White America Is Still Hatin' On Black Athletes

I watched the NFC Championship game on Sunday between the Seahawks and 49ers and saw the post game interview Erin Andrews conducted with him after he made the game saving play to send his team to the Super Bowl.

I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.  I saw it simply as an athlete who was talking smack to his just vanquished opponent that he has a history with after a hard fought NFC title game 

So imagine my shock to see White America losing its collective minds over the post game interview, calling a man who graduated from Stanford a 'thug' and releasing a torrent of racist commentary afterwards.

Then again I shouldn't have been surprised by White America's nearly instantaneous racist reaction to it.

Something that is not being talked about is the same thing happening to Serena Williams last weekend after her loss in the Australian Open quarterfinals to Ana Ivanovic.  

She is also getting called a 'thug', being compared to simians and on the receiving end of post-match racist slurs aimed at her.

Only difference between her and Sherman is because Williams is a Black female athlete, the commenters are tossing in misgendering and transmisogynist slurs into the hateful stew of insults they aim at her.


It's one of the major reasons I hate it when Serena does lose a Grand Slam match and I rub it in when she wins those majors.   I'm beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of the knuckle dragging racism and transmisogyny that comes out when she does unexpectedly lose a match.   

Serena is still going to go down in history as one of the greatest women's tennis players ever.  You vanillacentic privileged peeps slamming her also can't stand the fact she routinely beats your European tennis glamazons with almost boring regularity, draws viewers to those Grand Slam or any tennis matches and clocks more dollars than you people who have vanilla scented privileged hate for her ever will.

But back to talking about Richard Sherman.  He's absolutely on point when he notes that 'thug' is the new code word whiteness uses to denigrate Black folks since they can't openly use n----r anymore unless they simply don't care what other white peeps think about them. 

I find it mind numbingly head scratching that he even had to apologize in the first place.  For what?  Because white peeps fee-fees were offended that he called out another NFL player?  That he told the truth to a national audience about being the best cornerback in the NFL?   The stats and his play this season and cumulatively over the last three years back that up. 

I personally watched him singlehandedly change the course of the entire 2013 Texans NFL season with his Week 4 pick six that tied the game and eventually allowed the Seahawks to escape Reliant Stadium with a 23-20 overtime win.
 
Please spare me the 'Tom Brady and Peyton Manning don't do that' line.   They don't have to because the predominately white male dominated sports media does the bragging and belittling of their opponents for them.   And if Brady and Manning were trash talkers, the sports media and all these people hatin' on Richard Sherman for doing so would be calling it 'refreshingly candid' if those words were coming out of Manning's or Brady's mouths. 

So Black athletes, say what's on your minds.  Because no matter which direction you go, you're damned if you do or damned if you don't.

 

Portuguese Anti-Racism Video

It was interesting to see this video..  During the time I worked in the airline industry (and I still miss it) I heard an urban airline legend about an incident similar to what is being depicted in this video that allegedly occured on a flight enroute to South Africa during the tail end of the apartheid era.

This is a Portuguese video made to mark the 50th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.   While this video is old, the message sadly is relevant to our second decade of the 21st century

Told Y'all Some UT Fans Hated The Charlie Strong Hire

If you thought I was kidding about the less than warm welcome that greeted the news of Longhorn Elementary The University of Texas hiring Charlie Strong from some elements of their vanillacentric privileged, entitled and spoiled burnt orange wearing fanbase, well, you shouldn't be surprised.

UT megabooster Red McCombs, who has donated $100 million to UT, did his best Al Campanis impression when commenting of the hiring of the first African-American head coach for ANY UT men's sport.   

“I think the whole thing is a bit sideways,” McCombs said during a  interview on ESPN 1250 in San Antonio. “I don’t have any doubt that Charlie is a fine coach. I think he would make a great position coach, maybe a coordinator.  

“But I don’t believe (he belongs at) what should be one of three most powerful university programs in the world right now at UT-Austin. I don’t think it adds up.”

McCombs was lobbying for former NFL coach and ESPN football analyst Jon Gruden to get the UT job. 

So tell me, how is the hiring of a coach who never had a losing record in his four years at Louisville, won a BCS bowl game, currently has a 37-15 record, won two Big East/AAC conference titles and has recruited and coached the possible number one overall pick in the 2014 NFL draft in Teddy Bridgewater a 'kick in the teeth' hire? 

Says more about Red McCombs.   And naw white peeps, don't even attempt to defend what McCombs said by using Dennis Green as a shield.   Dennis Green was hired in 1992 and was already in his sixth year as the head coach of the Vikings when McCombs bought the team in 1998, and as soon as Green had his first losing season in a decade as the Vikings coach in 2001 a year after narrowly missing a trip to the Super Bowl fired him. 

McCombs did apologize and walk back his comments, but McCombs is symptomatic of the arrogance I talk about in the UT fan base.  It's why I get gleeful enjoyment when their burnt orange wearing football team of four and five star recruits gets their butt kicked in Big 12 play or in bowl games..  

