Chris Norwood: 24 Hours in the Clink

Chris Norwood: 24 Hours in the Clink.

Bloomberg administration’s relentlessly enforced mass criminalization of minority neighborhoods — the shocking, obsessive and official brutalization of black women in New York City.Many “charges” that could easily be handled with a summons or desk ticket now impose an arrest that demands arraignment and “processing” through New York’s criminal “justice” system. The number of misdemeanor arrests rose from 353,649 in 2005 to 391,892 in 2010; for its minority citizens, New York City’s having the lowest crime rates in decades just meant that more pretexts would be found to arrest more of them.

Whatever the claimed reasons for arrests, the salient lesson of passage through New York City’s utterly filthy lock-ups and holding cells is that the constant seizure, routinely unprovoked, of black women on New York City streets is now absolute policy. There is no way to have some 400,000 “good,” justified arrests a year in any event and when that amount of police action is focused on selected neighborhoods there is no way to stay out of its path. The mother dashing next door to retrieve a teen who hasn’t come home on time, the housewife out buying a cake for dinner, even the young working woman asleep at home in her bed — all are subject to seizure any time, and they will mostly be black almost all the time.

Do white people watch black movies? – The Washington Post

Do white people watch black movies? – The Washington Post.

The answer is a resounding hell no. If there are no whites on the screen it ain’t gonna be seen. Black folks reaaly need to boycott white films for a few months to see if Hollywood can do without our economic support.

Trauma, PTSD rates especially high for Black vets

Trauma, PTSD rates especially high for Black vets.

ABWW Heroine of the Day: Janet Collins

Ballerina and choreographer, Janet Collins (March 7, 1917 in New Orleans, Louisiana – May 28, 2003 in Fort Worth, Texas), becomes the first Black dancer to appear with the Metropolitan Opera Company…However, because of her race, she could not tour with them in parts of the deep South.

Janet Collins was one of the few classically trained Black dancers of her generation. In 1951 she won the Donaldson Award for best dancer on Broadway for her work in Cole Porter’s Out of This World. She also performed in Aida, Carmen, and was the first Black ballerina at the Metropolitan Opera. She could not tour in parts of the Deep South due to her race. In later life she taught dance.

Janet Collins was among the pioneers of black ballet dancing and paved the way for others to follow. (Arthur Mitchell, for example, joined the New York City Ballet in the year Collins retired.) In 1932, aged 15, she auditioned with success, for the prestigious Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, but as she was required to paint her face and skin white in order to be able to perform, she did not join the company.

Janet Collins struggled time and again against racism, which did not spare the world of professional ballet dancing. Not many African-American dancers and performers achieved the successful career she was able to attain. In 1951, Janet Collins became the first African American to be hired full-time by the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Marian Anderson, the first to sing there, did not perform until 1955.

Janet Collins’ dance reputation today resides primarily in her role in breaking the color barrier; the constraints on Black classical dancers were too strong for her to have a vibrant performing career. However, her original choreography, which she performed in solo tours, was clearly of note, although few records survive. In her late forties she retired, turning to religion and finding comfort as an oblate in the Benedictine order. She was also an accomplished painter. Janet Collins died in 2003 at the age of 86, in Fort Worth, Texas. In recognition of her great work and dedication, her renowned cousin Carmen De Lavallade established the Janet Collins Fellowship which would honor aspiring talented ballet dancers.

Courtesy of Harlin C. Kearsley via Wikipedia

ABWW Hater of the Day: Steve Harvey

Steve Harvey has Ex-Wife Mary Thrown in Jail

Steve Harvey has set himself up as relationship guru with his book How to How Act Like a Lady and Think Like a Man and. A black women bashing tome extraordinaire in which he suggests that the black women should look to older black men (like him) for relationship salvation. He has also set himself up as a moral arbiter with his Christian comedy shows by his reactions to naughty comments by his contestants on The Family Feud. Here is something that the Gator Shoe God may not want you to know. He engaged in a systematic campaign to harass his ex-wife. I guess his next book should be How to Act Like a Man and Treat Women like Ladies. Hypocrite!!!

What Do Herman Cain and Joe Paterno Have in Common? – COLORLINES

When I heard about Herman Cain, I thought of Clarence Thomas and Dominique Strass-Kahn, even though the details of their alleged crimes and misconduct are different in scope and severity.

