Moral Panic of the Week: Japanese Rape Games--I Guess Those Grass Eating Boys May Not Be A Solution to the Black Woman's Dating Dilemma After All...

Lord, if the ign'ts learn how to program computer games we will be in trouble for sure. But then again, at least they will have a marketable skill.

I guess our solution of pairing up Black Women with Asian men (Japanese brothers in particular) may not be an ideal solution to the supposed shortage of "good black men." As always we respectable negroes have been ahead of the curve. What do I hear? A bird? A plane? No...it is time for a We Are Respectable Negroes Flashback!

Yes...that was an awkward turn of phrase, but hell they can't all be gems.

Gordon Gartrelle Dreams Up a Foreign Exchange Program: Grass-Eating Boys for Baby Boys

Slate recently ran a piece about soushoku danshi or “grass-eating boys,” the Japanese men who are rejecting sex, materialist consumption, and competitive careers, all of which defined the popular image of Japanese manhood in the ‘80s. Grass-eating boys are not only viewed as undesirable by many Japanese women; these beta males are blamed for contributing to Japan’s dwindling birthrate and slumping economy.

The piece continues,

[grass-eating boys are] often close to their mothers and have female friends, but they're in no rush to get married themselves, according to Maki Fukasawa, the Japanese editor and columnist who coined the term in NB Online in 2006

Why do these guys seem so familiar?



I’ve got it! They’re like baby boys, the hopeless man-children who are considered unsuitable partners for black women and who have long been blamed for hindering the black underclass. Let’s give this comparison a more thorough treatment:



As is clear from this scientific approach, grass-eating boys and baby boys are surprisingly similar, with the exception of their dispositions toward sex.

Let’s conduct a little thought experiment: What would happen if we switched the two populations, i.e., sent our black baby boys to Japan and brought the grass-eating boys to the U.S. to live among black folks? Since this is simply an exercise in thought, we could disregard the many practical obstacles (apparently, grass-eating boys don’t like to travel outside of Japan, and baby boys would need clearance from their parole officers to leave the States).

So let’s say black baby boys go to Japan:

1. Japanese women would get their hypermasculine alpha males.

2. Japan’s birthrates would soar (we all know how fertile these baby boys are)

3. The Japanese economy is boosted by the increased consumption of goods (just think about the amount baby boys would spend on shoes alone).

4. Baby boys would get to have fun with unfulfilled Japanese women.

5. America would shed a largely unproductive population.

6. There would probably a spike in Japanese crime rates and fatherless children.

This last one is troublesome, but the benefits would outweigh the drawbacks.

Now let’s imagine the grass-eating boys coming to the U.S., where they would encounter a wealth of single professional black women. Nothing would happen because these black women and grass-eating boys wouldn’t date each other.

First of all, we would have to pretend that professional black women are as open to dating non-black men as they claim to be (in tones that make their interracial dating sound like either an ultimatum to black men or a consolation prize).

Grass-eating boys have the same major flaws as baby boys, namely limited career ambitions and indifference to marriage. Sistas have been there, done that. And while it's probably not a big deal that grass-eating boys won’t buy nice things, it’s definitely a problem that they aren’t really about sex. Stereotypes aside, a meh attitude toward laying pipe simply won't fly with sistas, despite how much they lament black men's supposed oversexedness.

Damn, even in a thought experiment sistas can’t win .

Racism is a Mental Illness: Barack Obama, Rapist of Freedom and the Statue of Liberty

When I saw this cartoon, I shook my head. If there ever was an example of a simultaneously "neutral" and "provocative" editorial cartoon that stinks of racism then this is it.

Rape allusions? Check. Allusions to the myth of the black rapist? Check. Intentional provocation? (and denial...check out the comments section on the site that posted it) Check. Denial of racist intentions while all the while wallowing in racial provocation? Double check.

What has become more and more evident in the response of the mainstream media to the Tea Party brigands, as well as to the racially infused animus against Obama on the Right, is that Conservatives have won the Language Wars in this country. Quite smartly, the Right-wing made "Liberal" into a dirty word in the 1980s. Offered up "new-speak" such as "reverse racism." They, with the help of the Right-wing propaganda machine, have redefined "Progressives" as "fascists." And of course, the Right co-opted the language of colorblindness to serve a radically conservative agenda that reinforces the status quo of white privilege and white power. In the height of their absurdity, if one is to believe the logic of the Right-wing echo chamber, in the Age of Obama it is white men who are now victims of Jim Crow 2.0.

In total, these views embody an understanding of reality that is more than dumb. Quite frankly, it is both pitiable and stupid. Nevertheless, this bubble is comforting and intoxicating for those who live within it.

The coup de grace to this genius play on the part of the Right-wing in the Language Wars was the introduction of the concept, "the race card." Now, any discussion of racial inequality is itself racist. Those who call out obvious racism--see the Tea Party and their behavior as of late--are in fact "racists." If one is to pursue this logic, I am in fact a racist for daring to interrogate the ugliness and racial invective present in the Obama as Rapist of Liberty Cartoon.

I have given up trying to understand those Conservatives who defend the Tea Baggers, who are unwillingly to denounce the bigots in their midst, or play the game of deflection and reversal ("well maybe there were a few bad apples in the bunch, but you libs are the real racists for calling it out!" or my favorite "prove that John Lewis was called a nigger! Prove it! You are just trying to discredit us! We Tea Baggers are the real victims of racism in this country!").

In total, the mental gymnastics that many Conservatives have resorted to in defense of the Tea Parties is a sign of a deep psychopathology.

Racism is their illness. It comes in many forms and varieties, but racism is nonetheless a sickness of the mind and of the soul. To understand their illness we must categorize and study it. In the genealogy of white racism there are the deniers; those who just don't see people of color as equals (we are quite literally invisible to many of them); those who are angry and resentful; those who traffic in the soft-bigotry of low expectations; and the willfully ignorant. The Right-wing populists and their enablers (with their know-nothing ethos) have members that are sick in all of these ways. In total, the idea of a Black man in the White House sickens them on an existential, psychological, and spiritual level. For Black Conservatives who defend the Tea Baggers, their sickness is a profound one that is one part racial Stockholm syndrome enabled by a deeply internalized white racism.

Do not commit the common error in reasoning that this is "just about "race." No. Those who are sick with racism make poor choices generally--and are willingly to sacrifice the common good politically, socially, economically for all Americans--as a function of their illness.

A suggestion: listen to noted psychologist Dr. Na'im Akbar and reflect on the protests, language, and vitriol of the Tea Party, Palin brigades. Tell me, do his observations on the nature of white racism not fit their behavior perfectly?

We Hate the Government But Want More Government Jobs: Are The Tea Party People Dumb? or Are They Just Really Stupid?

Concept: Cognitive Dissonance

In 1957, Leon Festinger published a theory of cognitive dissonance, which has changed the way psychologists look at decision-making and behavior.[1] At its heart, cognitive dissonance theory is rather simple. It begins with the idea of cognitions. Cognitions are simply bits of knowledge. They can pertain to any variety of thoughts, values, facts, or emotions. For instance, the fact that I like ice cream is a cognition. So is the fact that I am a man. People have countless cognitions in their heads.