As I said in the earlier post, Charlie, good luck brother, you're going to need it.  Going to be interesting to see if they Ty Willingham you if you have one bad season there in Austin. 

Using Our Pain To Make You Money

Back in 1925, Maxon Lester Graham and Adelaide Burt started with a $50 investment a restaurant in Salt Lake City called The Coon Chicken Inn.

It had an entrance designed to look like a smiling blackface picture of an African American porter.   As you approached The Coon Chicken Inn, you would see a large head with huge lips and a porter’s hat over the exaggerated features that portrayed African Americans as a denigrated cartoon character. Customers would enter the restaurant through the sculpture’s mouth, and the trademarks and advertising for the restaurant featured the same reprehensibly racist caricature.

Items on The Coon Chicken Inn's menu were southern fried Coon Chicken sandwiches and the Baby Coon Chicken special.  African Americans were hired as waiters, waitresses, and cooks but were discouraged from frequenting the venue as customers or enjoying its dance floor.  

The karmic wheel caught up with it in early July 1927 as the restaurant caught fire sometime around 6 PM.  But a group of 50 people rebuilt the Coon Chicken Inn and had it back in operation within days.  The Coon Chicken Inn later expanded to Portland and Seattle and the chain's three locations were in operation until the late 1950's

I tell that piece of Black history to point out this isn't the first time a white restaurant owner has used racism for fun and profit.   In January last year the news went viral about a Mexican restaurant owner in South Carolina there using racism and xenophobia to boost her business.

Leanne Snelgrove owns the Taco Cid restaurant in Columbia, SC and her vanillacentric privileged behind thought it would be a hilarious and wonderful idea to promote her restaurant with an offensive T-shirt that states 'How To Catch An Illegal Immigrant'.

It has a graphic of a box trap propped up by a stick with two tacos underneath it that employees of the eatery also wear.

It went viral after Corey Hutchins took a picture of this full of fail shirt and posted it to his Twitter account.   Predictably, Snelgrove doesn't think the shirt is racist and proceeded to whitesplain it in media interviews and on the restaurant's website.

So for you peeps still trying to defend Ani DiFranco for her fauxgressive frack up last week, just stop.  The visceral reactions of Black women and the African-American community to the now cancelled plantation retreat and the initial fauxpology come from this long four century history of whites choosing profits over the humanity of non-white people, be it cluelessly or deliberately.      

It’s so cute when white-owned businesses, restaurants, etc., in an effort to prove how bold, hip and modern they are, hide behind marketing campaigns in demonstrating their resentment of people of color and other marginalized bodies all in the name of sticking it to political correctness. I can’t imagine just how awesome these folks must feel to know their creativity is so dismal that they have to step on the backs of oppressed groups just to get ahead. - See more at: http://newblackwoman.com/2013/01/11/today-in-post-racial-america-restaurant-uses-xenophobia-to-promote-business/#sthash.ZT3Pxpk3.aFldB9ik.dpuf

We're tired of you using our pain to make you money, and hope that message came through loud and clear during that dustup. 

Sadly I have the feeling it didn't

Racist TMZ Poll Wants You To Decide Whether To Call Us African-Americans Or N**gas

I guess TMZ thought because of the holidays no one would be paying attention to that racist poll they have on their site, but they guessed wrong.

Suge Knight parted his lips in a December 16 article posted on the site to say he's 'offended' when people refer to him as an African-American because he's not African.  

Your DNA says otherwise, you idiot even though you weren't born on the African continent.

Sheesh, where is the D.R.O..P. Squad when you need them?  

And vanillacentric privileged elements of the white community don't consider you to be simply an American, either.   And they would love to call you the word you don't have a problem with.  

But TMZ for whatever stupid, clueless, racist, they though it was funny or all of the above reasons decided to create a poll which had this question. 

What should black people call themselves?  

The only possible answers in this reprehensible poll are African American or N**ga.    And you know that white folks are constantly bitching because we have told them NOT to call us the n-word and are gleefully flocking to this racist one.  

Over 82,547 votes have been cast at this writing, with N**ga currently ahead of African American at a 54%-46% clip as of this writing.    The script on that poll needs to be flipped ASAP while at the same time we cuss TMZ and their editors the hell out for even coming up with that racist poll in the first place.   

According To The GOP, Racism Is Over

And Rosa Parks ended it 58 years ago today when she was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery, AL bus, thus triggering the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

Oh really?  Next you'll be trying to sell me those GOP revisionist history woof tickets that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was a Republican. 

Oh snap, y'all have already tried to peddle that revisionist history lie too.  

The sad truth is that racism is alive and well in the United States and gleefully peddled and enabled by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court.   The National Conservative White People's Party (AKA the Republicans) as it has done since 1964 keeps pimping white resentment for electoral gain.

Don't even get me started about Sen. Rand Paul's disastrous appearance at Howard University earlier this year or your continued GOP fails at outreach to my community.  .

Racism = prejudice plus systemic power.   Those of us in reality based world who remember our Sociology 101 or keep getting macroaggressively and microaggressively getting slapped by it know this to be painfully true.  