When the names “Sandusky” and “Paterno” hit the news cycle, I visualized a new Mount Rushmore featuring those two, Eddie Long and a string of Catholic priests whose names I don’t know but whose crimes have marred thousands.

via What Do Herman Cain and Joe Paterno Have in Common? – COLORLINES.

ABWW Links of the Day

Native American Nightmare
Native Americans and Black Americans have a complicated history. Several nations enslaved us, black soldiers participated in removing Native Americans from their homelands and some nations welcomed slaves and fought off white encroachment together. Native American women have paid an especially high price as a result of racist Manifest Destiny ideology of white Americans. Native American women have the highest rates of physical and sexual abuse. A new study sheds light on the unthinkably brutal life of Native American women involved in prostitution. This article discusses the findings of the first studies the plight of Native American prostitutes in Alaska and the cross racial abuse that these women face.

Here’s How Deadly Breast Cancer is For Women of Color in the U.S.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) released three videos targeting black women as part of its outreach to women of color for National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. According to the NCI, nearly 27,000 African American women are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer this year. And while they are less likely than white women to be diagnosed with breast cancer, they are more likely to die from it than any other race — and more likely to be diagnosed at an advanced stage.

Three Feminists Talk About The Media’s Obsession With Unwed Black Women
The recent coverage of black women been the domain of everyone except black women. Colorlines.com interviewed out to three brilliant, self-identified black feminists to get their take on the media’s obsession with who black women choose to love, and how. What follows is a candid, hilarious and insightful part of the conversation on black love that we don’t often to get to hear.

Moment of Bliss – Awkward Black Girl Halloween Episode
Issa Rae is a producer/director/writer striving to make her mark on the entertainment industry. She received her B.A. from Stanford University, where she produced and directed four theatrical productions, including two stage adaptations of Spike Lee films. Because film was her true passion, she took time off from Stanford to attend the New York Film Academy where she honed her filmmaking skills. Upon graduating, Issa Rae has worked on various music videos and shorts. “The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl,” often referred to as ABG, is Issa Rae’s third web series. It has been featured on several sites and publications, including Vibe and Clutch magazine.

Links of the Day

Two women accused Cain of inappropriate behavior
We know that how these accusations are viewed will depend on the “validity” of the complainants. The article know that they are middle/upper middle class women with enough clout to lawyer up and get settlements. If they are white it will be Cain’s downfall. Al that shuckin’ and jivinin’ and black bashing will not protect him from being view like Gus from Birth of a Nation. If they are women of color the Rebublithugs will surround him like a wagon circle and blame this on crazy, liberal, abortion-hungry, lesbian feminists. Meanwhile her is a video of the only time Herman Cain has made sense to me.

Conservative “Ex-Gay” Politician Admits to Sex With Minor
Another example of Rebubplitugs “do as I say not as I do” moral code. Linda Wall an independent conservative running for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates admits the when she was a 21 year old gym teacher she had on ongoing sexual realtionship with one of her junior high school students. She expresses regret for her “youthful mistake,” claims that she was saved from being “in homosexuality” and blames her actions on the liberal atmosphere at her college and smoking to much weed. Her actions were a felony and still prosecutable. I hope that the victim in question has the fortitude to come forward to press charges against this predator and go after her sick gang born again supporters. YUCK!

Hater of the Day, Again: Jimi Izreal

Jimi Izreal is a pompous asshat, who has bashes black women for fun and profit. This is second time being named Hater of the Day, congratulations! He has a neurotic need to publish his whining because we don’t fall on our knees to worship this snotweasel like he was an Adonis. He had a flame war with me after I read an excerpt from his book and criticized his neurotic ramblings. Now the dude is bashing black mothers, black girls and feminists in a piece for jezabel.com. The video of a 14 year old African American performing oral sex on a boy of similar age went viral after he and his friends uploaded it to the internet.The accompanying defamation of the girl exploded and the condemnation for the boy in question and the boys who taped this was conspicuously silent.

There are a plethora of black women in the blogoshere but jezebel.com chooses a black man to discuss the distribution of this child pornography. The is not a review of latest season’s fashions, this is a crime. Publishing a victim blaming, woman bashing piece like this just supports the longstanding devaluation of black women and lack of acknowledgment of white female privilege. You can read this idiot’s ramblings and a great critique called of his fluffer nuttery
No, You Aren’t Amber Cole’s Father.

