What the ----?, Laura Ingraham

"Conservative radio host and Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham attacked the speakers at the 50^th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech, at one point using the sound of a gunshot to cut off a sound bite of civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) -- a man whose skull was infamously fractured by a state trooper on "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, AL, in 1965. Ingraham used the speech's anniversary to race-bait about black-on-white crime statistics and hosted Pat Buchanan to bemoan the idea that minorities face any higher level of adversity in America 50 years later."

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/08/26/laura-ingraham-celebrates-march-on-washington-5/195590

"Tests" Don't Get Any Easier than This?

Scene:  kitchen table 10 minutes after bedtime should have started.  Child is finishing a homework assignment to write 10 statements about themselves for a true/false "get to know you" activity.

Me: Finish up- it is bedtime

Child:  I am almost done, I have two more to finish

Me: Okay, let me see them when you are finished

Child: (a few minutes later)  Look I am done.

Me:  Great- off to bed

Child: (reaches for a notebook and begins to write)

Me: What are you doing now?

Child: Writing down the answers.

Me: Don't you already know the answers, they are about you.

Child:  Yes, but I might forget

Sigh.......

Our Brush with a Celebrity

The girls and I were privileged to meet Charles R Smith Jr- who is a noted author and photographer- 

If you haven't checked our his stuff already run to you local library or bookstore and check him out.

I would recommend any of his books but start with 

My People

and

I Am American

Sometimes it's Embarrassing to Be an Adoptive Parent....

like when a fellow adoptive parent writes the following:

"Is there anything about adoption that makes me very angry? Yes, it is the people who make a career of being angry adoptees, and who try to destroy adoption for everyone else"

Because of course there is nothing worse than the adoptees themselves who are out to destroy adoption.

(maybe while they are trying to save adoption from the adoptees, they can also fundraise for their adoptee's therapy bills after being raised with parents who, not only feel that way, but who would publicly admit it)

 

"Dangerous" Black Boys

Think racial perception isn't an issue.

Here you go....

I have been volunteering at my church, working in the nursery for Vacation Bible School.  Amongst my small people is a little boy named S- He is a 2 year old African American child.  He is very verbal, and a little busy and a little impulsive- just like pretty much every two old on Earth.   I am also working with, among other people, an adult who I will call Adult for the purpose of this post. 

Today S was playing near the other children when one reports that he hit her with a ball.  None of the adults saw it and there was no indication that it happened (or that it happened intentionally- and let's face it- 2 year olds do lots of stuff unintentionally)  Adult and one of the other volunteers mention that we might need a time out spot.  (so already we are talking about punishment- even though no one witnessed the infraction and there seems to be little to no harm from the alleged incident)

About 4 minutes later, another child complains that S has kicked him (and they are all playing in a very small space)  Again there are no indications that there was a conflict or that the "kick" happened deliberately.    Again the time out conversation ensues (and as a behaviorist and a person with experience in child development- time out is inappropriate for the situation)

Then I hear this from Adult (paraphrased)

"Maybe we need to have S play alone- he is dangerous today"

In case you missed it- this is a 2 YEAR OLD CHILD, behaving like a 2 YEAR OLD CHILD. 

Was he being impulsive- yes

Did he hit and kick other children- maybe

Was he being aggressive- not really

But of all the adjectives that could be used (whether accurate or not), the one Adult chose was DANGEROUS, to describe a 2 year old.

Maybe Adult would have used that word to describe any of the other children.

But I doubt it.

Facebook- Your Racism is Showing

So a couple of days ago this story came across my FB feed:

Here the differnce:

In Lions murder there was not a known suspect at the time of the murder.  A search for the killers was swift and thorough.  Once a suspect (suspects in this case) were identified, they were IMMEDIATELY arrested and charges with multiple crimes. 

(and since there is video surveillance it will be difficult for the defendants to avoid conviction)

In the Martin case there was a known suspect who admitted to firing the shots at the scene of the crime, yet police allowed him to leave and did not charge him for several weeks.

(and with the only witness dead and no video surveillance, it is much easier to change the narrative to support the defense)

(and to a lessor degree Lion was assumed to be doing nothing wrong- despite the fact he was actually sleeping off a night of drinking and Martin was assumed to be doing something wrong- despite no one, including his killer, seeing him do anything remotely illegal)

And of course- all of the suspects in Lion's killing will be convicted and go to jail- and rightfully so.  Martin's killer- well we all know how that turned out, despite the fact that he instigated the entire situation.