And we non-white Americans know in a United States in which the demographics are stacked against American whites to the point they will be a minority in this nation by 2040, they are already resorting to underhanded and unconstitutional tactics to keep their death grip on political power.

The GOP, the Tea Klux Klan and the conservative movement is doubling down on it, so sadly, racism is not even close to be being over in the United States.

We're also regressing toward making Dr. King's dream a reality.  


TransGriot Update:  You knew Black Twitter was going to put their collective foot in the GOP anus.  Within minutes @Feminista Jones created the #RacismEndedWhen hashtag that Black Twitter is using to gleefully lambaste the GOP over their once again demonstrated ignorance of history and their annoying tendency to attempt to use liberal-progressive heroes to justify or co-sign their racism. 

The NC GOP's Massive Fail In Black Voter Outreach

If you want to know why I have such overwhelming contempt along with 96% of African-American voters for the Republican Party and reject their message, Rachel Maddow breaks it down for you how the North Carolina GOP this week is a case study in why I can't stand them and call the GOP the political arm of white supremacy. 

These are just the latest examples of the clueless GOP racism that ensures we African-Americans will be voting for Democrats and against Republicans for another generation.

'You're A Racist"- Um, No I'm Not

I laugh my azz off when people, especially on the conservafool side of the political spectrum fling the facts free charge at me that 'I'm a racist' or I'm 'playing the race card' for calling out on a regular basis the racism that permeates American society.   

Um,.no.  And saying that BS to me clearly exposes you as either completely and utterly ignorant about these issues because you watch too much Fox Noise or you're wallowing in some serious vanillacentric privilege.

For those of you who didn't go to college or were asleep in Sociology 101 when this discussion was going on, Racism = prejudice infused with political, economic, judicial, police, military and social power in which a dominant racial group uses those levers of societal power to retard, impede or roll back the societal progress of a minority group.  

It is not what butthurt white conservafools who fit that Sociology 101 definition of Racism (and gleefully practice it) spit back at people who call them on their crap.

And butthurt white peeps, if you don't want to be called a racist, then stop acting in the racist ways or flapping your gums in ways that leave no doubt in the minds of non-white people and our allies that you most certainly are.
The reality in American society is the only people in it who have that kind of power to be racist are white people.  You are the majority population (at least until 2040) in all but five states and you have gleefully in many cases let you prejudices run rampant to fit the Sociology 101 racism description.

There is no such thing as 'reverse racism' because non-white people don't have that kind of power.   For non-white people tho be racist it would require American society to be an equal and level playing field, and we ain't even close to wielding that kind of power yet.

Non white people can be bigoted and prejudiced.  But we don't exist with the kind of power to make white lives a living hell as has been done unto us for the last four centuries in North America and elsewhere in the world.

Reason Number Whatever Why I Don't Vote For Republicans

If your political party had a 33 year old African-American Harvard Law school graduate who was a former 2003 Miss America with a platform of advocating for abstinence and against school bullying, what would you do if she was announcing at her old high school she was running for Congress under your party banner? 

If you're the GOP, you call her a 'street walker', 'Miss Queen', and a 'love child'.  

In the latest example of  Republifool minority outreach gone wild, Erika Harold announced in her hometown of Urbana, IL on June 4 that she was going to run for Congress in Illinois 13th Congressional District and challenge first term congressman Rodney Davis (R), who barely won the seat in the 2012 election cycle.

And how was that news greeted by the GOP?   With this racist e-mail rant from Jim Allen, a Davis supporter and the chair of the Montgomery County, IL Republican Party that was sent to Republican News Watch’s Editor-in-Chief Doug Ibendahl.

—– Original Message —–
From: Jim Allen <jimallen@consolidated.net>
Sent: 06/18/13 10:59 PM
To: dibendahl@mail.com
Subject: 13th Congressional District reply

Rodney Davis will win and the love child of the D.N.C. will be back in Shitcago by May of 2014 working for some law firm that needs to meet their quota for minority hires.
The truth is Nancy Pelosi and the DEMOCRAT party want this seat. So they called RINO Timmy Johnson to be their pack mule and get little queen to run.
Ann Callis gets a free ride through a primary and Rodney Davis has a battle.
The little queen touts her abstinence and she won the crown because she got bullied in school,,,boohoo..kids are cruel, life sucks and you move on..Now, miss queen is being used like a street walker and her pimps are the DEMOCRAT PARTY and RINO REPUBLICANS…These pimps want something they can’t get,,, the seat held by a conservative REPUBLICAN  Rodney Davis and Nancy Pelosi can’t stand it..

Little Queenie and Nancy Pelosi have so much in common but the one thing that stands out the most.. both are FORMER QUEENS, their crowns are tarnished and time has run out on the both of them..

Earth to Erika, the party you claim to be a member has a chair of a local party organization who supports your opponent and just publicly disrespected you.   It leads me to ask the question what's a smart woman like you doing even running for Congress as a Republican? 

