Welcome to One Black Woman’s Blog

•June 6, 2009 • Comments Off

Hi there.

I’m known as blksista on the pages of DailyKos, Jack and Jill Politics, and Booman Tribune, among others. If you don’t readily know who I am, you probably heard that I wrote a series of blog articles about the drowning of New Orleans, my birthplace. It took a long time for me to find my voice blogging, and these articles basically made my rep on DK.

I finally realized that I wanted my own blog to continue to talk about New Orleans, black people, culture, gossip/public intellectualism, politics, Buddhism, journalism and ethics, looksism, cooking, fiction, history, womanism, writing, race, fashion, music and other topics of interest during this rather fractious time in American life and the life of the Republic.

Finally, I would like to say that I have a patron saint of blogging, and that, for all intents and purposes, is the late Steve Gilliard. I discovered Steve’s blog while I was living on 132nd Street in Harlem, New York between 2003-2005. Through him, I got a real introduction to New York politics. We talked privately online here and there, but I never got to meet him. I’m sure we even passed by each other while at I-HOP without knowing it. I am so sorry he is gone, because he would have truly enjoyed seeing Obama in the White House.  I think that he would have kept cool regarding our FBP’s striking a grand plan taxing and cutting with Boehner, McConnell and the Republicans, making them look like the charlatans and tools for the rich that they are.  I know that I could never be as audacious or as knowledgeable as Steve was during his short career, but he did teach me a few things. One: to be yourself and two: to say what is real. Then you’ll never be alone.

If you like my work, if you like visiting This Black Sista’s Page, and if you can contribute $5, $10 or more, I may be able to weather some crises and stay afloat. You can use your bank account, Visa, MasterCard, AmerEx with the PayPal button to the top right.

Getting Back to Business This P.M.

•May 16, 2013 • Leave a Comment

It's self-explanatory; more people, it is said, have been visiting Shaniya's grave since the trial commenced (Courtesy: Justice for Shaniya Davis/Facebook)

It’s self-explanatory; more people, it is said, have been visiting Shaniya’s grave since the trial commenced (Courtesy: Justice for Shaniya Davis/Facebook)

Sorry, but I have been job hunting, so I have not been as forthcoming as I would like to be.

Plus, coding issues preclude me from using the kinds of videos that I would like to use.  WordPress.com can be really limiting, but I am not ready financially to make this jump to WordPress.org.

However, I will be returning with a couple of articles on the Shaniya Davis case as well as other new/old news.  The state is resting its case today.

Keep your shirts on, and I will be ready to talk.

Hasta…

“Fruitvale Station,” The Drama About The Death of Oscar Grant, Premieres in July, 2013

•May 13, 2013 • 1 Comment

fruitvale-station-poster

I’ve known about this film for some time.  Particularly after it won Best Picture at Sundance, there has been talk of Oscar in more ways than just one for this new director and film.  It is also going to be in competition at the Cannes Film Festival for the Palme d’Or under the designation, “Une Certain Regard”.  And now the trailer has been officially released for the first time today.  Fruitvale Station is based on the last day in the life of one Oscar Grant, a young black man who was shot to death New Year’s night by police officer Johannes Mehserle at the Fruitvale  BART station.

This is an interview with Fruitvale Station director Ryan Coogler on Democracy Now! several months ago.  Coogler is a graduate of USC’s film school, the same film school that turned out George Lucas, John Singleton, Caleb Deschanel, Ron Howard, and Shonda Rhimes.

Zeba Blay over at Shadow & Act had this to say about this critically-acclaimed film in January:

[Michael B. ] Jordan has turned in what will most definitely be a career-defining performance. Best known for his work on the TV series Friday Night Lights and more recently the found footage movie Chronicle, the young actor has proven here that he is not only ready but seriously deserving of so-called A-List status. The quiet beauty of the role is that he isn’t perfect – at the top of the film Oscar has only just ended his weed-selling; a flashback later in the film reveals his mother visiting him in prison for an undivulged crime. Still, Coogler takes care to frame his screenplay, no matter Grant’s past (sic) mistakes, as ultimately the story of an extremely decent person.

