks can put on costumes and enjoy themselves. However, some people will get in on the spirit at the expense of other people.

What do I mean by that? Some costumes, made by those with a limited supply of imagination and a severe case of moral apathy, are stereotypes of nonwhite people. You have white folks dressed up as Geisha girls, Mexican stereotypes that includes wearing a huge sombrero and fake mustache, gangster rappers – black face included, video girls – black face and extra butt padding included, Native American stereotypes, Asian stereotypes, and so on. There have been movements to counter the problem of people of color’s cultures being reduced to two-dimensional stereotypes. Yet, white people refuse to get the message. Some have even taken it to new lows like a certain trio who entered the Internet’s Hall of Shame:

…Caitlin (Kt) Cimero, Greg Cimero and William Filene, three average young white people in the Halloween spirit, or so it seems. They also are strongly opinionated regarding a certain murder of a certain black teen by a certain overzealous neighborhood watch leader as seen in their Facebook picture.

Their now-infamous picture features one man in black face wearing a hoodie sweater with a fake blood stain indicating a gunshot wound. On his opposite side is another man with his hand pointed by a gun wearing a black shirt that reads “Neighborhood watch” in white letters. Both men were smiling.

In the middle is Caitlin wearing what appears to be costume of a gangster’s mall. Whether that’s connected with the two men’s costumes is unknown. But it seems unrelated. Still, all three appeared happy as hell, and their friends thought the photo was appealing.

Plus, we have three more clowns who saw the horrific crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 as the perfect theme for their Halloween fuckery:

The Angry Asian Man reports that a group of white males, all with plastic smiles and douchebag poses, dressed up as wounded flight attendants of Asiana Airlines with tattered and torn clothes and fake wounds. It’s rumored that these males are flight attendants themselves.

For those who don’t know, Asiana Airlines Flight 214 from Incheon, South Korea crashed in its final approach in the San Francisco International Airport on July 6, 2013. Two passengers died at the scene. 181 were injured. Among them were three flight attendants.

If that wasn’t enough, and it wasn’t, we have actress and country singer Julianne Hough to come out in a costume depicting her favorite character from the hit Netflix show Orange Is the New Black. The only problem is that she came out in black face:

Hough dressed up in dark makeup and styled her hair like the character, wearing an orange “jumpsuit” with clipped-on ID tag. Others in her group dressed up as “OITNB” characters, but she was the only one wearing blackface.

Pictures of the costume sparked outrage online, with “Raising Hope” actress Martha Plimpton among those condemning it.

On Saturday, Hough took to Twitter to issue an apology.

“I am a huge fan of the show Orange is the New black, actress Uzo Aduba, and the character she has created,” she wrote. “It certainly was never my intention to be disrespectful or demeaning to anyone in any way. I realize my costume hurt and offended people and I truly apologize.”

Finally, most recently and along on the black face craze, we have a couple of young white girls who, according to their tweet, “are niggers this Halloween.” Sighs!

I’m sure there are more examples, but I’m honestly too emotionally drained to cite them. I’m tired that these bozos in some corner of their minds thought it would be fun to use that which was essential to minstrel entertainment designed to flatter the egos of white audiences for their white skin. I’m sadden that a few of these people thought that tragedies that involved a murdered black teen and numerous passengers and crew was funny to them. I’m vexed there are people, a couple who showed up at my blog, who would defend their actions and blame those who are outraged for not kissing their asses and smile. But, I’m not at all surprised that they would declare ignorance in the heat of condemnation, suggesting they were innocent in their deplorable actions and were just enjoying themselves in the spirit of dress-up.

Of course the excuse would be that they “didn’t know”. They had no intention to offend anyone. But they did, and whether they admit it or not, they know what they’ve done, and they liked it.

Whiteness has always been about the enjoyment of the suffering of people of color, especially blacks. Our tribulations, suffering and pain are their entertainment centers to glee over. They see us as commodities to use as they please and they see our lives and cultures as toys to play with and put down whenever they get tired. What they don’t see is our humanity. All they want to see are the negative stereotypes they’ve taken to heart and use as costumes in their own spaces. With the age of social networking and photo sharing, they’ll use online programs to upload, display and circulate their fondness, fascination and obsession for nonwhite stereotypes while expressing how much they despise actual nonwhite people.