Most cognitions have nothing to do with each other. For instance, the two cognitions mentioned before (that I am a man and that I like ice cream) are unrelated. Some cognitions, however, are related. For instance, perhaps I have a sweet tooth and I like ice cream. These cognitions are "consonant," meaning that they are related and that one follows from the other. They go together, so to speak.

However, sometimes we have cognitions that are related, but do not follow from one another. In fact, they may be opposites. For instance, perhaps I like ice cream, but I am also trying to lose weight. These two thoughts are problematic -- if I eat ice cream, then I may gain weight, and if I really want to lose weight then I cannot eat ice cream. These types of cognitions are referred to as "dissonant."

The basic idea behind cognitive dissonance theory is that people do not like to have dissonant cognitions. In fact, many people argue that the desire to have consonant cognitions is as strong as our basic desires for food and shelter. As a result, when someone does experience two or more dissonant cognitions (or conflicting thoughts), they will attempt to do away with the dissonance.

****

The masses are indeed asses.

This week has yielded a bushel (or two) of research on the political ecology of the Tea Party, Republicans. Not surprisingly, they have minimal knowledge of actual government policies, are ill informed on the issues which they ostensibly care about, are immersed in the Fox News, Right-wing echo chamber, and simultaneously want "the government out of their lives" while also wanting the government to improve their lives.

Question: Are the Tea Party members A) Dumb or B) Stupid

In helping you to reach a conclusion, I offer this piece from the Washington Monthly which nicely sums up the less than cogent thinking of the typical Tea Bagger:

UNAWARE OF THE CONTRADICTION.... There's an old joke that goes something like this: my neighbor went to public schools before joining the military. He went to college on the G.I. Bill, bought his first home through the FHA, and received his health care through the V.A. and Medicare. He now receives Social Security.

He's a conservative because he wants to get the government off his back.

I mention the joke because a surprising number of right-wing activists don't seem to appreciate the humor. We talked the other day, for example, about a radical libertarian activist who encourages his allies to throw bricks through the windows of Democratic offices to protest the Affordable Care Act. He hates government involvement in the lives of citizens -- but his main income is taxpayer-financed disability checks sent to him every month by the federal government.

This is not uncommon. The NYT reports today on some of the well-intention folks who've been caught up in the Tea Party nonsense. Take Tom Grimes, for example.

In the last year, he has organized a local group and a statewide coalition, and even started a "bus czar" Web site to marshal protesters to Washington on short notice. This month, he mobilized 200 other Tea Party activists to go to the local office of the same congressman to protest what he sees as the government's takeover of health care. [...]

"If you quit giving people that stuff, they would figure out how to do it on their own," Mr. Grimes said.

When Grimes lost his job 15 months ago, one of his first steps was contacting his congressman about available programs that might give him access to government health care. He receives Social Security, and is considering a job opening at the Census Bureau. But in the meantime, Grimes has filled the back seat of his Mercury Grand Marquis with literature decrying government aid to struggling Americans.

The same article noted the efforts of Diana Reimer, considered a "star" right-wing activist in her efforts against government programs, a campaign she describes as her "mission." Reimer, of course, currently enjoys Social Security and the socialized medicine that comes with Medicare.

The cognitive dissonance is rather remarkable. They perceive the government as the source of their economic distress -- which itself doesn't make sense -- and then rely on the government to give them a hand, all the while demanding that the government do less to give people a hand. Their reflexive hatred for public programs is so irrational, they don't even see the contradiction.

"After a year of angry debate," the Times article noted, "emotion outweighs fact."

That's no doubt true. But that doesn't change the fact that we're talking about a reasonably large group of people who are deeply, tragically misguided.

This is important to the extent that there are still some who believe the political mainstream should do more to listen to the Tea Party crowd and take its hysterical cries seriously. But how can credible people take nonsense seriously and hope to come up with a meaningful result? How can policymakers actually address substantive challenges while following the advice of angry mobs who reject reason and evidence?

The bottom line seem inescapable: too many Tea Party activists have no idea what they're talking about. Their sincerity notwithstanding, this is a confused group of misled people.

Everybody Has a Price! The Wonderful Joys of Political Incorrectness with WWE Hall of Famer Ted DiBiase

I am all set for Wrestlemania tomorrow. As per my tradition, I am watching the hall of fame induction and I was reminded of just how great the Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase was both as a worker and on the mic. In watching his speech and video package DiBiase reminded me of just how inconvenient life is. Some of us--not me--try to live according to some mantra of "political correctness"--those things not politically orthodox are not worthy of pleasure, joy, smiles, embrace, or laughter and smiles. Supposedly, politics trumps pleasure. Being the hedonist that I am, Chauncey DeVega can't/is incapable of/and has never lived according to that rule. Nope. Aint' gonna happen.

Life is about ambiguity. DiBiase's gimmick as the rich, racist, million dollar man with a black house slave named Virgil who famously bought Sapphire (Dusty Rhodes' special Negress) is not politically correct. It never can be. But you know what? It was damn fun to watch. And the pleasure was no less sweet.

Some great moments.

Ruining a child's day and kicking away his basketball:



Buying a slave:



Going shopping with a slave to buy the million dollar belt:



Congrats Mr. DiBiase. You deserved it.

Saturday Afternoon Funny: Let Us Pray With Pastor Manning Against the "Anti-Christ and Son of Satan" Barack Obama

You can pray for anything. I used to pray to God that I would get a remote control airplane from the Sears Wishbook. I worked really hard at it: "Oh Lord, God in heaven, will you please grant me the remote control airplane--or helicopter if one of the coolest airplanes in the Sears Wishbook is out of stock as that too would be acceptable--as I would be closer to you as I fly in the heavens and my parents would be made proud by my gifts of aeronautical skill."

Guess what? I didn't get the plane at Christmas. But you know what, God of things small and large has granted me health, laughs at me when I deserve it, saved my life on more than one occasion, loves me, got me Nintendo for Christmas (with Excitebike) when I was 11 and my dad was almost laid off from work, put my wisdom on the History Channel, and has allowed me to have sex with more than one Sikh woman--and yes, it was all you envious souls imagined it to be. Ultimately, God has been pretty damn cool to this simple respectable negro.

Trust, how many black men can say they went to pleasure town with a Sikh sister? 2 or 3--and one of them is me.

Crom, JC, the Most High, Yahweh, The Force, The Blessed Exchequer of The Great Material Continuum, Buddha, Allah, the grand life force, and the free hand of the market will hear this stupidity and laugh.

But be careful Pastor Manning as you just might get what you wish for...and who knows, maybe prayer is a two way street where respectable negroes everywhere are wishing you ironic, sad, and tragic misfortunes? Hell, if my prayer is heard you will find yourself awake tomorrow with a hot curling iron in your tuckus!

But God is likely not that cruel. Or is he?