Indeed, the film casts a very sympathetic eye on Oscar, shedding a slightly more ambiguous light on the cops who detained and killed him. Detractors may say that the film wears its agenda too obviously on its sleeve, warping what might or might not be the “truth” for its own convenience. But what is perhaps most interesting about Fruitvale is that it stands at the intersection of cinema and a digital age where sites like YouTube and WorldStarHipHop have complicated the very notion of what the “truth” even is.

The movie also stars Academy Award-winning actress Octavia Butler as Grant’s mother, Ariana Neal as Grant’s little daughter Tatiana, and Melonie Diaz as Grant’s girlfriend.  Rounding out the immediate cast are Chad Michael Murray and Kevin Durand as the two BART officers responsible for Grant’s death,  and Ahna O’Reilly as Katie.  Forest Whittaker produced the film with The Weinstein Company distributing it.

I think that Coogler chose to make a dramatic film rather than a documentary about Oscar Grant’s last day because drama sometimes allows one to humanize the subject, no matter how controversial.  I also think of this film as the anti-Django, as it was beginning to get buzz just as Quentin Tarantino’s blood and slug fest started gaining both acclaim and controversy.  One important thing about Fruitvale Station is that the focus, ultimately, is on the black hero (although Oscar Grant does die), and not on a secondary character like King Schultz.  Or in this case, the BART officer, Johannes Mehserle, who in my opinion, executed Grant.  Unfortunately, even Mehserle’s actual name is not used in the film, nor is that of the other officer directly involved,  Tony Pirone.  No matter: they aren’t heroes.

The fact that Oscar’s killing was videoed all over the country and around the world because of the ubiquitous cell phones that all the bystanders carried has made cops even more nervous about even the appearance of misdeeds.   Some now have a way of fighting against prosecution.  A very recent case in point is the vicious beating death of David Silva in Bakersfield, CA last Tuesday night.  Silva, a Latino, was inebriated and already on the ground, but sheriff’s deputies  set on him and killed him outright with their clubs.  Then the deputies tried to make sure that no one would be prosecuted by having every cell phone camera that might have been trained on them confiscated.   I kid you not, and the witnesses will stand up in court despite smears and false accusations from cops.

Kern County deputies beat an intoxicated man to death in the street Tuesday night, then detained and intimidated witnesses, confiscated video evidence, and arrested another man who spoke out. David Silva was beaten with batons, left in a pool of blood until an ambulance finally arrived after he was already dead.

A female 9-1-1 caller named Selena told the dispatcher, “There’s a man laying on the floor, and your police officers beat the (expletive) out of him and killed him.” She said that she witnessed the victim do nothing wrong to cause 8 officers to bludgeon him to death. “These cops had no reason to do this to this man.”

A 19-year-old male witness, Ruben Ceballos, was awakened around midnight by screams and loud banging noises outside his home. He said he ran to the left side of his house to find out who was causing the ruckus.”When I got outside I saw two officers beating a man with batons and they were hitting his head so every time they would swing, I could hear the blows to his head.” He said that Silva was on the ground screaming for help, but officers continued to beat him After several minutes, Silva stopped screaming and was no longer responsive, according to Ceballos.

Another witness, Jason Land, said that he witnessed the beating of David Silva. “They jumped out, reached for their bats, and beat that man until they killed him,” he said, “right in front of my face.” Land spoke up about what he saw and was arrested as retaliation. The witness was on probation and says police responded to his eyewitness report by claiming he was high on PCP and arrested him without any proof.

Next time, don’t even say you have a cell phone to the cops if you see this kind of thing.  Get a good lawyer who will apprise you of your rights, and then give up the video to those who are preparing a wrongful death or a prosecution case against those who were responsible.  Murder at the hands of police is also wrong, wrong, wrong.