But then there was this one- which makes no attempt to hide the racist intent

You won't recognize me. My name was Antonio West and I was the 13-month old child who was shot at point blank range by two teens who were attempting to rob my mother, who was also shot. A Grand Jury of my mommy's peers from Brunswick GA determined the teens who murdered me will not face the death penalty...too bad I was given a death sentence for being innocent and defenseless.

My family made the mistake of being white in a 73% non-white neighborhood, but my murder was not ruled a Hate Crime. Nor did President Obama take so much as a single moment to acknowledge my murder.

I am one of the youngest murder victims in our great Nation's history, but the media doesn't care to cover the story of my tragic demise, President Obama has no children who could possibly look like me - so he doesn't care and the media doesn't care because my story is not interesting enough to bring them ratings so they can sell commercial time slots.

There is not a white equivalent to Al Sharpton because if there was he would be declared racist, so there is no one rushing to Brunswick GA to demand justice for me. There is no White Panther party to put a bounty on the lives of those who murdered me. I have no voice, I have no representation and unlike those who shot me in the face while I sat innocently in my stroller - I no longer have my life.

Tell your friends about me, tell you families, get tee shirts with my face on them and make the world pay attention, just like you did for Trayvon.

While no less tragic- again I feel compelled to point out that the killers were apprehended and charged  for killing West.  The beef this one has is that the killers (who were 17 and 14 at the time of the murder) aren't eligible to get the death penalty.  So being tried and likely convicted isn't enough for the writer of this.  It's not enough until there are two more dead kids. 

Here the definition of a hate crime (to address that part of the post)

A crime motivated by racial, sexual, or other prejudice, typically one involving violence.

The motivation was robbery, not race.  Simply having a perpetrator and victim of different races is not by definition a hate crime.

(although you might argue the Martin killing was a hate crime since Zimmerman following him very possibly was motivated by racial prejudice)

President Obama hasn't talked about most victims of homicide- including the ones who "look like him"

  How about Quianna Tompkins was a 6 year old child shot yesterday who is fighting for her life.  Bet you haven't heard of her .  Or what about Dylan Samuel Peters or Ryker Petersen or Michael ayers or Nazario Boykins or Scarlett Porter or Brantley and Nolan Ralston.  

Those are just some of the children killed by adults in gun homicides since March.

The outrage in the Martin case was the significant delay of time between the crime and the arrest and then of course the verdict which managed to take these 3 relevant facts:

A armed man followed an unarmed teen depsite police admonishments to stop

There was a confrontation between the man and teen (and it doesn't matter at all who started the actual confrontation.  If the man had stopped following the teen, the confrontation would not have happened)

The man shot and killed the teen

A jury somehow went from those facts to not guilty- shocking all but the racist contingent of our country.

But the fact is that most crime is black on black or white on white- so cherry picking 2 or 4 or 6 cases out of the tens of thousands of murders every year and then using that to try to make some kind of racist point really just goes to confirm exactly why this case sparked outrage. 

How many pregnant woman are killed who never get the media coverage of Laci Peterson or how many other young black girls are shot in Chicago who never get the coverage of Hadiya Pendleton or the list goes on and on.  How many of those victims who never get coverage are white?  How many are black?  The truth is most murder doesn't get covered- there are too many.  

Where's your outrage about that fact?

Each and every one of these cases is tragic with real people left dead and their families and friends left grieving.  They are all senseless.  But in each case, the system attempts to bring to justice the perpetrators of these crimes.  The system failed in Trayvon Martin's killing.  His killer was not initially brought to justice until the howls of public outrage became to loud to ignore.  Most of the country will argue his killer was never brought to justice.

But whether the verdict was just or not, the fact is the killer of Trayvon Martin instigated a confrontation, killed him and now is a free man.  

The same can not be said of the killers of either Marley Lion or Antonio West. 

And to use their cases to attempt to discount the very real racial issues that factored into the Trayvon Martin murder, investigation and trial diminishes their lives and their deaths.

Sorry America, but your racism is showing.

Tee Hee Hee

I was cleaning up my hard drive and found this....