The Benefit of the Doubt?

Giving "the benefit of the doubt" is an expression that I have no use for as a Black person living under the racist conditioning of this world.  It is dead as far as I am concerned right along with the expression "I'll trust you until you give me a reason not to".  These expressions and many like them are dangerous and do not apply to life for Black people in America or even around the world when dealing with white people and racism.  When it comes to racism, expressions like these serve the purpose of creating a delusional reality for white people and a false sense of safety for Black people.

Black people can't afford the "benefit of the doubt".  It is costing us too much.  Allowing these mindsets to permeate our consciousness deludes us into believing that we DON'T live in a society that will not hesitate in trying to eliminate us physically, mentally and emotionally.  There is no real trust, safety or benefit for non-white people in an oppressive white supremacist society.

We can't allow our desire and right to live in a racially unbiased world lull us into believing that it is ever really possible to do that in a world that is structurally biased against us. White people/White Identified People that like to say that we can't or shouldn't judge them by the actions of too many when they go around judging Black people by the actions of a few can shut the hell up and get back to me when they get harassed, maligned or assaulted on a daily basis just for breathing.  

America has a racism problem.  Black people can't trust a world that insists on perpetuating the lie that we are the reason racism continues to exist.  Be mindful that no matter how "good" we are in this world, as Black people, our lives will not be better until society as a whole denounces sick people and racist practices that exist purposefully to ensure that we don't.

Never be silent and always watch your back.

The American Education System and Racism

As parents we have to worry about so much when it comes to raising our children to become good people and productive parts of society.  Part of that pursuit means ensuring that they are well educated and allowed to engage every aspect of potential in life.  But when you have to deal with people like Marilyn Bart inside the classroom trying to systematically destroy that when their defenses are down, within an environment that is supposed to be safe, you can't help but wonder if it's worth subjecting them to it at all.

A veteran Fairfax County high school teacher has been accused of using racially insensitive language by telling a student to read a Langston Hughes poem in a "blacker" style. 

"She told me, 'Blacker, Jordan. C'mon, blacker. I thought you were black,'" Shumate told the Post. The 14-year-old student claimed that when he refused to continue reading the poem, the teacher read it herself, apparently to demonstrate the style of speaking she meant. 

"She sounded like a maid on the 1960s," Shumate told the Post, saying he asked the teacher if she thought all black people spoke that way. “She read the poem like a slave, basically.”

He said he was reprimanded for talking out of turn and was told to sit down.Shumate told his mother, Nicole Cober Page, about the incident on Tuesday, the Post said. 

I will say that I am not the mother for these type of shenanigans.  I have no patience or desire to give adults the benefit of the doubt when they are in a position to damage my child.  I am the parent that will write an email to the teacher with a cc: the principal and I expect to get any issue addressed in a timely manner.  Some parents think that they are creating a problem for their child (which the corrupt are hoping for) but I feel that it is the exact opposite.  We are our children's best advocate. Paper trails are amazing tools.


The teacher taunted this student in order to get him to do what she wanted.  She wanted him to "do it blacker".  As if the speech used in that poem was not indicative of the time period, region and education level rather than racial identity.  When white folks keep perpetuating the lie that only Black people during this time period spoke in this manner they continue their lying white fairytale. 


Because our children are disproportionately taught by white teachers (which really needs to change) it that means that any of them can be exposed to racially charged language, behaviors and actions by those teachers if they are inclined to use them.  This is the kind of crap that parents of Black children have to guard against everyday and there is a direct correlation between that bias and our children succeeding academically.


These types of people can make our children hate school because their environment is littered with trash disguised as teachers.  So to the Marilyn Bart's out there I would be very careful when you request for a Black person to behave in the manner of your stereotyped mind because you won't get to pick and choose which stereotype they choose to engage!

Taking the High Road???

The problem with the expression "taking the high road" is the fact that more often than not the person taking the low road is conditioned to expecting that person to automatically do it.  This is the common response that many of us have probably heard being thrown out at us as a solution when we have been subjected to racism.  The years of stress that I have suffered from this doozy kept me angry.