It's clear these knuckle dragging misogynist troglodytes aren't going to change.  They are threatened by and still hate any woman who is  smarter than they are.  They have a special frothing at the mouth hatred as evidenced by their dislike of your fellow Illinoisian First Lady Michelle Obama for Black women who are smarter than they are.

So why contribute a seat to their House majority that is virulently anti-Black, racist to its rotten core and anti-woman should you win it?  If I were you I'd run, beat Davis' azz in the primary, and if I went on to win the November 2014 election immediately announce after it was certified that I'm switching to the Democratic Party just to spite them.

And yep, crap like this is exactly why Black folks can't stand the Republican Party and we justifiably look side eyed at any Black person who even runs as one.  If they're disrespecting  an obviously qualified candidate like Erika Harold, what do they say about the rest of us who aren't in their party?

Umm, never mind, I just remembered the comment Romney made about us wanting free stuff among other racist GOP bull feces in the aftermath of the 2012 election cycle. 

And it's why I continue to call the Republican Party the political arm of whiteness and white supremacy. 

Black Twitter Strikes Again On #PaulasBestDishes Hashtag

Paula Deen put her Southern fried foot in her mouth when she revealed her loyalties to all things Southern including that tired tradition of racism.

Deen is embroiled in a million dollar lawsuit over racist behavior with Lisa Jackson, the former general manager of Paula’s restaurant in Savannah, GA

Jackson claims that Deen used the N-word and was harassed and assaulted by her brother Bubba.  

The reason it probably hadn't gone viral until now is because the only paper covering the story was the National Enquirer.  But even they can have a broken clock moment of journalism every now and then and it looks like that is about to happen. 

Deen parted her lips during that videotaped May 17 deposition to reveal that she is not only a Confederate flag waving level racist, she's ignorantly dismissive about it as well.

The fact this news about Deen dropped on Juneteenth did not escape some peeps and as usual on Black Twitter, just as we did a few months ago with the #BlackPrivilege hashtag we gleefully took on the challenge of excoriating her in our own creative way. 

The  #PaulasBestDishes hashtag that has gone viral as I write this post and had me at one point rolling over and in tears laughing at some of the sarcastic cuisine on this list.  Y'all know I couldn't resist jumping in on the fun of roasting this bigot over the coals.

And you know TransGriot readers that Paula is a nominee for this week's Shut Up Fool Award.

Marriage Equality Fails In Illinois-Cue The 'Blame The Blacks' White Gay Chorus

A not so funny thing happened on the way to Illinois becoming the 13th state to pass marriage equality legislation.   The Illinois legislature adjourned without a vote on SB10, The Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act.

Why am I not surprised that with the surprising failure of gay marriage to pass out of the Illinois House, in their zeal to explain the shocking defeat elements of the white gay community have turned to an old reprehensible tactic to explain this stunning failure after a string of recent marriage wins.

Blame the Black community. 

Specifically, they are blaming the 20 members of the Illinois House Legislative Black Caucus, who have been under tremendous pressure from fundie megachurches and conservafool pastors to kill the bill.

John Aravosis of Americablog wasted no time in this blog post fanning the hell-fire flames of gay bigotry against African-Americans.

The Sun Times says the state House black caucus was a big part of the problem.  A similar scenario played out with Prop 8 in California four years ago (though some have tried to rewrite that history).  Yet, the black vote was not a problem in Maryland where the state voted in favor of marriage equality last November.  And with the support of President Obama, I’m sure a lot of people had hoped that we were beyond worrying about the religious right’s declared desire to drive fissures between the black and the gay community.

Well John, congratulations.  You and the Sun Times have just done NOM's shady work for them by setting off white gays justifiably pissed that SB 10 failed against the Black community cis, trans and SGL that is skeptical about gay marriage as a whole.

The Black community has noted your failure to work intersectionally with other groups inside and outside the LGBT community on issues of concern to them, but hypocritically demanding 100% fealty on the issue of marriage equality.    It has also noted your failures to deal with the racism in the TBLGIQA community and observed that far too many LGBT orgs have leadership ranks that look more like the Republican Party ranks than the ethnically diverse American population.  

Did it not occur to you vanillacentric privileged gays that Illinois also has downstate WHITE Democrats who range from squishy to adamantly opposed about this issue and a politically powerful Roman Catholic Church that worked the halls in Springfield just like those conservative Black pastors you're pointing the finger at?  

To all you white gays hating on Black people (and President Obama) in the Americablog and Towleroad comment threads and other spots in the Gayosphere due to Aravosis pouring gasoline on the smoldering anger from the 2008 Prop 8 defeat and our pissivity over the rainbow bigotry eruption that ensued after it based on a flawed exit poll, thought I'd point out that two of the sponsors of SB 10 in the Illinois Senate were African-Americans in state Sen. Toi Hutchinson and Sen. Emil Jones III.

In the Illinois House two of the legislators sponsoring it were from the same Illinois House Black Legislative Caucus being vilified by elements of the white gay community right now in Rep.Christian Mitchell and Rep Kenneth Dunkin, the chair of the House Black Legislative Caucus. 