The spectre of Oscar Grant will not rest until incidents like these stop.  Fruitvale Station debuts July 12.  Check your local cineplex listings and run, don’t walk to see this movie.

Meanwhile, Back in Wisconsin: Ex-”Lambeau Leap” Footballer LeRoy Butler Gives a Four-Word Tweet of Support for Jason Collins; Loses Church Gig, But Gains More Fans for His Stand Against Homophobia

•May 3, 2013 • Leave a Comment

It’s getting to the place where a brother can’t even Tweet another brother a supportive and positive message, even across the Twitterverse, without someone trying to make something of it, to cast shade on the individual sending the message as well as the person receiving it.  I mean, this is what I feel is a positive message.  This was no mere masculinist shoutout.

Retired Green Bay Packer LeRoy Butler, creator of the joyful “Lambeau Leap” that is now done by not only Packers but a lot of other footballers since 1993, wasn’t asking for a rendezvous when he Tweeted a message Monday.  But from all the fuss, you’d think he’d done something at the level of former Representative Weiner.

LeRoy Butler in the very first “Lambeau Leap” in 1993. Yep, the Leap is 20 years old, but Butler has remained young in his heart (Courtesy: JSonline)

Of course, this particular Tweet had something to do with basketballer Jason Collins‘ momentous Sports Illustrated admission that he is gay.  This is all what Butler was saying to Collins:

leroytweet
Continue reading ‘Meanwhile, Back in Wisconsin: Ex-”Lambeau Leap” Footballer LeRoy Butler Gives a Four-Word Tweet of Support for Jason Collins; Loses Church Gig, But Gains More Fans for His Stand Against Homophobia’

Live Stream of The 2013 White House Correspondents Dinner with President Obama and Conan O’Brien

•April 27, 2013 • Leave a Comment

Okay, don’t say that I didn’t try, people.   Streisand is in that crowd, along with her spouse James Brolin, Reverend Al Sharpton, the likes of Tony Goldwyn and Kerry Washington of Scandal, Meryl Streep, Kevin Spacey, Gayle King, Chris Matthews, and the odious Geraldo Rivera.  Everyone is dressed to the nines, of course.  The main event should start soon.

It may be nice, it may be hilarious, but the supine and corporate  Fourth Estate still treats this event as patting themselves on the back—for practically little.  They’re all rich, well-connected, and well-heeled, even Reverend Al, by varying degrees.  They don’t inform, they advocate.  And for the wrong people.  And not necessarily for the President.

Enjoy.  I think.

(Understand that when the event is over, there is no recorded playback using this channel.  Check with You Tube, or the White House dot gov website.)

Shaniya Davis: Judge Orders Delay to Ascertain Mario McNeill’s Psychologcal Capacity; Ruling to Proceed with Trial on Friday

•April 23, 2013 • Leave a Comment

Well, here’s the first stall from that stack of motions his defense attorneys presented to Judge Ammons: Mario McNeill will be psychologically evaluated before he stands trial to ascertain his mental capacity.   You know, I thought that had already been done.  No, I don’t think that McNeill is impaired so that he cannot withstand the rigors of a trial, but I think that his tendencies are definitely anti-social and anti-woman/child. In the long run, the attorneys may be making a play for a lesser sentence come the verdict in a death penalty murder case.

The capital murder trial of Mario Andrette McNeill has been delayed for at least a week while McNeill undergoes a mental evaluation.

McNeill, 32, is charged with murder, rape and kidnapping in the death of 5-year-old Shaniya Davis.

Opening statements were set to begin Monday afternoon, but Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons told jurors not to come back until next Monday.

Defense attorneys raised a question Monday morning about McNeill’s “capacity to proceed” and included an assessment of McNeill by Durham psychologist James Hilkey, who also evaluated Robert Stewart, who received a life sentence for killing eight people at a Carthage nursing home in 2009.

Ammons directed doctors from Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro and Central Regional Hospital in Butner, two state mental hospitals, to confer with Hilkey and conduct an independent evaluation of McNeill over the next few days.