BlacknBougie has a post today discussing racism, our society and the tragic Trayvon Martin case.  She gives her own examples of  "taking the high road" to combat racist behavior which as you read further subjects her to only allowing her complete frustration to be aired in private.  The racist gets to go on their way unaffected and without any sort of repercussions for what they have done.

We are always expected to breathe and hold it in.  It being the words or actions that would call a racist out for who and what they are.  For far too many white people being called a racist is now seen as worse than having racism inflicted on you.  When a racist is called out on their racism they will more often than not try to present themselves as the injured.   Forget the person that is subjected to the racist words, actions or behaviors.  They are insignificant compared to the racists' offense of being labeled a racist.

I just can't with stupid people anymore.  That is what a racist is-- a stupid person.  I exceeded my "high road" quota a long time ago.  I will call them on it.  Period.

Another Black Male Accountability Fail

In modern usage a scapegoat may be a child, employee, peer, ethnic or religious group, or country singled out for unmerited negative treatment or blame. (wikipedia)

I am sick and tired of hearing people defend completely indefensible actions.  When other Black men use terms like scapegoat to absolve other men of destructive and irresponsible behavior we get a two-fer in the Black Male Accountability problem.

Too Short (on intelligence) continues his "It wasn't my fault" and "I am a victim of the system" rounds with yet another interview.  Explaining that if it wasn't for "the man" making the money so good on degradation towards his own community then he and others wouldn't have done those type of albums.

I wanted to do a whole album of positive Too Short songs, just to keep that balance. I had made a verbal deal with Barry Weiss, where he was like, “Right now would be the perfect time, you should do like the raunchiest Too Short album ever – the album cover, the songs, just do a dirty f***in’ Too Short album.” This is the executive running the company advising me to put out an entire album of just cursing and sex.

And I noticed that at a certain point in Hip Hop the major labels stopped signing and promoting the positive artists, the ones that was just really positive. Positive images were hard to get out there. So I’m just saying that at some point it wasn’t that Hip Hop changed on its own, it had a little push. I’m a real conspiracy theorist, and I just feel like there had to be a gathering of the major labels and somebody had to say like, “Look, we gotta keep this positive shit off the airwaves and let this booty-shaking shit take over. It’s time.” And after that it’s like the floodgates just opened with sex and violence.

Negro Please.  It just happened?  "The Man" made him do it?  Too Short and the others like him are NOT victims.  They are the predatory perpetrators that have continued to plague the black community destroying it from the inside!  I am a proponent of being accountable and responsible for your actions.  Too Short and those that support him apparently don't feel the same.

Psst.  By the way.  Slavery is over.

The Help: Jim Crow Rules Were Black Folks Blues

American Version: Birds on a Wire

Overseas Version: Still birds on a wire

Forgive the title of this post but if they can reduce our history during that time period to simply two words then surely my 7 won't be considered too dismissive, right?!  To all the white people involved in the making of this book and the movie: You all never seem to disappoint us poor and hapless black people with the level of your prolific ignorance in the constant telling of black people's stories in a completely unrealistic and insensitive manner.   But then, you wouldn't be you if you did, now would you? As evidenced by these covers American white people are just so deceitful considerate of black people's sensibility.


The shallow white lens strikes again and continues to plague the telling of black stories on film and in print by irresponsibly (as usual) lessening white people's negative impact on black lives in America.  White people continue to be cowards in acknowledging that truth with the respect that it deserves. White people want to preserve a redacted history in order to preserve a false sense of good will and superiority.  But they are not alone in this because black people don't want to acknowledge and accept the truth of our negative assault by them either.  Black people that allow this kind of garbage to be seen as harmless entertainment are motivated out of shame and a fear of truly accepting having been abused under that false good will and superiority.  Those black people believe that to do otherwise means that we believe that we were less than white people rather than the fact that we were treated inexcusably as less than by white people.