Training Them for Prison at An Early Age: A Playground Jail for Children Stirs Controversy in Brooklyn

My grandmother used to say that you can be born in the ghetto, but the ghetto ain't inside of you.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to see a talk by Khalil Muhammad author of the book The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. The author's thesis is a powerful one: the same narratives of black criminality; blacks as inherently unfit for full citizenship; and hand wringing over the "ghetto underclass" were part of the public consciousness some 140 years ago following Emancipation and Reconstruction. Ultimately, social scientists have been intimately involved in constructing our understandings of "the ghetto" and those frameworks still dominate our thinking on black poverty and criminality to the present.

Sadly, many of our young people have internalized these norms of black criminality and ghetto pathology. Like you, I can probably highlight the many times I have overheard young men of color bragging about going to to jail, where prison time is a rite of passage and an experience that garners social prestige in their communities. Little did I know that meeting Fleece Johnson in the booty house and tossing salad made one a man...how things change.



From Stagolee, to Scarface, to 50 Cent, it is a given that Americans love the bad guy. I will admit that I love watching shows such as Gangland and Kingpin. I am also a many decades long fan of hip hop--in all its forms (except that Southern, sambo, minstrel-hop, coonery) But, I worry that many of our young men, while idolizing the criminal, don't realize that most of the time their "heroes" end up either dead or in jail.

Question: are criminals made or born? What lessons are the children in this community learning about their life chances from this playground--are things so bad that going to prison is just something one normally does as a career path? To visit mom? To see one's siblings? And why in the name of all things holy did it take 6 years for someone to complain about this "playground?" What does this say about the parents and adults in this community?

From The New York Times:

A Jail for Children Stirs a Ruckus in Brooklyn

Playground controversies usually involve bickering parents, unruly dogs or bullies.

One exception is at the Tompkins Houses, a city housing project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where an orange jungle gym adorned with the word “Jail,” a cell door and prison bars has, six years after its installation, set off outrage in the neighborhood and the blogosphere, along with a hasty official response.

Children may play cops and robbers all the time, but putting a pretend jail in a public housing playground in a historically black community struck some residents as an insult.

“We started complaining because it was like promoting kids to go to jail,” said Natasha Godley, 37, who has a 6-year-old son.

The prison look, including the offending word, was part of the original design of the playground, which was made by a company called Landscape Structures and erected in March 2004, the New York City Housing Authority said on Wednesday.

But it had not elicited complaints until this week, said Sheila Stainback, an agency spokeswoman.

Lumumba Bandele, a lecturer in black history at the City University of New York who lives nearby, said he began complaining to the housing authority and local officials about the playground this past weekend.

“The fact is that this community along with six others in New York City makes up the majority of the prison population in New York State,” he said. “And to have this here under the auspices of NYCHA is absolutely insulting.”

The jungle gym, tucked behind a building near Throop and Park Avenues, sits across from a handball court adorned with paintings of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

On Sunday, the Web site Black and Brown News published a photo of the jungle gym by Mr. Bandele’s wife, Monifa Bandele, accompanying a critical article about it.

“There is no kind, gentle, diplomatic way to describe the offense against a community by this ‘Jail Playground’ on a New York City Housing Authority property,” the article began.

Some residents said that complaints about the play set were actually not a new phenomenon. One Housing Authority grounds worker who declined to give her name said that her mother was so incensed about the inscription that, two years ago, she marched over to the play set and covered the word “Jail” with gold spray paint. It was not clear how the word came to be restored.

But on Wednesday after the Black and Brown News article was picked up by Brownstoner and other sites, Housing Authority workers arrived to paint over the “Jail.” Later, another worker showed up in painter’s pants and began scouring off the word “Jail” and the fake bars, which appeared stenciled into the play set, with steel wool and paint remover.

The authority, Ms. Stainback said, “painted over the equipment as a temporary solution to replacing this part of the playground.” The authority is also looking into who ordered the equipment.

Calls to the main office of Landscape Structures were not returned. A woman who answered the phone at one of its sales offices, in Carle Place on Long Island, said the company provides playgrounds for the Housing Authority, “but only by their approval.” She said she had never seen one of the company’s play sets adorned with the word “jail,” but emphasized, “I’m only answering the phones.”

Somewhere in the city’s public housing universe, the playground has a twin, Ms. Stainback said. She would not divulge its location, but said that its “Jail” sign and bars would be painted over, too.

Armchair Sociology: Beyonce Rules--This is What Happens When Black Men Are Systematically Absent in the Homes of Their Children

Forgive me the indulgence. As I always say, this is what happens when dad (or some responsible proxy) isn't around to mentor our young men--you have sexual assaults on ottomans; Latarian Milton; jsmoovery; and now teenage boys choreographing dance routines to Beyonce's music.

We are truly a society too sick to survive. Once more to the Moynihan Report (every time I see some ign't stupidity I am going to cite that grand document):

Chapter II. The Negro American Family

At the heart of the deterioration of the fabric of Negro society is the deterioration of the Negro family.

It is the fundamental source of the weakness of the Negro community at the present time.

There is probably no single fact of Negro American life so little understood by whites. The Negro situation is commonly perceived by whites in terms of the visible manifestation of discrimination and poverty, in part because Negro protest is directed against such obstacles, and in part, no doubt, because these are facts which involve the actions and attitudes of the white community as well. It is more difficult, however, for whites to perceive the effect that three centuries of exploitation have had on the fabric of Negro society itself. Here the consequences of the historic injustices done to Negro Americans are silent and hidden from view. But here is where the true injury has occurred: unless this damage is repaired, all the effort to end discrimination and poverty and injustice will come to little.

The role of the family in shaping character and ability is so pervasive as to be easily overlooked. The family is the basic social unit of American life; it is the basic socializing unit. By and large, adult conduct in society is learned as a child.

A fundamental insight of psychoanalytic theory, for example, is that the child learns a way of looking at life in his early years through which all later experience is viewed and which profoundly shapes his adult conduct.

It may be hazarded that the reason family structure does not loom larger in public discussion of social issues is that people tend to assume that the nature of family life is about the same throughout American society. The mass media and the development of suburbia have created an image of the American family as a highly standardized phenomenon. It is therefore easy to assume that whatever it is that makes for differences among individuals or groups of individuals, it is not a different family structure.

There is much truth to this; as with any other nation, Americans are producing a recognizable family system. But that process is not completed by any means. There are still, for example, important differences in family patterns surviving from the age of the great European migration to the United States, and these variations account for notable differences in the progress and assimilation of various ethnic and religious groups. A number of immigrant groups were characterized by unusually strong family bonds; these groups have characteristically progressed more rapidly than others.

But there is one truly great discontinuity in family structure in the United States at the present time: that between the white world in general and that of the Negro American.

The white family has achieved a high degree of stability and is maintaining that stability.

By contrast, the family structure of lower class Negroes is highly unstable, and in many urban centers is approaching complete breakdown.

N.b. There is considerable evidence that the Negro community is in fact dividing between a stable middle class group that is steadily growing stronger and more successful, and an increasingly disorganized and disadvantaged lower class group. There are indications, for example, that the middle class Negro family puts a higher premium on family stability and the conserving of family resources than does the white middle class family. The discussion of this paper is not, obviously, directed to the first group excepting as it is affected by the experiences of the second - an important exception.

