It Isn't Like You Have A Choice

 

 "You weren't even creative enough to come up with your own cult." 

   

  Why disturbing leaks from US gender group WPATH ring alarm bells in the NHS 

   

  Why bishop is calling for £1bn in Church of England reparations for slavery 

   

  Why people are reluctant to call themselves atheists 

   

  The California ranch tied to Gillette, a cult and 'The Biggest Loser' 

   

  Riot at Ivy Ridge finally helped close cult school after students sick of solitary confinement & restraints fought back 

   

 "People who have a spiritual understanding of life in the absence of a religious framework are vulnerable to mental disorder." 

   

  Was your last sandwich made by a cult? 

   

  How A Man Overdosed On Homeopathic Medicine After Manufacturer Error

Every Good Idea That Can Help Always Comes Decades Too Late (To Help Me)

California lawmakers on Thursday approved the first state-funded guaranteed income plan in the U.S. for monthly cash payments to young adults who recently left foster care: 

"If you look at the stats for our foster youth, they are devastating. We should be doing all we can to lift these young people up." 

 That one consideration, in 1979, could've spared me 4 years of the military.

 

Why I Hate Dave Logan & I've Only Just Read His Name

"So many bridges have been burned all at once. It's an awful situation, but if it happened to any one of us, the outcome would be the same."

 - Dave Logan, of the USC Marshall School of Business, on Sony's Amy Pascal possibly losing her job over racist emails

1961 was the year I was born in South Central, Los Angeles. I met my father and mother, as strangers, when I was 13 and 40, respectively, having only intermittent contact with them after that, to which I blame respectability politics. I can’t remember how many foster homes (some nice, some not) I was “raised” in. I took hellish beatings in them all.

Except for visits to a foster home by the “insurance man,” who my Great Migration “parents” of the time treated like a God, my first interactions with whites came about because it was discovered I was “smart.” By testing well in the 9th grade, I had won the honor, on my first day, of being seated between two white troublemakers the teacher wanted separated. Once I was introduced to the class, and between them, their exchange went like this:

“Hey, Marty, you like niggers?”

“Yeah, I think everyone should own one.”

I immediately got a bad reputation for using my desk - the kind with the chair attached - to bash both of their heads in. I didn’t care. I cared even less when we were punished “equally,” with them being sent home while I was made to wait in detention, until the day was over, and the school bus I caught at 6:30 AM returned we blacks to neighborhoods defined by gun fire.

The first time I was invited to a white person’s house, unexpectedly, my friend’s mother took one look at me, clapped her hands together and exclaimed, “Excellent: we’re having fried chicken for dinner!” My friend, mortified, hustled me to his bedroom, where I sat alone, surrounded by posters of his white heroes, as the two of them apparently discussed proper comportment.

  “There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn’t come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn’t hand them their car keys.”

 - President Barack Obama, on what awaits the dark and successful

That friend, and two of his white friends I later met, went on to be cops. When we were kids, we’d sit in a soda shop (they bought mine) and, to my disgust, the three soon-to-be “officers” would make fun of the Mexicans working in the kitchen. They said they were only playing. Meanwhile, I couldn’t go to the same parties they did, couldn’t get the jobs they did, easily, and wandered the streets looking for shelter. One of the whites, the most sociopathic of the three - he beat up his girlfriend, and kept knives and “Japanese Throwing Stars” for the walls he occasionally punched holes into, when emphasizing a point - volunteered to work South Central, Los Angeles upon graduation. I think about him a lot when I consider, of my 20 black running buddies there, 16 are already dead. In 1979 I was encouraged by white parents to join the military as an out.

  “We, as a nation, have failed. It’s as simple as that. We have failed.”

 - Attorney General Eric Holder, on police abuses

I didn’t join the Navy to escape the ghetto, really, but because they had a drafting program, and I was artistically inclined. They cancelled the program as soon as I graduated the racially-fraught ordeal of boot camp, and when they asked me what I wanted to do then, I told them to send me back to South Central. “Not going to happen,” I was told, “you signed the paper - we own you.” I told them to put me on the next ship leaving the States.

Out to sea, I served under a redneck who also liked to throw knives, and - since he signed my progress reports - made it one of my jobs to return them. He, and another white guy who never rose above E-1, knew more about the ship than the Captain. Together, they smuggled drugs onboard at every port, eventually resulting in an investigation into why so many sailors were jumping over-board (myself included) and hoping it wasn’t merely that we were one of the first crews forced to endure an extended deployment of 9 months at sea, during the Iranian Hostage Crisis.