But naw, that won't work pointing out those inconvenient facts when you're desperately trying to be 'just like them' and get your lost white privilege spots back . It's also an irrefutable one you are part of the ethnic group that comprises the bulk of the determined opposition to marriage equality

So it's dust off the Black folks are 'uniquely homophobic' meme, blame the Illinois House Black Legislative Caucus for your surprising defeat and deflect the blame from various predominately white run LG equality organizations concerning the failure to make the case why marriage equality should happen in Illinois. 

And the more you fan the hell-fire flames of gay bigotry toward African-Americans SGL, trans and straight, the happier you make NOM and the more you set back the cause of getting marriage equality passed in Illinois and elsewhere in the country where you'll need to build coalitions with Black people to make that happen.   

The Problem With Numéro's African Queen

Past time to share another one of Renee's Womanist Musings articles with you 
 
Yes we have yet another magazine tying to justify its inclusion of Blackface.

 

The above image is of the ever so White, blond-haired, blue-eyed model Ondria Hardin. The image appeared in Numéro magazine n°141 of March 2013 and was photographed by Sebastian Kim.  I don't know how any editor could possibly look at the image and declare it fit to print, given the continual outrage which occurs each time any magazine has chosen to engage in Blackface.  This isn't a case of artistic license but the absolute perpetuation of White supremacy.  

Numéro has since issued the following apology:

Some people have declared that they have been offended by the publication in Numéro magazine n°141 of March 2013, of an editorial realized by the photographer Sebastian Kim called “African Queen”, featuring the American model Ondria Hardin posing as an “African queen”, her skin painted in black.

The artistic statement of the photographer Sebastian Kim, author of this editorial, is in line with his previous photographic creations, which insist on the melting pot and the mix of cultures, the exact opposite of any skin color based discrimination. Numéro has always supported the artistic freedom of the talented photographers who work with the magazine to illustrate its pages, and has not took part in the creation process of this editorial.

For its part, Numéro Magazine, which has the utmost respect for this photographer’s creative work, firmly excludes that the latest may have had, at any moment, the intention to hurt readers’ sensitivity, whatever their origin.

Numéro Magazine considers that it has regularly demonstrated its deep attachment to the promotion of different skin-colored models. For instance, the next issue of Numéro for Man on sale on 15th march has the black model Fernando Cabral on the cover page, and the current Russian edition’s cover of our magazine features the black model Naomi Campbell on its cover. This demonstrates the completely inappropriate nature of the accusations made against our magazine, deeply committed to the respect for differences, tolerance and more generally to non-discrimination.

Considering the turmoil caused by this publication, the Management of Numéro Magazine would like to apologize to anyone who may have been offended by this editorial. 

Right, so it's not racist to put a person in Blackface no matter what Black people have to say about it, as long as your intention is to show diversity.  Of course, it's absolutely not diverse to show real people of colour, when you can use White people to stand in for them.  Everyone should be able to agree that a racist image is just as good as real representation, after all, they have the future of White supremacy to think about.

It's also shocking that anyone could potentially declare Numéro magazine racist, simply because of one model covered in dark makeup. What's a little Blackface between friends, when you have people like Naomi Campbell on next month's cover?  Just count the Black people. Count them I say. This proves that Numéro isn't at all racist.  Someone should have told Numéro that if we have to be instructed to count Black people that this in itself, is an indicator that there is most definitely a race problem. Racial integration should be seamless, in that people of colour should be easily visible alongside their White counterparts, rather than a few standouts to avoid being labelled racist. Furthermore, using the people of colour associated with the magazine to reject being labelled a racist, is exactly the same deflection of "hey, I have Black friends," and is not only ridiculously unbelievable but racist as well.

At this point, I have become so accustomed and in fact jaded about shitty apologies that this didn't even cause me to bat a single eyelash.  Quite simply, when you engage in something this obviously racist, there is no apology that could possibly make up for it.  The damage has already been done. In the game of bad apologies, Numéro's was pretty horrendous but I have to say that Sebastian Kim was at the very least, equally as bad.

I would like to apologize for any misunderstanding around my recent photos for Numero France. It was never my intention (nor Numero’s) to portray a black woman in this story. Our idea and concept for this fashion shoot was based on 60's characters of Talitha Getty, Verushka and Marissa Berenson with middle eastern and Moroccan fashion inspiration. We at no point attempted to portray an African women by painting her skin black. We wanted a tanned and golden skin to be showcased as part of the beauty aesthetic of this shoot.

It saddens me that people would interpret this as a mockery of race. I believe that the very unfortunate title “African Queen” (which I was not aware of prior to publication) did a lot to further people’s misconceptions about these images. It was certainly never my intention to mock or offend anyone and I wholeheartedly apologize to anyone who was offended.

All right, I'm a good sport and can say that if the photographer was not responsible for the title that does make him possibly a little less of a douchbag than Numéro; however, he still thought it was a good idea to paint a young White woman with dark makeup, in order to have appear as a race to which she doesn't belong.  Does he actually expect a cookie and a round of applause for that?  Even if we remove the label of 'African Queen', the image in and of itself is still patently racist because no White person can ever represent a person of colour in this fashion.  If he wanted a Middle Eastern look, the way to go about it was to use a Middle Eastern person. That seems logical to me.