There are two points to be noted in this context.

First, the emergence and increasing visibility of a Negro middle class may beguile the nation into supposing that the circumstances of the remainder of the Negro community are equally prosperous, whereas just the opposite is true at present, and is likely to continue so.

Second, the lumping of all Negroes together in one statistical measurement very probably conceals the extent of the disorganization among the lower-class group. If conditions are improving for one and deteriorating for the other, the resultant statistical averages might show no change. Further, the statistics on the Negro family and most other subjects treated in this paper refer only to a specific point in time. They are a vertical measure of the situation at a given movement. They do not measure the experience of individuals over time. Thus the average monthly unemployment rate for Negro males for 1964 is recorded as 9 percent. But during 1964, some 29 percent of Negro males were unemployed at one time or another. Similarly, for example, if 36 percent of Negro children are living in broken homes at any specific moment, it is likely that a far higher proportion of Negro children find themselves in that situation at one time or another in their lives.

An African American College Student is Arrested in Class for Being “Disruptive”: Is Robyn Foster a Victim of Racism?

With access to less than complete information, I would like to believe that I would have magically defused this situation and turned it into that pedagogical unicorn, the mythical thing educators call a "teachable moment." But in all honesty, I am unsure if I could have mustered that wisdom and patience.

Being a teacher is very difficult. Regardless of your years of teaching, level of competence, or depth of expertise in one's field of specialization, we are always a bit naked before their students. When that normal awkwardness is compounded by an unruly student (quite literally) anything can happen.

In my years of college teaching I have been faced with Holocaust deniers, hit by a student, called out of my name on more than one occasion, and have had to deal with what the all too common and generic sickness that is student entitlement derangement syndrome. But luckily, I have never had to call campus security to remove a student, because to do so is the ultimate disruption in the rhythm and sense of community in a class, and where subsequently, it is quite difficult to recover from such an episode. As I tell my students, teaching is like dating, we are building a relationship and have to be mindful of respecting one another, learning to trust, and to be open to sharing. That having been said, while in a dating relationship--as in all human relationships--there is an asymmetry of power. In the teacher-student relationship, the teacher (even with unfair and punitive student evaluations, bureaucratic interference, the corporatization of education, and helicopter parents) more often than not remains supreme, for they have the power of the gradebook.

In reviewing the video of Robyn Foster's arrest, I will be transparent in letting it be known that I don't have much use for "racism chasers." You know, those folks who cry racism at every slight, raised eyebrow, or indignity--real, imagined, or otherwise. Why? because just like the boy who called wolf, racism chasers diminish the power of their claims such that when real bigotry comes about, folks will not likely pay much attention...and then it is too late. Allies are lost, ears are closed, would-be protesters are tired, and folks (of all colors) may be deaf to the call to arms. The Foster case seems ripe for characterization as one where police authority has run amok and racism is the culprit. I do not know what to think, save for the following instincts and questions.

One, while I am not so naive as to believe that all things being equal that race is not operative here--I must suggest that a white (or even Asian) student acting in the same fashion would be treated more benignly (but in this age of school violence I am unsure). Nevertheless, Robyn Foster is no Henry Louis Gates Jr. (who is a legitimate victim of police harassment)--as much as the racism chasers will christen her as heir to his throne. While some "celebrity" will inevitably come to her--and perhaps this is what she yearned for subconsciously--Foster is not, nor should be, a Cause celebre. Two, what do we do with a college educational system, that at the highest levels, is being pressured to admit an excessive number of students (many of whom may not be equipped for success socially, inter-personally, or intellectually) for purposes of enrollment and to fatten the fiscal bottom line? Who is being served? Who is being cheated?

To point: in this incident I see a culture clash that is centered upon deference and comportment in the face of authority (quite literally, I suspect this student does not know how to deal with criticism. To boot, the idea of either public censuring and/or correction is too much for her to manage given her understandings of what "respect" and local norms of "prestige" and "power" are).

To my eyes, this video screams a lack of maturity and not race as the overriding issue of dispute and controversy. Some may say that this reading is my impressing of a bourgeois norm of respectability--and Black Respectability--onto a student who may be born of neither milieu. I disagree. Good comportment is good comportment--however awkward my phrasing may be--in the classroom and elsewhere, and the lessons of higher education should and ought to be how to best transcend one's origins and circumstances.

Nevertheless, I must ask myself: How much have things changed when in 2010 it is the norm for a professor to be so easily able to call campus police to their class in order to subdue a student? When did things get turned so topsy-turvy that educators have learned to be afraid of their students, students afraid of one another, and police authority has made itself known even in the college classroom?

Please share. What is your call? Is this racism? A scared and overreacting teacher? A teachable moment lost? How would you have handled this incident?

Chauncey DeVega's World of Ghetto Nerds: Pre-Wrestlemania Thoughts as Dave Batista Looses His Smile and Finds Himself

Damn. Good. Promo. With some Ric Flair thrown in for flavor and spice.

Long time readers know that I am a smart mark (wrestling speak for someone who knows that pro wrestling is "fake" but also how "real" it simultaneously is). In short, we love a good story...never forget that pro wrestling is physical storytelling at its best.

I am getting increasingly excited for this Sunday's Wrestlemania as it is shaping up to be one of the best in recent memory. For some time many folk--myself included--have wanted Dave Batista to be himself. As the saying goes, you get over when you are finally yourself with the volume turned up. After all these years, Batista, now in his late thirties/early forties, is finally being real.

Ultimately, Dave's promo on Raw was the 2010 version of Sean Michael's legendary "I lost my smile" spot in 1997:



I hope that Batista goes over this weekend as Dave deserves a nice run as a heel champion. Frankly, from a booking point of view, Batista as a heel versus face/tweener Edge, is money in the bank for the next 6 months or so.

And by the way, there is no way that the Undertaker loses this Sunday because "the streak" must continue forever.

MC Reh Dogg's Exclusive Mixed Tape for the Obama Death Twitters Solly Foggy and Jay Martin

Straight fire! We got the hottest exclusives and best drops! Don't be hatin'! Go to your closest mixed tape spot and cop the one and only Reh Dogg giving love to Solly Foggy and Jay Martin the only "niggas" holdin' it down against that Obama and his Ozombies! Fire!

Thanks for indulging me. Am I the only one who used to love going to the corner spot and picking up cassettes of Lazy K, DJ Mister Cee, Doo Wop, DJ Craig G or Dirty Harry? Boy! those were the days. I will never forget the joy of getting the Best of Biggie as well as Dirty Harry's homage to Nas within 2 weeks of each other at the mixed tape spot on the corner of Whalley Ave and Sherman. Trust, the '93 Buick was bumpin' those beats outside of Great Gatsby's.

Since we can't go backwards, why not go forward? As folks have highlighted elsewhere, apparently there is a fool black conservative blogger who speaks for the hip hop set (I guess Michael Steele brought the collard greens and macaroni and cheese to get the young saggin' crowd to show up) who wants to up his street cred by mercin' President Obama. I reasoned that like most black conservatives black garbage pail kids in the Age of the Tea Party, their stupidity speaks for itself, so why not help them out a bit?

