Fear Of The Black (Male) Planet

"I know something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms. Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway" -- Charles Ramsey

Now, to many, this quote was pretty funny.  It was the words of a hood black man, speaking from the heart, about a situation in which he found himself in the middle.  I hadn't even thought of the quote until I saw a Facebook post from a friend of mine.

"I know something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms." Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway." Quote from Charles Ramsey regarding his discovery/saving of three Cleveland women. We may have come a long way in the last 50-100 years, but it's obvious we still have a long way to go.

Now, she is white and I think she, like many other young, established whites, recognize that in the terms of race relations, the nation has not just a long way to go, but we have miles and miles and MILES to go.  But what I don't think they understand is they, as well as other races, are taught to fear the black man every day.

"But Kitti! No one is at my job or at my home telling me to be scared of black men! No one is telling me that black men are evil! And even if they did, I wouldn't stand for it!"

Uh. huh.

Let me ask you this:: when it's a group of you and your friends out and you see a group of young black men walking toward you, what's the first thing you do? Hug your purse a bit tighter, perhaps? Lock your cars doors AGAIN although you know you just locked them five minutes before? Immediately pull out your cell phone "just in case something happens". If you are walking, you probably cross the street if the black men look particularly.....thuggish.  How many jokes have you giggled to that ended with a punchline of "and the black man (insert something dumb or criminalized here)"?
See, white people (and many blacks too) don't want to admit that we have been taught to fear the black man.  In the 1920s, Cocaine was made illegal by preying on the fears of white males; they were told that if black men working in the shipyards kept taking cocaine (that was given to them by their bosses, by the way), they would break free and rape all the white women.  Same thing for Marijuiana.  The black man was once again blamed, put on trial, and judged, all based on irrational fears.  In the 1960s, the fear of the black man having guns was why then governor Ronald Reagan signed gun control into effect (the Black Panthers had promised to protect their neighbors from white cops by using any firearm they had).  In the 90s, the fear of the black man was amplified; The Central Park 5, for example. For young black males accused of raping a white woman? In Central Park? Oh yea. Black men all over the COUNTRY were put in the crosshairs.  The media, prosecutor, and police all played a role in solidifying a mentality that many whites still carry around to this day: The black man is dangerous.

So, am I shocked that this unlikely hero said what he said? Nope.  Because behind the teeth and the Sho' Nuff hairstyle, he knows the truth: If a pretty white lady is scared and threatened by the President, he knows they are scared of him, too.

Oh, and before I bounce.....Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight. They are the two other women in that house with Amanda Berry, but as we all know, the media doesn't care about missing minority women...but that's another blog for another day.

Lauryn & Lindsay

Can we address the legal system in America, please?


Justice may be blind, but the bitch sure is partial.

So, Lindsay Lohan, actress and currently the reigning Queen of Disaster, recently revealed in an interview that rehab was pointless, among other things she should have STFU about.  But this article really isn't about her lackluster attempt at sobriety and relevance.  It's more about how she has been handled by the court system, as compared to musical superstar Lauryn Hill.  L-Boogie's recent problems with the IRS has been no big secret, and just yesterday, after paying almost 1 million of the 1.8 owed, MLH was sentenced to 3 months in federal prison, fines of over $300K, PLUS house arrest when she is released.

Wait.

Now, Lindsay Lohan has been to rehab SIX TIMES. All six court ordered. All six stemming from broken probation and parole hearings. Do you know what happens if you break probation and break bail? You get arrested (I learned that from Dog The Bounty Hunter) Besides, I thought California had a "3 Strikes Law". You know...that whole if you get caught doing the same thing three times you go to prison for life thing?  And ok...so they don't have a 3 strikes law.  In every other court system in America, REPEAT OFFENDERS ARE PLACED IN PRISON AFTER SO LONG.

So.....what's going on here?

Lohan gets to break laws, lie about cocaine possession, steal, and all the court system keeps doing is giving her a slap on the wrist. A "don't do that anymore, little girl" is said to her in court as she cries and ACTS her way into another chance.  She never takes her rehabilitation serious.  She never takes court serious.  She does bullshit, placates the audience by saying "The judge saved my life", but then goes on TV and says "Oh, I don't have a problem. I just do this because I can. I can do whatever I want." The justice system shows me everyday that if you are a somewhat pretty white woman, you can do anything and get a light sentence, including sleep with your 14 year old student.