Ultimately, the intention of the magazine or the photographer is meaningless. Intent is not some magical elixir against harm.  This is especially true when it comes to something as blatant as this. It is not reasonable to suggest that both Numéro and Sebastian Kim had no idea of the furor these images would cause when they were released to the public.  People of colour have repeatedly spoken out about such engagement whenever and wherever it has appeared.  It is far more likely that they hoped to be perceived as edgey, the new hipster code for ironically racist.  Apologizing after the fact, "if people were offended," is not ownership of said offense and does not negate the harm done.  So in short, fashion magazine editors and photographers, just stop doing racist offensive shit because at this point, not only does the public not believe your intent was benign, your apologies suck ass as well.

Oh Hell No! The Onion Disrespects Quvenzhane Wallis

Every now and then, despite me being more than aware of the Black Unwoman Meme constantly being aimed and deployed against all Black women cis and trans from birth throughout their lives, even I get shocked at times of just how low whiteness and white supremacy can go with it.

I'm usually ignoring Oscar night, but was paying attention because young Quivenzhane Wallis was up for a Best Supporting Actress for her role in the movie Beasts of the Southern Wild   I was shocked and angered to learn that the satrical paper The Onion had this to say about Quivenzhane.

It's Maya Wilkes time....What the hell is the The Onion doing (or whatever fool was tweeting for it last night)  calling an African-American 9 year old girl the c-word?

What the frack is wrong with you?  Did you ever aim that word at white female child stars such as Dakota Fanning?   So why would you ever think it's appropriate to do so at a Black girl?. 

We are talking about a 9 year old who not only had this disgusting tweet aimed at her, but was also on one of the biggest nights in her young life made the butt of a tasteless Seth McFarlane joke.

And I do not want to hear or see any comments trying to justify this BS, claim what The Onion did was 'just satire',  'nobody complained when (insert name of white actress) was called that disgusting term", or we're 'suppressing 'free speech' when we call. out this BS.

Free speech has consequences and is a two way street.   Calling any woman the c-word is not a joke   Just as whoever wrote that tweet has the right to say it for whatever mind-blowing reason they did so, they can't expect a community who has been dehumanized on a regular basis for over 400 years to sit silently when one of their daughters is disrespectfully attacked.


TransGriot Note: Renee of Womanist Musings not only her own commentary up about this, but has started a Change.org  petition to demand The Onion apologize for the reprehensible tweet.  Just deleting it and hoping this will blow over is not enough.

TransGriot Update:   The Onion's CEO has issued an apology to Quvenzhane Wallis.
Feb. 25, 2013
Dear Readers,
On behalf of The Onion, I offer my personal apology to Quvenzhané Wallis and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the tweet that was circulated last night during the Oscars. It was crude and offensive—not to mention inconsistent with The Onion's commitment to parody and satire, however biting.
No person should be subjected to such a senseless, humorless comment masquerading as satire.
The tweet was taken down within an hour of publication. We have instituted new and tighter Twitter procedures to ensure that this kind of mistake does not occur again.
In addition, we are taking immediate steps to discipline those individuals responsible.
Miss Wallis, you are young and talented and deserve better. All of us at The Onion are deeply sorry.
Sincerely,
Steve Hannah
CEO
The Onion

Damn Secretary Powell, You Just Now Figuring Out The GOP is Intolerant?

You just now figuring out Secretary Powell that your party has a 'dark vein of intolerance'?

Hell, any African-American on the street and yours truly could have told you that.


 

Saying No To Soccer Racism

Been talking about from time to time in various TransGriot soccer related posts about the now decade old FIFA Say No To Racism campaign that has the ambitious goal of eradicating racism from international football matches. 

Racism still rears its ugly head in matches like it did during the recent UEFA Euro 2012 tournament but you have more superstar players and national teams working harder to condemn and eradicate it than silently condoning the boorish behavior of their fans.

They are doing so not only from a personal distaste with what is happening in international football, but face a situation in which the club in question or national organization can get fined, suspended from FIFA sanctioned international tournaments or have both penalties happen for not expeditiously doing so.  

Something amazing happened at a recent match.   AC Milan player Kevin-Prince Boateng hears some wastes of DNA shouting racist chants at him, punts the ball into the stands and walks off the pitch.  

Boateng is not alone.  He is joined in his walk off the pitch by his teammates and players from the entire opposing team. 

How cool is that?   It starts at the 0:09 second mark in the video.

Jemele Hill Gets Racist Letter

The latest episode of the 'Post Racial America My Azz' department involves ESPN columnist Jemele Hill.

I love watching her live up to the long, proud legacy of siatah sportscasters with her commentary on all things sports related on the various shows and platforms on the ESPN network .

In addition to her ESPN.com columns and appearances on ESPN Radio, she appears on the shows First Take and Around The Horn and just completed her first season appearing as a sideline reporter for college football broadcasts on ESPN and ESPN2. 