A year or so ago we featured legendary Connecticut MC Reh Dogg. He is so talented, amazing, and gifted he is the heir to Rakim's throne.



Little did we know that Reh Dogg would come to be the Puff Daddy of these Internets. He is a mogul, a man with a YouTube channel with tens of thousands of hits, and a legion of followers. Who could have possibly known that he was one of America's foremost Black Conservatives? William F. Buckley and Clarence Thomas have nothing on Reh Dogg, Solly Foggy, and Jay Martin. Nothing at all!

How Much is Michael Steele's Soul Worth After Excusing Away the Racism of the Tea Baggers Who Assaulted John Lewis?

Steele rejected the notion that the incident may make any association with the Tea Party Movement a danger.

"It's not a danger," Steele told NBC's "Meet the Press on Sunday." "It's certainly not a reflection of the movement or the Republican Party when you have idiots out there saying stupid things."

Folks are quite rightly upset by the Tea Baggers in Washington D.C. hurling of racial epithets at civil rights icon Representative John Lewis and calling Barney Frank a "faggot." The Tea Party health care brigades were thorough as they also spat upon and threatened other members of Congress.

What befuddles me about this episode is how some folks seem surprised and shocked by the Tea Baggers dropping their mask and showing us who they have always been. As I said before, these are a bunch of neo-John Birchers whose grandparents were likely members of the Klan or White Citizens' Councils (the younger members of the tea bag cadre were likely more benign as they merely threw rocks at black school children trying to integrate schools in places like Boston). So please, spare me the gasps at their foul behavior. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, "White trash is as White trash does."

What I find more interesting, not so much as it is a surprise, but it begs a question, is how Michael Steele, Chairman of the GOP can continue to support this movement? Once more, Black Conservatives vex me: you have one more instance in a clear pattern of abusive and racially reactionary behavior by the neo-populist Palin Tea Party Right wing and the titular head of the (Black) Republican establishment continues to make excuses.

In centuries past, the Michael Steele's of the world would have been harbor masters at the docks of Goree Island directing the slave ships into and out of port with their cargoes of human gold. Why? For a pat on the back, and a little hope that they will get to ride on the top of the ship with the slavers and not in its hellish bowels. To illustrate the point, here is one of the masters to whom Mr. Steele is beholden:



Pray tell Mr. Steele, how much is your soul worth? Did you sell it to the Devil for 50 dollars? Did you sell it for a million? One of my mentors jokingly told me that if you want to be rich become a Black Conservative and write a crappy book. I suspect that his words have never been more true.

Michael Steele what is the price for your self-respect? For black conservatives, when will you publicly denounce the Tea Party? Are you ashamed of Michael Steele's excuse making? What more will it take for you to say "not in my name?"

From Fox News (so you know it must be true) here is an account of the Tea Party love fest in D.C. on Saturday. As is my tradition, here is the Vox populi aka the peanut gallery...once more the rabble makes clear the depths of their stupidity and bigotry:

Totally fake. Those racial slurs were made by dems pretending to be tea party attendees. Dems can only win when they cheat, they can only succeed with their plans when the steal and lie. How do they sleep at night? Pray they will have a day of judgement soon.--kate999

Representative Rangel draws attention to himself through his comments. There certainly are African-Americans involved in the Tea Party. He's either not watching or is in denial. This isn't about race, it's about taxes and spending. The fact that Rep. Lewis may have been targeted for his past history with the Civil Rights movement raises another suspicion that this was an orchestrated attack designed to discredit the Tea Party movement and make a race concern out of a "tax and spend" issue. These red flags just keep popping up.--mdm12

Typical Democrat trick used over and over again. It is really getting old. Remember these Progressives and their fellow travelers will stop at nothing as they believe that the end justifies the means.--munimula

While it is true that almost anyone is capable of almost anything, it is hard to accept that people who align themselves with the Tea Party movement would in that way. Especially after the very large public gatherings a few months ago. I would not be surprised if those who behaved badly were planted there in order to cast a negative on the Tea Party and the Repulican party.--rodz1

Is this report confirmed? If so, it should be condemmed. I would bet money that it is a Dem plant though... I don't put anything past these guys. They (Dems) are as crooked as a dog's leg.--raketenmann

Enough coverage of this bogus BS. It was yet another SEIU set up. No one but the hard left is falling for it.

glad to see that most posters realize that the so called slurs were probably a plant by SCIU or union thugs. The media dreams that they really happened because everything to them is about the glorius stuggle against the evil white man. These femmy media phonies always ignore hate crimes commited againsy white people.It probably turns these white media fairies on that hate crimes are ignored when their against anyone with there mommas skin color. When they cannot win an aguement they scream, racist sexist anti gay, so I tell these squeeling white fem boys fly away.--daniel7778

I awould like to think these racial slurs are from plants thrown in by those wanting to give a negative image to we Tea Party Patriots. Too many people do not understand the integerity of the most of those involved in the local Tea Party groups. I feel this type of outbursts are not from our people--kdwain

Only a democrat would make a racial slur.--tomos

Is this what is necessary to get the press to report on the massive Tea Party movement? If it's anything negative, even unsubstantiated, it gets reported? I agree with the other posters who have made comments such as, "IF THERE WERE RACIAL SLURS SAID, IT WAS PROBABLY A PAID UNION PLANT THUG."--americanadian

Please stop hiding behind supposed racial predjudice.--loisdad

Saturday Afternoon Funny: Agustus the IV, My New Favorite Black Conservative Slave Catcher

I have been watching this character for some time and he brings me joy. Oh the Internets is great for allowing folks their five minutes of fame.

I am a bit offended though that he would dare to wield the very same replica samurai sword from Kill Bill that I have in my bedroom. Bad look on his part.



Wouldn't a talk show with Pastor Manning, this black Conservative black garbage pail kid, and Alan Keyes be worthy of an Emmy?

And Porn Shall Lead the Way: Is the XXX Film Parody of The Cosby Show "Racist" Because It Features White Actresses?

To paraphrase noted sex expert Alfred Kinsey, we can learn a great deal about a given society from its taste in pornography.

Gordon (who is coming back in ways more fabulous than before he has assured me...we shall see) and I have had a long running conversation about "respectable" negroes and their interests. He claims that the sort of folk who would come to our website would not have any interest in matters related to pornography. It is not because respectable negroes are prudes, but because of a need to maintain a certain distance from such matters that some may find prurient. I have heeded his suggestion until now.

Now, I don't know too much about porn or anything--I would like that qualifier to be known. I never watched Heather Hunter as a young boy and humped the bed into submission afterwards. No, not me. I never received a gift box full of porn from a friend who found such tidings in the closet of his new apartment. No, not me. I never met Ron Jeremy in person and found myself the beneficiary of his intangible powers. No, not me. And I certainly never wandered the adult DVD section of the Virgin Megastore in Chicago wondering why the "P.O.V." movies never featured a member that matched my medium brown complexion (if one notices those flicks always feature male genitalia that is either charcoal black or pasty white...hmmm what does that say about our collective racial id?). I have heard that some folk have sworn off interracial porn titles that feature white men and black women because of the disturbing undertones about race, power, and exploitation that those films inevitably play upon. I would know nothing of those matters. Finally, I never did have a chance to be in the World's Biggest Black Gangbang movie back in the 1990s and turned it down for reasons both obvious and hygienic.