Madame Noire, known for their feminist bashing pieces supported Izreal’s tomfoolery so I politely (well maybe not so politely) had to remind them that black feminist movement is hundreds of years old. I am tired of black people who look at the feminism as some kind of invention of white women. African AMerican women have been campaigning for the protection and equality since slavery. Bloggers who see black feminist as brainwashed followers of white women need to read Sojourner Truth’s Ain’t I a Woman speech. The obviously have not heard about Maria Miller W. Stewart, Sarah Mapps Douglass and Sarah Parker Remond who all spoke eloquently about special horror of being a slave and a woman. Frederick Douglass was also an member of the feminist movement and Ida B Wells spoke as fervently about the sexual atrocities that black women face as she did about lynching.The boys in this case have been arrested and hope the young lady in question get some counseling, so she can make more prudent decisions in the future.

ABWW Heroine of the Day: Aida Overton Walker

While most think of leggy white dancers when they recall the Ziegfeld Follies but some of the original women performers were black women. Ada Overton Walker (14 February 1880 – 11 October 1914), also billed as Aïda Overton Walker and as “The Queen of the Cakewalk”, was an African-American vaudeville performer and wife of George Walker. She appeared with her husband and his performing partner Bert Williams, and appeared in groups such as Black Patti’s Troubadours. She was also a solo dancer and choreographer for vaudeville shows such as Bob Cole, Joe Jordan, and J. Rosamond Johnson’s The Red Moon (1908) and S. H. Dudley’s His Honor the Barber (1911). She was born in the Richmond, Virginia in the month of February — — on 14 February 1880 — — Aida Overton’s family moved to New York City when she was young, and that is where she gained an education and considerable musical training.

Aida Overton Walker dazzled early-twentieth-century theater audiences with her original dance routines, her enchanting singing voice, and her penchant for elegant costumes. At 15 years old, she joined John Isham’s Octoroons, one of the most influential black touring groups of the 1890s, and the following year she became a member of the Black Patti Troubadours. Although the show consisted of dozens of performers, Overton emerged as one of the most promising soubrettes of her day.
In 1898, she joined the company of the famous comedy team Bert Williams and George Walker, and appeared in all of their shows — — The Policy Players (1899), The Sons of Ham (1900), In Dahomey (1902), Abyssinia (1905), and Bandanna Land (1907).Within about a year of their meeting, George Walker and Aida Overton wed on 22 June 1899. After the marriage, Aida Walker worked as a choreographer for Williams and Walker, her husband’s vaudevillian comedy duo.Since

While George Walker supplied most of the ideas for the musical comedies and Bert Williams enjoyed fame as the “funniest man in America,” Aida quickly became an indispensable member of the Williams and Walker Company. In The Sons of Ham, for example, her rendition of Hannah from Savannah won praise for combining superb vocal control with acting skill that together presented a positive, strong image of black womanhood. Indeed, onstage Aida refused to comply with the plantation image of black women as plump mammies, happy to serve; like her husband, she viewed the representation of refined African American types on the stage as important political work. A talented dancer, Aida improvised original routines that her husband eagerly introduced in the shows; when In Dahomey was moved to England, Aida proved to be one of the strongest attractions.

After a decade of nearly continuous success with the Williams and Walker Company, Aida’s career took an unexpected turn when her husband collapsed on tour with Bandanna Land. Eventually, Aida began touring the vaudeville circuit as a solo act. Less than two weeks after George Walker’s death in January 1911, Aida signed a two-year contract to appear as a co-star with S. H. Dudley in another all-black traveling show. She was celebrated for her part in the spectacular “Salome” at Oscar Hammerstein’s Victoria Theater in New York City.

After a 16-week tour of the Midwest, vaudevillian Aida Overton Walker returned to her homebase in The Big Apple in July of 1912. Impresario Oscar Hammerstein invited her to reprise her role as Salome at his roof garden theatre on Broadway and West 42nd Street in the first week of August. Houdini and Mae West were also on the stagebill along with Edgar Berger, Fields and Carroll, Dan the talking dog, and the usual “nut” acts.Critic Robert Speare reported that Aida “is the only colored artist who has ever been known to give this dance in public.” He praised her performance as “a graceful and interesting version of the dance.”

Although still a relatively young woman in the early 1910s, Aida began to develop medical problems that limited her capacity for constant touring and stage performance. The talented thespian died suddenly of kidney failure on 11 October 1914 when she was only 34 years old. The New York Age featured a lengthy obituary on its front page. She was, in the words of the New York Age’s Lester Walton, the exponent of “clean, refined artistic entertainment.”