Was not to happy to find out some pointed hood wearing waste of DNA took his time to go old school with his hatred.   He took the time to write Jemele a racist letter that she shared with her Twitter followers.

She's shown her sense of humor about the whole incident, quipping that homeboy accomplished the feat of racially insulting her without resorting to the n-word.  But it's still no joke she even received that stank letter in the first place, much less homey felt vanillacentric empowered enough to write it in the first place. .

And as I like to say about a lot of my haters, he hates you because he wants to emulate you.

Stand Your Ground Law Needs To Die, Not Our Kids

Jet magazine in its nearly six decades of publication has had many prominent African-Americans in the worlds of business, politics, sports and the entertainment world on its covers. 

It has had a long proud history of chronicling the inhumanity aimed at our people and especially our children..  Jet published in September 1955 the pictures of Emmitt Till's swollen, disfigured body lying in his open casket during his funeral.   Those photos are credited with galvanizing our community around the Civil Rights Movement and fueling our determination to see it through. 

At the newsstands this week will be the latest issue of Jet with Jordan Davis on the cover and an interview with his distraught parents

We're probably on the cusp of seeing the 21st century's 'Emmit Till moment' in the African-American community in terms of being sick and tired of being sick and tired of our kids dying at the hands of another proud accomplishment of the National Rifle Association, the Kill Black People With Impunity Stand Your Ground Laws.

The latest incident in Florida in which a Black teenager died at the hands of a white male assailant now claiming the 'stand your ground' defense is transpiring in Jacksonville, FL.

17 year old Jordan Davis was on his way home minding his own business along with two friends in their SUV outside a Jacksonville gas station November 23 listening to rap music after shopping at the mall during the after Thanksgiving Black Friday sales.  

46 year old Michael Dunn parked in the space next to the vehicle along with his fiance Rhonda Rouer to attend a wedding when they stopped at the store to buy a bottle of wine before returning to their hotel.  They parked next to the SUV containing Davis and his three friends as Rouer went into the store to buy wine to take back to their hotel room.. 

Dunn confronted the teens about their music and demanded they turn it down.   The teens responded by cranking up the volume and according to Dunn's attorney threatened him.   Dunn grabbed his gun out of his glove compartment, claimed he saw a shotgun in the SUV and fired eight to nine shots at the SUV that struck Davis who was sitting in the backseat before driving off. 

Police found no weapon in the teen's vehicle and Dunn was arrested a day later, charged and indicted on December 13 for the first degree murder of Jordan Davis.   Dunn of course is hiding behind the 2005 Stand Your Ground law that Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) and his task force claim there's nothing wrong with.

Tell that bull feces to the parents of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis.  70% of the people who claimed the Stand Your Ground defense went free despite the fact that in 200 cases that were analyzed by the Tampa Bay Times, the defendants initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person or pursued their victim — and still went free.

And I guess Stand Your Ground doesn't work for Black people.  Marissa Alexander is doing 20 years in a Florida jail because she fired a warning shot at an abusive husband who admitted he has a domestic violence history and threatened to kill her during an altercation. 

And bottom line, loud music is no reason to whip out your gun and kill a 17 year old kid.  But as Jason Whitlock correctly stated when he commented on the Belcher-Perkins murder-suicide last month,

"Handguns do not enhance our safety. They exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it."

 And as Melissa Harris Perry pointed out, when you're a Black male, being who are is threat enough.  

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It's obvious to everyone but the fetishistic vanillacentric privileged gun sales pimps of the NRA that their Kill A POC Kid With Impunity law has got to go.  Jordan's parents Lucia McBath and Ron Davis now know what Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin are going through.   They are vowing to lead the effort to push for federal action to take down the Stand Your Ground Laws in Florida (and 25 other states) that took his life, and we need to join them in that crusade before someone you love is the next victim of it.

The Stand Your Ground Law needs to die, not our kids.  

Caroline Wozniacki, Stop Hatin' On Serena's Curves

Caroline Wozniacki was doing what she does best on a tennis court and lose to better (and sometimes worse) players than her, but took it to a racist level in Brazil last weekend.  .

During an exhibition match she was playing against Maria Sharapova in Sao Paulo, Brazil she decided to mock tennis star Serena Williams' curvaceous body by stuffing tissues in her breast and butt and waddling around the tennis court. 



Of course, the predominately white crowd thought Wozniacki's antics were hilarious. 

I didn't, and not just because I'm a huge Serena Williams fan.  Michael Arceneaux didn't think it was humorous in this EBONY article and 84% of the people voting in a NewsOne poll at the bottom of the story discussing Wozniacki's problematic stunt didn't think it was funny either. 

And the fact this isn't the first time Wozniacki has mocked Serena that way pisses us off even more. 

Once again this plays into the borderline racist disrespect aimed at the Williams Sisters ever since they have been on the women's professional tennis circuit dominating it and the disrespect aimed at Black women in general for the last 400 years.

To borrow a comment from Michael Arcenaux's article, Black women's bodies are not a joke.  We also take an extremely hard line about any disrespect aimed at Black women in general by white women.