What I do know about the recent popularity in classic sitcoms reimagined as pornography I have learned from around these Internets. Apparently, The Brady Bunch, Three's Company, and Seinfeld have all been remade into popular adult titles. Inevitably, sitcoms featuring black casts are the next to have their (re)debut in the form of adult titles. Enter: The Cosby Show now has 2 XXX treatments. While some of us are still pondering the Cosby's as trailblazers in American popular culture that helped prepare White America for the possibility of a Barack Obama--yikes, black folk that aren't pathological and where both parents are upwardly mobile professionals! What an anomaly! The adult industry is one step ahead and has already blazed a path forward where Cliff, Claire, Theo and the gang are having hot interracial sex.

Question: Given that The Cosby Show is a standard bearer for black television--and featured an almost exclusively African American cast--should non-white actresses be featured in the Cosby XXX title? What does the need to insert non-white actors into a "black" film say about how race is imagined in the Age of Obama?

In short, can't black folk have anything to ourselves?

First random factoid: did you know that white actresses will often refuse to appear in adult films with black actors? Why? It will lower the amount of money they can ask for in future movies because many (presumably) white men do not want to see their darlings have sex with a person of color.

Second random factoid: I have a post that I believe is easily as good as my White in America special where I cast a range of African American oriented sitcoms reimagined as adult titles. I never released it because Gordon and others said it would disgust our readers. Are folks interested or do respectable negroes in fact loathe such humor?

In total, these questions of race, inclusion, and the marketing of black adult movies to white audiences in the Age of Obama has created quite a dust-up among those who follow the adult industry.

What follows is an exchange on the popular adult website Fleshbot on just this issue--a worthy read (also check out the director of the Cosby's XXX film's response here) for respectable negroes interested in race and popular culture:

This is What is Wrong With "Not the Cosby's XXX" (And by Extension Porn)

As a general rule, I'm pretty difficult to offend (when you work adjacent to the porn industry, you sorta have to be). But this morning I received a press release that pushed me over the edge.

What was the offending press release? Why, the plainly titled "Do White Girls Make Not the Cosbys XXX 2 Sequel Better?"

To be honest, I shouldn't have been that surprised by the press release. The adult industry makes no secret of the fact that white women are seen as the default sexual fantasy: with rare exception, black porn actresses are relegated to niche titles that fetishize the color of their skin. (Not that this makes the adult industry any different from, say, the fashion industry, but that's a topic for another article entirely.)

But still: to take "The Cosby Show"—a sacred cow of blacks in mainstream entertainment—and to suggest that it could be "improved" with the addition of a few more white faces (and bodies)? Well, that was a bit too far for me.

Let us not forget that the original "Cosbys XXX" was not exactly a, ahem, black movie. Despite the smiling black faces adorning the box cover, there was more than enough white flesh to make this a bonafide "interracial" feature. Of the five (non-masturbation) sex scenes, only one featured two black performers; what's more, due to the—predominantly white—six person orgy scene that clocked in as the first major sex scene, there were actually more white women than black women getting naked and sexed up in this ostensibly black movie. Not that that's how director Will Ryder recalls things:

"What many don't realize is that we had white girls in the first movie and even a cute Asian but most still think of it as a black movie and not even an interracial movie but that is not true," Ryder remarked.

The obvious problem here is the insinuation that being a black movie is somehow the lesser option, that there is somehow a problem with people not recognizing the movie as interracial, with not recognizing that there are white girls in it, too. Apparently, Ryder's hoping to avoid making the same mistake with the sequel: while the box cover for the original feature showed the (not) Cosby family together, with not a single white face in the picture, the box cover for the sequel (shown here) has Cliff along with three white women and a Latina—and not a single one of the black women who are the ostensible stars of the feature.

Not that Will Ryder is racist or anything:

"Black is beautiful baby but we love women of all colors so we tossed in some more white ladies and a cute girl from Miami into this sequel and as you can see by the box cover Cliff is loving it," Ryder joked.

While the sentiment that "we love women of all colors" is a nice one, Ryder's never been compelled to demonstrate his love of diversity by adding some extra flavor to a predominantly white movie. "Not The Bradys" doesn't provide us with a scene of the boys going to work on a team of black women, no dark skinned beauties pop up unannounced in "Not Three's Company." Granted, one could argue that scenes like those wouldn't be true to the original sitcom—but then again, a six person, predominantly white orgy involving none of the show's characters isn't exactly true to "The Cosby Show," either.

What it feels like, ultimately, is that Ryder—and Porn Valley at large—feels the need to apologize for featuring black performers, for giving them time in the (mainstream) sun. Because black movies are seen as niche movies, any film that wants to be perceived as mainstream plays up its "interracial" angle, or its white performers—without any concern for what kind of message this sends about the film's black talent (hint: it doesn't make them look awesome).

And the longer we keep doing this, the longer we refuse to promote a predominantly black movie as mainstream in its own right, the more we relegate black porn performers as second class citizens. "Not the Cosbys" had the opportunity to shatter this glass ceiling, to make a black movie that was also mainstream because of its "Cosby Show" connection. And yet Will Ryder gleefully squandered the opportunity—and, with this press release, shat on any hope that he might, one day, come forth with a semi-enlightened perspective on race in the adult industry.

Tea Party Neo-John Birchers Harass and Heckle Man with Parkinson's Disease

White trash.

Once more--if you would be kind enough to indulge my self-citing repetition--these are the grandchildren of the same people who brought their children to lynchings wearing their finest Sunday dress, or in later years (and a more seemingly benign mood) signed restrictive housing covenants to keep "the undesirables" out of the neighborhood, and threw rocks at buses carrying black and brown school children to protest integration.

Question: How many of these "health care" protesters are themselves on Medicare or Medicaid (or have relatives who are?) Second question: Ohio is one of the states hardest hit by the Great Recession. Would those handouts the teabaggers are protesting include unemployment benefits that many of them have or will soon be receiving? Or mortgage assistance from the federal government? Or public schools, tax credits for their children, or the like?

But then again, these folk are so principled that they would refuse any "government handouts" lest they be dirtied by such monies.

For example, listen to this interview on NPR's Morning Edition with an unemployed truck driver who has insurance through his wife's job (make note of the vitriol he has towards Obama).

This rabble is the hell spawn of a broken political system, an increasingly fractured public discourse, and a desperate ugliness on the Right. I do sincerely hope that the GOP, and the Tea Party/Palin crowd to whom they are increasingly beholden, take to heart the words of Colin Powell as they try to fix what is a deeply broken political party:



I do not want to see the Republicans fail as a party. I truly don't. Not because I am amenable to their politics, but rather because I fear the collateral damage their implosion will do to all of us...be we red or blue or somewhere in between.