I spent the last 8 months of my enlistment in the brig, having developed the nasty habit of clocking officers, in an unsuccessful bid to cancel my enlistment. I spent most of that time in solitary confinement, next to an extremely violent black guy named “Green,” who required six guards to escort him to the showers. I admired him, and he admired my singing voice, requesting I serenade him to sleep each night with songs I made up on the spot. It was a talent I hardly knew I had.

  "I was socialized well into adulthood. I was in the Navy nine years. I was formed before I started to do this. So, I think people that grow up their whole lives and were practicing their whole lives in the basement are different. Also, I was a severe stutterer until I was nearly 30,…I wasn't socialized to where that was how I validated myself.”

 - Bill Withers, interviewed in Rolling Stone, after his nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

 I was released on June 6th, 1983 and not long afterwards, found myself back as one of the few black guys in San Francisco’s fabled "Mabuhay Gardens,” attending a Flipper show. Their drummer, noticing my alienation, graciously bought me a beer and, later, encouraged me to keep writing songs. I did, and - while never getting rich - would eventually go on to be in a few of San Francisco’s most iconic bands.

When I finally went solo in the early 90s, wholly rejecting respectability politics as “The Crack Emcee,” my work was first positively reviewed by the LA Weekly. Later, the writer said he’d gotten some push-back for covering me favorably, and was told if he ever did again, he’d be restricted from new releases by the record company. He apologized if he’d hurt my prospects, but, as a black man, he was also afraid for his own:

Last I’d heard, that writer - a "smart" and talented guy - was sleeping in his car.

  ”White Americans of modest means are more likely to have inherited something, in the form of housing wealth or useful professional connections, than the descendants of slaves,…

…If everyone’s wages were growing, and if everyone felt secure enough in their jobs to quit every now and again in search of better opportunities elsewhere, I doubt that we’d be talking quite so much about white privilege,…”

BTW, it was Sony that was so turned off by the idea of helping me, or anyone who understood the implications of my work.

But, as I sit here in a homeless shelter, remembering and writing this - I finally am happy to say - that feeling is now so totally mutual,….
 

Everything Done To Blacks Was Done To Whites First

One of these days, America's racism will be seen as the obstacle to justice that it is, but, until then, take race out of it:

"Slavery’s Shadow on Switzerland"

Extending the shame of unwarranted, and state-sponsored, "beatings, starvation and sexual abuse" - by trying to silence the truth - only makes the lives white people think of as a money-making enterprise costlier.

Which kinda defeats the point.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat,...

When Whites Who "Don't Think About Race" Are Forced

A lot of assholes say this, thinking they're clever.

Even a child can see this situation is screwy:

Don’t ever tell my daughter she’s blessed to be here.

She doesn’t see it that way.  Every day she’s trying to figure out what happened.  She’s asking questions, trying to understand why she isn’t with her first mommy, the one who looks like her.  And she’s recently discovered that she’s in a white family.

I mean.  No adoption seminar on transracial parenting will prepare you for your daughter realizing she has a freaking white mom.  This is hard for her.

Recently she peeled back my eyelids one morning and asked why she’s the only “brown person” in the family.  She and I started naming all the “brown people” in our life — friends, neighbors, people at our church, people at school,…

But no matter how many “brown people” I name and how many “brown” children we adopt or foster, I will always be her white mom and she will always long for her first mom.

The number of foster homes, I was in, never changed my sense of identity,...

Rush Didn't Add Race To Scott Walker's Resume Today

For the second time in less than four months, Gov. Scott Walker has fired an aide for making demeaning comments about Hispanics on social media.

This past August, Walker — considered a possible Republican presidential contender in 2016 — also fired Steven Krieser from his position of assistant deputy secretary for the state Department of Transportation, after Krieser was caught calling undocumented immigrants a “stream of wretched criminals” on his Facebook page.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker Once Said David Duke Raised "Legitimate Issues"

"He's running a commercial right now that shows a dead baby. It shows a picture of a dead baby. This is Willie Horton stuff. That baby died. You're running a commercial attacking my integrity, claiming that I had something to do with this, and you know that's false. You tell me whether you think I had anything to do with that. I'll tell you right now, I had nothing to do with that. You should be ashamed of that commercial, Scott Walker."

"Could a place as prosperous, resourceful and progressive as Dane County also be home to some of the most profound, pervasive and persistent racial disparities in the country?"

The local jobless rate in 2011 was 25.2% for blacks and 4.8% for whites, while the national unemployment rate for blacks was about twice that of whites.