The judge said he would hold a hearing Friday to determine whether the trial will proceed.

Suspect Mario McNeill while listening to the jury selection last week. A  psychological evaluation may not help or hinder his case (Courtesy: WRAL.com)

Again, this is what I am afraid of: that the trial will not proceed because of the findings.  But see, McNeill doesn’t want a life sentence, especially one without possibility of parole.  He wants a get-out-of-jail-free card.  An evaluation by the local shrinks may not help him out much, because it might influence the judge (or jury) to remand him to a prison with a psych ward instead of death row.  However, it might wipe that smirk off his face but good as with the photo above.

There was more from last week.  Apparently, Judge Ammons told the public and the press to leave chambers because there was something he wanted to say only to the jury, the defense and the prosecution.  That got the Fourth Estate riled:

The move came after the state and defense began to disagree Thursday afternoon on whether to allow information into evidence pertaining to McNeill leading investigators to the child’s body.

At a motions hearing Friday morning, Judge Jim Ammons unexpectedly cleared the courtroom.

“The matter has come to my attention that requires me, in the interest of justice, with no available means to me, to require this court to be closed to everyone except the parties that are involved,” the judge explained.

Reporters were ordered out for about 15 minutes, let in for a couple of minutes, and then [they] learned the hearing has been continued until first thing Monday morning, which is when the court expected to begin opening statements.

Now the jury will not report until Monday afternoon. So far, there’s been no clue as to what’s behind the continuance.

I wish I had been a fly on the wall listening to what happened, but Ammons is trying to be oh, so careful.  He doesn’t want to give McNeill’s attorneys anything to stand on for an appeal that might throw out the verdict.  At the same time, I feel that McNeill was not tricked when he admitted to authorities where to find the little girl’s body in exchange, he and his attorneys say, for a plea deal.  That supposed deal that went out the window with a new prosecutor.  One way or another, even with such an admission, he was not going to walk out of the clutches of the law that easily.

In another vein, I’m wondering why the media had to be thrown out of chambers as well as the public over this issue.  Because whatever was discussed is bound to surface sooner or later.

Stay tuned…

Aren’t You Glad It Isn’t Anyone Black? Putting to Rest The Myth of The Dark-Skinned Terrorist

•April 19, 2013 • 1 Comment

You know, when there are calamities that befall our country like what happened on Monday at the Boston Marathon, there seems to be a knee-jerk belief among many that the terrorists must be from abroad and that anyone fitting the description needs a beat-down.  Hey, this is not to suggest that the fear is unwarranted, especially when we have precedents with 9/11 and the earlier attack on the Twin Towers in the Nineties.

But it seems to me, especially from our news media and from the consciousness-impaired that all of these attacks must emanate from people of color, namely people from the Middle East, a considered trouble zone.  Not necessarily, because we also have homegrown, right-wing, light-skinned to white people who practice bomb-making and are stockpiling weapons, and have some serious “issues” with the United States as if they were about to go to war at any moment.  This reality seems to be lost on those whites for whom darkness and blackness are consonant with evil.  They even justify the stockpiling and the bomb-making as defending themselves and others of like mind.

Lately, the specter of the dark-skinned terrorist flared up this week when so-called newsmen like CNN’s John King suggested from his “sources” that this is what Homeland Security was looking for—dark-skinned suspects.  Now, “dark-skinned” could include a wide spectrum of people, from African Americans to Latinos as well as Muslims from the Middle East.  Frankly, though, a brother wearing a kufi could be a target, even if he isn’t a Muslim, but just a right-thinking black nationalist or even a jazz musician who has consciousness.  Naturally, at this pronouncement, all common sense and calm began to leave some citizens with them targeting the closest dark-skinned innocent people that they could find to vent their rage and racism. They only needed the right signal:

A Muslim woman in Boston says that she was attacked by a white man on on Wednesday morning because he was apparently enraged by the Boston Marathon bombings and convinced, despite a lack of evidence, that the perpetrators were Muslim.