To you folks on the Right, will you please get your house in order? For right now it seems that you are going to pull the temple roof down upon us all.

Chauncey DeVega's World of Ghetto Nerds: An Honorary Respectable Negro, Charles Moore, Noted Photographer of the Civil Rights Movement has Passed Away

It has been some time since we inducted an honorable white brother or sister into the honored halls of We Are Respectable Negroes. Today we add another proud warrior. Some say that the camera gives artificial courage so that one can hide behind the lens. I never agreed with that argument. I always thought that the camera gave one a sense of distance that enabled courage. It was not hiding behind the lens--it was using the lens to find a wellspring of courage to do what is/was necessary so that truth would echo through the ages.

Kaplah!

Charles Moore you are a proud warrior and we are blessed to have had you on the side of justice. As I said at my father's funeral, may you travel well. I am sure you will have many brothers and sisters on the other side of destiny who will welcome you with open arms.

Courtesy of the LA Times:

Charles Moore dies at 79; photojournalist's work brought national attention to civil rights movement

The Alabama native was at the center of unrest in the South, taking emotional and often distressing images of protests, integration efforts and Martin Luther King Jr. for Life magazine.

"Montgomery, Ala., 1958: The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is sprawled across the booking desk at a police station as his stunned wife, Coretta, looks on. He was arrested for loitering at the Montgomery Courthouse and released when his identity became known to the police. (Charles Moore / Black Star)"

Charles Moore, a photojournalist who both chronicled and helped alter the course of history through extraordinary photographs that reflected the brutal reality of the civil rights movement in the South, has died. He was 79.

Moore died Thursday of natural causes at a nursing home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., said his daughter Michelle Moore Peel.

From 1958 to 1965, he trained his lens on the unfolding drama of civil rights as a news photographer for the Montgomery (Ala.) Advertiser and Life magazine.

His shockingly graphic images -- of police dogs attacking protesters or marchers being assaulted by powerful water hoses -- helped propel what had been a regional dispute onto the national stage.

As his photographs created national outrage, they quickened the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to John Kaplan, a University of Florida journalism professor who wrote his master's thesis on Moore.

"He had the courage to stand up in the face of danger and let Americans know what was really happening, through his work," Kaplan told The Times. "That is why he is an unsung hero."

As Moore followed the struggle, he was known for his fearlessness and uncanny knack for capturing the most distressing images possible.

"To people who were really bigoted, I was the worst enemy, a Southern boy working for Life," Moore told USA Today in 1991.

"I knew the South. . . . I also knew how to talk back to racists."

The son of a Baptist minister, Moore was drawn to photographing the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., then a Baptist clergyman in Montgomery. After witnessing King's charisma firsthand in 1958, Moore sought to cover him whenever possible.

"I knew that this was a man who was going to make a difference," Moore said of King in the 2005 documentary “Charles Moore: I Fight With My Camera.” Moore had yet to realize that his pictures would also make a difference.

A photograph he took in 1958 of King being manhandled during a police booking ran in Life and became "one of the most significant photographs of the civil rights movement," Kaplan wrote in his thesis.

Through the magazine, Moore's work gained a huge national audience. Life had him cover the rioting over the enrollment of James Meredith as the first black student at the University of Mississippi in 1962 and later published his photos of Ku Klux Klan gatherings.

His photographs in Life "electrified and horrified the country," CBS News reported in 1991.

Moore's most influential pictures were taken over five days in 1963 during the campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Ala., Kaplan said. One famous photo -- Moore crawled across pavement, positioning himself between protesters and firemen to get the shot -- showed three students being thrust against a building by high-pressure water from a fire hose.

Covering civil rights "was difficult, exhausting and oftentimes very dangerous," Moore said in the documentary. "Plus troubling and emotional . . . because I'm a Southerner too."

By 1965, he had grown weary of the violence and booked a round-the-world airplane ticket. He came home eight months later.

Charles Lee Moore was born March 9, 1931, in the Alabama farming town of Hackleburg and grew up in nearby Tuscumbia.

As a teenager, he took up boxing and owned his first camera, a Brownie.

After a stint as a Marine Corps photographer, he studied fashion photography at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara.

Returning to Alabama in 1957, he briefly worked in a portrait studio before joining the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper staff.

He moved to New York in 1962 to pursue a freelance career but the Black Star photo agency, which still represents him, gave him a stipend and persuaded him to continue covering civil rights. Moore went on to photograph political unrest in Haiti and Venezuela and document the Vietnam War.

In later years, he took travel photographs, corporate portraits and the occasional hard-news photograph. He also amassed about 100 magazine covers.

His work was gathered in two books, "Powerful Days: The Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore" (1991) and "The Mother Lode," a 1983 pictorial guide to the California gold rush country he came to know as a longtime resident of Columbia, Calif.

Moore, who was divorced, also had lived in Massachusetts and North Carolina. He moved to Florida last year to be near family.

The genteel Moore could seem embarrassed by the attention he received for his most famous body of work.

"I know the importance isn't me, but the photographs," he told the Birmingham News in 2002.

"It's proof that the world learned a lot from them. Honestly, if those pictures made my native South, which I love, a better place . . . then I am darn proud of that."

In addition to his daughter Michelle of West Palm Beach, Fla., Moore is survived by three other children, Michael Moore and April Marshall of Dothan, Ala., and Gary Moore of Lewisville, Texas; his brother, Jim, of Conway, Mass.; seven grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Desperate for Fame: Supersized Mother (with the Aid of Her Enabling Black Boyfriend) Determined to be the World's Fattest Woman

We are truly a society too sick to survive.

And yes, she is partnered with a black man. No Comment. As I tell folk, stereotypes persist because they are in some way true.

From the Daily Mail (in all its rotund glory):

Super-sized Mother Determined to be World's Fattest Woman

Donna Simpson already weighs 43st, but she is determined to nearly double her size to become the world's fattest woman.

The 42-year-old from New Jersey, U.S, is set on reaching the 1,000lb mark (71st) in just two years. Remarkably she insists she is healthy, despite now needing a mobility scooter when she goes shopping.

Donna Simpson already weighs 43 stone but is consuming an astonishing 12,000 calories a day in a quest to become the world's fattest woman

'My favourite food is sushi, but unlike others I can sit and eat 70 big pieces of sushi in one go,' she said.

'I do love cakes and sweet things, doughnuts are my favourite.'

Donna, who wears XXXXXXXL dresses, eats mounds of junk food and tries to move as little as possible.

Ms Simpson already holds the Guinness World Record as the world's fattest mother, when she gave birth in 2007 weighing 38stone.

She needed a team of 30 medics to deliver her daughter Jacqueline during a high-risk Caesarean birth.

Yet although she can only move 20ft before needing to sit down, she wants to be even bigger.

'I'd love to be 1,000lb,' she said.

'It might be hard though. Running after my daughter keeps my weight down.'