Meanwhile, black women like Lauryn Hill and young black girls like Kiera Wilmot are arrested and hauled off, given harsher punishments, and their explanations of why they do what they did is written off as crazy or misguided.

"Oh, Kitti, you always make things a race issue!"

It's hard not to make it about race when it's there in your face.

Beauty & the (Societal) Beast

On today, the Nerdy Nonconformist is going to step back and let another Nerdy Nonconformist (who so happens to be your friendly neighborhood Irish Republican) to handle this week's blog.  It's actually a Facebook note she posted, but I was moved. I really was, mainly because I agree with so much of the post.  Without further adieu, Madame Brittany Edwards and her take on beauty, love, and society that we called "Beast".

The first time I heard someone refer to women as the weaker sex, I was appalled. Even at a young age, I remember thinking that I was capable of doing anything a man could do, and honestly, I could probably do it better. But the older I get, I realize that maybe we are weaker; not because we aren’t capable of matching a man’s accomplishments, but because we continue to let everyone else define us-what makes us beautiful, what makes us successful, what makes us worthy. 

My entire life if you had asked me to write down five words that described me, I could have listed 100 different options, but the one word I never would have written down was beautiful. I always considered myself fat. Some years, I was legitimately overweight, I know that. But looking back, most of the time it was more just a case of me having big hips and a (really) big butt. My waist, if gone straight down, would have fit in a size 8 pair of jeans. That never mattered to me. Until I could borrow my thin, pretty friends’ pants, I would never be considered beautiful. Even now, every week I go to the gym 5 times, meet with my trainer twice, and walk/run with my best friend around the city three nights- all so I can fit back in my “skinny jeans,” which are a size 10, still considered big by societal standards.

When I weighed myself this morning I almost cried. I’ve lost two pounds in a month. I felt so frustrated. I keep doing all this work and the rewards are so low. Then I asked myself why getting back to that magic number was so important. 

The answer is that it isn’t important. No one is going to love me more because I’m 25 pounds lighter, and if they do, then they aren’t someone I need in my life anyway. All it will do is maybe make me feel better about myself because I’d be closer to what society deems perfection. In reality, I have a lot of things going for me: I’m smart; I’m funny and witty; I make killer long islands and sangria; I’m fiercely loyal; I’m driven; I’m a great NERTS partner; and, obviously, I’m also extremely modest. 

I’m not pretending men don’t have societal forces focused on them too. They have to deal with Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Alec Baldwin, etc., but in no way do they as a whole let it influence them the way women do. Men don’t sit around wondering how they can have it all-they just take it and go with it. They don’t judge other men on what age they get married, what age they have kids, what they look like. After a certain age, they really don’t judge women either; we keep doing that to ourselves. We know that the pictures of the models in Cosmo aren’t real, but that doesn’t stop us from buying over 14 million copies of it a year, just so we can get tips on how to look like them, or spending over $9.9 billion on plastic surgery in 2012 (men only spent $1 billion). We know that we don’t need a boyfriend or husband, but that doesn’t stop us from feeling like there must be something wrong with us if we are single. When my guy friends first hear my views on marriage and children, they may be shocked but it is not a huge deal, some even agree with me. It’s my female friends that give me hell about it. “Do you want to be alone forever?” “You’ll change your mind one day.” “A career isn’t everything you know.” “How could you not want to be a mom? It’s the best feeling in the world!” I admit, I judge them too, and so do the rest of my “career-oriented” friends. I think my stay at home mom friends are wasting their talents, that my friends who got married before graduating college will be hiring me for their divorces in the next 10 years, and that my friends who have already had children are missing out on the most exciting years of their life. 

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be healthy, happy, and loved; it is this obsession with perfection, with having it all, that is the problem. We as a whole need to realize that terms like beauty, happiness, and success are relative to the individual. Only when we stop tearing each other down or holding ourselves to impossible standards, can we truly claim to be the stronger sex.