I doubt Caroline will be laughing at the Australian Open next month if she happens to be in the same half of the draw with Little Sis and they are on opposite sides of a tennis court.

Frankly I pray that happens, and Serena pulls out a can of straight set whoop azz for Wozniacki's flat behind.

Caroline, you really need to shop hatin' on Serena's curves because you don't have them, the only way you'll will is pay a plastic surgeon some of your prize money to get them and you don't have a single Grand Slam title to show for your seven years spent as a tennis pro. 

The Cheapness Of A Black Life

I was going to comment on the latest infuriating instance of somebody 'standing their ground' and it ending up with another Black teenage kid dying, but Renee of Womanist Musings beat me to it.   This post of hers is definitely getting signal boosted.

As the mother of two Black sons, I would be lying if I told you that there aren't nights when I lie awake worried about their future.  I know that this is something all loving parents experience, but how many White parents of White children worry that their child will be perceived of as a threat and summarily shot? The only thing that eases my worries is the fact that we are Canadian and have much stricter gun control laws. The following story really struck a chord with me.

Michael David Dunn, 45, and his girlfriend were in Jacksonville Friday for Dunn's son's wedding when they stopped at a convenience store, Jacksonville sheriff's Lt. Rob Schoonover said.

Jordan Russell Davis, 17, and several other teenagers were sitting in a sport utility vehicle in the parking lot when Dunn pulled up next to them in a car and asked them to turn down their music, Schoonover said.

Jordan and Dunn exchanged words, and Dunn pulled a gun and shot eight or nine times, striking Jordan twice, Schoonover said. Jordan was sitting in the back seat. No one else was hurt.

Dunn's attorney Monday said her client acted responsibly and in self-defense. She did not elaborate.  (source)

Tell me again that all people are equal.  This confrontation started over loud music and it ended in the death of a 17 year old boy.  Of course Dunn felt threatened, he was after all in a confrontation with Black male youths and the message has been sent repeatedly that not only is Black life cheap, but that Black males are always violent and a threat to Whiteness.


Despite the medias constant presentation of the supposed Black male threat, there is nothing more terrifying than an angry armed White man.  Our children are dying in droves and reading stories like this has become a common occurrence, yet the myth of the violent murdering Black male continues to persist.  In fact, the more threatened White supremacy has become by the changing population demographics, the more violent it has become.  White male violence is glorified and deemed heroic, while men of colour are criminalized and deemed a threat to a safe society. This can be especially seen in the dystopian genre, where White men are often cast as all that is standing between humanity and destruction.  We are meant to see White men as the great savior and be thankful for their heroism, even as people of colour die in ridiculous numbers.

Guns and Whiteness are a recipe for Black death.  There can be no question if we look at the history of race relations since the first Black person set foot in the global north, Whiteness has murdered and raped with pure abandon, all while hiding behind the supposed barrier of protecting and civilizing the world. It is not logical to believe for one moment that Blackness represents a threat. 

I don't want to hear the bullshit about how we all bleed the same red blood, when the blood that is being spilled is Black.  I don't want to hear about how there is good and bad in every race, when Blackness is being criminalized and demonized everyday. Ridiculous euphemisms are not going to solve the problem and denying that the combination of Whiteness and guns are deadly, is only further minimizing the ongoing death and violence.

No matter how far we have come, Black life is still cheap and continues to be devalued by the inflation and elevation of Whiteness. As a Black mother, this is more than evident to me.  I often think about the history of Black mothers crying bitter salty tears and the line of coffins holding our loved ones. If anyone has a right to be angry and afraid, it is most certainly not the bitter, racist and entitled White men, who continue to commit these crimes against the very heart of our communities. The racist, angry White male has got to die, so that our children may live.

You Were Right: You ARE Just A Bunch Of Racist, Pathetic Sore Losers

Y'all told the truth about yourselves back in 2010 when you first started having those Tea Klux Klan meetings.  

Now, one week after your crushing loss to President Obama shattered and splattered your pipe dreams of making him a one term president,  you're now showing your infantile KKKolors and demonstrating for the whole world just how prophetic the above sign in the photo is.

You're not 'Real Americans'.  You are not even worthy of being called Americans because you're demanding to 'secdee' from this nation because of a lost election.

Naw, let's be real about this.  You're frothing at the mouth angry that our African American POTUS once again decisively won another election.  It also frosts you bigots that President Obama and his family will be residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in that nice white house my ancestors built with their unpaid labor through January 20, 2017.   

Why don't you hooked on phonics challenged losers do us a favor and self deport yourselves from those of us who wish to move the United States forward into the 21st century and not backwards into the 19th century vanillacentric privileged hell y'all wanted to take it?

News flash: The Canadians don't want you in their home and native land either.  

We liberal progressives were beyond pissed about the previous White House occupant stealing two elections.  But unlike y'all we worked to clean up the Bushit at the ballot box.

But if y'all do leave it'll make it easier to give John Boehner something to really cry about interms of having to hand his speaker's gavel back to Nancy Pelosi.