Ms Simpson can no longer walk more than 20ft before needing to sit down. She goes to the shops in a mobility scooter

You might expect her long-term partner Philippe, 49, to advise her to slim down, but instead he encourages her to eat more.

He met Donna on a dating site for plus-size people and is a self-confessed fat admirer, although he himself only weighs 150lbs.

'I think he'd like it if I was bigger,' said Donna.

'He's a real belly man, and completely supports me.'

To achieve her goal, Donna says she will need to eat up to 12,000 calories a day (the average woman should consume only 2,000.)

To fund the massive $750 weekly food shop, she runs a website where men pay her to watch her eat fast food.

Donna's weight problem began early. Her mother made big meals for Donna and her brothers and gave them lots of treats and fattening food.

By the time Donna was nine, she weighed 13 stone.

'Food was her way of showing she loved us, she wanted us to eat, and she was very protective of us,' Ms Simpson said.

'She wouldn't let anyone say anything bad to us about our weight.

She would argue with doctors who said it was dangerous.'

Donna Simpson poses for a photograph with her daughter, Jacqueline. It took 30 medics to deliver her.

Donna's mother died soon after, and her dad married a woman who put the children on a strict diet.

'I used to steal food from the cupboards, which were still full because my mum used to store food,' she said.

But as she got older, Donna began to worry about her weight and started taking diet pills.
Between the ages 14 and 18 she slimmed down to 11 stone, but was still unhappy.

'Dieting just made me miserable because I was thinking about food all the time.,' she said.

After she left school, Donna got a desk job and no longer felt the need to fit in with other girls.

'I felt so much better when the weight came back,' she said.

'It felt like who I was meant to be.'

When Donna was 19 she met her first husband, who worked as a chef at a steak restaurant.

'He worked night shifts and would come home at 2 or 3am and bring the leftovers with him,' she said.

'We'd stay up and eat huge piles of steak, mashed potatoes, and gravy with butter.

'I started gaining weight quickly and my husband liked it.

'He said I was sexier when I was bigger, and I felt happier too.'

When she was 27, Donna weighed 25 stone, and fell pregnant with her eldest son, Devin. Her marriage ended soon after and she turned to food for comfort.

By the age of 31, she weighed 43 stone and decided to try and lose weight. She lost five stones in six months and was due to have a gastric band operation.

But just before she was due to go under the knife, her friend died during a similar operation.

'That was a sign for me,' Ms Simpson said.

'I decided it just wasn't worth it. I like being the way I am.'

Donna, then 37 stone, came across a website which celebrated obese women.

When she admitted her real size, Donna was flooded with emails from men.

'They sent me gifts through the post, like protein shakes to help me put on weight faster,' she said.

And she unrepentant of her weight-gain goal, despite risking her own life in the process.

'I love eating and people love watching me eat,' she said.

'It makes people happy, and I'm not harming anyone.'

Of Tea Parties and Original Intent: Everyone Has An Opinion On The Constitution...But Some Are Not as Equal as Others

Sometimes one has to pick a scab.

A question to my original intent, strict constructionist readers: Is the extension of "rights" to corporations as "people" under the Equal Protection Clause a perversion of the sacred cow that is "original intent?" Or is it in keeping with the framers' belief that corporations should have the protections afforded to people--in this case, special categories of protected persons?

In short: is that document a magical treatise to be read as the framers originally "intended" (warts and all) or is it more a set of guidelines and principles that are malleable and elastic?

The NY Times Week in Review section published a great complement to that perennial argument over the weekend that is worth reading in its entirety. Of note in the Times' piece is the following finding from Quinnipiac College's highly respected public opinion arm:

Surveys conducted by Quinnipiac University indicate that some 40 percent of Americans say the Supreme Court should employ originalism in interpreting the Constitution; slightly more say the court should take account of changing conditions. “You might think that questions about constitutional theory are an elite-driven idea,” Professor Persily said, “but people have opinions about this.”

A new study from Professor Persily and two colleagues, Jamal Greene and Stephen Ansolabehere, explored the political and cultural values of those who identified themselves as originalists. Such people “appear more likely than non-originalists to be white, male, older, less educated, Southern and religious,” the study found.

“They are less likely to favor abortion rights, affirmative action and marriage rights for same-sex couples, and more likely to favor torture and military detention of terrorism suspects and the death penalty. They are more likely to express morally traditionalist, hierarchical and libertarian cultural values.” The mechanisms for translating such popular understanding into actual constitutional law are varied. Over time, the Supreme Court’s personnel shifts with new appointments, and so may its thinking. Public opinion, many scholars say, cannot help but affect which cases the court accepts and how it decides them.

****

What has always struck me about The Constitution is how it can be used for purposes both good and evil. One side can use it to support Secession and state's rights. Another can argue for expanded civil liberties using the same text. One can use the Constitution to argue that it is okay to torture people and that The President can "disappear" citizens on a whim, or that the Constitution supports limiting the rights of citizens to marry whom they choose. Others using the same document, can counter that rights should be respected in all venues, at all times, and ought not be subject to the popular will.

But as Redd Foxx famously mirrored in his "Wash Your Ass" routine, everyone has an opinion...



By implication, not all opinions are created equal, nor should they be given the same weight in our public discourse or law making. Ultimately, the juvenile approach offered by the "what would the framers do crowd"--where they try to magically divine what the framers would say in 2010 based on their readings of a document some 200 plus years old--speaks to the political genius of the Right and the Tea Party crowd on this and other issues.

How? The Right in its various forms have been able to craft a narrative in which they "own" The Constitution. Just as the Christian Right and the GOP were able to monopolize Jesus as a symbol for their political agenda (an irony if there ever was one), folks on the Left, progressives, and pragmatists have lost The Constitution. This surrender has been enabled by the following dynamic: research in cognitive psychology has shown that conservatives are more likely to respond to simple moral appeals, possess a binary worldview that orients itself around "evil doers" and "good guys," and are motivated by a fear of change in how they make political choices.

The sum effect of these factors is that the Right has a profound advantage in how it crafts popular political narratives around the meaning of The Constitution--with their dominance in talk radio and an exclusive network in Fox News--and how they disseminate them. Moreover, it is difficult to engage the Right and its populist wing on this issue (or any other) because in keeping with the meme that all opinions are created equal (regardless of fact, documentation, or scholarly consensus), there is a deep hostility towards expertise and/or expert knowledge.

Consequently, the truth is what the Right wing populist "intellectual," blogosphere, talking heads say it is on any given day because the know-nothing foot soldiers feel it to be true, and the phrases "I think," "I believe," or "I feel" are held as empirical realities. Thus, these "truths" are immune from rebuttal or critical engagement by conventional standards. Most pointedly in the rhetoric of the moment, those "experts" are cast out as "elitists" or "liberals" who dare to insert fact, history, or precedent into our political discourse. How arrogant those experts must appear with all their fancy book learning and reading when viewed through the lens of the Tea Party populists.

The question then becomes, how do reasonable folk reclaim this terrain? What does the reality based community do in the face of the Right wing populist assault on an enlightened public discourse? More generally, who owns The Constitution? And which set of values would see its best intent served most honorably and in the service of the common good?