Heba Abolaban told Malden Patch that she and her friend, who were both wearing hijabs, were walking on Commercial Street with their children when a white male in his thirties punched her in her left shoulder.

“He was screaming ‘Fuck you Muslims! You are terrorists! I hate you! You are involved in the Boston explosions! Fuck you!’” she recalled. “Oh my lord, I was extremely shocked.”

“I did not say anything to him,” she added. “Not even that we aren’t terrorists… he was so aggressive.”

After about two minutes of confrontation, the man left and Abolaban called her husband and police.

In my fading memory, after the Oklahoma City Bombing, I distinctly remember certain Muslim communities in Oklahoma and in surrounding states being  intimidated, with a couple of their mosques being vandalized or burned.  It was a lynch mob environment.  Even a fearful expectant mother nearly lost her baby when someone hove a brick or large rock through a window of her house because the perp(s) knew that there was a Muslim family in the neighborhood.  All because their less-than-tolerant neighbors thought that they—or a few of them—were responsible or needed a beat-down in revenge.

So when Timothy McVeigh and his co-conspirators were caught, there was a significant silence from these same citizens, along with a sense of feeling betrayed.  And there weren’t any news of introspection and regret, apologies or restitution towards these Americans or American residents.  The burden of proof of innocence is always on people of color.

Continue reading ‘Aren’t You Glad It Isn’t Anyone Black? Putting to Rest The Myth of The Dark-Skinned Terrorist’

Martin Richard: One Important Observation About The Boston Marathon Bombing

•April 17, 2013 • 4 Comments

Not a few black people are spreading this photograph of 8-year-old Martin Richard on social media in the wake of the Boston Marathon Bombing, and showing and expressing support for his grieving and injured family members.

According to Snopes.com, who is checking out all ‘Net and Web rumors regarding the bombing, this was a photograph taken in April 2012 after a class lesson taught by instructor Rachel Moo regarding the death of Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmermann. Naturally, Trayvon’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, came to learn about the photograph and its context through social media, and issued a statement:

Statement to the Family of Martin Richard
from the Parents of Trayvon Martin

Our hearts are broken over the tragedy in Boston yesterday.  Our family sends our sincerest condolences to all of those who have been affected by this terrible situation.  We especially would like to send a message to the family of eight-year-old Martin Richard.  We have come to understand that the peace sign that Martin is holding in a photo being circulated throughout the media was created in response to a lesson by his teacher about the death of our son. From our family to yours, we are praying for you, thinking about you, and will remember your son for the rest of our lives.

~Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, parents of Trayvon Martin

(Statement corrected only for punctuation.)

This poster, which was generated by the Facebook group Everyone Matters, is being spread throughout social media. It depicts in shadow two now-famous murdered children hand-in-hand and facing eternity, teenager Trayvon Martin and Martin Richard, one of the three killed at the site of the Boston Marathon finish line Monday, with the original photo in the inset below right (Courtesy: Everyone Matters)

When children are heartlessly murdered, or coldly considered by terrorists like Timothy McVeigh as “collateral damage,” it is viewed as even more of a crime.  Particularly with this little child, he was being taught not to hate, but also to dislike discrimination, whether with Trayvon, who was innocently wearing his hoodie in the rain, or elsewhere.  Even young children have a sense of what is injustice and what is wrong, and it was being reinforced with Martin and with his classmates, whether in school or at home.  He was being taught to care.

Despite what the online hate squad wants to everyone to think, young children do have a point-of-view about the world, whether simplistic or mature.   And they bear respecting, because hate kills.

Mother Tammy Lynch consoles her weeping daughter, Kaitlyn, after they placed flowers and balloons of condolence at Martin Richard’s house (Courtesy: N.Y. Daily News)

The Guardian.co.uk has a clearer picture of what happened to Martin when the bombs struck.  Contrary to initial news reports, Martin was not high-fiving his father running in the marathon:

Continue reading ‘Martin Richard: One Important Observation About The Boston Marathon Bombing’

 
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