The poverty disparity is worse: 54% of black Dane County residents lived below the poverty line in 2011, compared to 8.7% of whites. More startling: Nearly three-quarters of black children in 2011 were poor compared to 5.5% of white children.

These disparities "contribute to a pipeline of accumulating risk factors," which show up in the county's child welfare, juvenile justice and correctional systems, according to the report. More than twice as many black kids as white kids end up in foster care, for instance.

"What is extraordinary about Dane County's numbers... is the sheer magnitude of the disparities we found in many of the most fundamental status indicators," the researchers wrote.

Deadly violence in Milwaukee streets disrupts communities in every corner of the city. Families who have lost loved ones to senseless violence have cried out to law enforcement and local officials demanding help.

According to Forbes Magazine, Milwaukee is the 10th most dangerous city in the United States, with a crime rate of 1,295 per 100,000. We’re barely into the last year of Governor Scott Walker’s first term, but it’s already abundantly clear that Scott Walker’s backward approach to public safety has not changed since his days as Milwaukee County Executive.

Back then, Scott Walker took chunks out of Milwaukee’s public safety budgets and allowed dozens of funded positions to go unstaffed even as he lauded the importance of public safety in Wisconsin’s largest city. Now, as governor, Scott Walker and his administration have again failed to serve the people of Milwaukee and Wisconsin.

Scott Walker makes it harder to fight racist team names

Right here in the UK Telegraph it says, "How did he do it?  With a mix of conservatism and pragmatism."...Now, I don't know whether he can parlay this into a run for the presidency.  That's not my point here.  The point is this is the way out of the mess that we are in.

ADDED:

 Ann heard Rush today, too, but still nothing, specifically, on blacks from her or her commenters. It'd be fun to know how successful they consider Walker to be once Wisconsin's citizens mired in poverty are included in the assessment.

 

Since You Can't Take It With You: Give It To The Niggers

"Do this before we call you Badyear" 

 You're just gonna have to read what that means yourself: 

 But it ain't whistling Dixie,…

 

That Girl Who Wants To A "Royal" Is In For A Surprise

As a product of foster care, you guys are going to have a pretty hard time convincing me you've created a society that gives a damn about anybody who's in a vulnerable position:

  "That report found that while only nine percent of Alberta children are Aboriginal, they account for a staggering 78% of children who have died in foster care since 1999."

 Since you want it for yourself - instead of me - come on in, Girlfriend:

See what it takes to get called that,...

 

One Thing Leads To Another & Another & Another &,...

Yes, Miss Crabtree, I would've handed in last night's homework, but I was too busy FORAGING FOR FOOD:

 Disadvantaged children less likely to do well at A-level no matter how clever they are

As a product of foster care, this seems pretty self-evident,...

 

Girls Getting Special Treatment, Defending Against Gay Attacks, Whites Assaulting Blacks - Nope, It's The Same

What's un-fucking-believable about this is, there's not a single word about booting those responsible, changing anything for the better, or punishing anybody for not caring enough to stop dragging their heels on the job:

  Across gender, race, and class, American adults say it was better to be a child when they were young and believe today's kids will enjoy less financial security than they did.

I don't know why they expect different:

My life hasn't changed, much, since foster care.

I'm still alone, guarded, and kicking up a fucking shit storm,...

 

Because I Had No Family They Could Do Anything To Me

No, I'm not becoming a TED head. I just don't get to hear from others raised in foster care much - especially not anyone successful - and this guy seems to know the score. 

He says foster kids deserve respect, which is true, because our mere existence - isolated in the world - is a bigger accomplishment than most other's major achievements. You got a PhD, or your Masters, studying, or pretending to be "oppressed" by men, whites, blacks, whatever? Or maybe you think you're smart, because you have money? Ha. Good for you - you also had parents and a family:

I've survived almost every evil ever invented in the history of man, and I beat most of it alone, as a child.

I tucked myself in, read my own bedtime story, and sang myself to sleep - despite everything - and I'm still here. 

Unfortunately, as this speaker makes clear, this broken society - which is always ready to unleash some new degradation on me - still hasn't learned how to value the wisdom inherent in that yet.

Excuse me if I don't hold my breath, waiting,...

My Country Is My True Family (And I Was Raised Mean)

"Government Tested AIDS Drugs On Foster Kids"

I've made a point of mentioning I'm the product of foster care, so all I can offer on this whopper of a story is - if you were one of those kids - your Momma and Daddy (or somebody) would be maaaaad:

Hope that explains my outlook a little better,...