The Fashion Industry's Mission to Destroy the Black Woman With Our Help

Hattip to Womanist Musings for the above photos

When I first viewed these pictures I will admit that my head almost exploded and if not for all the cursing that allowed some of the heat to escape it would have happened. If Black women don't understand by now then these pictures should make it perfectly clear that the "white" fashion industry has NO RESPECT for the Black woman because they willingly obliterate our image, with our assistance, by always choosing to portray the Black woman as an animal or fetishistic other! Pictures like these and others is why I say that they have our assistance in portraying us in this manner because we are choosing to be in the photos that perpetuate the BS.

Black women are we so desperate that no matter how our image is depicted as long as it's depicted, it's okay?

I hate to say it but I think that we have been maligned for so long in society that far too many of us have begun to think that something is better than nothing as evidenced by the abundance of repugnant images of black women in all forms of media. Now, I realize that women on a whole in society are sexualized but that is not what this post is about and also no other woman on the face of this earth is as demeaned by society as the Black woman.

Naomi Campbell has spoken out about the discrimination that exists for black women in the fashion industry but she chooses to pose for this picture portraying the Black woman as the animalistic other.





Then there is this photo of Lil' Kim that of course I found disturbing due to the sexual nature but also for the fact that the Louis Vuitton logo displayed over her body to me depicts the same sickening idea of Black people being owned like "chattle"--a slave to the label if you will. WTH?!


I'm not done...I have seen several sites say that these pictures of Rhianna are beautiful (really)...how? All I see is the same ol' shyt when Black women are portrayed on film of any kind. We are the mammy, the sapphire, the jezebel, the animal, the sexual exploit or the abused. The fact that Black women would choose to pose for these type of photos is beyond me. For all of those thinking that I am taking these objectifying pictures of Black women too seriously, I would like to say that you are lost and not taking these heinous depictions of us seriously enough!

Do you see any familiar patterns in these "beautiful pictures of Rhianna?

Our reactions to anything in this country as a people is not the same as our "white" counterparts because after our ancestors were brought here against their will in chains--treated as less than human-- why should they be! To react the same as the "white" woman who has always been placed on the proverbial pedestal whilst we continue to be subjected to all types of indignities... would be choosing blindness instead of seeing what is really happening.

"Artistic" is a word that is thrown around all the time when "they" and even some of "us" try to explain these depictions of our image in this manner. HEAR ME WELL...Artistic applied to the image of the Black woman in these type of photos is NOTHING GOOD! Not in our society.

Our white supremacist society WILL NOT willingly portray Black people as equals worthy of the same respect that they bestow upon themselves! Please wake up and realize that until we take control of our image we will forever continue to be maligned by a society that would choose to demean us in any way that it can.

Black people we grew up knowing that there is always a difference made when our 'white' or 'near-white' counterpart does anything...so why would we behave as if the fashion industry would be any different because that industry has already confirmed that they are not. Black women will never be seen in the same light as white women or other non-black women unless we stop allowing the foolishness of our image being hi-jacked and displayed in a negative manner with our willing participation.

These excerpts are from a 2007 NY Times article.

“Years ago, runways were almost dominated by black girls,” said J. Alexander, a judge on “America’s Next Top Model,” referring to the gorgeous mosaic runway shows staged by Hubert de Givenchy or Yves Saint Laurent in the 1970s. “Now some people are not interested in the vision of the black girl unless they’re doing a jungle theme and they can put her in a grass skirt and diamonds and hand her a spear.”

Agents blame designers for the current state of affairs. Designers insist agents send them nothing but skinny blondes. Magazine editors bemoan the lack of black women with the ineffable attributes necessary to put across the looks of a given season.

“You want to sell the model on the basis of her beauty, not her race,” said Kyle Hagler, an agent at IMG. Yet when he sends models out on casting calls based on what he terms a “beauty perspective,” omitting any mention to potential clients of race, “You always get a call back saying, ‘You didn’t tell me she was black.’”

Oh, In case you were wondering, 2008 and 2009 were no different in the fashion industry. If we want the years that follow to be different we have to be different. Because the status quo is a sad and pathetic state of existence.

As a Black woman in today's society I would rather be considered enigmatic and allow them nothing than to be portrayed as a tragic caricature of my divine self.