White people will try not to look like your people, but look like what they think we are as a people. It will likely include cartoonish outfits complete with pimp gear, gold chains, grills and – of course – black face while posing with gang signs and fake booties to the camera (or, even admit to dressing up like a “nigger” for Halloween as two young ladies did thisd week). Why? Because all they want to see and all they want to know.

Happy Halloween.

The post Halloween Costumes, Racism & Holiday Stupidity appeared first on Madness & Reality.

It is the most repetitive game played in human history and has a special ability to exploit fear, initiate war and produce narrow minds. This game is called ‘fear of the other’ and it is played as much as anywhere else in American politics, with America proudly leading the charge.

This ‘other’ was once the  ‘ barbaric Red Indian’, later the ‘commie ‘, and now the ‘terrorist’. Black people on the other hand have always found themselves targeted by this fear of the ‘other’ in the American psyche. Whether it was the propagated image of ‘the black rapist’ after the Civil War in order to justify lynching, to the modern day fear of the black male in a hoodie as a no-good criminal. What a way of repaying those whose labor built America’s infastrcture?

The physical attributes of this modern day ‘other’ are now currently those, which resemble my own personal appearance. Brown skin, beard, Pakistani-born and Muslim heritage. Lady luck must surely like me…

Do individuals exist that wish to harm the West? Yes. Are they capable of doing it at every given turn? Questionable. Forgive me for my cynicism but it is a writer’s passion to question.

Nonetheless, in 2008 when an eloquent, well-spoken State Senator was sworn in to be president of the United States not much seemed far from the norm in terms of his route to power. Except that fact that his father was black and his middle name was Hussein. It was at this point, and thereafter, that the American psyche had to confront its fear of the ‘other’ – how could they not? The ‘other’ was now in their face.

In 2008, at the height of admiration for Obama, 10% of Americans still believed the president to be a Muslim. Fast-forward to after Obama’s ‘honeymoon period’ (a prolonged honeymoon thanks to the work of a Southern cowboy) and another public expression of the American fear of the ‘other’ took place before the watching world.

While driven by the right-wing, a more general ‘fear of the other’ was evoked when, in 2011, the president felt pushed to produce a paper copy of his birth certificate as proof of his American citizenship. This event was not only embarrassing for the ‘leader of the free world’ but also reminiscent of a confused child having its prejudices further inflamed by a cunning adolescent.

What struck me as significant in this fiasco was the fact that the situation turned from a mere conspiracy theory to a full-blown ‘Birther Movement’

Imagine you are being chased and eventually find yourself at a dead end, with the assailant hot on your tail. Your fight-or-flight response kicks in for self-preservation. This is what the ‘Birther Movement’ signifies and reminded me of when I imagine that scenario. Here, suspicion regarding the President’s ‘otherness’ was so severe that at the first given chance some citizens jumped into action and created a movement.

At the same time this form of xenophobia indirectly promoted the ignorant idea that Muslims could never be authentic enough citizens to be worthy of elected roles. They are not ‘one of us’ surely.

This rather broad fear of the ‘other’ works much like a domino effect. For if Obama is an ‘undercover’ Muslim then he surely must be taking America towards Socialism, another of America’s great fears since the Cold War era. The fear became so overt at one point that in 2011 the right wing called for a boycott on one of Obama’s speeches after it was considered to be spreading ‘socialist ideology’. Now it would be common to blame the right-wing for this incident. However, would they be able to create such a circus if, along with general fear-mongering, they couldn’t also tap in to a longstanding apprehension of the ‘other’?

Those of us aware of the President’s actions recognise that Obama is not a Muslim (at least not one who devoutly sympathises with Muslim states), for otherwise he would not drone civilians in Muslim states. Neither is he a socialist for he has furthered the grips of capitalism through his fervent support of big business. Most importantly Obama’s foreign policy promotes terror through the use of terror. Such irony it is for Obama to be called a socialist and a Muslim. The question now is what accusation from the American paranoia surface against Obama next?

-Taimour Fazlani

The post Obama, America, & the fear of the ‘Other’ appeared first on Madness & Reality.